Google launches Google Drive, upgrades Gmail to 10 GB for all users

Google has launched Google Drive, a cloud storage service where users can upload and access all of their files, including videos, photos, Google Docs, PDFs and beyond. The service is offering new users 5GB of storage for free with upgrades starting at 25GB for $2.49/month, 100GB for $4.99/month or even 1TB for $49.99/month. Google also increased the free storage in Gmail from the existing 7.5 GB to 10 GB to all users.

“Drive is built to work seamlessly with your overall Google experience. You can attach photos from Drive to posts in Google+, and soon you’ll be able to attach stuff from Drive directly to emails in Gmail. Drive is also an open platform, so we’re working with many third-party developers so you can do things like send faxes, edit videos and create website mockups directly from Drive. To install these apps, visit the Chrome Web Store—and look out for even more useful apps in the future,” Sundar Pichai, SVP, Chrome and Apps, Google has said.

Google’s Dropbox competitor ‘Drive’ to launch today?

Google is preparing to roll out a service to let consumers store photos and other content online, a source familiar with the matter said, pushing into a market now dominated by the likes of Dropbox and Box.

The service, to be called Google Drive, could be announced as soon as Tuesday and would be offered with both free and premium for-pay versions, the source said.

Google’s “cloud storage” offering will incorporate search capabilities and allow users to store pictures, notes and other documents on the Internet and access them from any Web-connected device.

Consumers will get 5 Gigabytes of storage for free with Google Drive, while various versions with incrementally more storage capacity, topping out at about 100 Gibabytes, will be available for monthly fees, the source said.

It was not immediately clear how much Google will charge for the premium versions.

A Google spokeswoman said the company does not comment on rumor or speculation.

The move turns up the competitive heat with high-profile Web startups such as Dropbox, Box and Evernote, as well as with Microsoft Corp and its SkyDrive service.

Some of those services, such as Box, have offered an increasing array of business-oriented features such as online collaboration capabilities.

Google is increasingly developing services to let consumers store their personal information, from digital music to photos, on remote internet servers and access the data any time with any device, such as smartphones, tablets and desktop computers.

The world’s No.1 web search engine with roughly $38 billion in 2011 revenue, Google generates 96 per cent of its revenue from advertising, such as the small ads that appear alongside its search results.

Google Drive will work with sophisticated image search technology to let consumers sift through a wide variety of document types, which could include the likes of Adobe PDF files and photographs, the source said.

Some details of Google Drive have appeared in various online blogs in recent months, including The Next Web, which first reported that the service could be rolled out this week.

8.7 quake hits Indonesia, India issues tsunami warning for Andaman and Nicobar Islands

India issued a tsunami warning for Andaman and Nicobar Islands and the eastern coast on Wednesday after a 8.7 magnitude quake in Indonesia shook major cities, causing panic and sending people fleeing onto the streets.

The Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Service issued a red high-level warning for the islands, and also put out lower alerts for the coasts of Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu.

India’s tsunami warning center said waves measuring up to 6 metres were expected along parts of its eastern coast, which was heavily hit by the 2004 tsunami. Smaller waves were expected to hit the remote Andaman and Nicobar islands.

The US Geological Survey said the quake was centred 33 kilometres beneath the ocean floor around 495 kilometres from the provincial capital of Banda Aceh.

Said, an official at Indonesia’s Meteorology and Geophysics Agency who goes by only one name, said a tsunami warning has been issued.

Indonesia straddles a series of fault lines that makes the vast island nation prone to volcanic and seismic activity.

A giant 9.1-magnitude quake off the country on December 26, 2004, triggered a tsunami in the Indian Ocean that killed 230,000 people, nearly three quarter of them in Aceh.

Top 10 strategic technologies for 2011

Gartner, Inc. today highlighted the top 10 technologies and trends that will be strategic for most organizations in 2011. The analysts presented their findings during Gartner Symposium/ITxpo, being held here through October 21.

Gartner defines a strategic technology as one with the potential for significant impact on the enterprise in the next three years. Factors that denote significant impact include a high potential for disruption to IT or the business, the need for a major dollar investment, or the risk of being late to adopt.

A strategic technology may be an existing technology that has matured and/or become suitable for a wider range of uses. It may also be an emerging technology that offers an opportunity for strategic business advantage for early adopters or with potential for significant market disruption in the next five years. As such, these technologies impact the organization’s long-term plans, programs and initiatives.

“Companies should factor these top 10 technologies in their strategic planning process by asking key questions and making deliberate decisions about them during the next two years,” said David Cearley, vice president and distinguished analyst at Gartner.

“Sometimes the decision will be to do nothing with a particular technology,” said Carl Claunch, vice president and distinguished analyst at Gartner. “In other cases, it will be to continue investing in the technology at the current rate. In still other cases, the decision may be to test or more aggressively deploy the technology.”

Kingston Launches USB 3.0 Flash Drive

Kingston has announced the launch of its first USB 3.0 Flash drive in India. The drive, branded as the DataTraveler Ultimate, makes use of the faster data transfer rates in USB 3.0.

If you’re still wondering whether or not to invest in a USB 3.0 compatible device, let us inform you that USB 3.0 devices can transfer data almost 10 times faster than our good ol’ USB 2.0. The DataTraveler Ultimate 3.0 boasts of a read speed of 80MB/sec and a write speed of 60MB/sec. It is available in 16GB, 32GB and 64GB capacities. Kingston has also cleverly added a Y cable to ensure backward compatibility of the drive with USB 2.0 ports. This is because some USB 2.0 ports require this cable to kick start USB 3.0 drives. Kingston adds that in internal tests the drive was able to transfer a 1 hour 44 minute movie worth 3.9GB in just over a minute. The Kingston DataTraveler Ultimate 3.0 USB Flash drive is backed by a five-year warranty and free tech support.

Will IE9 change the way we use the web?

Microsoft’s newest web browser, Internet Explorer 9, sees the technology giant wrest some of the initiative from its rivals

The internet of the future is likely to look very different from the distinct pages and sites we visit today – that was the message as Microsoft launched the latest version of their much-maligned Internet Explorer web browser. And while every major manufacturer always claims that theirs is a revolutionary product, the company that remains best known for Windows and Office might just be on the right track this time. Headlines around the world greeted IE9 as Microsoft’s most ambitious yet, while others called it revolutionary. Respected British website Techradar.com went so far as to call it “ie-mazing”.

Almost since it launched Internet Explorer in 1995, the browser has been troublesome for Microsoft. Even when it was in use by 95 percent of all web users in 2002, a tech-savvy audience maintained that it was not the best option available. Firefox, the now-defunct Netscape Navigator and more recently Google Chrome have set the pace for speed and ease of use. With usage now down to less than two-thirds of the online population Microsoft has staged a fightback that, for once, appears to be winning many experts round, even if browsers are all starting to look more similar anyway.

At the heart of IE9, however, are two key features: the first is a bid to make websites more like applications, which means that the depth of features of, say Microsoft Word, could also be available to any site where developers have sufficient resources. In practice a chunk of that is largely cosmetic, but it’s a visual change that makes a genuine difference to the way people use the web. In the words of Microsoft’s Leila Martine, head of Windows in the UK, “it’s making web pages first class citizens”. Given that users spend around half their time using a computer online, some might argue this is rather overdue.

Secondly, however, is the integration between hardware and software: with the advance of new web programming language HTML5, Microsoft is now able to offload much of the burden of processing graphics onto computer hardware that’s built for the job, the graphics processing unit (GPU). This means that web pages are rendered at significantly greater speed – in a demo, the company showed IE9 to be at least five times quicker than Google Chrome.

It’s the combination of these two features, primarily, that Microsoft hopes will have a transformative effect on the internet: the download site for IE9 is called “beautyoftheweb.com“, and in some of the company’s demos there clearly are new possibilities. Amazon, for instance, has built a site called Bookshelf, which combines the best bits of browsing in a bookshop – looking at covers, getting a sense of what else is around – with providing useful additional information about titles and genres. The effect is genuinely unlike anything else that other browsers can produce successfully.

All this is not to say, however, that the web will change instantly. And anyway, Google, Firefox and other browsers are all heading in the same direction. But what’s certain is that the development of applications, both for the web and for the iPhone and other mobile devices, has made many companies notice that the internet on a desktop or laptop PC was starting to feel strangely limited: Microsoft has tried to solve this by tightly integrating IE9 with Windows 7, as Google will when it launches its equivalent Chrome operating system. What that means is that, in future, the line between being online and simply using a computer may become indistinguishable – but broadband, mobile phone and wifi providers will have to sort out getting us all connected first.

Update kills code-execution threat in Samba

Samba developers have warned of a software flaw that allows attackers to remotely execute malicious code on systems running the widely used file-sharing package.

Version 3.5.5, which was released on Tuesday, fixes the underlying buffer overrun in functions used to generate a credential known as a Windows Security ID. It can be exploited by sending a booby-trapped ID that overflows the stack variable and injects malicious code into memory.

It remains unclear how easy it is to exploit the bug. H D Moore, CSO of Rapid7 and chief architect of the Metasploit project, said the only vector he’s been able to identify is an option known as quota support, which isn’t enabled by default. Even when turned on, he added, an attacker would need a root password.

Moore said other possible openings included the file find, the get/set user quota, and active directory, but so far, none of them has panned out so far.

Samba is used to share files across systems running Linux, Windows, and Mac OS X. The vulnerability affects Samba versions going back to 3.0, which was released more than five years ago. It was discovered during an internal audit. Andrew Bartlett, the Cisco Systems employee who identified the bug, didn’t return an email seeking additional details.

Twitter facelifts its homepage

Twitter has revamped its homepage, offering a brand new microblogging UI that serves up more stuff alongside your collection of self-serving mini-messages – from embedded photos and videos to geolocation tags.

“We’re introducing a new, re-engineered Twitter.com that provides an easier, faster, and richer experience,” Twitter co-founder Evan Williams said in a blog post.

Yes, the page is still centered around your never-ending stream of “tweets.” But above this timeline, you’ll find new links to additional lists, including your “retweets” and searches. And when you click on a tweet, a second pane appears on the right-hand side of the page, for viewing additional stuff, including replies, more tweets from the same user, a map showing where the tweet was sent from, or embedded media. Embedded photo and video viewing is provided via partnerships with the likes of Flickr, TwitPic, Vimeo, and YouTube.

You can also click on a sender’s name to view a truncated version of their profile. Twitter provides a video of the redesign here:

Williams said the redesign will roll out to users “as a preview” over the next several weeks. Some accounts, he said, will receive it as soon as Tuesday night. During the preview period, you’ll have the option of returning the old interface. But eventually, all Twittering types will be moved to the new Twitter.

Google offers multiple sign ins in Gmail

Now those who have multiple accounts on the Gmail need not to enter the sign in or sign out process again and again. The Google engineers has offered the multiple sign in into the Gmails.

Users with multiple accounts on Gmail can use upto three email accounts through this new feature on the Gmail. For using the feature of the multiple sign in users need to go into the account option and change the setting.

New feature is not compatible in the picasa album and blogger. Users need to wait for sometime for the compatibility issue of Gmail multiple account signin at Blogger and Picasa.

Google received many requests from the users with multiple accounts who need to move from one account to other and undergo the process of sign in and sign out.

Google ‘researches’ social networks

Google has been researching social networking patterns, in what is believed to be preparation for the launch of its new social network, ‘Google Me’, according to reports.

Last month Kevin Rose, the founder of Digg, started a rumour that Google was to launch a new social network, tweeting: “Ok, umm, huge rumor: Google to launch Facebook competitor very soon “Google Me,” very credible source” on June 28.

Ever since technology pundits have been speculating as to how a new Google social network might work.

According to technology sites,Mashable and TechCrunch the search giant has been commissioning research into social networking habits, as preparation for the new launch.

TechCrunch’s tip-off leaked that the study is to take place at Google’s Dublin office and will take 60 minutes with pollsters receiving 60 Euros per survey. The questions are believed to centre around how social networking affects people’s lives both off and online.

A Google spokesman was unavailable for comment.

Paul Adams, Google’s lead user-experience researcher, recently posted a presentation of his onto the web which seems to reflect similar patterns of interest around social networks. In one section he looked at: ‘How interactions on the web are changing’.

He said: “The next stage of the web won’t have destinations, it will be a distributed network of content and people that will get reassembled depending on context and relationships. The increase in people interactions on the web will mean that building and managing communities will be important for responding to customer suggestions, queries, and complaints. Communities will need to be embedded in consumer experiences and not built at a new destination.”

TechCrunch’s Leena Rao said: “While the survey doesn’t confirm the existence of ‘Google Me’, it certainly is another piece of evidence pointing in that direction.”

Last week both Eric Schmidt, Google’s chief executive, and Matt Brittin, Google’s UK chief, failed to deny that the company was creating a new social network.