In October Google started a field trial that allowed users to peruse their Drive files and Calendar entries straight from the Gmail search box. Apparently the test was a rousing success, as the company is rolling the feature out to all US accounts, in English. The feature hasn't changed since it made its debut late last year -- simply start typing and your autocomplete results will include your next homebrew meeting, your epic beer inventory spreadsheet as well as emails from family members suggesting you seek help for your new "hobby." If you don't have access just yet, be patient, Google says it'll roll out slowly over the next week.

Filed under: Internet, Google

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Source: Gmail Blog

Cards, cards, cards... that's the refrain around the Google campus these days. Everything is getting turned into cards. That now includes your documents stored on Drive, too. The Google Drive app for Android was updated today with a whole new UI that moves towards the refined Holo design of the Play Music app and displays your uploaded files as "cards," though, you can always revert to a tweaked list view. The cards offer a thumbnail preview along with the file name and an icon indicating the type of document. The ability to snap photos and have the results turned into a OCR-processed PDF has also been updated slightly. The feature is now called "scan" and it automatically crops photos to contain only the document you need to upload. Lastly, you can finally tweak text settings in sheets, delivering a much more robust mobile formatting experience. Just hit up the Play Store to get your update now.

Filed under: Software, Mobile, Google

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Source: Google Drive Blog

After sitting in a beta phase since early April, Chrome 27 is finally seeing a wide release with its arrival on the stable track. Headlining the fresh desktop version is a 5 percent speed boost to web page load times and a new API for saving and syncing data to Google Drive. Refined spell correction, "numerous fundamental improvements" to the Omnibox, improved prediction rankings and an assortment of security fixes have also been baked in. Back in developer territory, Google's François Beaufort announced that the latest Chromium build for Mac has been outfitted with the anticipated app launcher. Check your browser for the update or jab the source links below to grab the apps manually.

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Via: AppleInsider

Source: Chrome Releases, François Beaufort (Google+)

Google's efforts to streamline aren't limited to some spring cleaning and more spartan interfaces. Today the company is breaking down the artificial walls between the pools of online storage provided for Gmail, Drive and Google+ Photos. Instead of 10GB for all your messages and attachments, alongside a separate 5GB repository for your photos and documents, now all three sites share a common 15GB slice on Google's servers. So, if you happen to be a little photo crazy, but are nowhere near the limit on your Gmail account, you no longer need to rely on workarounds like archiving images as attachments. This also means that storage upgrades for Gmail no longer top out at 25GB. There's also a handy new visualization that shows how much of your available storage you're using and breaks it down by service for finer-grained tracking.

Update: If you're a Google Apps customer your available cloud storage will also be unified, leaving you with 30GB shared between all three services.

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Source: Google Drive Blog, Google Enerprise

Sure, you could see and manage your Google Drive files from within the comfort of your PC / Mac file management system, but you couldn't publicly share them with friends -- until now. Google Drive files are now sharable via right click directly on your desktop, meaning the Drive desktop app now has one more feature that Dropbox already had several years ago. We hope you'll forgive our lack of enthusiasm for Google's catchup effort, but it's hard to get all jazzed up about functionality that should've probably been there at launch. Anyway, if you're not seeing the new feature pop up on your dashboard yet, Google says it's "rolling out over the next few days." Hold tight!

Filed under: Internet, Software, Google

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Source: Google

Well, it looks as if the Drive news just keep pouring in. Shortly after outing a couple of new features that make the service a little more friendly with collaborators, Google's rather quietly taken to its own social network to announce some offline tidbits. Starting today, users of Mountain View's cloud-based storage goods can easily create and edit any drawings without the need for an internet connection. What's more, Docs, Sheets and Slides will now be automatically available offline -- something that should come in very handy while you're, say, 20,000 feet up in the air with no Gogo in sight. Fret not if you don't see these changes the next time you log in, as Google says "it may take a few days" before the rollout is carried out.

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Source: Google Drive (Google+)

When you're sharing a file in Google Drive, your time should be spent collaborating, not arranging conversations. Right? Google agrees strongly enough to have just finished tweaking Drive's web interface for better teamwork. Users actively working on the project now show as mouse-over icons, with their Google+ relationship front and center -- if they're not friends and you want them to be, you can change that almost immediately. It's even faster to start group chats, as a new dedicated button will launch a chatroom for everyone who's currently looking at the project. Google expects the speedier Drive socialization to reach us within a day or two, and it's planning to bolster the update with wider file support sometime in the near future.

Filed under: Internet, Google

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Source: Google Drive Blog