Google set to launch 'online hard drive'

Google is set to extend its online storage services in a bid to become a central repository for the public’s digital data. The web giant is understood to be readying a new data storage service -- thought to be dubbed “GDrive” -- that would allow users to store digital files such as music tracks on the internet and access them via a web browser.

A spokesman for Google refused to comment directly on speculation that the company will launch the service in a matter of weeks, but said: “Storage is an important component of making web [applications] fit easily into consumers' and business users' lives.”

Last year Google inadvertently leaked a presentation memo that outlined its plans in data storage -- moves apparently designed to make the hard drives installed on personal computers all but defunct.

Read full story in Times OnLine