This has been a very exciting year for cloud computing - especially as relates to database technologies. Amazon announced SimpleDB, Microsoft announced SQL Server Data Services and Google unveiled their big-table based Google App Engine.
For the first time in a long time, it looks like database technologies are a hot topic again.
I've written some articles on cloud computing for Database trends and applications. One on Amazon AWS, one on Google App Engine and a two part article on next generation database technologies. The first part of the article discusses the rise of the cloud database and the second part looks at Mike Stonbraker et al's proposals for next generation DBMS.