Lead Android developer thinks a five-month wait for an update is 'very reasonable' - The Verge

Jean-Baptiste Queru, technical lead on the Android Open Source Project (AOSP), has revealed his opinion on the current state of the project and the lengthy waits users face for updates. In a Google+ post, Queru congratulates Sony on its Android 4.0 update for the Tablet S and describes the Japanese company as being the biggest contributor to Android, leaving everyone else playing catch-up. By contributing code to the project, Sony should be able to ensure timely updates for its own devices as well as helping out the community at large. So why the long wait for Android 4.0?

"everyone else is now going to have to play catch-up."

Queru actually thinks the five months it took Sony to update the tablet from 3.0 Honeycomb to 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich is "very reasonable," as the two Android versions are "quite different" under the hood. He also adds that the differences between Gingerbread and Ice Cream Sandwich are huge, and so phone upgrades are likely to take longer. When asked why Asus updated its tablet much faster than Sony, Queru states that Asus worked together with Nvidia. Given the Transformer Prime's status as the flagship Tegra 3 tablet, it comes as no surprise that both parties would throw as many resources as they can at the tablet to ensure a timely update.

What really bothers Queru is that some Google-engineered devices still don't have the latest version of its own OS, thanks to delays in the carrier approval process. He's very glad that Google is back to selling devices directly, and will be "even happier" when he sees the program expanded to more countries.

Will Apple Sputter When It Runs Out of Jobs Juice? - TechNewsWorld

Without Steve Jobs, Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) will fall from greatness, according to Forrester Research CEO George Colony.

"Apple's momentum will carry it for 24-48 months," he wrote recently in his blog, "The Counterintuitive CEO."

"But without the arrival of a new charismatic leader," he continued, "it will move from being a great company to being a good company, with a commensurate step down in revenue growth and product innovation."

"Like Sony (NYSE: SNE) (post Morita), Polaroid (post Land), Apple circa 1985 (post Jobs), and Disney (NYSE: DIS) (in the 20 years post Walt Disney), Apple will coast, and then decelerate," he contended.

Colony's case for Apple's decline is founded on an analysis of the structure of organizations by Max Weber, who is to sociology what Jobs was to Apple.

In Weber's 1947 book The Theory of Social and Economic Organizations, he identified three types of organizations: the legal/bureaucratic, the traditional and the charismatic.

Apple, under Jobs, fits into the charismatic category, Colony argues. Leaders of charismatic organizations have the "gift of grace." Their followers trust them absolutely, and they feed off the leader's access to near magical powers.

"In charismatic organizations, the magical leader must be succeeded by another charismatic -- the emotional connection of employees and (in the case of Apple) customers demands it," Colony wrote.

"Apple has chosen a proven and competent executive to succeed Jobs." he continued. "But his legal/bureaucratic approach will prove to be a mismatch for an organization that feeds off the gift of grace."

While Weber's analysis isn't irrelevant today, it doesn't apply to Jobs or Apple, countered Ben Bajarin, director of consumer technology analysis and research at Creative Strategies.

He cited Jobs' involvement with Pixar (Nasdaq: PIXR) as an example of how he could put his charismatic stamp on a company's culture and have that company succeed after leaving it.

"After he left, it continued to thrive, flourish and innovate," he told MacNewsWorld.

"He did that in Apple, too," he added. "He created a culture of people and innovation that really isn't seen elsewhere in the industry."

Colony's analysis presumes that Apple is like other companies, Bajarin maintained. "I don't think that's true," he said.

Apple's vertical integration of hardware, software and services is unparalleled in the industry, he explained. "Those fundamentals don't go away just because someone is not with us anymore," he added.

Companies can succeed after their charismatic leaders pass on, noted Carl Howe, research director for the Yankee Group.

"IBM was founded by a charismatic leader, Thomas J. Watson, yet it reached the heights of its business dominance long after he was dead," he told MacNewsWorld.

"The same could be said for Disney being led by Walt Disney," he added. "I don't doubt that Apple will reach similarly higher heights in the post-Jobsian era."

Although Weber argued that charismatic organizations require their charismatic leader be replaced by another charismatic leader, that's not necessarily a prescription for success, according to James Post, a professor of management markets, public policy and law at Boston University.

As times change, so does what a company needs in a CEO, he explained. "Apple's board has decided that Tim Cook meets the needs of the times," he told MacNewsWorld.

"Tim Cook has a lot of the same kind of commitment as Steve Jobs but a different set of skills and a different style of leadership," he said.

What's more, the followers of charismatic leader Jobs appear to be enthused with their new chief. "People are showing that they're happy to have Cook as a leader," Post observed.

"Is he as charismatic as Steve Jobs?" he continued. "Not in the same ways. But he's proving to be an effective leader of the people at Apple."

Samsung tops Nokia in Q1 handset race - Computerworld

IDG News Service - Samsung beat Nokia to the top position in the global handset market in the first quarter of 2012, research firms Strategy Analytics and IHS iSuppli said Friday.

The research firms however disagreed on Samsung's smartphone shipments in the first quarter with iSuppli giving Apple the top position in smartphones, while Strategy Analytics called in favor of Samsung.

The Korean company shipped 93.5 million handsets in the first quarter, up from 69 million units a year earlier, for a 25% share of the market, even as global handset shipments grew a little over 3% annually to reach 368 million units in the quarter, Strategy Analytics said.

In contrast, Nokia's handset shipments were down 24% year-on-year to 82.7 million units, giving it a 22.5% share. Shipments of its low-end feature phone stalled in emerging markets while its high-end Lumia smartphones, based on Microsoft's Windows Phone operating system, were unable to make up for a decline in Nokia's legacy Symbian business, according to Strategy Analytics.

In the first quarter of last year, Nokia had a 30.4% share to Samsung's 19.3% share, indicating a significant shift in the handset market, as Nokia tries to manage a difficult transition amidst stiff competition from Samsung and Apple, and a number of vendors of low-cost devices.

Samsung's success reflects a shift in the wireless market, where cellphone market growth is being generated exclusively by the smartphone segment, and not by feature phones and other low-cost entry phones, iSuppli said. Smartphones accounted for 34% of Samsung's handset shipments in the first quarter, in contrast to 14% of Nokia's shipments, the research firm said.

A

Apple's iPhone shipments almost doubled to 35 million units in the quarter, increasing its share to 9.5% from 5.2% a year earlier, according to Strategy Analytics. But Samsung's upcoming Galaxy S3 flagship model could slow iPhone's growth in some regions if it is well received by operators and consumers, it said.

Samsung shipped 92 million handsets to 83 million by Nokia, and 35 million by Apple in the first quarter, according to iSuppli. It said its tally of global shipments of handsets included only those vendors that have reported results for the first quarter so far. The research firm put Samsung's shipments of smartphones in the first quarter at 32 million, putting it in second place to Apple.

Strategy Analytics, in contrast, said Samsung shipped 44.5 million smartphones in the first quarter for a 30.6% share, while Apple shipped 35 million units for a 24.1% share. Nokia had a 8.2% share.

Samsung saw smartphones shipments grow by almost four-times from the same quarter last year, backed strong demand for its popular Galaxy models such as the Note, S2 and Y, Strategy Analytics said. Nokia's Lumia phones have taken off in the U.S., but that surge cannot make up for falling sales in its phones running the Symbian operating system, it said.

Reprinted with permission from IDG.net. Story copyright 2012 International Data Group. All rights reserved.

Carriers desperately seeking Windows Phone - Computerworld

Computerworld - AT&T and Verizon Wireless want Windows Phone smartphones to succeed in the U.S., partly to provide leverage against Apple's demands for subsidies and other concessions required for selling the popular iPhone.

AT&T recently began selling the Nokia Lumia 900 with the Windows Phone 7 operating system for a competitive $99.99 price. Meanwhile, Verizon Chief Financial Officer Fran Shammo recently told Reuters that Verizon is "really looking at the Windows Phone 8.0 platform because that's a differentiator." /p>

Both carriers need a strong competitor -- like Windows Phone -- to go up against the iPhone and Android phones, analysts said. The wireless carriers could then tell Apple that they can sell quality smartphones that don't cost the carriers as much as the iPhone to subsidize. The iPhone sells well but also eats into carrier profits because of the subsidy and related costs.

"Mobile operators are sick of taking orders from Apple, [which is one] reason why carriers like AT&T and Verizon are backing Windows Phone," said Yankee Group analyst Katie Lewis in a blog posted Wednesday. "IPhones are occupying an increasingly dangerous share of operators' smartphone sales," she wrote.

In 2011, iPhones were half of AT&T's smartphone sales -- totaling about 16 million iPhones -- while Verizon has seen a strong surge recently in the same direction, Lewis noted. "The companies' fears of an Apple takeover are growing stronger," she added, partly because customer surveys show an increase in future buyers interested in owning an iPhone.

Apple's demands for subsidies in order for a carrier to sell an iPhone are legendary. U.S. carriers heavily subsidize all smartphone hardware, primarily to entice new customers to buy a two-year service contract that costs more than $1,700 over that period. The iPhone 4S with 16GB sells unlocked from Apple for $649 (useful on many GSM carriers with a separate contract), but Verizon, AT&T and Sprint sell it for $199.99 with a two-year contract.

Apple also gets a cut, or royalty, of the carrier's revenue realized from each new iPhone user. This royalty "is part of the negotiations to put iPhone on a carrier's network," said analyst Jack Gold of J. Gold Associates. "Apple argues it's worth it to the carrier, since their users are loyal and generate more revenues due to the popularity of the iPhone." Other phone makers, such as Samsung and HTC, don't get a similar cut.

Apple collects as much as $600 per iPhone user in royalties from the carriers on top of the hardware profits from the phones, according to several analysts, although Apple and the carriers have never confirmed that amount.

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How to Choose Between Cloud Storage Services like Google Drive and Dropbox - TIME

Jared Newman / TIME.com

Cloud storage is in the spotlight this week with the launch of Google Drive and the relaunch of Microsoft’s Skydrive. Along with competitors such as Dropbox and SugarSync, you’ve now got lots of good choices for storing files online.

All these services work in pretty much the same way: You download a program to your computer, and it creates a dedicated folder, where anything you put inside gets stored online. Once you’ve done so, you can install the same app on another device to immediately access those files, or you can grab the files through any Web browser.

(MORE: 50 Best iPhone Apps 2012)

With so many options available, which ones should you choose? Depending on your needs, the answer might not be as simple as who offers the most online storage space. Here’s a rundown of the best cloud storage services, and why you should consider using them:

Main features: 5 GB of free storage, cheap monthly rates for extra storage, 10 GB file size limit, tied into other Google services.

Google envisions a world where all of our computing happens online, and Google Drive is a big part of that. The service is already tied into Google Docs, and it probably won’t be long before it gets further integrated with Android and offered as a source for Gmail file attachments. Google’s Chromebooks will eventualy use Google Drive in place of local storage, so everything users do gets stored online. If you buy into that vision and trust Google to look after all your files, Google Drive is a no-brainer. Otherwise, it’s still a strong offering with generous file size limits and low monthly paid rates, starting at $2.49 per month for 25 GB.

Main features: 2 GB of free storage, apps for Windows, Mac, Linux, iOS and Android

Dropbox’s 2 GB storage limit now looks skimpy next to the competition, but the service’s incumbent status ensures that it’ll stick around. Chances are you already know some people who use the service, which allows you to easily share files with them. And because Dropbox isn’t beholden to any particular software platform, you can be sure that its many desktop and mobile apps will see continued support. If you’re syncing between several computers, Dropbox also has a useful feature called selective sync, which lets you disable local backups for certain folders. It comes in handy if you have a computer that’s low on storage, and don’t want to clog it with all your Dropbox files.

Main features: 7 GB of free storage, the best annual paid rates, remote access to other PCs

SkyDrive’s 7 GB of free storage is more generous than any other service, and if you were already a SkyDrive user before April 22, you can get an extra 18 GB free for a limited time. On an annual basis, SkyDrive’s paid storage is also the cheapest, at $10 per year for another 20 GB. But the most useful feature of SkyDrive–at least for owners of multiple Windows PCs–is remote access, which allows you to grab files from any folder on another Windows machine, even if it’s not synced with Skydrive. Although Skydrive is a Microsoft product, official apps are available for Mac, iPhone and iPad, but Android users must seek out third-party apps instead.

Main features: 5 GB of free storage, no file size limits, sync to any desktop folder.

SugarSync doesn’t have the most free storage or the cheapest premium rates, but it’s the only service that syncs with any folder on your computer instead of creating its own space on your hard drive. That means you can flag your existing documents folder, pictures folder or any other location, and SugarSync will silently make online backups of those files. If all you want is a way to automatically back up your most precious documents online, SugarSync does it with the least amount of effort.

VMware Breach: Time To Assume Hypervisor Code Open? - InformationWeek

VMware's confirmation this week that ESX Server source code has been posted on the Internet is one of those seminal events, downplayed by experts and the company at the time, that is likely to have important future ramifications.

Although the exposure was of a single file of an outdated copy of ESX Server, more source code release has been promised by Hardcore Charlie, the hacker claiming responsibility. Enough code may end up in the public arena to reveal the hypervisor's inner workings and give serious hackers clues and guidance on how exploits might be made to work.

It moves the discussion of the security of ESX Server security back to center stage. The lack of activity in the wild--the absence of successful hacks--had almost removed ESX Server as a subject of continued concern. Hardcore Charlie has put it back on the table.

If even more code gets published, that act at least partially takes away an advantage that VMware has enjoyed over the open source code hypervisor competition. Both Xen and KVM source code were published for everyone to see. ESX Server was proprietary and would stay that way, an extra precaution to IT managers worried about so much operational control moving to a single piece of software.

Enterprises have overwhelmingly voted for VMware, in my opinion, in part because of a high degree of trust in the company. The academic roots and deep x86 instruction set expertise of founder Mendel Rosenblum made it the early brainiac of virtualization. Likewise, IT leaders liked VMware’s ability to set goals and meet them with solid code, with one or two exceptions. Keeping its source code restricted to a few trusted hands was something IT could agree with at an early stage of virtualization.

[Want to learn why an ultra-secure virtualization environment in the form of a public cloud has not been any guarantee of success? See Why Specialized Clouds Will Be A Tough Sell.]

But should customers assume these attributes mean ESX Server can never be breached? Of course not, and even those with full trust in the company never quite got to that point of false confidence. On the contrary, with ESX Server source code in so many hands of partners and co-researchers, as this incident illustrates, it may be time to start assuming the opposite.

Does that mean it's vulnerable to exploits? Probably not much more so than before. It’s not going to be subject to any increase in the kinds of harassment launched by script kiddies and other lightweight creators of malware.

But the source code disclosure forces us to view ESX Server in a different light. Somewhere in the world, there are substantial resources behind efforts to compromise ESX Server, given its prominence in business and government. Think of eager foreign security agencies--Iran has invested substantially in cyber warfare, for example--and what they might try to do inside Defense agencies if they could invent an agent that sat on the hypervisor viewing all the traffic that flows through the hypervisor. That would give them a sniffing point and possibly a control point for everything going on with a set of virtual machines running on a given host. It might give them an avenue out to other hosts and other virtual machines.

This is the long sleeping fear of virtualization users: the compromise of the hypervisor leading to the compromise of data and operations on multiple virtual machines. It hasn't happened yet, to public knowledge. But no software is invulnerable to compromise.

As a warning for what might be possible, consider the Oct. 23, 2009, online version of the MIT Technology Review. Eran Tromer, a post doctoral researcher in MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Labroatory, and three colleagues at the University of California at San Diego, claimed that a snooper could target a multi-tenant server in the Amazon cloud by launching VMs at the same time that the snooper's target user did so. Simply by timing the launch, he said, spying virtual machines could land on the same host as target VMs.

Tromer cited other research that claimed one virtual machine on a shared server can detect activity in another VM by observing hypervisor activity and, under some circumstances, surmise what might be happening. For example, when an idle virtual machine becomes active, the spying VM might assume it was processing a log in name and password. By listening to the timing of keystrokes feeding letters into the system, a snooper might guess what the words were, since the layout of the Qwerty keyboard lends itself to predictable timing of letter sequences in some cases, Tromer said, citing the outside research.

Amazon spokesman Kay Kinton said Amazon had taken steps to make it less predictable for one customer to guess where another customer's virtual machines were running in its server infrastructure. In its early days, EC2 assigned customers IP addresses sequentially, and if, somehow, one customer knew when another was launching VMs, that would open the possibility of the snooper launching VMs at the same time to pick up an IP address on the same server.

Kinton told the MIT publication that Amazon has taken measures to prevent such mapping of VM location but didn't specify what they were. For one thing, Amazon is believed to no longer use strictly sequential IP address numbers. In addition, Amazon officials said EC2 operational characteristics were nothing like the lab circumstances where the keystroke detection and analysis allegedly worked.

In addition, other researchers have been unable to duplicate the feat. It remains unknown whether the MIT and San Diego researchers were describing an observable phenomenon or launching an urban legend. It had just enough plausibility to make virtualization users nervous.

The best antidote to such fears is to implement a higher degree of protection on the hypervisor. One of the experts at operating virtualized environments is Harris Corp., a contractor doing business on many fronts with the Department of Defense. Harris built an ultra secure, Cyber Integration Center in Harrisonburg, Va., that relied on VMware’s ESXi Server. It also imposed security measures, such as calling up a clean copy of the hypervisor from a secure source with the start of a new virtual machine. As the fresh copy launched, Harris matched the bit count of each component with its known number and performed other inspections as a check on whether anything had changed en route to deployment.

It did the same thing with applications and operating systems, capturing a digital fingerprint of the system as whole that would allow it be rechecked each time it was activated. Then it layered an intrusion detection system over the whole, watching for any errant behavior . The system did not need to identify malware or locate compromised code to trigger protective measures. It only needed to see an aberration, some disallowed behavior, to expunge the virtual machine and hypervisor and start over. Even if an intruder got into such a setting, his chance of setting off an alarm and getting eliminated was probably at least as great as his chance of doing persistent harm. Unfortunately, Harris' Cyber Integration Center, an excellent test bed for secure hypervisor operation, closed opened in May 2010 and was announced as headed for closure in February of this year, due to lack of business. Harris had implemented several patented security procedures inside it which may have to wait for a future opportunity to be engaged in a real world, cloud data center test.

At the same time, this failed attempt at an extra secure facility carried a burden of extra charges. Extra security costs more, and there have no proven cases of compromised hypervisors. Harris' closed data center would seem to be a marketplace verdict that existing hypervisor security is good enough.

Nevertheless, that conclusion may come under renewed scrutiny, if Hardcore Charlie publishes 300 MB of VMware source code, instead of a single file, on May 5, as he's said he will do. To be sure it is outdated code, but the core of the how the hypervisor operates may end up exposed. It may be best before May 5 to assume the much of the code for ESX Server is open, or soon will be one way or another, and take adequate protective measures, depending on the sensitivity of the systems. For customers, it's hard to know exactly what those measures should be. Third party security vendors will come up with offerings, but ultimately, it will fall on VMware's shoulders to build protections into standard versions of its products.

Such a move adds expense, but that may be the only way to make sure that the hypervisor is a control point for healthy VM operations, not monitoring and manipulating virtual machines in ways their owners never intended.

InformationWeek is conducting a survey to determine where enterprises stand on their IPv6 deployments, with a focus on security, training, budget, and readiness. Upon completion of our survey, you will be eligible to enter a drawing to receive a 16-GB Apple iPad. Take our D-Day for IPv6 Survey now.

For Apple, China Is Middle Kingdom - Wall Street Journal

Not long ago, Asia Pacific was all but a footnote in the financial statements of technology juggernaut Apple Inc. But no more.

Apple's sales in the fast-growing region, fueled largely by China, more than doubled and represented 26% of its $39.2 billion in sales for the first three months of the year.

Asia Pacific actually came within striking distance of becoming Apple's largest source of revenue in the fiscal second quarter.

The company took in $10.2 billion in sales for the region for the first three months of the year, compared with $13.2 billion for the Americas, long its biggest ...

Not long ago, Asia Pacific was all but a footnote in the financial statements of technology juggernaut Apple Inc. But no more.

Apple's sales in the fast-growing region, fueled largely by China, more than doubled and represented 26% of its $39.2 billion in sales for the first three months of the year.

Asia Pacific actually came within striking distance of becoming Apple's largest source of revenue in the fiscal second quarter.

The company took in $10.2 billion in sales for the region for the first three months of the year, compared with $13.2 billion for the Americas, long its biggest ...

Macs more likely to carry Windows malware than Mac malware, Sophos says - Computerworld

IDG News Service - One in five Mac computers is likely to carry Windows malware, but only one in 36 is likely to be infected with malware specifically designed for the Mac OS X, according to study performed by antivirus firm Sophos.

Sophos collected malware detection statistics from 100,000 Mac computers that run its free antivirus product and found that 20% of them contained one or more types of Windows malware.

When stored on a Mac, Windows malware is inactive and can't do any harm, unless that computer has Windows installed as a secondary OS.

However, such malicious files can still be transferred unknowingly by Mac users to Windows machines via file sharing, USB memory sticks, external hard disk drives and other removable media devices.

Sophos' analysis also revealed that 2.7% of the 100,000 scanned Macs were actually infected with Mac OS X malware and a large part of those infections, 75%, were with the Flashback Trojan.

Flashback is a family of Mac OS X malware distributed through social engineering and automated Web exploits. Sophos' products detect applications from this malware family as OSX/Flshplyr.

A recent Flashback variant that appeared at the end of March and spread by exploiting a vulnerability in the Java browser plug-in, managed to infect almost 700,000 Mac computers.

Around 650,000 Macs are still infected with it, despite Apple releasing a patch for the Java vulnerability and a Flashback removal tool, according to a report released on Friday by antivirus firm Doctor Web.

The second most common type of malware detected by Sophos' Mac antivirus product was OSX/FakeAV, with 18% of the total. OSX/FakeAV is a family of Mac OS X scareware applications that includes fake antivirus programs like Mac Defender, which first appeared in May 2011.

OSX/RSPlug, a Mac OS X version of the DNSChanger computer Trojan, was the third most common detection and accounted for 5.5% of the total. This malware forces infected computers to use rogue DNS (Domain Name System) servers controlled by attackers.

The rogue DNS servers used by the DNSChanger botnet were seized by the FBI last year and were temporarily replaced with good ones, to allow the malware's victims to clean their computers.

The replacement servers are scheduled to be shut down on July 9, but according to the FBI, there are still 350,000 computers infected with the malware. If the servers are shut down, those computers will no longer be able to access the Internet.

"Some Apple fans might feel relieved that they are seven times more likely to have Windows malware on their Macs than Mac OS X-specific threats, but they shouldn't be," said Graham Cluley, a senior technology consultant at Sophos, in a blog post on Tuesday. "What Mac users really need to do is protect their computers now (there really is no excuse, free anti-virus software is available for Mac home users), or risk allowing the malware problem on Macs to become as big as the problem on PCs in the future."

Reprinted with permission from IDG.net. Story copyright 2012 International Data Group. All rights reserved.

Google Drive tutorial - CNET

Google Drive
(Credit: Google)
Dropbox, Box, SkyDrive, and other cloud storage services (reluctantly) welcomed a new competitor today: Google Drive. The freemium service, which replaces Google Docs, lets you store files and access them from your computer, phone, or tablet, no matter where you are.

To get started with Google Drive, head to drive.google.com and enable the service. Once you have access to your Drive, you're ready to get started.

Right away, you'll notice that Google Drive looks and acts a lot like Google Docs--you can create files, collections (folders), use the top bar to search, and upload files by dragging and dropping into the browser window.

However, unlike Docs, you can now manage your entire drive from your desktop by installing the Google Drive application. To get it, head to drive.google.com and select "Download Google Drive" in the left sidebar. After a short installation process, a "Google Drive" folder will be added to your desktop. That folder is synced with your Google Drive, so any changes you make to it will be reflected in the Web interface, and vice versa.

So, when you add a file to the Google Drive folder, it will be uploaded to your Web drive (as long as you're connected to the Internet.)


Documents are free: Google gives you 5GB of free storage space, but any docs you create within Drive don't count against your storage.Upload up to 30 types of files: Photoshop, movies, photos--you name it. Google Drive supports the storage and viewing of all the popular file types. So, you can upload a movie to your Drive and play it back within your browser, no matter where you are.Share files, folders, or your entire Drive: Have a document you want to share? Or a home video stored on your drive? Just like Google Docs, you can share those files. Simply right-click a file or folder, select "Share...," and choose your sharing option. To give someone access to your entire drive, click the button with the person and a plus sign at the top.Utilize Google Goggles: With the Goggles technology built into Drive, you can search for a photo using the search bar. Likewise, you can search for text in a scanned document. After some testing, the feature isn't totally reliable, but it's worth trying if you need help finding a file or photo.Collaborate on videos, photos, and more: The collaboration feature from Google Docs is now available for any type of file. For example, if you upload a video to Drive and share it with someone else, you'll be able to discuss that video with the comment tool.Install third-party apps: Third-party developers have created apps that work seamlessly with Google Drive. Pixlr lets you edit uploaded photos, HelloFax lets you send free faxes, and DocuSign lets you sign official documents, all within Google Drive. To get these apps and more, head to Google Drive > Settings > Manage apps > Get more apps.If you plan to use Google Drive, couple it with the Android app (iOS app coming soon), and check out our complete hands-on. Dropbox users can back up their storage and move it to Google Drive using this tutorial.

Via CNET News

Samsung teases its 'Next Galaxy' - Washington Post

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Celebritology 2.0 | Sarah Anne Hughes#header-v3 #main-nav li.photos,#header-v3 #main-nav li.video {display:none;}#header-v3 #main-nav li a.top, #header-v3 #main-nav li a.top:link, #header-v3 #main-nav li a.top:visited, #header-v3 #main-nav li a.top:hover {font-size:13px;padding: 0 4px 0 5px !important;}#header-v3 #main-nav li a.home, #header-v3 #main-nav li a.home:link, #header-v3 #main-nav li a.home:visited, #header-v3 #main-nav li a.home:hover {padding: 0px !important;}#header-v3 #main-nav li.politics {border-left:none;}#header-v3 #main-nav li.politics:hover {-moz-box-shadow: none;-webkit-box-shadow: none;box-shadow: none;}MOREPhotographyVideosInvestigationsNews TopicsObituariesArchivesPersonal PostBusiness EconomyIndustriesLocal BusinessMarketsPolicy&RegulationTechnologyWorldBusinessCapital BusinessOn Small BusinessPolicyGadget ReviewsGreen TechnologyPhoto Galleries???initialComments:true! pubdate:04/23/2012 10:29 EDT! commentPeriod:14! commentEndDate:5/7/12 10:29 EDT! currentDate:4/22/12 8:0 EDT! allowComments:true! displayComments:true!Uproar over ‘pink slime’ goes viral

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Samsung teases its ‘Next Galaxy’View Photo Gallery — Smartphone battle heats up:?Dozens of new smartphones are vying for consumers’ attention. Learn about the unique features of some of the hottest phones on the market.

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Samsung has decided to pour some fuel on the fire and release a Web site teasing its “next galaxy,” which is likely the update to the Galaxy S II. Most people have been calling this phone the Galaxy S III, though that name is not confirmed. All we know about the next Galaxy is that it will be unveiled at Samsung Unpacked in London on May 3.

Samsung takes a dig at frenemy Apple in one of the teaser videos, which advises smartphone buyers not to act like sheep. “With technology that fits in this easily, you can now stand out from everyone else,” Samsung’s teaser says.

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