Wednesday 16 May 2012
Monday 30 April 2012
Space Shuttle Close Look
This week NASA's space shuttle Discovery will fly low over Washington, D.C., atop a jumbo jet and roll into its new permanent home with the Smithsonian Institution.
Discovery will touch down at Dulles International Airport on Tuesday, weather permitting, and the National Air and Space Museum's Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, Virginia, will host a big outdoor ceremony on Thursday to welcome their new space-worn acquisition.
Discovery will touch down at Dulles International Airport on Tuesday, weather permitting, and the National Air and Space Museum's Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, Virginia, will host a big outdoor ceremony on Thursday to welcome their new space-worn acquisition.
Sunday 29 April 2012
Wednesday 25 April 2012
GDrive Unleashed
Google Drive is finally here, but it's not a completely new service. It's not just a new name for Google Docs, it also brings a different vision: your files are always in sync. Google Drive offers 5 GB of free storage, up from 1 GB, and lets you download desktop and mobile apps that synchronize your files. For now, the apps are only available for Windows, Mac and Android, but Google will release an app for iPhone and iPad in the near future.
By default, the desktop app creates a new folder for Google Drive, downloads all the files uploaded to Google Docs and adds shortcuts for the files created using Google Docs apps. This way, the files download to your computer are available offline and can be opened using your favorite apps, while the files created using Google Docs can only open in a browser. If you use Chrome, you can also open some of the files offline. For some people, this will be confusing.
Another issue is that Google offers some new storage plans. The sad thing is that Google's new storage plans are a lot more expensive that the previous ones: now you need to pay $2.49/month (almost $30/year) for 25 GB, instead of $5/year for 20 GB. They're still cheaper than Dropbox's plans, but they're more expensive than Microsoft's plans. Microsoft downgraded the free quota from 25 GB to 7 GB, but existing users can still keep it.
If you upgrade to one of the new plans, Google offers 30 GB of additional Gmail storage. For some reason, the shared storage is no longer available for Gmail and it's now limited to Google Drive and Picasa Web Albums.
Here are the old Google plans (if you already use one of them, you can keep it and you won't be upgraded to the new plans automatically):
and the new plans:
Gmail now offers 10 GB of free storage, while Google Drive only offers 5 GB. Instead of encouraging users to send attachments, the files could be stored in Google Drive.
Google Drive integrates with third-party apps and one of them is already enabled by default: Pixlr, a photo editor. You can also install some Chrome apps that integrate with Google Drive. There's a new "open with" item that lets you pick one of the apps from the contextual menu.
Google Drive | Dropbox | SkyDrive | |
Free storage | 5 GB | 2 GB (up to 18 GB) | 7 GB (existing users: 25 GB) |
+20 GB | $10 | ||
+25 GB | $29.88 | ||
+50 GB | $99 | $25 | |
+100 GB | $59.88 | $199 | $50 |
If you upgrade to one of the new plans, Google offers 30 GB of additional Gmail storage. For some reason, the shared storage is no longer available for Gmail and it's now limited to Google Drive and Picasa Web Albums.
Here are the old Google plans (if you already use one of them, you can keep it and you won't be upgraded to the new plans automatically):
and the new plans:
Gmail now offers 10 GB of free storage, while Google Drive only offers 5 GB. Instead of encouraging users to send attachments, the files could be stored in Google Drive.
Google Drive integrates with third-party apps and one of them is already enabled by default: Pixlr, a photo editor. You can also install some Chrome apps that integrate with Google Drive. There's a new "open with" item that lets you pick one of the apps from the contextual menu.
GDrive On The Way
After waiting of many years, Google's online storage service will finally be available soon for the users. it will only be an updated version of Google Docs, but it will be popular as Gdrive
"Instead of email your large file, you can upload to Google Docs(Gdrive) any file up to 250 MB(..!). You will have 1 GB of free storage on Gdrive,for your files you don't convert into one of the Google Docs formats (i.e. Google documents, spreadsheets, and presentations), it is also possible that if you want a more space for your document you can buy the space as extra storage for extra Money per GB(its so cheap) as mentioned on Google Docs blog.
This Massive change will be slowly rolled out in the coming few days and it's the next step of google to the evolution of Google's online office suite.
"Instead of email your large file, you can upload to Google Docs(Gdrive) any file up to 250 MB(..!). You will have 1 GB of free storage on Gdrive,for your files you don't convert into one of the Google Docs formats (i.e. Google documents, spreadsheets, and presentations), it is also possible that if you want a more space for your document you can buy the space as extra storage for extra Money per GB(its so cheap) as mentioned on Google Docs blog.
This Massive change will be slowly rolled out in the coming few days and it's the next step of google to the evolution of Google's online office suite.
Google's expected to launch 'GDrive',
With Google Drive, you can:
- Create and collaborate. Google Docs is built right into Google Drive(GDrive), 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. 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.
Tuesday 24 April 2012
Kensington Palace
Nice pad, but I bet Kate changes the wallpaper! As Kensington Palace opens to the public after a £12m makeover we take an exclusive tour of Kate and Will's new home
Not since the Windsor fire of 1992, has there been a royal makeover on this scale. Indeed, the last time a palace went through a facelift of this magnitude, it was courtesy of a German bomb.In the case of Kensington Palace, however, this £12million transformation has not been prompted by any misfortune but by years of careful planning. Admittedly, there has been one unexpected, 11th-hour alteration to the designs.
But no one is complaining about the decision of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge to set up home here — because their presence in the private wing of the palace is only going to draw even more visitors through the doors on the public side.Palace of varieties: Mail writer Robert Hardman stands by the modern luminous lace piece - a light sculpture made of more than two miles of electroluminescent wire
A few days ago, the Queen came to Kensington to re-open what used to be the seat of royal power until the monarchy moved to Buckingham Palace. Before she cut the ribbon, she toured the rooms where Queen Victoria grew up and inspected the new displays which feature everything from Prince Albert’s tongue-scraper to a new range of Diana, Princess of Wales, wallpaper and a very creepy children’s birthday party (of which more later).
‘We’ve set out to awaken a sleeping beauty,’ announced Charles Mackay, the chairman of Historic Royal Palaces, the independent charity which runs the place. He might equally have called it a sleeping giant. Because, after years in the heritage doldrums, KP is finally exploiting its true potential as one of the capital’s major tourist attractions.
Who Belongs to the API Billionaires Club?
All of Twitter’s official applications use its API, including Twitter’s web client. So, naturally the 140 character service tops the list with 13 billion API calls per day. In addition to its internal use, Twitter is one of the best examples of a vibrant developer ecosystem, despite complaints from some that Twitter is squeezing out the force that made it popular.
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