New release, new possibilities

Hub 5 builds on all the improvements we introduced earlier this year, including the Smart Picker and it’s AI integrations, the cool new Nextcloud Tables app and more. Read on or watch our launch video to discover what’s new!

1st self-hosted AI-powered digital workspace

The recent developments in AI show a huge promise to boost our productivity. Yet companies and governments all over the globe are worried about the risks, many blocking the use of these tools by their employees or looking into strict rules around it. Risk of data leaks, fake news and copyright infringements pose a real challenge.

Nextcloud is the first to offer an AI-integrated digital workspace that can run on your own server and give transparency about training model and data through our Ethical AI initiative.

While AI offers incredible opportunities to improve the productivity of employees, the risks are equally large. I’m extremely proud that Nextcloud is the first in the industry to offer these capabilities without compromising the security and confidentiality of sensitive data.

Frank Karlitschek

CEO at Nextcloud

AI features and integrations

Our AI features are easy to use. Many work with our Smart Picker which is seamlessly integrated in all major apps. They’re accessible through the menu or by the click of a slash (/). And the best part: the AI features run on your server, not leaking any data to a third party! The new AI features are optional and can be installed from the app store. We updated and improved existing AI features and added some new ones. A quick list:

• Smart Inbox in Mail and Related Resources
• Face and object recognition in Nextcloud Photos
• Background images in addition to background blurring in Nextcloud Talk
• Image generation based on a prompt
• Translation with Nextcloud Translate, integrated in Nextcloud Talk and Nextcloud Text to translate your chat messages and text documents
• Nextcloud Dictation for voice recognition integrated across Nextcloud Hub
• Call transcripts of recorded video calls

These integrations are running entirely on the Nextcloud server and are completely optional. We continue to develop on-premises alternatives for other AI features, with further updates expected later this year.

For those looking to use external, online AI services, you can install apps from our app store that offer optional translation through Deepl and ChatGPT, DALL-E for image generation and ChatGPT for text generation.

Click below to watch a video of some of these AI features in action!

Note: All AI features are optional and can be installed or not just like any other app.

If you’d like to learn more about our ethical standards around dealing with AI features, check out our blog on our Ethical AI initiative.

A collaboration platform designed for you

We’ve built Nextcloud so you can make it your own, to fix your needs.

We focus on 4 design principles to make that happen.

Focus on content

Your data is at the center of everything. Nextcloud’s design allows you to focus on your work with all you need at your fingertips

Easy to use

Nextcloud can be configured to automate tasks and every product is integrated, so we get out of your way

Accessibility

Since we want everyone to be able to use Nextcloud, we offer accessibility options like supporting a screenreader and font preferences

Personalization

Make Nextcloud a home for your data and customize it however you like with backgrounds

We recently introduced some new backgrounds to Nextcloud Hub. For the next release, we’d like to solicit your input on what would be the best wallpaper to use! So get involved!

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This coming June, Nextcloud will host its bi-annual Enterprise Day in Munich for IT professionals to get the most out of their Content Collaboration Platform.

Munich is the epicenter of Bavarian culture, offering a host of monuments, activities and business ventures. A place of tradition and opportunity, join us for a day in one of Germany’s most beloved cities.

We at Nextcloud are excited to offer our customers, partners and prospects an opportunity to meet us in Munich and learn how to benefit from Nextcloud.

Why attend Nextcloud Enteprise Day?

Imagine a whole day dedicated to improving your business or organizations’ Content Collaboration Platform. From learning about new capabilities, to discussing changes in the industry and security, this day helps you improve your IT strategy, opportunities and decision making.

After attending this Enterprise Day, you will grasp:

• Nextcloud’s newest features and functionalities that will improve your instance’s efficiency
• What makes Nextcloud the leading Content Collaboration Platform in most industries, illustrated by customer case studies of real use-case scenarios
• How Nextcloud will grow with AI
• An overview of the market choices you have and the impact these choices have on the security, compliance and continuity of your business
• Nextcloud future roadmap and differentiation to competitors

Save the date!

Nextcloud Enterprise Day will be held on June 13th, 2023 at the NH München Ost Conference Center in Munich, Germany, with the doors opening at 8AM and the event closing at 5:30PM.

Sneak peek at the agenda

Enterpise Day will be from 08:00 AM – 5:30 PM. The rough schedule is as follows (stay tuned for a more detailed schedule with keynote and presentation speakers):

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Located in the bustling city of Tokyo, Japan, Meiji University is a renowned private research university that has been in existence for over 140 years. Founded by three jurists, it is considered to be one of the oldest and most prestigious institutions in Japan. Meiji University has four campuses spread across the greater Tokyo area, and it currently boasts a student population of around 33,000, supported by a staff just short of 3,000.

Move to Nextcloud Hub

Meiji University looked to improve its Education and Research System (ERS), a virtual infrastructure server group, utilized by both faculty members and students. With more than 900 PCs and 40 printers in circulation, the University recognized the need for a more versatile storage system to meet its growing demands.

Requirements:

• Implement a new storage infrastructure for use in education and research
• Enable access through web browsers and smartphone apps
• Facilitate secure and easy file sharing with users on and off campus
• Ensure secure and easy file sharing with non-domain users
• Provide flexible support for BYOD and other access methods
• Reduce operating costs by utilizing open source online storage

After careful evaluation, Meiji University found that Nextcloud Hub was the ideal solution to meet its needs, and the university decided to implement it with the help of the partner Stylez. As a Japan-based Nextcloud partner, Stylez specializes in providing open-source solutions to customers in the Japanese region. With its team of experts possessing strong technical capabilities and a deep understanding of open-source technology, Stylez was well-equipped to support the implementation of Nextcloud Hub at Meiji University.

Convenience unlocked

Since its introduction in early 2021, Nextcloud Hub has brought significant improvements to the file-sharing and collaboration experience of Meiji University’s students and faculty. The platform offers a secure and easy-to-use platform, making it an ideal solution for their needs.

For instance, Nextcloud Hub enabled users at Meiji University to access their personal folders on campus storage remotely via a web browser or smartphone app. This feature proved to be tremendously popular among users, with many downloading the Nextcloud app on their smartphones right away. With this new feature, file sharing became instantly more secure and convenient for users both on and off campus.

With Nextcloud Hub, faculty members at Meiji University can now seamlessly share files with external collaborators and send large files as email attachments. Previously, the university’s Windows file service struggled to support the high demand for file sharing and lacked user-friendliness, functionality and speed. However, with Nextcloud Hub, these issues have been resolved, and faculty members can now enjoy a more efficient and reliable file-sharing experience.

Open source leading Universities

Unlike traditional cloud storage services that are expensive, lead to vendor lock-in and lack flexibilty, Nextcloud offers an appealing alternative. As an open source platform, Nextcloud, Nextcloud eliminates the risks, complications, and limitations of vendor-lock-in allowing users to benefit from a wide range of features and functions. With Nextcloud, the possibilities for customization and flexibility are virtually limitless.

Meiji University quickly realized the advantages of adopting an open-source online storage solution, such as the ability to maintain on-premises operations and access publicly available source code. With this approach, the university has been able to customize and optimize its file-sharing and collaboration system to meet its specific needs.

Shota Suzuki, a systems engineer at the Ikuta Media Support Office and Information Media Department, was particularly impressed with the transparency and flexibility of Nextcloud. With access to the platform’s source code, he was able to gain a deep understanding of the system and work with it more effectively. Additionally, Suzuki was able to use Nextcloud to enhance his skills and knowledge, contributing to ongoing improvements and developments at Meiji University.

For the full story on Meiji University switching to Nextcloud, check out our case study. Nextcloud case studies feature real-life use cases from customers who made the switch to Nextcloud. By exploring these case studies, you can learn about diverse requirements, the implementation process and results achieved by various customers across multiple industries, including education.

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We hope you enjoy the new iOS app!

Nextcloud Reviews

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In this blog, we describe the use case of the non-profit organization Sea-Watch and why a data sovereign collaboration platform is indispensable to their work.

About Sea-Watch NGO

Sea-Watch is a non-profit initiative dedicated to civil sea rescue in the Mediterranean Sea. In the face of an ongoing humanitarian disaster, Sea-Watch provides emergency aid. The NGO demands and and at the same time forces the rescue missions through the responsible European institution. Sea-Watch also stands publicly for legal escape routes as well as for freedom of movement and a Europe based on solidarity.

The work Sea-Watchs’ 130 employees and 500 volunteers involves rescue and humanitarian work. They document human rights and legal cases, work to inform the public on the humanitarian crisis in the Mediterranean and advocate extensively in political affairs.

Data sovereign with Nextcloud

Working as a humanitarian aid and activist organization, keeping data safe and confidential is vital for the safety of all parties involved. When looking for a cloud solution, obtaining sovereignty over their data and data security was critical.

Their employees work around the world, so remote working and collaborating is part of their everyday work life.

With Nextcloud, employees and volunteers have a central location to store, share and work on documents that is stored on the Sea-Watch server. They also utilize:

• Nextcloud Polls for data discovery
• Nextcloud Forms for surveys
• Keepass (an open source password manager) for teams / departments

Technical implementation

The Ship IT team deployed Nextcloud on a dedicated server using a Nextcloud provided Docker image, with Office on a second server. A custom tool used to sync files with Nextcloud on board the ships caused a flood of session cookies, sometimes over 30 million between two cron job runs. Some re-configuration of the session management in Nextcloud could fix this.

Since then, the team has migrated Nextcloud to a 3-node Proxmox cluster on which identity management, Nextcloud and office as well as other services are operated. The infrastructure is backed up with Proxmos Backup Server to another location.

Looking forward

The team is constantly growing, and Nextcloud has become the common tool which offers so much functionality enormously important to their daily work.

Nextcloud is pleased Sea-Watch can better operate as an entire organization with more secure and efficient features.

If you’d like to learn more about Sea-Watch, their mission and work, please refer to their website.

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Nextcloud Text is perfect for note-taking, outlines and templates and it is also used in some other apps like Collectives for the text editing component. When you want to work in a simple and uncluttered environment, Text is your ideal choice. It offers a variety of rich formatting options without the more advanced functionalities of a complete office app like Writer in Nextcloud Office. The Text App saves its files as ‘markdown’ files which is very popular among writers, bloggers and techies alike.

Calling all developers!

Like any app, Text gets regular updates, bug fixing and development, and it is a great place to get started contributing to Nextcloud! Several Nextcloud developers, like Max and Jonas who developed the Collectives app, got their first contributions to Nextcloud in through Text. And if you get involved, you’ll certainly encounter them, triaging issues and fixing bugs!

Do you:

• Already have experience programming?
• Are familiar with tools y.js, vue.js and tiptap?
• Curious to learn about new technologies?

Then you should contribute to the Text App!

The tools being used (y.js, vue.js, tiptap) are all built by people who know their craft, have looked into the problems in depth, and found innovative solutions which makes Text a great place to learn how to build up code for those with some experience in programming.

About y.js

y.js was implemented to solve the problem of merging conflicts while collaborative editing. Dealing with these conflicts is a very interesting challenge that people have studied for decades. The requirement for combining the changes of different people was to have a certain order: the changes of person A would be merged first, then the changes of person B, etc., even if the changes of person A and B were made at the same time. The order has to be respected. This means the submission of the changes was often out of order, changes had to be resubmitted, and the user experience was not smooth. y.js was invented between 2016 and 2020 as part of a research project, and it became the first widely used implementation of a CRDT (conflict-free replicated data types) algorithm for shared editing. CRDTs allow collaborating without worrying about the resolution of conflicts. This means we can allow accepting the changes even if they arrive in different orders. The implementation of y.js in Text resulted in great improvements for the performance and user experience.

Getting started

In the Text repository, there’s a very accessible entry-point for new contributors: all issues are triaged, feedback on pull requests is provided fast, and the team is continuously investing in reducing technical debt.

To get started, a variety of ‘good first issues’ are ready for you! Some of the issues just require a one line change in the code and are a very accessible starting point to get some confidence, while other issues are detailed and provide a great chance to learn how the code is structured. Overall, all issues contain elaborate explanations and help is available if you get stuck!

With that, let’s get going!

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