Google Drive offers 5GB of free cloud storage, Dropbox/Evernote can’t be chuffed

Google has officially announced Google Drive, billing it as a “place where you can create, share, collaborate, and keep all of your stuff.”

The service lets users upload and access files such as photos, Google Docs, PDFs, Adobe Photoshop, and Illustrator files as well as HD video and will go head to head with established cloud storage offerings like Dropbo and Evernote.

Desktop apps for Windows and OS X are already available, and there’s an app for Android too. Apple/iOS integration is billed as coming in the next few weeks.

Here’s how Google describe the benefits:

Create and collaborate. Google Docs is built right into Google Drive, so you can work with others in real time on documents, spreadsheets and presentations. Once you choose to share content with others, you can add and reply to comments on anything (PDF, image, video file, etc.) and receive notifications when other people comment on shared items.
Store everything safely and access it anywhere (especially while on the go). All your stuff is just… there. You can access your stuff from anywhere—on the web, in your home, at the office, while running errands and from all of your devices. You can install Drive on your Mac or PC and can download the Drive app to your Android phone or tablet. We’re also working hard on a Drive app for your iOS devices. And regardless of platform, blind users can access Drive with a screen reader.
Search everything. Search by keyword and filter by file type, owner and more. Drive can even recognize text in scanned documents using Optical Character Recognition (OCR) technology. Let’s say you upload a scanned image of an old newspaper clipping. You can search for a word from the text of the actual article. We also use image recognition so that if you drag and drop photos from your Grand Canyon trip into Drive, you can later search for [grand canyon] and photos of its gorges should pop up. This technology is still in its early stages, and we expect it to get better over time.