Steve Jobs

Steve Jobs (1955 - 2011)
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Google Docs adds ZIP and RAR support

Google Docs has added support for ZIP and RAR archives since yesterday which allows users of Google Docs to preview the file contents of compressed archives in their browser before downloading. Gmail users too will benefit as they can use Google Docs to view the files in zip and rar archives coming in as email attachments before opening them.

Business users who depend on Google Docs rather than on desktop tools like Microsoft Office and other users who use Google Docs as their primary productivity suite will benefit the most from this.

For the large number of Gmail users, the option to open zip and rar archives being received as email attachments without downloading or opening them would be of great facility as users are often worried that attachments could contain malicious files.

Google claims 10M Google+ users amidst record results

In the wake of its impressive second quarter results, Google was eloquent about the early success of Google+, its high-profile social networking service. While announcing a 36 percent jump in quarterly profit, new CEO Larry Page said that more that 10 million people have joined Google+ since it launched a limited, invitation-only trial earlier this month. Page said that more than an billion items are shared and received through Google+ in a single day while the Google+1 button is being served 2.3 billion times a day.

Google also revealed that 550,000 phones a day are now activated on Android, with more than 135 million total Android device activations to date. Although Google’s core search engine advertising was the largest contributor to the growth in the latest quarter , Page stressed that the company's investments in its Android mobile-device software and the Chrome Web browser will "generate huge new businesses for Google in the long run, just like search."

Microsoft to discontinue support for Windows XP in three years

Microsoft announced this week that it would stop support for Windows XP by the spring of 2014 as the company shifts entirely to Windows 7 and plots future iterations.

Users of Windows XP now have less than 1000 days before support for the product ends.

Microsoft has claimed that 400 million Windows 7 licences have been sold since its release in 2009, thereby justifying its decision to end support for the decade-old XP. Microsoft intends to do all it can to assist die-hard users of XP make the transition to Windows 7.

Erwin Visser, the Windows Commercial Marketing Team’s Senior Director said “One way users can stay updated on the latest version of Windows is through Windows Intune, our cloud-based PC management and security service that includes the benefit of upgrade rights to Windows 7 Enterprise as well as future versions of Windows”

Google blocks co.cc from its search results

Google took the initiative of attack on malware by blocking the entire co.cc subdomain. The move removed 11million results from the Google search index and is expected to drastically clean up malware in search results.

Co.cc which is classified by Google as a "freehost", is owned by a Korean company that allows bulk purchase of domains, offers domains for free or offers them very cheap.

A scan performed by Google on the domain co.cc revealed that a very high percentage of their sites contained malware.

This change made by Google is welcome and should make it much easier to sift through search results in future.

Google says Okrut and Google+ to co-exist

Orkut, the other social networking site from Google, which has been around for about seven years and has millions of users, will continue to operate alongside the new Google+ for the time being. Google has kept its options open regarding fusing the two sites through some kind of integration in future.

When asked what the future holds for Orkut, a Google spokeswoman said over e-mail, "Orkut and Google+ are different products, and will both exist. Over time, we'll determine what makes the most sense in terms of integrating these products,"

Riding on Google+, the company is expecting to compete with Facebook, a social networking site with tighter and easier to configure privacy features.

Google is hoping that though Facebook is the dominant player in social networking, a good number of its users feel uneasy about its privacy controls that they would be willing to switch to a rival that offered them improvements in that area.

Yet Google has no imminent plans to shut down Orkut, which is a good news for the users.

Motorola launches Droid 3 with Verizon

Motorola has teamed up with Verizon wireless to launch the new Droid 3 running on Android 2.3. claiming to be the worlds thinnest full QWERTY smartphone, the DROID 3 runs on a dual-core 1 GHz processor for fast multitasking and will be available from July 14 for US$199.99 with a new 2 year customer agreement from Verizon. 

Image source: zdnet.com

The device will however be shipped with a locked bootloader, preventing ardent Android geeks from doing much tweaking and tinkering with the device. The new handset comes with a 960×540 resolution display and a keyboard with a small fifth row of dedicated number keys. It includes support for GSM / HSPA networks and can accept a SIM for voice and data usage in more than 200 countries across the world. Though the device comes with a front facing camera, it will not be possible to do video chatting using Google Talk unless upgraded to Android 2.3.4 .