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.