LG has announced it is bringing a "complete 3D package" to the UK, courtesy of its LX9900 3D TV and BX580 3D Ready Blu-ray player.

Using the company's ultra-thin Infinia design, the LX9900 (which launched at CES as the LE9500) is available in both 47-inch and 55-inch versions and will offer Full HD 3D picture quality.

This means the TV will be using 'active shutter' technology which has also been favoured by the likes of Samsung, Panasonic and Sony.

·The TV is said to be Full LED and comes complete with TruMotion 400Hz for ultra-smooth images.

The LX9900 has Freeview HD inside, offers a 10,000,000:1 Dynamic contrast ratio and 4x HDMI 1.4 ports.

And the LX9900 will be web-enabled too. Using LG's Netcast technology, you will be able to pick up apps for YouTube, Picasa and Accu Weather.

Doesn't come with glasses

Alongside the telly is the BX580 3D Ready Blu-ray player. This also uses HDMI 1.4 and means that you can spin 3D Blu-rays (when they eventually appear).

The BX580 has Wi-Fi capabilities, bringing with it the Netcast experience.

There's also a UB connection on-board and you can also hook the system up to you DLNA network.

LG is pushing for UK release date of May for both the LX9900 and BX580 (sooner than expected), with pricing to be announced.

Annoyingly, you will not get any 3D glasses bundled in with the TV. As they are active shutter, his means that you will potentially have to fork £100 extra for each set.

Sharp has told TechRadar that is keen to force its way back to the forefront of the UK public's consciousness, admitting that the brand has not been viewed as strongly since a high-profile sponsorship with Manchester United ended 10 years ago.

From 1982 to 2000 Sharp was the shirt sponsor of one of the biggest sports brands in the world in a period of explosive growth for Manchester United and huge success for the club.

However, Vodafone took over the sponsorship for the 2000-2001 season, and Sharp's long association with the Old Trafford club ended.

A brand decline

A decade on and Sharp's marketing communications manager Martin Arnold admits that the end of an era in football also marked a slide away for Sharp in the UK.

"I wouldn't say that it marked a step back from the UK market [for Sharp]," said Arnold. "I would say it was when a lot of people started to think that the brand was going into decline.

"When you say Sharp to people today many of them either bring up Manchester United or microwave ovens that have lasted for 20 years."

"Since we stepped away from Manchester United the awareness of Sharp has fallen."

New beginning

Sharp is pumping huge amounts of money into publicising its latest technology – Aquos Quattron televisions that add a yellow pixel to the familiar primary three of red green and blue – and Arnold believes that the time has come to bring the Sharp brand back to the forefront in the UK.

"We believe so much in this technology and that is why we are investing so heavily," he added.

Should Sharp want to get back on the Manchester United shirts, it may have to pump significantly more into its marketing budget.

Current Manchester United sponsors AIG spent £14 million per season for sponsorship, and will be replaced by Aon next season who are rumoured to have paid 80 million for a four-year deal.

Sony showcased its latest television range in London today, but told TechRadar that it is not going to start major publicity on 3D until the UK market is ready.

Speaking to TechRadar, Christian Brown, Senior Category Marketing Manager Home Entertainment for Sony, explained the company's stance on 3D noting: "Our big push for 3D will be in June.

"We are doing it then because that is when the 3D content will be in the market, so we are not going to do a major push on something that isn't currently here."

3D content creation

Sony has two ranges of TVs which will be 3D Ready - the LX and HX series, both of which will be out in the UK in June. It is only the LX which is 3D enabled, however, with the HX able to process 3D content but only with the addition of a £50 transmitter add-on.

Sony isn't fazed that some of its biggest rivals – including Samsung and Panasonic – are flooding the shops with 3D Ready TVs before the company, with Brown explaining that Sony is well prepared to offer the best 3D experience.

"Sony really wants to be the leader on 3D. The fact that we create the content and also bring it to the home is massive for us.

"Things like the Fifa World Cup will be filmed in 3D, with our technology, and we have the rights to this. In fact 3D crosses all of Sony's product ranges, except for Sony Ericsson."

As for who will be leading the 3D when it comes to content, Brown believes that it will be videogames. But this will only lead to wider appeal.

"We are very much pitching 3D at the mass market," says Brown.

"Because of this, the focus [for Sony] is on the benefits 3D brings, instead of the technology.

"It's about educating and inspiring people with 3D."

Sony revealed more details of its Bravia Internet Video service today, which is available through its latest web-connected Blu-ray players.

The service is Sony's push into bringing web content to your TV, with the company trying to make it as easy as possible for you to enjoy internet content from your television set.

TechRadar were given a demo of the service and were impressed with what we saw. As it uses Sony's now-familiar XMB – well, familiar if you are a PS3 user – there's a sense of simplicity to how you access content.

All you need to do is flick to the Video section of the XMB and a number of feeds will be available to view.

Guiding us through Bravia Internet video was Ed Uzzell, Proposition Development Manager Services and Revenue Development at Sony, who explained a number of the features we can expect to find.

"One of our big partners is LoveFilm," explained Uzzell.

"While the films are only available in standard def at the moment, you can start streaming them straight away."

Streaming will be a main part of the service as there isn't actually any way to keep the content you are looking at. Unlike, say a PVR, as the service is on Blu-ray player – there's no hard drive inside for archiving.

We asked Uzzell why Sony chose LoveFilm and hadn't just gone with its own on-demand service Qirocity (which is out in the US). He noted that while Qirocity is coming to Europe ("timeline TBC"), the movies on it will be somewhat different.

"LoveFilm has a great selection of Indies. Qirocity will house all the premium movies when it comes to market."

One of the other big partners for Bravia Internet Video is Channel 5. Its Demand Five catch-up site is also included – offering shows like Home & Away and Neighbours to view whenever you want.

The quality of the stream was more than passable, something which Sony is priding itself on.

"Although the original source size picture is quite small, Sony's Bravia Engine 3 kicks in and scales it up to whatever size your TV is," explains Uzzell.

Bravia Internet Video isn't just about content you can already find on your television, though.

Sony is looking to bring in shows from which may not have mass appeal. One which we were shown was the Digital Concert Hall, which features music and visuals from the Berlin orchestra.

Some of this content will be free but there will be subscription elements to it. It seems that Sony is happy to be a provider of content for niche markets but only if it's of a good quality.

"The Bravia Internet Video service could cater for more niche content. For instance we have the TED Talks for the tech geeks. But we don't want every man and his dog on the service.

"We need to get the right content and the right strategy behind it."

One of the ways to do this is to offer subscription-based services. Something Sony is doing but keeping to a minimum.

"The Bravia Internet Service is not about erecting a massive pay-wall," notes Uzzell. "90 per cent of the content will be available for free, with some subscription deals in place.

"There will be RSS feeds you can subscribe to and unsubscribe too, so you can make the service your own."

Bravia Internet Video is definitely a step in the right direction for bringing web content to TVs.

With the likes of iPlayer launching on the service at the end of the month – and you can expect more big-names to come on board soon – as long as the content keeps on coming Sony may well be on to something special.

All users of Humax's Freesat Foxsat-HD and Foxsat-HDR set top boxes will now be able to use the BBC iPlayer through the red button.

Humax has successfully completed a beta trial of a red button catch-up service and has now rolled out the functionality to all users.

"After successful BETA testing, the highly anticipated BBC iPlayer service, which enables viewers to search and view a range of programmes, is now freely available to all owners of a Humax Foxsat-HD or Foxsat-HDR box, so they can play their favourite shows from the past seven days direct to their televisions," confirmed Humax.

It 'beta' work

Users will need to make sure that their Humax Freesat box is connected to both the internet and satellite dish, press the red button when on a BBC channel and then either navigate to the somewhat confusing BBC iPlayer Beta option in the list or type in 7001 on the remote control.

Graham North, Commercial Director, Humax UK comments: "We are excited about being the first to offer this fantastic new service via the set-top box.

"Our customers enjoy being in control of their TV viewing and BBC iPlayer on Freesat gives them even more freedom to watch what they want, whenever they want to."

MSN Video Player has been a big enough success through a pilot scheme to be launched as a major new product, and Microsoft is not ruling out offering the service to television manufacturers, on Xbox and through the forthcoming Windows Phone 7 Series.

A million people have already used the ad-funded and free MSN Video Player in beta to watch full-length programmes, trailers and clips, enough of an audience to convince the portal that the service has the appeal to become a key asset for Microsoft.

With users staying for an average of 25 minutes – far more than major catch-up services like ITV Player and 4OD – and advertisers champing at the bit to buy up pre-roll adverts before the features, Microsoft has now sealed deals with the likes of Endemol and Shed Media to expand their offering further.

Thousand hours

"We are expanding our catalogue to over 1,000 hours," explained MSN's Rob Crossen. "We've signed a number of new deals…we've gone out there and sourced content that appeals to our audience.

"The other aspect is that we are launching a new platform and it really puts content at the centre. It's not about other brands it's really about programmes.

"The reasons we are chasing the audiences that we are is that we know there is advertiser demand for those audiences because they are very tech savvy.

"It's not a discussion around getting thousands and thousands of hours [of content] it's more about a targeted offering."

The platform is optimised for Microsoft's Silverlight - support that was notably missing from the pilot - although it also works with Flash, and some of the content is available in HD streaming at 720p on connections of 2Mbps and upwards.

Xbox, Windows Phone 7 Series and widgets

With comparisons to the iPlayer inevitable, it's clear that Microsoft could roll out the MSN Video Player to television, its Xbox console, Windows Phone 7 Series and set-top boxes – in the same way as the BBC has puched its offering on multiple platforms from Virgin Media cable to the iPhone.

"What we're doing here is taking MSN beyond what it has typically been known for," added Crossen.

"An obvious place to tale MSN Video Player – given the quality of content that you are seeing on the platform – is the TV, and there are a number of ways that we could do that and in fact the challenge is prioritising so we're looking at a number of opportunities.

"There are a number of ways… widgets on internet connected TVs, we have our own products within the Microsoft network, Xbox and Windows Media Center for instance.

"There are a number of ways that we could choose to explore."

"We have a fantastic product coming later in the year," said Crossen when asked if a mobile MSN Video Player was likely for the forthcoming Windows Phone 7 Series, "but no fixed plans that we are announcing today.

"It's a reflection of our users telling us what they want and they also express their views how they want their content and how they consume it so it's absolutely no mystery to any of us how it could grow."

Xbox users already have access to long-form content through a tie up with the Sky Player and a movie download service, but the concept of a free and ad funded channel is likely to appeal.

The MSN Video Player officially launches tomorrow, go to player.uk.msn.com for more details.

Vodafone is apparently planning to release its own Android phone, with a super-budget price tag to boot.

Following the T-Mobile Pulse and Pulse Mini (low-end Android handsets exclusive to the network) Vodafone clearly wants to follow suit.

To that end, word is it will be releasing the Vodafone 845 (with a better name likely to be confirmed closer to launch).

Latest Android, tiny screen

It will pack the latest Android 2.1 upgrade, but the rest of the features will be lower end - a 2.8-inch QVGA touchscreen and 3.2MP camera.

But the beauty of using Android means that the Vodafone 845 will have to have some higher end features - namely Wi-Fi, 3G and GPS all as standard.

Vodafone 360 is said to be a key part as well - that means integrated contacts and possibly social networking too.

The cost is said to be €145 according to Dutch site All About Phones - which means it could be coming for the thoroughly palatable £130 in the UK.

It's criminal how utterly dependent you can become on your iPhone or iPod touch.

But it's not enough to simply rely on it for communication, entertainment and locating a decent pub... Oh no, now fiendish app developers have found even more ways to tie you to Apple's addictive device.

Read on for 10 more useful – if not immediately obvious – uses for either the iPhone or iPod touch.

1. TeamViewer - Free/£5.99

Need to access your home or work PC while on the road? Why lug a laptop around when you can gain remote control from your iPhone? The best app for the job is TeamViewer, as it's incredibly simple to use and connect, works with both Macs and PC, and is free for personal use too.

2. Touch Mouse – Free

Your iPhone can also act as a wireless touchpad and keyboard for your PC or Mac, enabling you to control it from any room in the house – so Touch Mouse is perfect if it's hooked up to your TV in another room, for example.

3. Handy iLevel – Free

Now, where did you put that spirit level? Don't worry about it – Handy iLevel turns your iPod into the perfect companion for putting up shelves. Just calibrate it on a flat surface and you're good to go. Upgrade to Handy iCarpenter for £2.39 to get four more useful tools: plumb bob, bubble level, ruler and protractor.

4. Did I Close The Door? - 59p

Did I Close The Door? may be designed for those people who keep forgetting to lock their doors, but renaming one of the presets to "Gas cooker" or "Security light" enables you to compile a checklist of important things to do before you head off to bed – or Benidorm for a week.

5. iSat – Free

Having trouble pointing your satellite dish to the correct satellite? Set your location in iSat using the "i" button, then pick your chosen satellite from the dozens listed (spanning the entire globe), and you'll be told how to align your dish accordingly.

6. PrinterShare – Free

Print photos, web pages, contacts or the contents of your iPhone's clipboard on your PC's printer with the free PrinterShare app. You'll need to sign up for a free PrinterShare account at www.printershare.com, plus download the server software for your PC or Mac. Once done, you can set up print jobs from anywhere on the internet for processing automatically or when you get home.

7. Cleartune – Chromatic Tuner - £2.39

Musicians will love Chromatic Tuner – it's designed to tune your instrument using nothing more than your iPhone's mic (it goes without saying that iPod Touch users will need an external mic), and will work with a wide variety of instruments.

8. Tree-to-Go – Free

If you're into your family history, Tree-to-Go is a must. It links in with your free online tree at Ancestry.co.uk – not only can you show off your tree to family, you can add or edit entries, plus upload photos from your iPhone too. Perfect should you find yourself in a dusty records office following a promising lead.

9. Sleep Machine - Free/£1.19

Trouble sleeping? Pop on your headphones or crank up the speakers, then launch Sleep Machine Lite or Sleep Machine Full to soothe you to sleep with a variety of sounds or chilled out tunes. Includes timer, alarm and the ability to mix and match up to three sounds.

10. Torch - Free

Torch might feel gimmicky, but you'll be glad you installed it the next time you're plunged into darkness and left scrabbling around for the trip switch or fuse box.

While there is currently a cool 32 million people regularly playing FarmVille on a daily basis on Facebook, the social network has made a plea to games developers to create 'iconic games' such as Mario, Halo or Sonic for the platform.

Facebook Platform Manager, Gareth Davis, speaking at this week's Games Developers Conference in San Francisco, reminded devs that the next killer game was out there and that Facebook was ready to help to host it and popularise it.

Research suggests around three quarters of Facebook's 400m users regularly play social games on the site.

"The next killer game is still out there and this game will come from you," Gareth Davis told a room of designers in San Francisco.

"When we look at every major game platform, we see that there is an iconic defining game on that platform whether it's Sonic or Mario or Halo.

"And while there are some great games on Facebook today, no one has yet produced the iconic game for [it]. The Facebook Mario is still out there," added Davis.

FarmVille leads the charge

"[FarmVille] has grown to $1bn from nothing nearly three years ago. It is definitely a mass market phenomenon across the board and represents a change in the way people play games and interact with their friends," said Justin Smith of research firm Inside Network.

This is just the beginning of Facebook's move into the game space, according to Gareth Davis.

"We are going to see multiple games with more than 100m people playing each one. That is as many people as watched the recent superbowl, the most watched TV programme in American history.

"The growth we are seeing is amazing and in a short space of time we have developed a brand new mass market audience for gaming."

Namechecking Battle.net, Xbox Live and games like Rock Band Davis reminded the developers in San Fran this week that: "The most profound revolutions, the most significant disruption, is how social games are designed. They are made for social interaction - people want to play with their friends."

"Social games are the past, present and future of the games industry. Someday soon all games will be as social as they were in the past - and we won't call them social games, we'll just call them games again."

Internet Explorer 8 is without doubt the best browser Microsoft has ever produced, but it still has a few problems.

In particular, you may find its performance tails off over time, pages can suddenly take ages to load, and you might even find it crashes unexpectedly.

The reason? Junk. Just as Windows slows down as it becomes clogged with leftover registry entries and unnecessary start-up programs, so Internet Explorer can become weighed down with unwanted toolbars, pointless plug-ins and other assorted rubbish.

But don't worry. All this trash may take months to build up, but in just a few minutes you can strip it all away, revitalising Internet Explorer 8 and restoring its original speedy performance.

1. Remove unwanted extensions

Click Tools > Manage add-ons to see the add-ons you've installed. If you spot anything you no longer need, click it and select Disable.

Do experiment – the worst that can happen is that some pages won't display properly, in which case you can simply re-enable the add-on and everything will be back to normal.

2. Remove Accelerators, too

Click Accelerators in the left-hand Add-on Types list. If you're sure you don't need one of these, click it and select Disable or Remove.

Click the Search Providers add-on type, remove any you don't like, and check Prevent programs from suggesting changes to my default search provider to keep current settings.

3. Download more

Download more files simultaneously. Launch Regedit and browse to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\ CurrentVersion\Internet Settings.

Double-click MaxConnections PerServer and MaxConnectionsPer1_0Server in the right-hand pane, select Decimal, set each to 10, then reboot your PC.

4. Save time

Some programs reconfigure Internet Explorer to check for a newer version of a web page every time you visit it, slowing down browsing.

To fix this, click Tools > Internet Options > Browsing History Settings and make sure Check for newer versions of stored pages is set to Automatically.

5. Configure the cache

Stay in the Browsing History Settings, and check that the cache Disk space to use value is set to the default 50MB.

If your PC has more than one hard drive, make sure your temporary files are stored on the fastest. Check the location path to see where they are, and click Move Folder to relocate them, if necessary.

6. Clean everything

Even when it's correctly configured, your IE8 cache may become corrupted. As a result, some pages may load slowly, or not at all, and the browser might crash.

Fortunately, this is easily fixed: click Tools > Delete Browsing History, check Temporary Internet Files, clear all the others, and click Delete.

7. Turn on Pop-up Blocker

Unwanted pop-ups sap your bandwidth, slowing down your browsing. Click Tools > Internet Options > Privacy and check Turn on Pop-up Blocker to keep them under control.

Then click Settings and check the sites that are allowed to display pop-ups. Select any that don't need to be on the list and click Remove.

8. The final step

Click Tools > Internet Options > Connections > LAN Settings. Most home users don't need Automatically detect settings checked – it can cut performance.

Clear the box and reboot. Then you just need to sit back, relax and enjoy a smoother and faster browsing experience.

Ever since the glory days of the Fall Guy in the 1980s any self-respecting gadget geek has craved a workable jetpack.

The new Martin Jetpack is priced at $86,000 (£57,675) and is the world's first commercially available personal flying machine.

This beast of a machine will allow you a full 30 minutes of flight time, so just be careful you are not too high when you are reaching that 28-minute point in your flight across from the top of London's Centrepoint to the top of the BT Tower.

The machine's rotors are built from a carbon / Kevlar composite and powered by a 200hp two-liter V4 two-stroke petrol engine.

Safety first, fun last

Martin Aircraft is based in New Zealand, so you may also have to take a trip over there to pick up your new wonder-toy. Either that, or pay a couple of extra grand for the shipping costs…

Martin Aircraft was founded in 1998 in Christchurch New Zealand and it's taken them twelve years of hard work to finally develop a machine they consider worthy (and safe enough) for commercial release.

Martin has made sure that the pack also has safety systems that will kick in in case the main system goes down. Should all else fail the machine also contains a ballistic parachute to aid with any emergency landings.

Control-wise, pitch and roll are controlled by one hand, thrust and yaw by the other. Finally, you have weigh between 140-240 pounds to be allowed to fly one of these.

Still want one? Head over to Martin Aircraft's website to place your order.

Sharp's announcement that its next generation of Aquos televisions would come with a fourth colour of sub-pixel raised some slightly bemused smiles.

But the company has told TechRadar that the addition of yellow to the traditional red green and blue will have a key benefit.

Televisions currently use the primary colours – red, green and blue – to generate all the colours that the televisions shows, but Sharp's latest Quattron technology adds a yellow sub-pixel.

"The primary objective to to increase the colour spectrum," Sharp's UK marketing communications manager Martin Arnold explained to TechRadar.

"The TV has always been able to produce yellows – we're not saying that we're adding a yellow or a gold colour, but what we're actually doing is increasing the colour spectrum."

Golden touch

"Golds in particular have always been difficult to replicate on television, so by adding the fourth as a sub-pixel it's allowing us to increase the colour spectrum from billions of colours to trillions of colours and what that does is it opens up a wider colour aperture," he added.

"So whereas beforehand TVs struggled to replicate golds, Caribbean blues and aquas we more accurately represent those colours to the viewers."

Arnold explained that the fourth sub-pixel fits alongside the normal three because the company has managed to shrink the others.

"We've managed to make the red, green and blue sub-pixels 25 per cent smaller and that's given us the room to add the fourth sub-pixel, so you don't need any more pixels.

"What it also does is reduce the jaggedness of the picture because the sub-pixels are smaller."

Big investment

Sharp has invested heavily in the proprietary technology, and will spend even more money in marketing a concept that they believe brings tangible benefits to the screen.

"The real benefit is that this technology is not dependant on source, so it's available for anybody," adds Arnold.

"It's not what I would classify as a gimmick, because it will increase anyone's viewing pleasure."

Sharps Aquos Quattron range has a UK release date for the end of April or the beginning of May and final prices will be confirmed closer to launch.

Vodafone UK has responded to claims that its HTC Magic phones can be bought complete with viruses.

A worker for online anti-virus firm Panda Security bought a Magic from Vodafone in Spain, and wouldn't you know it, found three different types of malware on their device.

These came in the form of autorun files that once mounted to a Windows PC would cause all sorts of havoc.

Keep calm and carry on

However, Vodafone UK has told TechRadar that British users, and the wider Vodafone community, have nothing to worry about:

"The device involved in the incident was purchased by a customer of Vodafone Spain and is currently being investigated.

"The early indications are that this was an isolated local incident," said the spokesperson.

"Vodafone UK has received no reported security problems customers using the HTC Magic, although we continue to monitor the situation closely.

"We take our customer's security and privacy extremely seriously and will take further action to protect our customers should it be necessary."

Sony has signed up the big six Hollywood studios to provide high def movies for the PlayStation Network this week.

The latest PSN high def announcement was made at this month's Games Developers Conference.

Sony has inked deals with 20th Century Fox, Disney, Paramount, Sony Pictures (obviously), Universal and Warner Bros. to deliver HD movies for the US PSN.

A significant milestone

"Securing high definition content from these studios is another significant milestone further validating PlayStation Network as a complete entertainment network in the home. PlayStation Network is the first and only service to deliver high definition home entertainment from all six major studios, directly to consumers for download," said SCEA's PSN marketing head, Peter Dille.

"PlayStation Network continues to offer the most comprehensive catalogue of HD movies to PlayStation Network members that realize the wide-ranging entertainment power of the PS3 system."

At launch, the new content will be available in the US only, with Sony planning to launch soon in the UK.

New titles available on the US PSN this week include:

· 20th Century Fox – "Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian", "Jennifer's Body" and "Fantastic Mr. Fox" (on March 23)

· Disney – Disney Pixar's "Up", Jerry Bruckheimer's "G-Force" and Disney's "Earth"

· Paramount – "Star Trek", "Paranormal Activity" and "Zoolander"

· Sony Pictures – "This Is It", "2012″, "District 9″ and "Zombieland"

· Universal – "Inglourious Basterds", "Couples Retreat" and "Public Enemies"

· Warner Bros. – "The Hangover", "Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince" and "The Wizard of Oz"

The boss of BT has criticised the government's plans to cut-off persistent illegal file-sharers from their internet accounts, suggesting that fining them would be a far more progressive option.

British Telecom's Chief Exec, Ian Livingston, has teamed up with a number of other key industry figures and written a letter to the Financial Times urging that changes be made to the Digital Economy Bill.

Unnatural justice

Plans to cut off filesharers go against what Mr Livingston refers to as 'natural justice' and instead he wants to see those accused of filesharing either pay a fine or fight their case in a court of law.

ISPs will no doubt see this as a preferable option to the current suggestions in the Digital Economy Bill, which, if ratified, will essentially see them being forced to cut off their own customers.

The BT boss said that this alternative approach would "create a fund" and "you get some good, rather than getting some hurt out of people infringing copyright".

Via BBC

Google has officially announced Google Apps Marketplace – hoping to build an ecosystem that allows businesses that use its paid-for Google Apps services to find and purchase a wide range of cloud software tools developed by specialists.

One of the key reasons behind Microsoft's success over the years has been its flourishing ecosystem, and with Apple's App Store revolutionising both the mobile phone market third-party software market places, it makes sense for Google to attempt to bring the two concepts closer.

"We've found that when businesses begin to experience the benefits of cloud computing, they want more," explains Google.

Wider variety

"We're often asked when we'll offer a wider variety of business applications — from accounting and project management to travel planning and human resources management. But we certainly can't and won't do it all, and there are hundreds of business applications for which we have no particular expertise.

"In recent years, many talented software providers have embraced the cloud and delivered a diverse set of features capable of powering almost any business.

"But too often, customers who adopt applications from multiple vendors end up with a fractured experience, where each particular application exists in its own silo. Users are often forced to create and remember multiple passwords, cut and paste data between applications, and jump between multiple interfaces just to complete a simple task.

"Today, we're making it easier for these users and software providers to do business in the cloud with a new online store for integrated business applications.

"The Google Apps Marketplace allows Google Apps customers to easily discover, deploy and manage cloud applications that integrate with Google Apps."

50 for starters

The marketplace has launched with 50 companies' wares, ranging from Intuit Online Payroll to project management software JIRA Studio.

"Once installed to a company's domain, these third-party applications work like native Google applications," adds Google.

"The Google Apps Marketplace eliminates the worry about software updates, keeping track of different passwords and manual syncing and sharing of data, thereby increasing business productivity and lessening frustrations for users and IT administrators alike. That's the power of the cloud."