IBM offfers Lotus Symphony, a suite of free desktop applications that includes document, spreadsheet and presentation software
Google Docs is a suite of free web-based applications that lets users create, edit and upload documents, spreadsheets and presentations or create new ones from scratch
Yahoo! bought Zimbra - a start-up that specialises in online e-mail tools similar to Microsoft Exchange and Outlook, key parts of the Office family – in September . Link
3D modeling for the rest of us became a little more intelligent today with Google's announcement of SketchUp 7 and SketchUp Pro 7, new versions of its popular modeling software.
Amid a healthy collection of new features in SketchUp 7 and SketchUp Pro 7 is a new type of "Dynamic Components," or 3D models that "are aware of what they are and behave like the real-world objects they represent." Google uses the example of a dynamic staircase which can automatically gain or lose steps when using SketchUp's Scale too to increase or decrease its size. Dynamic Components also maintain resolution when scaling them, can be designed for easy configuration out of the box, thanks to a new Component Options dialog that allows for adjusting aspects without having to get one's hands dirty with modeling tools.
Also new in SketchUp 7 and SketchUp Pro 7 is the integration of the Google 3D Warehouse, a public area where users can upload and share models they have created. Google announced the 3D Warehouse when it originally released a free version of SketchUp in 2006, after the acquisition of the application from @Last Software.
Until now, however, Google 3D Warehouse and its millions of user-generated components could only be searched and accessed externally via a browser, outside of SketchUp. Along with this integration for Google 3D Warehouse, the company has also introduced an attribution layer to the warehouse that allows users to tag their creations with their name, ensuring that credit is given where due.
A number of other features have arrived for both SketchUp and its big Pro brother, including an Interact tool that can trigger built-in Dynamic Component behaviors like animations or color changes, custom templates, antialiasing for textures, various UI tweaks, and the ability to edit textures in external photo editors. SketchUp Pro 7 pulls ahead with tabular report generation, LayOut 2 (which brings the component out of beta) with Vector Rendering for resolution-independent drawings of large or complex models, editable paths for curves on any shape, image exporting options, a new Styles feature that can bring an organic look to models, and an "explode" mode allows users to perform more fine-grained tweaking.
Check out a new Google-produced video below that demonstrates the new features in SketchUp 7.
SketchUp has enjoyed a healthy amount of interest from users and the third-party community ever since Google purchased the software and introduced a free version. Besides the aforementioned 3D Warehouse that Google says is packed with millions of shared models, a wide variety of SketchUp plug-ins are also available, including one from Adobe that allows Photoshop CS3 Extended to search and work directly with models from the warehouse.
The base version of SketchUp 7 remains free for personal use, and is available for Mac OS X (10.4+) and Windows (2000/XP/Vista) users. SketchUp Pro 7 costs $495 for professional use.
Google has put up a mobile version of Google Docs (docs.google.com/m) that allows you to view saved documents from an iPhone or other "rich-browser" equipped mobile device. Google Blogoscoped first reported the site’s existence earlier this morning, but so far Google hasn’t made any public announcements. There is a single entry help page, which offers the following hints:
At this point, we support both the iPhone and Blackberry mobile devices. Note, however, that presentations are only supported on the iPhone.
Google Docs documents and spreadsheets should also work on phones that offer rich-browser support. While we haven’t tested it across all mobile devices, a good rule of thumb is that the more advanced your phone’s browsing capabilities, the more seamlessly Google Docs will work.
I tested out the new service on my iPhone and it does work, though Safari choked a couple of times on the login page. It’s possible to view most document types as HTML — I tested both Word and Excel files and was able to view both without any trouble.
There doesn’t seem to be a way to edit documents, but of course, since the iPhone can’t handle the Javascript interface necessary to edit Google Docs documents on main page, that’s not surprising.
On the bright side, the new mobile site does offer a much faster interface if you just want to view some of your saved documents.
If anyone out there tests the new site on a Blackberry or other smart phone, let us know what you find.
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