Google is taking one more step into Microsoft's territory by allowing Office users to sync and access their documents through Google—without having to leave the Office interface. The service is being called Google Cloud Connect for Microsoft Office, and already works with Office 2003, 2007, and 2010 (no word on the Mac versions of Office, though).

Google Cloud Connect for Microsoft Office used to be through DocVerse, a company that Google acquired in March of this year. DocVerse allowed Office users to edit their documents collaboratively on the Web, much like Google Docs. Office does (now) come with its own collaboration tools, but they work differently than Google and DocVerse, and some users prefer the real-time editing nature of Google's services.

Immediately following the acquisition announcement, Google rolled out a migration tool for Microsoft Exchange, showing that it was serious about going after Microsoft's customers. The reintroduction of DocVerse as Google Cloud Connect for Microsoft Office only furthers that goal—Google says it's meant for users who haven't yet migrated to Google Docs and prefer the Office interface.

"Once synced, documents are backed up, given a unique URL, and can be accessed from anywhere (including mobile devices) at any time through Google Docs," group product manager Shan Sinha said in a statement. "And because the files are stored in the cloud, people always have access to the current version."

Just like Google Docs, Office documents that are synced with Cloud Connect for Office can be shared and edited simultaneously among multiple users. It can be done within Office, too, so editing in a Web browser isn't necessary. Google keeps track of the revisions so that documents can be reverted if necessary.

Google says that the service is now available to "trusted testers" and for Google Apps for Business customers to preview. The company didn't give a date for when the final product will be available, but said that the product will be free to everyone (regular users included) when it launches.

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Netflix has finally introduced its long-awaited streaming-only plan. Netflix VP of Marketing Jessie Becker wrote in a blog post Monday morning that the new plan would cost $7.99 per month—$1 less than the old one-DVD-plus-streaming plan—and that those who only want to stream will get no DVDs by mail. Those who still want to stream and get DVDs will have to open their wallets, though, because the company is raising prices on all of its DVD plans.

Becker said that Netflix's selection of streaming TV and movies had "grown dramatically" and that the price increase on the DVD-plus-streaming plans would "allow us to continue to offer the popular plan choice of unlimited TV episodes and movies streaming instantly along with unlimited DVDs." That means the previous $8.99 1-DVD plan is now $9.99, the $13.99 2-DVD plan is now $14.99, and the $16.99 3-DVD plan is now $19.99, and so on.

"You might also wonder why we haven’t introduced a new plan that includes only DVDs by mail," Becker wrote. "The fact is that Netflix members are already watching more TV episodes and movies streamed instantly over the Internet than on DVDs, and we expect that trend to continue."

Netflix's streaming service has been available since 2007, but has always been an add-on to the traditional disc plans. Netflix has, however, been promising to roll out a streaming-only plan since early 2009 when the company's CEO said the company's goal for 2010 was to "be successful in streaming."

The new streaming-only plan is no doubt targeted at users who watch copious amounts of Netflix content on Rokus, Apple TVs, Boxee boxes, and Xboxes. Personally, I can go weeks without remembering to send back my one DVD to get a new one, but I will have a hard time deciding whether I want to save $2 per month and go all streaming. Some of the best movies are still DVD-only on Netflix (a long-standing complaint among prolific streamers), and the occasional DVD is sometimes nice to have. For those of you who subscribe to Netflix, will you cut discs out of your life for $7.99 per month?

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As the holiday season approaches, the Righthaven law firm has opted to give peace a chance. The scan-for-content-and-sue outfit has extended an olive branch to one of its latest targets—the Democratic Underground web site. Like the law firm's previous victims, DU posted some text from Righthaven's main client, the Las Vegas Review Journal, and was consequently sued for cash under the claim of copyright infringement.

"Everyone who has a Google account should visit their Dashboard once a year," Google product manager Jonathan McPhie told me in a meeting room at Google's Chicago office. "It's like Google's way of showing you our hand—let you see what info we have on you—and allow you to change it."

As the holidays draw near and people turn to the Internet to do their gift research and shopping, Google is on a renewed push to make users aware of the plethora of privacy settings available to them. But even when they're not trying to hide their jewelry purchases from their spouses, much of the general population is blissfully unaware of what can be done to keep their personal information in check. "We want it to be something that your grandma can understand," McPhie said.

"This is not an e-mail killer. This is a messaging system that has e-mail as part of it."

That's how Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg described the company's revamped messaging system, introduced at a special press event in San Francisco today. The more-than-just-e-mail system is meant to consolidate all of a user's interactions with other people—whether it's via SMS, Facebook messages, or e-mail—into one spot. Of course, Facebook wants it all to live on its own servers.

Zuckerberg started out by saying that teenagers don't use e-mail because it's too slow, but older folks still depend on e-mail to communicate with friends and family. Someone stuck in the middle might find it difficult to manage communications with different people on different mediums—I might have to text my 16-year-old cousin to get any kind of response, but e-mail my 90 year old grandfather. 

"I'm always keeping a lookup table in my head of who I need to reach out to and how to get ahold of them, and it should just be two things: a person and a message," said Facebook director of Engineering Andrew Bosworth.

The US government is preparing to appoint a privacy czar and introduce legislation to address growing concerns over Internet privacy. The announcement is expected to come within weeks along with a report from the US Commerce Department, though at this point, the details are apparently far from being hammered out.

The government has historically taken a largely hands-off approach to online privacy, leaving the industry to self-regulate except in extreme cases. According to unnamed insiders speaking to the Wall Street Journal, however, the industry's self-regulation is no longer enough. Under the administration's proposal, role of the privacy czar would be to "guide" the debate over future legislation.

In addition to the new position, a task force has been formed in order to oversee the Commerce Department's recommendations, comprised of Commerce Department general counsel Cameron Kerry and Department of Justice assistant attorney general Christopher Schroeder.

Unsurprisingly, the Commerce Department wouldn't comment on the rumor, but did say that the Obama administration is "committed to promoting policies that will preserve consumer privacy online while ensuring the Web remains a platform for innovation, jobs, and economic growth. These are complementary goals, because consumer trust in the Internet is essential for businesses to succeed online."

There have been numerous privacy issues that have gotten the attention of Congress lately, including the high-profile Facebook app data breach and Google's "accidental" WiFi data collection by Street View cars. Crackdowns on some of these issues have been led by countries with more aggressive privacy laws, with the Federal Trade Commission lagging behind, which the WSJ's sources indicate is the purpose of the new initiative: to bring the US up to speed.

"It's difficult for consumers to act in their own interest if the law doesn't meet their basic expectations," Commerce Department Assistant Secretary Lawrence E. Strickling said in October, foreshadowing the upcoming report.

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In Mac OS X 10.2 Jaguar, Apple introduced IPv6 support. Like other IPv6-capable operating systems, Mac OS will prefer IPv6 over IPv4 if it has a choice. That is, until yesterday's 10.6.5 Snow Leopard update. With regular IPv6 connectivity, the newly updated Snow Leopard will still try to connect over IPv6 first, but for IPv6 destinations that are reachable over 6to4, the snowy cat prefers IPv4 instead. It will only connect over 6to4 to IPv6 destinations if there's no IPv4.

Facebook integration still hasn't returned to iTunes' Ping, but Apple's social music service has gained at least one ally. Twitter announced Thursday that users could begin linking their accounts from within Ping in order to share their music discoveries with a wider audience, and indeed, iTunes users have been greeted with a new banner telling them to add their Twitter accounts.

"[W]henever you Post, Like, Review, or tell your friends why you purchased a song or album on Ping, this activity will also be tweeted to your Twitter followers—complete with playable song previews and links to purchase and download music from iTunes," reads the Twitter blog post.

If you click on a link shared through Ping from Twitter's website, you'll even be able to see the song details right there on the site, along with a song preview.

The integration is also meant to help Ping users more easily find their Twitter friends on the service—this was the original goal of Ping's Facebook integration, for the half-day that Facebook was connected to the service. When we tried this feature ourselves, however, it didn't seem to work—Ping seems to think that I have no friends on Twitter who use Ping, which I know for a fact is untrue. So, there may be some kinks to work out between Ping and Twitter.

There's still some possibility that Facebook integration will return to Ping one day. Last month, the Los Angeles Times reported that Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg met for dinner to discuss Ping, then later went on a "stroll" together in Palo Alto. There's no telling how well those talks went, though, or when (if ever) Facebook might return. In the meantime, the Twitter integration will surely help users remember that Ping exists—that is, if users remember to hook up their accounts in the first place.

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