TECH SPECIAL..WHAT DOES GOOGLE DRIVE OFFER?

Going on a ride with Google Drive

Rumours of Google coming up with their own cloud storage service started as far back as 2006. Now that it has been officially announced

 A quick look what it offers and how it stacks up against the competition.

WHAT IS GOOGLE DRIVE?

Google Drive is the name for Google's new cloud-based storage service. It inlcudes 5GB of free space while paid plans start as low as US$ 2.49 ( 130) per month for an additional 25GB. If you are already a paid subscriber of a Google storage plan for Gmail or Picasa, you automatically get 25GB on Google Drive instead of 5GB. Like most cloud services, Drive offers Windows and Max OS X apps as well as mobile apps for Android devices (iOS support is expected soon). Drive will play a vital role in Google's Chrome OS operating system in the near future.

WHAT CAN YOU USE IT FOR?

Like any other cloud storage service, you can use Google Drive to store and sync files across various devices. Not only can you store files safely, you can even open/view various supported files (HD videos, Photoshop image files, Illustrator design files and so on) within Drive's user interface in any modern browser. Google has also incorporated optical character recognition in Drive — you can upload images/documents and use Drive to recognise objects or extract text. And since it works across Google services, you can upload files directly from one to other.

HOW IS IT DIFFERENT FROM OTHER SERVICES?

What makes Google Drive stand out is the fact it’s not just a simple cloud storage service. Google leveraged their existing Google Docs platform for Google Drive — making it an always-accessible, document editing and cloud service. Drive also tracks changes done to documents and keep revision copies of up to 30 days — you can choose to restore any version of the edited document if required. Google Drive is the only service that offers extensive file format support for viewing within its interface. And finally, Drive will soon integrate with all other Google products.

Karan Bajaj