TNW | In case you haven’t heard, Gmail got a big redesign recently that’s in the process of rolling out. Now Google Drive is getting a look to match. You’ll have to get used to it, as the lighter, bubblier Material Design will permeate all of Google’s apps sooner or later. The update is still rolling out, so don’t be surprised if it takes a while to hit you.

Computerworld | Slack continues to grow at a fast clip despite strong competition from Microsoft and other large vendors. Slack effectively created the market for team-based chat tools when it debuted four years ago, and has since seen a slew of competitors launch rival products. According to the latest user adoption stats released by the company, Slack now counts 8 million daily active users across more than 500,000 organizations. That’s up from 6 million last September, when the company touted $200 million in annual recurring revenues.

The Register | IBM has banned its staff from using removable storage devices. An advisory to staff penned by IBM global chief information security officer Shamla Naidoo said the company “is expanding the practice of prohibiting data transfer to all removable portable storage devices (eg: USB, SD card, flash drive)." The risk of "financial and reputational damage" is too high, he said.

Tech Advisor | If you have more than one monitor or you're using a projector, here’s how to configure your screens to either duplicate the Windows desktop or extend it so you can have different things showing on each.

Atlassian Blog | "Often I am asked how I always seem calm and poised during incidents," writes Shane Wade. "This persona is not entirely accurate as I am more like a duck in these scenarios, calm on top of the water, but paddling frantically under the water. I have learned some tricks that have helped me stay calm and drive incidents to resolution."

The Enterprisers Project | Curt Carver aligned his IT organization with three money-making areas of the university – and it's paying off. "Our IT team at the University of Alabama Birmingham is laser-focused on supporting each of these three revenue-generating principles, and we do so by partnering with faculty and students to understand their experiences, whiteboarding potential solutions, and then developing strategies to optimize it," he writes.

The Atlantic | You know you’re in an open-plan office when you click on an article that will allow you to hate-read about open offices, then kind of hide your computer screen with the top half of your torso so that your colleagues don’t realize just how much you’re not a team player. But have no fear: Researchers are testing egg-shaped chairs, retroreflective ceilings, and other ways to help people concentrate without cubicles.

G Suite Updates | Google is making some updates to the look and feel of Google Drive on the web. There’s no change in functionality, but some icons and buttons have moved, and there’s a range of visual tweaks to align with Google’s latest material design principles.

G Suite Updates | In April, Google introduced the new Gmail, including a feature called confidential mode, which helps you protect sensitive content in your emails by setting expiration dates or revoking access to previously sent messages. As a G Suite admin, you can define rules to handle confidential mode messages sent from consumer users to G Suite users in your domain.

G Suite Updates | In October 2017, Google announced the rollout of international Hangouts Meet dial-in phone numbers for G Suite domains. They've added this functionality for four additional countries (with more to come!): Colombia (CO), Croatia (HR), Lithuania (LT), and Portugal (PT).

Box Blog | Box is excited to announce that its new Box for Hangouts Chat bot is now available, making it even easier to work in the cloud by bringing together the best of Box's secure content management with Google's amazing productivity apps. With Box for Hangouts Chat, you get work done more efficiently by quickly searching and locating your Box files right from within Hangouts Chat. Customers can easily log into Box directly from Hangouts Chat and ask the Box bot to quickly view recent Box files, or easily pull up a list of "favorited" Box files and folders.