Google today officially introduced Google Drive - a
cloud service that offers up to 16TB of storage for
photos and other online content.
Google Drive goes head to head with rival cloud services
such as Dropbox and Microsoft's SkyDrive. It offers 5GB
of storage for free. People pay on a rising scale for
more space.
Google Docs is built right into Google Drive, so users
can work with others in real time on documents,
spreadsheets and presentations. Users can add and reply
to comments on anything (PDF, image, video file, etc.)
and receive notifications when other people comment on
shared items.
Google Drive can be installed on a Mac or a PC and the
Drive app can be downloaded an Android phone or tablet,
with the app also coming to iOS devices soon.
A screen reader also allows blind users to access the
service.
Drive also features a search feature that can search
using keywords, along with a filters (file type, owner
and more). Drive can even recognize text in scanned
documents using Optical Character Recognition (OCR)
technology.
Users can choose to upgrade the 5GB free storage offer
to 25GB for $2.49/month, 100GB for $4.99/month or even
1TB for $49.99/month. When you upgrade to a paid
account, users' Gmail account storage will also expand
to 25GB.
By contrast, Microsoft offers yearly contracts. It
charges $50 for maximum storage of 100GB.
Dropbox offers individual users up to 100GB at a rate of
$19.99 per month or $199 per year. It also sells larger
amounts to groups with the cost and size determined by
how many people share the space.
Drive is also working with other Google serices such as
Google + and Gmail. Users can attach photos from Drive
to posts in Google+, and soon they will be able to
attach stuff from Drive directly to emails in Gmail.
Drive is also an open platform, so Google is working
with many third-party developers so users can do things
like send faxes, edit videos and create website mockups
directly from Drive.
For more information visit
drive.google.com/start