Google has released a second update for Google Drive just shortly after the one released earlier today. This latest update will allow all of your Google Drive documents to sync in the background so that you don't have to plan ahead. With this new feature, anytime you're offline, you can simply head to drive.Google.com

Internet outages and long plane rides shouldn't prevent you from working in Google Drive. Set up offline access so that the next time you're offline you'll still be able to view Google documents, spreadsheets, and presentations, shuffle folders around, and edit files stored in your Google Drive folder.

1. Click More on the left-hand side of the screen.
2. Select Offline Docs.
3. Setting up offline access is a two-step process. First, click the blue button that says Get the app. If you already have the app installed, you won't need to complete this step.
4. You'll be taken to the Chrome web store. Click Add to Chrome in the upper-right corner of the browser window.
5. Once the app is installed, you'll be taken to a Chrome page with the Google Drive app icon. To return to Drive, click the Google Drive icon.
6. On the right side of the dialog on the Offline Docs page, click the blue button that says Enable offline.

This is a feature that is already present in Chrome OS. Google may one day bring this feature to other browsers, though it's not clear if they have plans to do so right now.

Paul Thurrott, a known Microsoft fanboy, has released information he claims is accurate for the upcoming Xbox 720. Most will remember that Thurrott was the first to announce that Microsoft changed the launch date for the next Xbox from April 24 to May 21. Interestingly enough, Microsoft unveiled the May 21 event on April 24.

Thurrott expects (claims?) that the Xbox 720 will be released sometime in November with two pricing versions. For $499, you get the console flat-out. Or, you can buy the console for $299 with a $10/month two-year Xbox LIVE Gold contract. The $299 version ultimately ends up costing $539.

Thurrott also says that the May 21 event is just a teaser and that the full unveiling will occur at E3 in early June 2013. You can read all of his claims on the WindowsITPro site.

Apple's Worldwide Developer Conference seems to be as popular as ever with tickets for the event selling out in just two minutes. Part of the reason tickets sold out so quickly is Apple announced when they would be going on sale a day before. Another seems to be that Apple's iOS platform continues to prove popular among developers.

Compared to last year, this year's WWDC sell out was a landslide. Last year took several hours for tickets to sell out. And tickets aren't cheap: each one will set you back $1,599, placing them out of the price range for many indie developers. Google I/O, on the other hand, has a current sell-out record of about 49 minutes.

Phil Schiller:

We look forward to gathering at WWDC 2013 with the incredible community of iOS and OS X developers. Our developers have had the most prolific and profitable year ever, and we're excited to show them the latest advances in software technologies and developer tools to help them create innovative new apps. We can't wait to get new versions of iOS and OS X into their hands at WWDC.

Amazon is quite the online reseller. It's one of the few giants in the online marketplace, rivaled only by Ebay and a few others. Today, they reported their first-quarter earnings. The reported earnings managed to be mixed. On one hand, they performed way better than expectations in terms of EPS. On the other, Amazon's sales numbers fell just short of Wall Street's estimates for total sales.

Amazon Studios is working on a new way to greenlight TV shows. The pilots are out in the open where everyone can have a say. I have my personal picks and so do members of the Amazon Studios team, but the exciting thing about our approach is that our opinions don't matter. Our customers will determine what goes into full-season production. We hope Amazon Originals can become yet another way for us to create value for Prime members.

Amazon pulled in earnings-per-sahre of $0.18, beating expectations of just $0.08. Amazon also had total sales of $16.07 billion, falling just short of analyst expectations of $16.2 billion. You can read Amazon's full earnings announcement here.

The latest rumor to pop up regarding the iPhone 5S is that it will be launching in early September. During Apple's investor call on Tuesday, Tim Cook said that Apple would be announcing numerous products in the fall 2013 time period. This new rumor likely stems from that announcement. With that warning aside, let's dive in.

The latest report comes from Citigroup Global Securities who state that Apple will launch both the iPhone 5S and a low-cost iPhone in early September. The report also says that Apple is planning to launch a special TD-SCDMA version for China Mobile in late September or early October. China Mobile is one of the major carriers in China and makes up a large market for Apple to attract.

The iPhone 5S is expected to come with an Apple-designed A7 processor, 12MP camera, and iOS 7.

Toppc, a member of Chinese overclocking forum Coolaler.com, has managed to get his hands on a pre-release Ivy Bridge-E CPU. This new CPU is the successor to the Sandy Bridge-E line of CPUs on Intel's LGA 2011 platform. It's widely expected to feature up to 12 cores and 30MB of L3 cache.

The results from the comprehensive benchmark suite show that the Ivy Bridge-E CPU is somewhere between 5 and 10 percent faster than the current generation Sandy Bridge-E processors. The benchmark suite included SuperPi mod 1.6, CPU Mark '99, WPrime 1.63, Cinebench 11.5, 3DMark Vantage (CPU score), and 3DMark 06 (CPU score).

The new line of Ivy Bridge-E CPUs are expected to launch towards the end of the second half of this year. They should be mostly drop-in compatible with current LGA 2011 systems, though you'll likely need a BIOS upgrade from your manufacturer.

If you're looking forward to taking video with your shiny new Google Glass headset, I've got some bad news. According to Robert Scoble, a user with the Explorer Edition of Google Glass, shooting video can drain the battery in as little as 30 minutes. "One six-minute video I did took 20 percent of the battery."

This could end up being a deal breaker for a large majority of customers. Google has maintained that the Explorer Edition of Glass isn't for the mainstream consumer. As such, it's not the final version and still has bugs and issues to work out.

Google does have an issue with regards to battery life. They need to squeeze the most out of the smallest battery they can. If they increase the size of the battery, that extra weight takes away from the comfort during wearing.

Apple has been hit with a fine after selling an unauthorized work via its iBookstore. China's Writer's Right Protection Union sued on behalf of three authors who had their works published on the iBookstore platform. The Beijing No. 2 Intermediate People's Court ruled in favor of the Union, stating that Apple didn't verify the publishers had the right to upload the works.

The writers involved this time include Mai Jia, whose books are often on best-seller lists across the country. In this way, Apple has the capability to know the uploaded books on its online store violated the writer's copyright.

So, how much was Apple fined for this neglect? 730,000 yuan, or about $118,000. Small potatoes for a company like Apple, but it does start to add up after awhile. It's likely not large enough to encourage Apple to implement real change to prevent something like this from happening again. Real change would involve hiring more people, which costs money.

Twitter's client built for Mac OS X has been updated with Retina support, along with several other features and improvements. This marks the first major update in almost two years. Aside from Retina display support, Twitter has added simplified photo-sharing options and support for 14 new languages.

Now Twitter is even more vibrant and detailed on the highest resolution Mac notebooks. With this update, Tweets will be clearer and sharper, creating a more vivid experience.

Twitter has also renewed its commitment to the Twitter for Mac application. Ben Sandofsky, product lead for Twitter, tweeted that he's "taking a break from iOS to work on Twitter for Mac full time." This should hopefully result in more features and improvements in the coming weeks and months.

However, a Twitter spokesperson was slightly less forthcoming: "We don't have anything specific to share in regards to future plans for the app."

Google Drive is one of the productivity tools that I do not think I could live without. I use it for note taking during meetings, collaboration on projects, and even as a file sharing service for documents. This morning, Google announced some improvements to the service that should make life easier and more feature rich for those like me who use the service daily with others.

Over the next few days, users will see the addition of profile photos, one-click group chats, and even a completely new look for anonymous users. Once the update rolls out, a profile photo will be displayed at the top of a file that was created and shared to you by another user. Google is hoping that this will help you better notice everyone who is in the file with you.

In addition to the profile photo being displayed, you will be able to click on the image and add that user to your Google+ circles. Anonymous users are also affected by this change and you will see them appear as a different icon chosen at random from the list above.

Earlier this month I reported that The Pirate Bay would be switching to the .GL top level domain amidst speculation that Sweedish officials would soon seize the .se domain name. Unfortunately, Greenland officials decided that they wanted no part of the Pirate Bay's armada and suspended the purchased .gl domain before anything could be migrated.

This led to the Pirate Bay having to look yet again for a new home. This time the Pirate Bay has dropped its anchor in the land of icelandic nords, and as of this posting can be found at thepiratebay.is. The choice to move to to Iceland was due to its recent pronouncement as a safehaven for those seeking true freedom of speech. When asked if it would seek to follow Greenland's lead and shut down the piratebay.is domain, the ISNIC had the following to say:

The short answer is no. Such an action would require a formal order from an Icelandic court. ISNIC is not responsible for a registrant's usage of their domains. This policy applies equally to any .is domain. It's the domain owner's responsibility to abide by the law, not ours. There is an article in our registration rules which states that 'the registrant is responsible for ensuring that the use of the domain is within the limits of Icelandic law as current at any time'.

This morning Corsair unveiled the next chassis in its Obsidian series of high performance PC cases. The Obsidian Series 350D brings a new level of expansion, cooling and portability to the table. Like its larger Obsidian brethren, the 350D sports a sleek black brushed aluminum finish, and is designed with the custom PC enthusiast in mind.

The case is set up for fast, clean and tool-free builds as well as advanced cable management. The 350D supports both micro-ATX and mini-ITX motherboards and is roomy enough for liquid cooling, dual 3.5-inch hard drives, dual 2.5-inch drives and even dual 5.25-inch optical drives. The case has room for five expansion cards, five fan mounting points, and can fit dual 240mm radiators.

Thi La, Senior VP and GM of Memory and Enthusiast Component Products at Corsair said:

The Obsidian 350D's versatile expansion options give builders the ability to pack a lot of performance into a smaller form factor. Its stylish, compact design makes it a perfect high-performance PC case for smaller living spaces or for gaming LAN parties.

The Corsair Obsidian Series 350D is set at a MSRP of $109.99 and is available major retailers now.

This morning a screenshot appeared online of what appears to be an AnTuTu benchmark ran on the Google / Motorola X Phone. While the benchmark is cool, the truly interesting thing to be noted is the name change.

Having long been rumored as the Motorola X Phone, the screenshot shows that the device used in the benchmark was named Google X. While this could be a development codename, it is more likely that the X Phone takes on Google's name and could even become the Nexus X. To me this makes more sense as Motorola is deep in branding for the Razr line of phones.

The screenshot also seems to confirm rumors that the X Phone will run Android 5.0.1 codenamed Key Lime Pie, which was rumored to be unveiled at Google I/O. Unfortunately there are more rumors that Key Lime Pie will not make an I/O appearance due to development delays and setbacks.

This morning the United States Patent and Trade Office published a number of patents filed by Apple, two of which related to Apple's aspirations to further integrate into the automobile tech market.

The two patents describe systems that would let you control your car from an iPhone and perform such task as unlocking the doors, starting the engine remotely, and helping you figure out where you parked in that massive parking lot or parking building. The system would pair the phone and car over Bluetooth and would use a mapping system to figure out where the car is parked.

The other interesting patent involves using an iPhone to remotely start your vehicle, which is actually nothing new, but the patent picks up where others left off. Users would be able to set rules on what time periods the car can be remotely started, set a maximum speed limit for teenage drivers, and even limiting the use of the radio, or other so-called infotainment devices while the car is being operated.

News on the BlackBerry 10 front has been a little slow as of late, but this morning we are learning that Skype has finally made it into the company's app store. This is a pretty big deal considering how much Skype on BB10 was talked up at the launch, yet it has taken four months to appear.

BlackBerry Z10 owners should not get excited, though. The popular messaging and video chat service is only compatible with the Q10, which runs the latest version of BB10. This means that while the Skype is technically available on BB10, no one in the US, UK or Canada can use it at the moment.

BlackBerry says that Skype support for the Z10 is coming, but we will not see any progress made until the Q10 goes on sale. The Q10 is expected to hit the UK on April 29th with Canada following on May 1st, and a US launch in late May.

If any company has had a rough past 12 months, it has to be EA. Sales expectations were not met on big name titles such as Crysis 3, APB, and Kingdom of Amalur: The Reckoning. To top that off, several of EA's major releases such as SimCity have been plagued with issues since launch.

This morning there are several reports that EA will be closing its Partners asset as a direct result of the recent shortfalls. EA Partners is the publishing force of EA that worked with external developers like Valve to produce games like The Orange Box and Portal 2's retail versions.

Basically the idea behind EA Partners was to allow smaller developers to leverage EA's skill and experience to help promote titles without the need of an expensive dedicated in-house team. News of this pending closure comes hot on the heels of EA shutting down its Montreal Studio.

No official word has been released from EA at this point, but we are hoping to hear something soon.

Today SMART Storage Systems and Diablo Technologies are announcing a new partnership to the world. This partnership has actually been working feverishly in the background for a year and a half developing a radical new storage technology. Details of the new technology are scarce and reading the press release generates more questions than answers.

Luckily, we were able to catch up with Smart Storage Systems president John Scaramuzzo and Diablo founder and CEO Richard Badalone for an in-depth interview to shed more light on this new approach.

The high-level takeaway from the announcement is the upcoming release of a new class of storage from this new partnership, vaguely described as Ultra Low Latency (ULL) SSDs. The coming products are the fusion of SMART's Guardian Technology and Diablo's Memory Channel Storage (MCS) technologies. This new class of storage will radically transform enterprise server, virtualization, and cloud environments by taking a new approach to connecting NAND flash to the server.

It looks like Nintendo won't be having a press conference at E3 in Los Angeles later this year, compared to pretty much every E3 in history having E3 make a big splash with their press conferences at E3.

Nintendo will not be unveiling any new hardware, with their main objective to "announce and have people experience our software". Nintendo will talk about the upcoming Wii U titles, where they plan to have some of these titles in playable form at E3. They're using this years E3 to "establish a new presentation style for E3".

Instead of one big event, the Japanese giant are going to "host a few smaller events that are specifically focused on our software lineup for the U.S. market".

Rightware have announced that their mobile benchmark, Basemark X, is now available for iOS. Basemark X is a cross-platform benchmark, something we took a look at a couple of weeks ago when it was released for Android.

The iOS version can be downloaded from the Apple App Store, and can be run on iOS devices to see how they fare against Android-based devices. The next step for Rightware is Windows Phone 8, something they're working on - they're having to wait until the Unity engine is supported under Microsoft's mobile operating system.

In the near future, we'll also see the release of Basemark X for Windows on the PC, then the fun will really start! You can get Basemark X for iOS from the App Store.

After Apple released their Q2 2013 earnings yesterday, market research firms have dived head first into the numbers, churning out some interesting facts. Strategy Analytics were one of the first to start shoving numbers out, with a report released late last night.

Apple sold 19.5 million iPads in the three-month period, taking 48.2% of the global tablet market. This may sound impressive, nearly 50% of the global tablet sales are iPads - but let's rewind twelve months and look at the same quarter of 2012. Apple were enjoying a huge 63.1% of the market, meaning that we've seen a gigantic drop in Apple's dominance of the global tablet market.

If we look at Android in the same way, last year they took 34.2% of the global table market, but now they've jetted up to 43.4%. What is Apple's loss, is Google's gain, in more ways than one. We do have Windows, which isn't actually doing too badly, jumping from 0% last year to 7.5%, so Microsoft are even benefiting from Apple's slide.