Google Gears

Google is now on the path to making its Web-based apps available offline.

Google Gears is an open source browser extension that lets developers create web applications that can run offline. For now, it consists components called LocalServer, Database and WorkerPool.

Only the Google Reader will be made for offline use for now. However, as time goes on, other useful applications such as Docs and Spreadsheets, Calendar and Gmail will be put for offline use.
With the talk about a Google Presentation Software (see my previous post), the bringing of these applications offline could post a serious competition to Microsoft in the future.

For interested developers, take a look at Google Gears Developer Website: http://code.google.com/apis/gears/index.html

Google Gears (Beta) can be found at: http://tools.google.com/gears/

Tech News: Google's PowerPoint

I guess this is expected every since the inception of Google Docs and Spreadsheets.
Google's future launch of a presentation tool was confirmed at the Web 2.0 Expo Google CEO Eric Schmidt. Expect integration of all their products (i.e. Blog, Docs, spreadsheet, presentation and mail. etc.)

Schmidt stressed that their office suite isn’t a threat to Microsoft. Of course, users feel slightly otherwise. Docs and Spreadsheet came after the acquisition of Writely and it seems that this time, the presentation tool announcment comes after the acquisition of Tonic Systems.

However, a search on the internet lists some sites saying that this technology has in fact been used in meetings at Google, fueling thoughts that this product has been under development for sometime now.

Most probably, the new tool will allow for the conversion of a document into a presentation, create slides and view full-screen presentations.

For now, consumers will have to wait for its slated release in Summer...

Chart functionality in Google Spreadsheets

In another move that brings Google Spreadsheet's functions up to scratch, Google has added Chart functionality in its Online Spreadsheet program. Chart functionality was one area which Google Spreadsheets was lacking.

With the new feature, you can now create a decent number of types of charts: columns, bars, lines, pie, scatter. Just select the columns you want to plot and click on the new chart icon. Charts can be saved as a PNG file.

However, Charting is only available for Firefox 1.5 and above and Internet Explorer 5.5 and above. Users of other browsers will have their charts rendered as images, thus users will not be able to edit these images..

Here is a screenshot of the new function:



Other new features include Range Names and Comments. For more information, go to http://www.google.com/google-d-s/whatsnew.html

Google Spreadsheets can be found at: http://docs.google.com