Google keeps taking tiny steps toward creating a full-fledged document creation and editing experience to users of computers and mobile devices. Recently, Google unveiled an HTML5-powered app for the Chrome browser that lets you read documents offline—but not edit them. Yesterday, Google brought the same offline viewing capability to Docs for Android, but again without the ability to edit documents and then sync the changes once an Internet connection is reestablished.

Once you've updated the Docs app for your Android phone or tablet, you can select individual documents that you want to make available offline. The document is downloaded and it will then be available in a list of offline documents. Once you've granted a document offline status, though, the offline version will be updated automatically when you connect to Wi-Fi.

Google provides some more instructions on how to use offline Docs for Android. "You can make an item available offline while you have an Internet connection. You can also request to make an item available offline when your device is disconnected from the Internet," Google said. "The item will update the next time your device regains Internet connectivity."

Unfortunately, Google noted that "offline editing isn't currently supported," and hasn't yet said when it will be offered. In September, when the company introduced offline Docs access for Chrome, Google said future versions of the browser would support offline editing, but we're still waiting for that to arrive as well. On the plus side, Gmail's offline mode in Chrome can work somewhat like a regular mail client, allowing you to reply to e-mails offline and have them sent automatically when an Internet connection is established.

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Microsoft's new version of Internet Explorer has barred browser plugins in the Metro environment. But Microsoft has revealed a method that plugin-dependent websites can use to leap over Metro's walls and reach the green fields of the conventional Windows desktop, where Flash is still allowed to roam free.

The relevance of proprietary browser plugins is declining as standards-based Web technologies mature. Native Web technologies don't yet supply complete functional equivalence with the capabilities of plugins, but the open Web has the advantage of greater ubiquity.

Facebook is hoping investors will "like" the social network just as much as its users already do. Following a series of rumors that have multiplied in recent weeks, Facebook filed for Initial Public Offering (IPO) on Wednesday with the Securities and Exchange Commission at a value of $5 billion.

The impending IPO has been widely expected among investors and tech circles for some time, with the earliest rumors going back for years. Some expected the company to raise upwards of $100 billion (yes, you read that right—one hundred billion US dollars) but according to the company's S-1 filing with the SEC, Facebook is aiming for a much more reasonable $5 billion to start.

The "iMessage bug" that causes text, video, and picture messages to go to the wrong phone has reportedly hit an Apple Store employee, and allegedly without his knowledge. According to a story over at Gizmodo, the staff of that site has been "spying" on the texts sent by someone who appears to work at an Apple Store thanks to the help of a reader whose son recently had his iPhone fixed by a store Genius. The employee's text messages sent to and from his friends now appear to be going to the reader's son's phone, which not only include some racy sexts, but also some "interesting" photos.

First, the backstory for those of you catching up. In December, Ars discovered (thanks to the help of several readers) that iMessages could go to the wrong iPhones and expose huge swaths of your personal information to a stranger. At the time, the premise was that an iPhone stolen by a thief could be remote wiped by you and deactivated through your carrier, yet when you set up your new iPhone, the iMessages designated for you would go to both your new and old phone. This means that someone who steals your phone—or even just an innocent bystander who found it—could register your old phone under a new number and still send and receive iMessages as you. Several readers told us tales about this happening to them; one reader in particular explained how he had conversed directly with the possessor of his wife's stolen phone, who was just as confused as he was.

Apple has a new update for Mac OS X Lion, version 10.7.3. The update's indicate that it's a relatively minor bump, with myriad bug fixes for things like smart card logins, printing Word documents using markup, WiFi connection issues, and more. The operating system update also comes bundled with a small version bump for Safari, which is now at version 5.1.3.

In addition to the aforementioned bugs, the 10.7.3 update addresses an issue when authenticating to an SMB DFS share, a graphics performance issue in iMacs that use ATI graphics, compatibility issues with Windows file sharing, and adds support for a handful of new languages (Catalan, Croatian, Greek, Hebrew, Romanian, Slovak, Thai, and Ukrainian). As is often the case, the company also added for a handful of new cameras and there are a number of fixes listed out for Directory Services.

On top of the 10.7.3 update, Apple also released a security update for users, the contents of which have not yet been posted to Apple's as of this writing.