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"Are you still jumping out of windows in expensive clothes?" asks Tom Waits in his song, "Who are you?"

It would be beyond surprising to see Google fling more of its hardware out of low-flying dirigibles, strapped to wingsuits and courageous stuntmen, at this year's Google I/O, which begins on Wednesday.

But make no mistake: Google knows exactly "who" it is, and it's taking the confidence earned from a year of solid hits and few misses, and a strong first quarter of 2013, to define the parameters that it wants other … Read more

As users work with multiple computers and even smartphones, cloud storage is becoming more important for file access. Google Drive for Mac gives users a significant amount of storage in an easy to use platform that is available on many device types.

Google Drive for Mac comes with a free version that allows access to up to 5GB of cloud storage. Additional storage is available at different levels for a monthly fee. The program downloaded and installed into the test system quickly and did not need any user input to complete. The application itself has no real interface beyond a … Read more

Google is apparently beefing up gaming's presence on the Android platform.

The Web giant is pushing out a massive update to make games on the mobile platform more social, according to documents reviewed by the Android Police on Saturday. Tapping the Google+ social network, Google Play Services will sport multiplayer functionality, leaderboards, and cloud syncing, according to the prerelease version (v3.1.36) of the APK.

In addition to streamlining game development, the platform's social sharing capability is expected to make games more viral, perhaps attracting new users who play longer. The new service isn't yet fully … Read more

Saturday saw a first for NASA and the International Space Station, as two astronauts conducted an impromptu spacewalk to try to locate the source of a problem on the craft's exterior.

The space agency hadn't yet ordered such a spur-of-the-moment maneuver in regard to the ISS, according to the Associated Press, but when crewmembers on the craft spotted ammonia flakes floating through space beyond a window Thursday, the spacewalk was hastily planned.

After Mission Control and the ISS crewmembers prepped intensely -- for less than 48 hours -- astronauts Thomas Marshburn and Christopher Cassidy exited a hatch and … Read more

For a long time, Astrid was considered a go-to task management app for Android users. But with its recent acquisition by Yahoo and the news that it will soon be going away, fans of the app will soon be looking for alternatives. With that in mind, I've put together a list of four of my favorite to-do managers for Android. In some ways they may even outdo the popular Astrid, but feel free to tell us in the comments how you think they stack up.

Wunderlist (free) The beauty of Wunderlist lies in its simplicity. It easily syncs across … Read more

Google plans to finish defining its VP9 video codec on June 17, providing a date on which the company will be able to start using the next-generation compression technology in Chrome and on YouTube.

"Last week, we hosted over 100 guests at a summit meeting for VP9, the WebM Project's next-generation open video codec. We were particularly happy to welcome our friends from YouTube, who spoke about their plans to support VP9 once support lands in Chrome," Matt Frost, senior business product manager for the WebM Project, said in a blog post Friday.

WebM is Google's … Read more

The pallet full of mystery boxes above could be filled with USB drives, keychains, or even snap bracelets, though it's a good bet it's shiny, expensive gadgets instead.

Google teased the rather nondescript, and otherwise unexciting collection of boxes on Google+ Friday afternoon, saying only "Boom. Chrome swag has arrived. #io13."

Whatever's inside is expected to be handed out to the 5,000 developers who signed up to attend Google I/O, which kicks off on Wednesday. In the past, Google has handed out a dizzying array of gadgetry to attendees, from Android phones to … Read more

As Google gears up for its big week in the spotlight, it's making another notch in its business software belt. The city of Boston has decided to switch the e-mail provider of its 20,000 employees from Microsoft to Google, The Boston Globe reported Friday.

In addition to using Gmail instead of Microsoft Exchange, Boston will also swap in Google Docs for word processing and Google's cloud service for storing documents. The city will pay Google about $800,000 for the move but will save around $280,000 a year for dropping the Microsoft products.

Google told the … Read more