Here is a small but useful update to Google Drive: the hyperlink tool, which isn’t exactly the most glamorous part of any online editor, now automatically shows you top search results from Google, bookmarks in a document and related files on Drive that you can link to with just a simple click. You only have to highlight the word you want to link, click on the hyperlink icon (or press Ctrl-K if you prefer keyboard shortcut) and off you go.
Opera detailed a proposal for NEX, the Navigator Extension format, a new vendor-neutral browser extension packaging format that it hopes to turn into a future W3C standard for packaging cross-browser, add-on development. Currently, Chromium-based browsers use Google’s CRX format for delivering browser extensions. Opera, which recently switched to Chromium, says it developed NEX to “find a solution that would allow us to extend the Chromium CRX feature set without compromising the current ecosystem that has grown up around that format.”
Apple's rolled out another beta version of iOS 7 to developers, its fourth so far. The software went out to developers Monday morning, though was originally anticipated for a release last week. The release was believed to be delayed given downtime of Apple's developer site, which is still coming back online following a security breach earlier this month.
The team behind Bootstrap, the immensely popular grid-based, front-end framework for web development, launched the first release candidate of Bootstrap 3 includes over the weekend. Besides a tweaked look and a couple of new features (and also the removal of a few others), the most important change in this update is that Bootstrap, just like its close competitor Foundation, is now mobile first and responsive by default. The announcement coincided with new data from source-code search engine meanpath, which also this weekend announced that 1 percent of the 150 million websites in its index now use Bootstrap.
Almost exactly a month ago, Microsoft launched Internet Explorer 11 as part of the Windows 8.1 preview and today, it is also launching a developer preview of IE11 for Windows 7. Sandeep Singhal, Microsoft’s group program manager for IE, told me earlier this week that IE11 for Windows 7 will bring all of the advances of IE11 for Windows 8.1 to users of Microsoft’s older operating system.
Google executive Huga Barra said that Google's Nexus family of devices will be the first to get the new version of Jellybean Android 4.3, but the Google Play Edition phones will have to wait a little while. Android 4.3 isn't a big enough upgrade to the Android software to get its own dessert name, but that doesn't mean Google fans won't be clamoring for it. So which devices will get the new release of software first?
Google launched a number of updates to Cloud Print that finally bring it to Windows and make it easier to share printers with others. Even Google knows that there are still some occasions when you just need to print something, so for the last few years, the company has been steadily improving this service. At its core, Cloud Print allows you to share your printers with others and print virtually anything from anywhere.
Just a week after a revamped Google Maps for Android launched, an update for iOS devices has hit Apple's App Store. Google Maps 2.0, which began rolling out to users worldwide on Tuesday, features support for the iPad's larger touch screen. As with last week's update to the Android version, the new iOS version seems to have a cleaner design with softer colors.
Yahoo on Monday officially opened a request site for inactive usernames, so people can start claiming any IDs that have been inactive for more than a year. The company said last month that it was doing some more cleaning on its site by closing inactive accounts. In order to save IDs from extinction, users simply had to log in before Monday.
Apple's App Store has a lot to brag about as it celebrates its fifth birthday. Over the last half decade, it helped fully realize the Swiss army-capabilities of the smartphone, which could do far more than make phone calls and browse the Internet. While not the first, it set the standard for mobile application marketplaces to come. The best part: it made apps accessible to everyone.