Office finds a home on more smartphones.
I'm Bridget Carey and this is your CNET Update.
Microsoft Office is now on Android devices.
Office Mobile for Android includes access to Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, but it's not the same as your desktop software.
It's designed more for making quick edits to files and sharing them rather than creating a document from scratch, but to
use the app you'll have to be a subscriber to Microsoft's Office 365 service which costs $100 a year.
Microsoft recently released a similar app for iPhones, but there's no support yet for Android tablets or Apple's iPad.
The app let subscribers pick up files where they left off on their PC's since documents sync to Microsoft's SkyDrive online storage.
And speaking of SkyDrive, Microsoft will soon be changing the name of SkyDrive after losing a trademark
battle with the British Sky Broadcasting Group.
Rather than continue to fight over the Sky name, Microsoft made an agreement with Sky Broadcasting to rebrand SkyDrive, but Microsoft gets to keep using the brand name for a reasonable period of time to allow for an orderly transition to whatever the new name is going to be.
Microsoft is not saying how long that might take.
Sky Broadcasting is one of the largest providers of paid television subscriptions in the U.K. and Europe and it's been releasing mobile apps to stream its shows.
It's been rumored that Facebook plans to put video commercials in your newsfeed, and now Bloomberg is reporting that Facebook is ready to launch these 15-second video ads later this year and it could cost the advertisers between $1 million and $2.5 million to run a video for a single day.
I guess the asking price is high when you can reach more than a billion people each day.
These reported 15-second video ads would also be the perfect time length for Instagram's new
15-second videos.
How about that?
Twitter is also said to be working with television advertisers to create commercials that are synced with ads in tweets.
And keep your eye on the restaurant reservation app OpenTable.
The New York Times reports it's testing a payment processing system that would allow diners to pay for their meal using the app.
So not only would a guest book a table with the app, but they could also get a digital version of the check sent to their phone along with an easy way to add a tip before paying.
I guess
since people already have their phones on the table during dinner, you might as well put those phones to good use.
OpenTable boasts that it has 450 million users with 28,000 participating restaurants and it makes money from the fees it charges restaurants to be a part of the service.
That's your Tech News Update.
You can find more details at CNET.com/Update.
From our studios in New York, I'm Bridget Carey.
