Sept. 9 - 10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

Google has modified its cloud storage allocation for regular users of its services so they now share 15GB of free storage across Gmail, Drive, and Google+ Photos.

“With this new combined storage space, you won’t have to worry about how much you’re storing and where,” Clay Bavor, the product management director for Google Apps, wrote in a blog post. “For example, maybe you’re a heavy Gmail user but light on photos, or perhaps you were bumping up against your Drive storage limit but were only using 2GB in Gmail. Now it doesn’t matter, because you can use your storage the way you want.”

Google’s goal with the reallocation seems to be to simplify the purchase of cloud storage and make it more clear how much free storage you have. So if you were planning to buy more space for Gmail or more space for your Drive account, you’ll do that all in one place. Google will also update its Google Drive storage page to help people better understand how their storage is allocated.

On top of making unified storage available to consumers that use Gmail, Drive, and Google+, unified storage will come to Google Apps users as well. Google Apps users will end up with 30GB of unified storage that’s shared between Drive and Gmail.

The changes to Google’s cloud storage will roll out to all users “over the next couple of weeks.”

Photo via Google

Sept. 9 - 10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

Google is working to release a new note-taking app called Keep and it could seriously challenge Evernote, the king of note-taking applications.

On Sunday, Google appears to have accidentally released Keep and then immediately pulled it, according to Android Police. The app was available at “https://drive.google.com/keep/” but it was taken down quickly. This official Keep image is still live.

Based on accounts by those who used Keep briefly, the app is a lot like Google Notebook used to be. It offers a list of notes and tools to color-code your notes, make checklists, and save important photos. An Android app is apparently also in the works.

Evernote is the top note-taking app, and it has more than 45 million users. It recently started offering services for businesses, and it will likely IPO in 2015 or 2016. But Google Keep could steal some users away from Evernote because it is conveniently part of the Google ecosystem and Google Apps.

Check out a few photos of Google Keep captured by Android Police below.

Google Keep logo via Google

Sept. 9 - 10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

This might come as a surprise, but up until today, the Google Drive mobile apps couldn’t edit spreadsheets.

Thankfully, the latest update to Drive adds the feature, instantly making the app a far more useful productivity tool. With the update, users can tweak fonts, sort data, resize columns, and see changes in real-time — just like with the Drive web app.

In another nifty addition, Drive now allows Android users to create on their homescreens shortcuts to specific Google Drive files. While the idea is cool in theory, Google’s implementation of it is a bit backwards. Rather than create a shortcut from inside the Android app, Drive makes you do it from Android’s “Widgets” panel, which doesn’t make much sense. Either way, the shortcuts work exactly how you’d expect after that.

Google is on a Drive update rampage as of late, having announced yesterday some significant integration between the cloud storage service and Gmail.

Sept. 9 - 10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

If there is any word that sums up Google’s software development nowadays, it’s integration.

Google is linking up Gmail and Google Drive in major way today by allowing users to send attachments as large as 10GB. As Google product manager Phil Sharp points out, that’s 400 times larger than what users can send as traditional attachments. (Gmail currently maxes out at 25MB.)

Size increases are only half the story, however, because sending an attachment via Google Drive means all users have access to the same version of the file. It’s a pretty convenient addition that should funnel a lot more users into using Drive (which a lot of Gmail users probably have no idea exists).

Should services like Dropbox be concerned? Sort of. As the move shows, Google’s core strength is in its ability to connect and integrate its various services — even the unpopular ones – into one cohesive product. This gives Drive a clear edge over competing standalone cloud services, so expect Google to leverage it as much as possible.

Google says it plans to roll out the update over the next few days. One caveat, however, is that the new features are inexplicably compatible only with Gmail’s new compose functionality. So keep that in mind.

Sept. 9 - 10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

Google has taken its integrations one step further and made it incredibly easy to share files from Google Drive to its Google+ social network, the company announced in a blog post today.

Google Drive launched in April and has likely taken away at least some business from Dropbox, Box, SugarSync, and other cloud storage players. In June, Google said it would bring Drive to iOS and Chrome OS. And since then, Drive has added more features to make it a more robust offering. Now it’s got deep Google+ integration.

When you’re inside of Drive, all you need to do is click the Google+ icon to share your content to the social network. Or you can simply copy and paste a link from your Drive file into a post on Google+.

Google Program Manager Louis Gray writes:

Google+ is already a great place to share photos, videos, updates, and ideas. Google Drive is your cloud destination for all this content and more. Starting today, you can share content from Drive right here in your stream. I’ve been looking forward to this launch in a big way, and it’s incredible to see it here. Go forth and share.

Photo credit: Google/YouTube

Searching Gmail sucks, and we all know it. Google knows it too, which is why the company released an “expanded” search feature today that not only helps you find emails within Gmail but also pulls relevant results into Google searches.

“When you’re looking for something, you should be able to find what you need quickly and easily without needing to think about where it might be, whether it’s in your email or out on the public web,” Google software engineer Bran Moolenaar said in a blog post.

The company originally released a field trial of a new search bar in Gmail this past August. It allows users to see relevant emails right in the search bar as they type in keywords. The new feature gives you relevant emails, but also Google calendar events, as well as Google Drive files.

If you want to be a part of the field test, go here.

If you are out on the public web and are logged into your Gmail account, you’ll be able to see Gmail data there too. Any emails, documents, or calendar events related to your Google search will show up in a box to the side of your search results.

Let’s just hope no weird emails show up when a friend is watching you search for “babies eating lemons.”

Binoculars image via Shutterstock

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

What a difference a year makes. Instead of insinuating that it was eating Apple for lunch, Google this year sent a message to consumers, developers, and the media at its Google I/O conference this week that its appetite for mobile is so ravenous that it’s willing to dine at Apple’s table.

Google revealed across two days of keynotes that three of its flagship Google applications — Drive, Chrome, and Google+ — are arriving on iOS. Google’s mobile Chrome browser and its Drive cloud-document center landed on iOS today. Google+ is coming soon for iPad, senior vice president of engineering Vic Gundotra said yesterday.

No biggie, right? Wrong. Though Google would likely tell you that its mobile aspirations are platform-agnostic — the company declined the opportunity to chat with me about its iOS strategy — this reporter, along with analysts and attendees VentureBeat talked to, noticed a perceptible about-face.

“It’s a huge tone shift from last year,” developer and This Week in Google host Gina Trapani told me. “Last year, it was a picture of Android eating Apple,” she said, adding that the message to developer attendees was: Look at how great we are. “This year it was the promise of coming to the iPad.”

Here’s some proof: Google’s applications for Apple’s mobile devices were given ample demo time during the company’s two keynotes Wednesday and Thursday. Gundotra, in a moment that exemplified the shift Trapani spoke of, said Wednesday that the Google+ application looked “gorgeous” on the retina display of Apple’s latest iPad. It was a statement that he didn’t need to make, especially during the same event that birthed Google’s Nexus 7 tablet, and yet he said it.

“It was an acknowledgement that people love iOS,” Trapani said. “I’m really happy to see that they’re getting their best stuff on [Apple's] platform.”

Chris Silva, mobile analyst for Altimeter Group, noticed the nod to iOS as well. “[Google] realizes that … there’s a huge platform that they need to serve in iOS, both in smartphones and in tablets,” he told me.

But Silva also believes there’s something more to Google’s iOS love. Instead of just giving a nod to a competitor’s beloved platform, Google, he thinks, hopes to hook Apple-lovers on its own hardware.

“There’s probably a lot of investment being made so that they can tempt people over to the Android side of the fence by having rich application experiences,” Silva said. “You could argue that what we saw today in browsing is head and shoulders above what anyone else is offering in mobile browsing. Once I start using Chrome on my laptop, and then on my tablet, and then on my smartphone, the barrier to entry for Android goes down quite significantly.”

Perhaps, then, what we’ve just witnessed is a Trojan-horse strategy. Google looks to dine with its enemy in peace but is really crafting an attack that will help it eat Apple from the inside out.

Image credit: jay.tong/Flickr

Design is determining the winners in everything mobile. The most successful players are focusing on one thing: How to make products, services, and devices as compelling and delightful as possible – visually, and experientially. MobileBeat 2012, July 10-11 in San Francisco , is assembling the most elite minds to debate how UI/UX is transforming every aspect of the mobile economy, and where the opportunities lie. Register here.

Sept. 9 - 10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

Google will soon bring its Drive cloud storage product to Apple’s iOS platform and Google’s Chrome OS, the company announced today at its annual Google I/O conference.

The launch of Drive on the iPad and iPhone will join the even-bigger addition of Chrome browser on iOS, creating a much more competitive landscape for its cloud storage and browser services.

Clay Bavor, director of product management for Google Apps, showed off Google Drive on the iPad and it looked exactly as you might expect. It will help spread the Drive brand further.

Design is determining the winners in everything mobile. The most successful players are focusing on one thing: How to make products, services, and devices as compelling and delightful as possible – visually, and experientially. MobileBeat 2012, July 10-11 in San Francisco , is assembling the most elite minds to debate how UI/UX is transforming every aspect of the mobile economy, and where the opportunities lie. Register here.

Sept. 9 - 10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

Enterprise cloud storage startup Box has opened its first international headquarters in London and laid out plans for a major European expansion, the company announced today.

Box has more than 11 million users across 120,000 businesses, with penetration in 82 percent of the Fortune 500. But the company has good reason to keep working on quick expansion and attracting more international customers. It faces a challenging roster of competitors, including Google’s Drive, Microsoft’s SkyDrive, and Egnyte, and it should be worried about how crowded the market is getting.

Getting troops on the ground outside the U.S. will help. Box says users outside the U.S. generate 50 percent of the company’s overall traffic. Those users include big-name customers like Ben Sherman, Proctor & Gamble, and O2.

The new HQ will be located in central London, and it will be used as a base for hiring 100 new European employees across Europe by the end of 2013. Box VP of business operations, Greg Strickland, will lead the London office and transition into the new role of VP of global operations.

“A tremendous shift is taking place in Europe,” Box CEO Aaron Levie (pictured) said in a statement. “Businesses are looking for solutions that help them move to the cloud and transition away from costly, inflexible legacy technologies. We’ve seen significant customer growth across Europe in the last year and are thrilled to be building out a local presence to support our customers.”

Along with the new European HQ, the company has also expanded a partnership with Hewlett-Packard to help drive cloud storage adoption. Box says the two companies will work together to give small and medium-sized HP customers who also use Box a mysterious “exclusive offer.”

Los Altos, Calif.-based Box has raised about $162 million to date and counts Andreessen Horowitz, Salesforce, SAP Ventures, Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Emergence Capital Partners, New Enterprise Associates, and others as investors.

Aaron Levie (left) at DEMO conference: VentureBeat

Sept. 9 - 10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

South Korean electronics giant LG has introduced LG Cloud, a service that lets users store and access content across Android phones, smart TVs, and PCs, the company announced today.

LG Cloud arrives in beta form on tomorrow. The company will try to differentiate its offering from just-launched Google Drive and services like Dropbox and SugarSync by placing its emphasis on storing and streaming media rather than every type of file.

With LG Cloud, you can access and stream video, music, and photo files on Android smartphones, smart TVs, and PCs. The Android app is the most interesting app here, and it will automatically sync the files on your phone with LG’s servers. The LG Cloud Android app will be available for download from Google Play or LG Smart World shortly.

“Most companies today only see the cloud as a storage device or in the case of YouTube or Flickr, only for one type of content,” said Havis Kwon, CEO of LG’s home entertainment division, in a statement. “LG makes the devices that millions of people watch content on so we can set a new yardstick for ease of use by setting up our own cloud service

People that own LG’s smartphones or smart TVs will get 50GB free for six months, while everyone else who signs up for the service will get 5GB free, which is the same space that Google Drive offers and more space than Dropbox’s free 2GB per user. Other paid options will be introduced when service launches out of beta.

LG Cloud photo: LG

Sept. 9 - 10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

After Google Drive finally launched Tuesday, it was only took a day for people to begin prodding Google about just how private stored files would be using the service. However, Google’s policy is quite similar to already established rivals Dropbox, Microsoft’s SkyDrive, and Apple’s iCloud.

Google has attracted much scrutiny in regards to the privacy of its users over the years. The concerns especially flared up a few months back when Google created a new all-encompassing privacy policy for all of its services. Drive becomes yet another Google service that falls under that policy, which is full of friendly yet broad language.

Here’s the part of Google’s privacy policy and terms of service that applies to Drive that people are in a huff over:

Some of our Services allow you to submit content. You retain ownership of any intellectual property rights that you hold in that content. In short, what belongs to you stays yours.

When you upload or otherwise submit content to our Services, you give Google (and those we work with) a worldwide license to use, host, store, reproduce, modify, create derivative works (such as those resulting from translations, adaptations or other changes we make so that your content works better with our Services), communicate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute such content. The rights you grant in this license are for the limited purpose of operating, promoting, and improving our Services, and to develop new ones.

Yes, the language sounds scary in a sense, and the broad nature of it almost gives Google the ability to do anything with that content. I sure as heck don’t want to give Google to right to read, publish, or distribute my work without my expressed permission. Just because it will keep my name on it and I will “retain ownership,” that doesn’t mean I want it on the Internet or thumbed through.

But as The Verge points out in a great analysis piece, these terms of service are extremely similar in nature to Dropbox, Microsoft’s SkyDrive, and Apple’s iCloud services. Those services don’t attract as much scrutiny on the privacy front as Google, but they’re scary in the same ways.

For example, SkyDrive’s service agreement says: “You hereby grant Microsoft the right, to use, modify, adapt, reproduce, distribute, and display content posted on the service solely to the extent necessary to provide the service.” Apple’s agreement reads: “You grant Apple a worldwide, royalty-free, non-exclusive license to use, distribute, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, translate, publicly perform and publicly display such Content on the Service solely for the purpose for which such Content was submitted or made available, without any compensation or obligation to you.”

Essentially, to be able to let Google Drive (or SkyDrive or any of the rest) do all sorts of cool tech tricks, such as copying a file from one location to another, translating a document, or integrating it with other third-party apps, it needs extremely broad permissions.

Using cloud storage services creates a dilemma applicable to much of the Web. We have to give up some privacy and rights to do all the cool stuff we want to do. If I want to use Google and Facebook’s services, I have to accept that the companies can access that data at will and could give it to the Feds, if pressed. Basically, if you don’t want to give companies access to your data, don’t sign up.

Google Drive image: Google

Sept. 9 - 10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

Joining this week’s parade of cloud news from Google, Microsoft, and Dropbox, business cloud storage startup Box has revamped its API for developers and signed 15 new partners to its striking OneCloud program, the company announced today.

While Box had no idea Google would be dropping its Drive cloud storage bomb yesterday, talk of the product and how it would disrupt the market has dominated recent tech news. But while Google is playing up its strengths to both consumers and businesses, Box is mostly focused on businesses because it knows that’s where the money is. And frankly, with Google being cozy with so many consumers with Gmail, it’s starting to look like Box could have much more longevity than Dropbox.

As a player for businesses who need cloud storage, Box has done what it can to be available across platforms and made its service available on PCs, Macs, and most smartphones and tablets. Since 2008, developers who wanted to tap the company’s API for applications have used basically the same one. But with today’s news, the company has launched a new API that will make the process of integration more streamlined.

“This update is dedicated to our developer friends, who are extremely important to us,” Box VP of platform Chris Yeh told VentureBeat.

With its API streamlining, Box is introducing a new feature called Instant Mode. This features makes it possible for sites to embed Box features even if a user doesn’t have a Box account. Users simply type in their e-mail address and get access to Box storage. If that user ever signs up on Box with that same e-mail, they then can access files stored on that other site. In a theoretical example, Yeh said LinkedIn could offer a Box-branded storage section where users could store resumes and cover letters, but you don’t have to own a Box account to take advantage of it.

In a related development, Box also announced that it has signed up 15 more partners for its OneCloud program, which helps keep files synchronized even when using third-party smartphone apps. New partners include the very cool CloudOn, Handshake, iAnnotate, and Breezly.

Along with streamlining its API, Box will make is making OneCloud easier to use as well. Yeh said that the company has made it so users will have less clicks to access and upload files to the cloud.

Check out the new partners below:

To celebrate the launch of its new API and OneCloud successes, the Palo Alto, Calif.-based company is hosting a party tonight in New York City. The company wants to put its foot down in NYC and make sure New York businesses know what Box can do for them. To help get the word out about Box and influence the NY tech scene, Box is partnering with General Assembly and TechStars organizations. All of TechStars’ startups will get a free 500GB Box account to work with, and it will provide mentoring for both orgs.

“This is a statement that we want to be here in New York,” Yeh said. “We will be here consistently going forward and building inroads.”

Box now has 10 million users globally and serves more than 120,000 businesses. The company claims 82 percent of the Fortune 500 use its service in some form. The company has raised about $159 million thus far and counts Andreessen Horowitz, Salesforce, Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Emergence Capital Partners, New Enterprise Associates, and others as investors.

Check out Box’s new API announcement video below:

Unlike Dropbox, Box, or the new Google Drive, which all store data on servers in massive data centers, Symform uses many different local hard drives to act as a collaborative data center. The files you upload to Symform are chopped up into tiny pieces, encrypted, and sent to at least 96 different hard drives.

Similar to Dropbox, you download a piece of software onto your computer. The software processes files you want to store in the cloud and allows your hard drive to receive others’ data. For every gigabyte of data your give up on your hard drive, you get one gigabyte of cloud storage. You can get up to 200 gigabytes of storage for free by opening up your hard drive and inviting others to the service. Beyond that, you’ll have to pay a subscription fee, which starts at $3.50 per month.

Despite the fact that it’s cheaper in the long run to store all of your files locally, Symform says its service  helps reduce the severity of disasters such as hard drive failure, theft, or fires. Since you aren’t placing all your data eggs in one basket, you cut down on the risk of your files disappearing forever.

But the practice of placing encrypted fragmented pieces of data on multiple hard drives does raise some security concerns. Instead of your file ending up in a secure data center that would be laborious to break into, part of a highly sensitive document could end up on an untrustworthy person’s hard drive. The company claims its encryption process, which involves including redundant fragments of data, makes the data very hard to hack. However, it’s not fail-safe.

Storing certain types of data on someone else’s hard drive may also have legal ramifications. A similar company to Symform, SpaceMonkey sells dedicated hard drives to store fragmented data. SpaceMonkey debuted its technology at the Launch conference in March 2012, and one judge at the event brought up the issue of someone uploading illegal content, such as child pornography, to collaborative cloud drive systems.

WestRiver Capital led this new round, with participation from existing investors OVP and Longworth Venture Partners. The investment will be used to grow Symform’s engineering, marketing, and customer support teams.

Seattle-based Symform presented at the DEMO Fall 2009 conference. The company was founded in 2007 and has raised $20 million in funding so far.

Open hard drives image via Shutterstock

Sept. 9 - 10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

After a staggering amount of leaks, Google has finally announced its Drive cloud storage solution that will take on a crowded field of startups and major firms dedicated to solving the same problem.

Google Drive will compete against Dropbox, Box, SugarSync, Microsoft’s SkyDrive, and many other cloud storage providers. Drive’s offerings most closely resemble Dropbox, which gives users access to cloud-connected storage on PCs, Macs, smartphones, and tablets. But other players in the field will no doubt feel Google’s influence too, with Forrester infrastructure analyst Andrew Reichman telling me competitors should be seriously worried.

The company will give every Drive user 5GB of free storage. If you need more room for files, you can pay up and get 25GB for $2.49/month, 100GB for $4.99/month, or 1TB for $49.99/month. Google says that when you upgrade to a paid account, your Gmail account storage will also expand to 25GB — meaning more storage for all those huge e-mail attachments your boss likes to send.

As we noted previously, Drive will replace Google Docs. Like Google Docs, it will offer integration with other Google services. For example, you can attach photos from Drive to content in Google+, and eventually you’ll be able to attach Drive files directly to Gmail e-mails. There’s also some third-party integration with a handful of partners, such as WeVideo for collaborative video editing in the cloud, and HelloFax for cloud-based faxing and document signing.

As for access, Google is offering Drive apps on day one for PCs, Macs, and Android phones, with an app for iOS coming soon.

The company highlights the following nuts-and-bolts features:

Create and collaborate – Google Docs is built right into Google Drive, so you can work with others in real time on documents, spreadsheets and presentations. Once you choose to share content with others, you can add and reply to comments on anything (PDF, image, video file, etc.) and receive notifications when other people comment on shared items.

Store everything safely and access it anywhere (especially while on the go) – All your stuff is just… there. You can access your stuff from anywhere—on the web, in your home, at the office, while running errands and from all of your devices. You can install Drive on your Mac or PC and can download the Drive app to your Android phone or tablet. We’re also working hard on a Drive app for your iOS devices. And regardless of platform, blind users can access Drive with a screen reader.

Search everything – Search by keyword and filter by file type, owner and more. Drive can even recognize text in scanned documents using Optical Character Recognition (OCR) technology. Let’s say you upload a scanned image of an old newspaper clipping. You can search for a word from the text of the actual article. We also use image recognition so that if you drag and drop photos from your Grand Canyon trip into Drive, you can later search for [grand canyon] and photos of its gorges should pop up. This technology is still in its early stages, and we expect it to get better over time.

Based on first impressions, Drive doesn’t appear to be anything revolutionary. What it offers can basically be done on Dropbox, Microsoft’s SkyDrive, and others. But it does, however, provide convenience to the many consumers and businesses that already use Gmail and Google Apps. If you want to share documents and files among friends and co-workers, it might just be easier to do so just using Google rather than adding another app to the mix. If you’re not already using cloud storage, this looks like the simplest option.

Forrester Vice President and principal analyst Frank Gillett agreed with my assessment, noting that giving all Gmail users access to Drive creates an astounding amount of potential Google Drive users.

“This is about creating a personal file system like the one you have on your PC,” Gillett told VentureBeat. “It’s already attached to your e-mail account and it will eventually have good integration with Gmail. Having your personal cache of information attached to your e-mail is huge.”

Gillett also highlighted Drive’s ability to scan documents for key words as its best feature — and one that will allow it to stand out, if slightly.

Check out screenshots below of the Drive service in action:

And you can watch Google Drive’s official introduction video below:

Sept. 9 - 10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

Update: Google has officially announced Google Drive. Original story below.
—

Google has leaked more details on its Google Drive cloud storage product, with a post describing the service accidentally posting early on its French blog.

The French blog post, which was first spotted by TechCrunch, has been taken down — but not before the details were written down. Many details we have previously heard about Drive were confirmed. These include:

- Users will get 5GB storage for free.

- You can buy 20GB of storage for $4 per month. (Update: The actual pricing details differ.)

- Google promises 99.9% uptime for storage access.

- Drive will be heavily integrated with Google Docs.

- PC, Mac, and Android apps will hit the web today, with an iOS app coming soon.

We will post more on Drive as soon as Google’s official announcement hits.

You can read the full translated blog post below that originally appeared on Google’s French blog:

Posted by Sundar Pichai, Senior Vice President, Google Chrome & Apps

Today we launch Google Drive, a centralized space where you can create, share, collaborate and store all your documents. You establish a budget with your staff that you develop a presentation with a working group or hosting a seminar, you can now do it in Drive. Download and access all your documents, videos, photos, Google Docs, PDF, etc..

Next step in the evolution of Google Docs and functionality of downloading any material, Drive will allow you to live, work and play in the Cloud.

Google Drive, you can:
Create and collaborate. Google Docs is integrated directly into Google Drive, allowing you to work in real time with colleagues on documents, spreadsheets and presentations. Add and reply to comments on any media (PDF, image, videotape, etc.) and be informed when other people comment on or wish to share documents with you

Keep your documents securely and access anywhere and any device connected to the Internet. All your documents are just … there. Whatever happens. Drive you can install on your Mac, PC or download the application Drive on your phone or Android tablet. IOS version of the application will be available in the coming weeks. Drive is also accessible to visually impaired people using a screen reader tool

Search All. Search by keyword and filter by document type, owner, activity, etc.. Drive can even recognize the text content of a document scanned by technology OCR. For example, if you download the scanned image of an old newspaper clipping, you can search using one of the words quoted in the article. We have even begun to tap the image recognition: if you upload a picture of the Eiffel Tower in Drive, the next time you search the term [Eiffel Tower], the image will appear in the results

Open more than 30 types of documents directly from a Web browser – including high-definition video, Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Photoshop – even without the proper software installed on your computer
We know that you need to access your documents in order to work everyday. Google Drive uses the same infrastructure as any other Google Apps services, which means it also has the same administrative tools, security and reliability, among others:
Centralized management: new tools are available in the Apps control interface for administrators to add or remove storage space for individual or groups of users

Security: encryption of data transfer between your browser and our servers, and check option 2 in time to prevent non-authorized access to an account by requiring users to log on returning secure code generated from their mobile phone

Data replication: synchronous replication of data in multiple data centers ensures the safety and accessibility of your records even in the unlikely event one of our data centers is temporarily unavailable

Availability: 99.9% uptime guarantee so you can be assured that your documents are accessible when you need it
Each user has access to Google Apps 5GB storage included in the suite Google Apps administrators can centrally manage and purchase additional storage space. When a user reaches the limit, administrators can purchase the necessary space of 20GB for $ 4 per month to 16TB (Google Docs are not counted in the quota of storage space).
Starting today, Google Apps administrators will see new orders for Drive in their management interface. Users of companies have opted for the quick launch, will enable Google Drive on drive.google.com / start and will receive their access in the following weeks.

Drive is designed to work harmoniously with all the products you use – whether Google products or third party service. You can share your photos on Google Drive + and will soon be able to attach documents directly into your emails Drive Gmail. Drive is intended to be an open platform, so we work with many third party developers, allowing you to do things such as sending faxes, edit videos and create models directly from Drive website. To install these applications, visit the Chrome Web Store and follow the events for more useful applications to come.

It is only the beginning of Google Drive, many developments are coming. Stay tuned!

Photo credit: Shutterstock

Sept. 9 - 10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

Just as we found out yesterday that much-anticipated Google Drive might replace Google Docs, the search giant has increased Google Docs storage to 5GB from 1GB, indicating an imminent Drive launch with answers to all our questions.

Drive has been in the making since 2007, when now-CEO Larry Page worked internally with other Googlers to launch a service called “G Drive.” The project was indefinitely postponed. Since that time, players like Dropbox, Box, SugarSync, and Microsoft’s SkyDrive have emerged with their own cloud storage services targeting consumers and businesses. The already crowded field means Google will want to make a big splash, but even if Drive isn’t flashy, competitors should be seriously worried.

As you can see from the screenshot I took above, my Google e-mail account now has 5GB of storage. There was no notification that it happened. Google is rolling out 5GB of storage to Docs in a staggered manner, but most of the people in our organization already have the update. Based on the storage increase, Drive could launch as soon as today.

On Monday, both Dropbox and Microsoft released new solutions that will help keep them in the public eye even as Google launches Drive. Dropbox added new ways to share files and folders through links. Microsoft, on the other hand, added new Windows and Mac desktop client options and paid storage options.

Cloud storage photo: Shutterstock

Google Docs screenshot: Sean Ludwig/VentureBeat

A sharp-eyed observer, Piers Dillon Scott, noticed today that drive.google.com hosts a robots.txt file that’s very similar to the one at docs.google.com, differing only by three or four lines. You can check them both out right now: robots.txt on drive.google.com and robots.txt on docs.google.com. By contrast, the robots.txt file for Gmail is far longer and more complicated.

Robots.txt is a standard file that website owners post to let search engines know which directories are OK to search and which to exclude from indexing. The similarity of the two sites’ files suggests that they will have nearly identical directory structures.

While the drive.google.com website is not online yet (it returns a 404 error), Google owns that domain name, and it will likely be the address of Google Drive. The fact that it has a robots.txt file that’s so similar to the one for Google Docs is not a definitive piece of evidence, but it certainly is suggestive that Drive will offer many of the same features (such as the ability to view presentations, documents, files, and drawings) that Google Docs does. That would make sense, since you can already upload files of any type to Google Drive, using it as a de facto online hard drive.

So if Google is going to create a Google Drive that has the same features, but with the addition of offline syncing and other file-sharing options, why not simply merge Google Docs into the newer product?

Previous reports have shown a Google Drive web interface that looks an awful lot like Google Docs (see screenshot above). The service will likely offer 5GB of free storage and present a serious competitive threat to other online storage services. But Box.net chief executive Aaron Levie isn’t scared, and for its part, Dropbox has made it even easier to share files through simple URLs.

Sept. 9 - 10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

Not one to ignore today’s other cloud storage news, Microsoft has announced new Windows and Mac apps for its SkyDrive cloud storage solution, the company said today in a blog post.

Google is about to bring a rocket launcher to a gun fight with its Drive solution. Startups like Dropbox, Box, and SugarSync are small enough to be worried about Google, but Microsoft, with its immense resources and reach, will also be one of the most powerful players in the space. SkyDrive, which already has apps across iOS, Android, and Windows Phone, is one of the most underrated cloud storage solutions simply because it comes from sometimes stodgy Microsoft.

Now the company will add a Dropbox-like client into the mix that makes file syncing and backup easy with Windows and Mac OS X Lion apps.

“Today, we’re excited to take another big step towards our vision by making SkyDrive far more powerful,” Windows President Steven Sinofsky said in the announcement post. “There are new storage options, apps that connect your devices to SkyDrive, and a more powerful device cloud that lets you “fetch” any file from a Windows PC. Taken together with access from popular mobile phones and a browser, you can now take your SkyDrive with you anywhere, connect it to any app that works with files and folders, and get all the storage you need—making SkyDrive the most powerful personal cloud storage service available.”

You can see an example of SkyDrive syncing on Windows 7 below:

On top of its new Windows and Mac integration, the company has also added paid storage options for its users. Prices are competitive, with 20GB running $10 per year, 50GB running $25 per year, and 100GB running $50 per year.

Unfortunately, in addition to adding the paid options, Microsoft has also dropped its free storage offering from 25GB down to 7GB. To be fair, 7GB of free cloud storage is still generous relative to the market. Box only gives 5GB for free, while Dropbox gives just 2GB of storage free. Those users who signed up for SkyDrive before April 22 can still opt-in to having 25GB of free storage. The company claims more than 99 percent of SkyDrive customers use 7GB or less.

You can view Microsoft’s well-made new video for SkyDrive below:

Photo illustration: Sean Ludwig/VentureBeat

Original photo: Nicholas_T/Flickr

Sept. 9 - 10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

Just ahead of Google’s upcoming Drive launch, cloud storage powerhouse Dropbox has released a powerful new tool that lets you share files and folders using links, the company announced today.

The cloud storage landscape is about to take a sharp turn with Google about to enter the space, so it makes sense for Dropbox to up its feature set before Drive’s launch. Dropbox recently redesigned its website and main interface. But with the new sharing feature, it’s now drastically simpler to share files and folders. Instead of having to share an entire folder with someone from them to access your content, you can simply share a link so friends and family can see your content with less hassle.

“Anyone with the link gets access to a snazzy page where they can view (but not edit) your stuff,” Jon Ying, Dropbox designer and community manager, wrote on the company blog. “Our gallery pages give your photos, videos, and even docs the gorgeous, full-browser view they deserve. This means that people who follow your link can see pictures, look at presentations, and watch home videos without having to download and open them separately. But just in case a friend wants to save that picture or PDF for later, they can choose to either download it or save it straight to their Dropbox.”

Some of the most obvious use cases for the new feature will be the ability to share photos with family and friends or share your small business’ non-sensitive files with clients.

San Francisco-based Dropbox has raised around $257 million in funding to date, with the majority of that coming from its massive $250 million round last October. Investors include Sequoia Capital, Accel Partners, Benchmark Capital, Goldman Sachs, Greylock Partners, Institutional Venture Partners, RIT Capital Partners, Valiant Capital Partners, and Hadi and Ali Partovi. It also counts Bono and The Edge from U2 as investors.

Using humor to cover up his true feelings, Box CEO and co-founder Aaron Levie said that he had nearly forgotten about Google Drive, the search giant’s soon-to-launch cloud storage product that will threaten the very livelihood of Levie’s seven-year-old business.

Levie, in an on-stage interview with VentureBeat Editor-in-Chief Matt Marshall at the DEMO Spring 2012 conference in Santa Clara, Calif., eventually admitted Google Drive will probably be a “cool application” that people will download in droves. “But, I hope [Google] fails,” he said.

“Drive,” as Google’s offering is said to be called, will be a storage solution that goes head-to-head with Box (and others) by providing consumers and professionals with universal access to files and documents. Drive will have a freemium model and integrate with third-party services, we know from previous leaks.

The much-anticipated product could make its appearance any day now, but if Levie’s on-stage demeanor and jovial playfulness is taken at face value, Box isn’t afraid. “[Google's] job is to get into very big categories,” Levie said, dismissing the competition.

Google will be an “important competitor,” Levie later admitted. But Box, which has been working on cloud storage since 2005, has the focus and knowledge to offer customers a more secure and more scalable solution, he noted. “That’s our entire business,” he’s said.

Levie may not fear the unknown, but Forrester infrastructure analyst Andrew Reichman recently told us that Box and competing startup Dropbox, should be seriously worried about Google Drive.

“When Google is playing is your space, you should be worried,” Reichman told VentureBeat. “Dropbox and Box are small companies by comparison, and Google has much deeper pockets.”

In the one-on-one interview at DEMO, Levie also talked about how tablets, and the iPad in particular, are disrupting the enterprise, giving startups such as Box the opportunity to compete on equal footing with software veterans such as Microsoft, Oracle, and IBM.

Sept. 9 - 10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

More details keep slowly leaking on Google’s upcoming cloud storage service, with diagram service Lucidtree accidentally confirming the name Google Drive, while also showing it will integrate with third-party services.

We first heard that Google would shortly launch a cloud storage service similar to Dropbox, Box, Microsoft’s SkyDrive, and Amazon CloudDrive in early February. At first we thought Drive’s offerings will most closely mirror Dropbox, which gives users access to cloud-connected storage on smartphones, tablets, Macs, and PCs. But now it also appears to add in a sprinkle of Box, which has a priority to integrate with many other third-party services.

Lucidtree accidentally posted the above page showing Google Drive integration yesterday, but it quickly got rid of the screen. Notably, Lucidtree CEO Karl Sun worked in a variety of senior roles at Google before he left for Lucidtree, so it’s likely his company was approached by Google pre-launch to add Drive access. We expect Google is approaching lots of third-party services so it can have a whole host of partners when it launches.

GigaOM said that Google Drive might finally arrive the first week of April. That prediction didn’t turn out correct, but now with this leak, Drive’s launch could easily come next week.

Via The Verge

Sept. 9 - 10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

Google’s upcoming Drive cloud-storage service will reportedly offer each of its users 5GB of cloud storage for free, according to a screenshot from TalkAndroid.

In early February, we heard that Google would soon launch a cloud storage service similar to Dropbox, Box, Microsoft’s SkyDrive, and Amazon CloudDrive. Drive’s offerings will most closely resemble Dropbox, which gives users access to cloud-connected storage on smartphones, tablets, Macs, and PCs.

The Drive service will likely launch the first week of April, but Google has been super silent about anything concerning the project. The first leaked screenshot concerning Drive suggested 2GB of free storage like Dropbox offers, but now it looks like the service will give Google users 5GB of free storage, akin to what Box offers. Giving every user 5GB of storage would certainly make a splash with average users and businesses. It might attract users away from other offerings, especially if they already use Google Docs for collaboration and want to stick to one provider.

Drive has a long history with Google even though it never launched. In 2007, now-CEO Larry Page had worked internally with other Googlers on a service called “G Drive,” but it was postponed indefinitely. During that same year, Dropbox was founded and has gone on to become one of the most widely used cloud-storage solutions with consumers, mostly because of its availability and ease of use across multiple platforms.

Drive screenshot: Talk Android

Sept. 9 - 10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

Google’s long-awaited Drive cloud storage service might finally arrive during the first week of April, according to a thinly sourced GigaOM report.

In early February, we heard that Google would soon launch a cloud storage service similar to Dropbox, Box, Microsoft’s SkyDrive, and Amazon CloudDrive. Drive’s offerings will most closely resemble Dropbox, which gives users access to cloud-connected storage on smartphones, tablets, Macs, and PCs.

A Google spokesperson gave us the usual statement in regards to the report: “We do not comment on rumors or speculation.”

Even with the GigaOM story on hand, the timing of the release could be off slightly. Founder and senior writer Om Malik felt the need to bold the word “might” twice in his piece to shield himself from his “well placed” anonymous sources being wrong.

A screenshot of Drive leaked out in mid-February and not surprisingly, the service looks almost exactly the same as Google Docs. The screenshot included an option to “Install Google Drive,” which is likely a way to integrate the service alongside normal desktop folders.

Drive has a long history with Google even though it never launched. In 2007, now-CEO Larry Page had worked internally with other Googlers on a service called “G Drive,” but it was postponed indefinitely. During that same year, Dropbox was founded and has gone on to become one of the most widely used cloud-storage solutions with consumers, mostly because of its availability and ease of use across multiple platforms.

Sept. 9 - 10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

Google’s long-rumored cloud storage solution, Drive, has been spotted on one user’s account. Not surprisingly, it looks about the same as Google Docs and a handful of the company’s other online services.

A reader forwarded the above screenshot to Geekwire, which also managed to dig up Google’s planned logo for the service (see right). Google refused to comment on the news, which is par for the course when it comes to rumors.

We heard last week that Google was close to launching Drive, so we’ll likely see the service popping up on more accounts soon. It’ll be interesting to see just how Google differentiates Drive from Google Docs, which allows you to upload files of all types and share them with others.

The screenshot above has an option to “Install Google Drive,” which is likely a way to integrate the service alongside your typical desktop folders.

With Google Drive, the search company will be going head-to-head with other cloud storage services like Dropbox and Microsoft SkyDrive. But given that Google is already holding plenty of important files for people via Google Docs, it wouldn’t be too difficult for consumers to trust Google with their other files.

Sept. 9 - 10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

Search king Google is close to launching its own cloud storage service similar to Dropbox and Amazon CloudDrive, according to a report from the Wall Street Journal.

If the report holds true, Google will be entering an extremely crowded market with a product simply called Drive. (No relation to the awesome Ryan Gosling movie.) On top of Dropbox and Amazon, the market consists of strong players like Microsoft SkyDrive, Box, SugarSync, and many others.

Drive’s offerings would most closely resemble Dropbox, which gives users access to cloud-connected storage on smartphones, tablets, and PCs. People would be able to stores documents, photos, videos, and other large files. To send a file inside of Drive, the user could just send a link to download the file instead through a file-sharing service.

The Drive product could also very well be integrated with the Android mobile operating system, similar to what Apple did with iCloud. Apple’s iCloud, while picking up steam, only works for devices running iOS 5, Macs and PCs, so other non-Apple mobile devices are shut out.

The service is expected to launch in the “coming weeks or months.” It will offer free and paid tiers, depending on how much storage you need.

In 2007, now-CEO Larry Page had worked internally with other Googlers to launch a service called “G Drive,” but the service was postponed and never launched. During that same year, Dropbox was founded and has gone on to become one of the most widely used cloud-storage solutions with consumers, mostly because of its availability and ease of use across many platforms.

Google homepage image: Google

Sept. 9 - 10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

Google appears to be close to rebranding its online document service, Google Docs, as a virtual hard drive in the cloud.

A blurry screenshot (shown above) snapped by blogger and social media consultant Johannes Wigand appears to show a slightly modified version of Google Docs, called Drive. The screen appeared for a few seconds in “an event powered by Google,” Wigand reports.

The screenshot looks almost identical to the “new look” for Google Docs that’s currently available as an option in some Google accounts, except that the word “Docs” in the upper left has been changed to “Drive.” The folder menu is labeled differently as well: It’s called “My Google Drive” instead of “My Collections.”

TechCrunch’s MG Siegler elaborates on the screenshot, adding other clues that Google Drive is coming, such as a Google Docs dialog that mentions “Google Drive” and some code that recently appeared in the source code for Google’s open-source browser Chromium.

TechCrunch also adds a detail not apparent from the screenshot: That Google Drive will be a full-fledged competitor to other online storage services like Dropbox and Box.net, with the ability to sync with local files. There’s no source for this last assertion, however.

Google Docs already acts as a virtual hard drive in many ways, with the ability to store and share images, videos and PDF files in addition to document formats that are editable in Google, such as spreadsheets, presentations and word-processing documents. Google offers 1GB of storage for free, with the option to purchase 20GB for $5 per year. It supports uploading and downloading of entire folders, although without automatic syncing. Turning Docs into Drive would be a small change, but the name change might significantly change the way people think about and use the service.

By comparison, Dropbox offers 2GB for free, or 50GB for $10 per month, and will automatically sync folders between the cloud and multiple computers. Box.net offers 5GB for free, or 50GB for $10 per month, with corporate options starting at $15 per user, and also offers automatic syncing and collaboration features. Other virtual drives have similar pricing.