Google tests clipboard in the sky

Cloudboard, of course

By Cade Metz in London • Get more from this author

Posted in Applications, 7th October 2009 10:28 GMT

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Google is privately testing a new copy-and-paste service for shuttling data between Gmail, Google Docs, and other Googly online services.

At least, that's the word from the not-affiliated-with-Google Google Operating System Blog. Blogger Alex Chitu recently noticed chatter about the service - dubbed CloudBoard - on an internal Google feedback form that has since disappeared.

The Mountain View Chocolate Factory has yet to respond to our request for comment.

As Chitu shows with a screenshot, the feedback form described this mystery CloudBoard as a "server-side clipboard for Google Apps." As an example, it said the beta service could shuttle data between Google Spreadsheets (aka Trix) and Google Docs (aka Writely): "if you copy a formatted cell range in Trix (cell border, colors, etc.) and then paste into Writely, it's transformed into a comparably-styled HTML table."

The form, Chitu says, went on to describe copying between Google Spreadsheet and Gmail, copying multiple images from Google's Picasa Web Albums, copying YouTube videos, copying maps into Google Docs, and more.

Currently, you can copy and paste between Google Spreadsheets and Google Docs, but this requires use of your desktop PC clipboard. And Google - as we all know - would rather you avoided the desktop entirely. ®

Update

Google has responded as it usually does in such situations: "We're always working on ways to improve our products and building new features, but we don't have anything to announce right now," reads a statement from a company spokeswoman.

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