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Eric
vegan, swimmer, blogger, francophone, aspiring surgeon, pen and key collector.
Cross posted on the Google Enterprise Blog
Tens of millions of people have moved to Google Docs because it’s 100% web: it provides real-time collaboration in the browser, with no software to install, manage or upgrade. Of course, we know that many more of you still use Microsoft Office, because until recently, there weren’t many tools to help you collaborate and share with others. Now there’s more choice.
To help smooth the transition from Office to the cloud, my teammates and I founded a company called DocVerse, which was acquired by Google earlier this year. Over the last 9 months, we’ve been hard at work moving the DocVerse product to Google’s infrastructure. We’ve also renamed it Google Cloud Connect for Microsoft Office. Today, we’re pleased to take the next step towards a public launch and make it available to early testers.
For those of you who have not made the full move to Google Docs and are still using Microsoft Office, Google has something great to offer. With Cloud Connect, people can continue to use the familiar Office interface, while reaping many of the benefits of web-based collaboration that Google Docs users already enjoy.
Users of Office 2003, 2007 and 2010 can sync their Office documents to the Google cloud, without ever leaving Office. Once synced, documents are backed-up, given a unique URL, and can be accessed from anywhere (including mobile devices) at any time through Google Docs. And because the files are stored in the cloud, people always have access to the current version.
Once in the Google cloud, documents can be easily shared and even simultaneously edited by multiple people, from right within Office. A full revision history is kept as the files are edited, and users can revert to earlier versions in one click. These are all features that Google Docs users already enjoy today, and now we’re bringing them to Microsoft Office.
All you need is a Google account, and you’re ready to go. That’s it!
If you’re a Google Apps for Business customer interested in joining our preview program, please sign up here. If you’re not, don’t worry- at launch, Google Cloud Connect will be available free to everyone, including consumers.
Posted by Shan Sinha, Group Product Manager
Very Cool
The Navy's Free Electron Laser System Will be More Than Just a Death Ray
http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2010-11/navys-free-electron-laser-system-will-be-more-just-death-ray
The Navy has been seeking its “Holy Grail” free electron laser (FEL) weapon for a while now, but it would rather you think of it more as a multipurpose laser platform than a death ray. While the Navy’s ship-borne FEL, currently under development at Boeing, will certainly be used to knock incoming threats out of the sky, naval officers really want a platform that can also be used for tracking, communications, target designation, disruption, time-of-flight location, and a variety of other tasks.
Such a multipurpose tool certainly makes the Navy’s laser system seem a more practical use of funding, and a free electron laser is the proper tool for the job(s). All lasers require some kind of medium to turn light into high-energy beams—solid state lasers use crystals, while chemical lasers use (you guessed it) a stew of unfriendly chemicals. Both of those versions have their pros and cons, but neither is extraordinarily versatile; they generally power their lasers up to a certain wavelength and that’s that.
Free electron lasers, on the other hand, use a stream of supercharged electrons to power the laser at varying wavelengths. This versatility is why the Navy has referred to FELs as the Holy Grail of laser tech and why it has embarked on a $163 million quest to develop a working weapons system, $26 million of which is currently facilitating a development program at Boeing that’s due for delivery in 2012.The ability to shift wavelengths means that unlike other lasers—including the solid-state bad boy Raytheon used to knock a UAV out of the air from the deck of a ship earlier this year—an FEL system can adjust that wavelength for a variety of tasks. Further, it could run off a vessel’s power source rather than requiring its own, so it wouldn’t need to stop and reload.
That’s why, according to Danger Room’s Spencer Ackerman (who is reporting from the Office of Naval Research’s science and tech conference this week), naval program managers are excited about their FEL. Those myriad uses for the platform would require much less energy than is required for actually knocking cruise missiles out of the sky, reducing the platform’s energy energy needs.
Of course, the Navy still wants its laser to target and destroy incoming threats, and therein lies the challenge. The lower power threshold for a weaponized laser of this nature is more or less 100 kilowatts; the FEL at the DOE lab where the Navy has been sponsoring research currently runs at about 14 kilowatts. Boeing’s job is to make up the difference so the Navy’s FEL can perform tasks that require 50 watts, 100-plus kilowatts, and everything in between.
Difficult, but certainly not impossible. There’s more background on the ONR’s efforts to this point in the video below.
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