These alerts are sent as notification cards that pop up from the lower-right corner of your computer’s desktop and from the Checker Plus icon on the Chrome toolbar.ĭrive Anywhere is similar to Checker Plus, but with fewer functions to manage your files. In addition, Checker Plus can alert you whenever a file in your Google Drive has been changed (such as a document that you’ve shared with someone to edit). You can also copy shareable web links to files, star items so they’re easy to keep track of, and upload files from your computer to Google Drive. When you click a filename, the document will open in the appropriate Google office app inside a new browser tab. With Checker Plus, you can open and manage files stored in Google Drive without launching Drive in a new browser tab. Here you can browse or search for files, as well as delete or rename them. Clicking the Checker Plus icon on the Chrome toolbar opens a panel that shows your files in your Google Drive. Drive AnywhereĬhecker Plus lets you access Google Drive and manage your files without needing to open your Google Drive home screen in a Chrome tab.
Thus, AwesomeDrive saves you from having to manually download your Office documents from Google Drive and upload them again after you’ve worked on them in Microsoft Office. Once the extension is installed in Chrome, you can open an Office document from Google Drive and it will load in the Microsoft Office application (Excel, PowerPoint, Word) that’s installed on your computer.Īfter you edit and save the document in Office, the new version of it will be saved back to Google Drive. If you use Microsoft Office and store your Office documents in Google Drive, AwesomeDrive is a must. If you regularly use Google Drive through Chrome or Chrome OS, consider adding the following extensions to make working with Drive and Google’s productivity apps more efficient and productive. But a number of Chrome browser extensions can add more file management features and other tricks to Google’s cloud storage and office apps. And today’s announcements have only “scratched the surface” of what “L” is bringing.Google Drive is a powerful business tool in its own right, especially when partnered with Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides. The “L” developer preview SDK will be made available tomorrow morning, according to Google. And finally, Google added a “Battery Saver” mode in “L” which can be triggered manually or configured to be enabled automatically when the battery is low. Project “Volta” was announced, which - amongst other features - improves the “instrumentation” of battery data through a tool called “Battery Historian.” Also announced is the JobSchedular API, which helps developers optimize power consumption in apps.
Rounding off the performance improvements in Android “L” is improved battery life. “Quite literally this is desktop gaming graphics in your pocket.” The feature was demoed at the event with a video of EPIC’s Unreal Engine 4 desktop rendering pipeline running on Android “L”. The runtime is fully 64-bit compatible, which brings “larger number registers,” “newer instruction sets,” and “increased addressable memory space.” The new runtime packs a plethora of performance improvements, and will require no tweaking on the developer side for them to take advantage of these changes.īetter Graphics with Android Extension PackĪndroid “L” is also shipping with better graphics capabilities through something the company is calling “Android Extension Pack.” The set of features includes tesselation, geometry shaders, computer shaders, and ASTC texture compression. The “L” release will run exclusively on the new “Art” runtime that was first previewed with the release of Android 4.4 KitKat, which is truly cross-platform covering ARM, x86, and MIPS processor types. Google also announced a plethora of performance improvements with the “L” release.
In the Keynote, the example of a Bluetooth watch (presumably Android Wear) was used and when the watch was removed, the device prompted for a passcode. It can take advantage of locations, Bluetooth devices that are in range, and even voice. Google has also announced something it’s calling “personal unlocking,” which enables your device to determine whether or not it is in the owner’s hand. There’s also a completely new kind of notification called a “heads-up” that is really easy to dismiss or engage with.
Swiping down gives you the full list of notifications, essentially combining the lock screen and the notification pane. Google is also enhancing the notification experience in Android “L,” bringing full access to notifications right on the lock screen. Google is calling this release the biggest in Android history, with over 5,000 completely new APIs.Īs part of Material, there are a bunch of new animations for developers to use that include sleek visual feedback that freshens the experience when users are navigating Android apps.