Google Docs Upgrade... Are They a Collaboration Leader?

Loading my regular tabs in Firefox today, I noticed that Google Docs had received a new update. I am not sure when they released the update but it caught my attention.

The main change that is noticeable is the new user interface. This new UI actually makes it IMHO more user friendly and presents the user's doc collection in a more familiar layout.

It provides a user with a view of his documents and has converted the document tags into folders. This is definitely an update that is useful for the overall functionality.

I am actually still impressed by the ease of use of Google Docs and the ability to collaborate in it with other people. It impress me because they have basically succeeded in creating a easy to use collaboration environment. Something that corporations, including the one I work for, are having an enormous trouble implementing... Makes you wonder why a company who has no vested interest in providing these types of services achieves it better than a corporate IT department whose users are crying out for it!

Why no news...

I have to admit my Blogging has been kind of slow of late. To be truthful I am spending way too much of my free time on WoW. What to do... You spend so much time on medical leave you loose track of the real world and immerse yourself.

But there are some more concrete reasons as well. To be truthful, I have not come across anything really worth writing about in great detail (a ping on Twitter is enough). I also don't want to add to the blah-blah about the good and bads of some of the important tech news lately like why the iPhone needs to be better for Europe, etc...

No worries... I'll blog when the time is good and right and when the Rhum flows.

Steve Jobs Calls AppleTV a Hobby

This video of Steve Jobs was taken during at the All Things Digital 2007 conference. The extracts from the complete discussion are quite interesting. What amused me the most is how he describes the Apple business being 3 things; one of them being a hobby :- the AppleTV ;-)

But the best part is Steve Jobs talking about iTunes on Windows and describing it as «giving a glass of ice water to someone in hell»! LOL...

Microsoft Surface Announced

Microsoft yesterday evening announced its new human interface environment named Surface. The solution is quite impressive and provides a coffee table type screen with multi-touch input, something like what has been included in the Apple iPhone but in a bigger format. Check out the Popular Mechanics Video on Surface.

Interestingly enough this is not a «brand new» idea or technology. Microsoft, Apple and Synaptic are just commercializing an innovate solution developed by the Jeff Han at the New York University called Multi-Touch Interaction Research. I had, for my current job, helped identify this solution as a new and more intuitive mechanism for user to data interaction. I still believe it will be an incredible advance in the way we visualize and interact with data! ;-) What is good is that both Microsoft and Apple are really bringing this to the forefront and into the mainstream...

Definitely something to watch!

Whoa! StarCraft II Finally Announced

I was no great fan of the original StarCraft. I was more of a Emperor - Battle for Dune or Dark Reign fan. This weekend Blizzard finally made the long awaited announcement that StarCraft II was in production and slated for release sometime in the near future [does that mean this year or next or ??? :- I wonder ;(]

The new version promises quick a fair bit of upgrades to the previous incarnation, including:

• More distinctive race attributes meaning that the different playable races will have specific gaming elements;
• Upgraded abilities for the original units that were present in the original
• Uses a 3D engine that "realistic physics and the ability to render several large, highly detailed units and massive armies on-screen simultaneously."
• Map editing to make your own battle grounds
• Provides multiplayer support but only through battle.net if what has been currently written is true.

The hype intrigued me to check out the initial coverage from the usual places 1Up.com, GameSpot, IGN, etc. The game itself looks pretty impressive. IMHO when you see images like these and play footage like this you hard pressed to wonder if you will be able to resist not getting the game. My primary worry is what kind of processing power this is going to require.

I do have one regret though, why is it not MMORPG like? With World of Warcraft, Blizzard is leader of the pack in this domain so why not apply some of these learned techniques to new games... maybe for the 3rd iteration!

For more coverage check-out this 1Up story.