Offensive Images in SkyDrive Will Lose Your Entire Microsoft Account

Be careful of what you upload to your SkyDrive storage, for even a single stray image containing offensive material can make you lose your entire Microsoft account and all services associated with including Outlook/Hotmail, XBox 360, Zune and what not, as a German man recently found out the hard way.

Every cloud storage service has its own set of policies and restrictions that determine what you can or cannot store there. This is reasonable as long as the policies are restrictive only towards materials that infringe copyright or violate laws of the land, such as child pornography. But Windows Live code of conduct that governs SkyDrive are much more restrictive than that.

SkyDrive’s EULA doesn’t allow users to store any images that “depicts nudity of any sort, including full or partial human nudity, or nudity in nonhuman forms such as cartoons, fantasy art or manga.” This means that your private beach holiday photos or even nude drawings are off-limits. Microsoft also disallows users from storing pornographic and obscene content so all your legally purchased adult movies should be kept off SkyDrive. Others things restricted include materials and documents that expresses profanity, hatred, bigotry, racism, or gratuitous violence.

Neowin speculates that your SkyDrive account could be banned if you upload a document with just one swear word inside. The ban on "gratuitous violence" means you could possibly be banned if you upload a movie of your gameplay in, for example, the "M" rated Halo series from Microsoft.
The German man who was banned from SkyDrive, along with all of the services linked to his Microsoft online account, had upload four partially nude pictures in his private folder. The keyword here is “private folder”.

This poses a big problem for users. SkyDrive is deeply embedded into the Windows 8 operating system and Microsoft expects everybody to use SkyDrive in Windows 8 to store pictures and documents in Office 2013. So what happens when you sync your private pictures to SkyDrive, or if you write a story with one too many swear words in Word and save it to SkyDrive? Windows Phone 7, too, has an option to automatically upload any picture you take to a private folder on your SkyDrive.

With Windows 8’s release round the corner it’s time that Microsoft review their SkyDrive policies or at least offer some guidance on its SkyDrive agreements.

iPhone Has Passed a Key Security Threshold

Does society really want extremely private mobile devices if they make life easier for criminals? Apple's newly toughened standards sharpen the focus on that question.

Less than a month after Apple first shipped the iPhone in June 2007, a group called Independent Security Evaluators documented deep security design flaws in the device. Apple's most embarrassing flub: every iPhone application that Apple had written ran with so-called root privileges, giving each one complete control over the entire phone. Hackers found bugs in those apps that could be used to take over the phone from the inside. Apple didn't fix the design flaw until January 2008.
But after that rocky launch, Apple invested heavily in iPhone security. It's still possible for a hacker to take over a phone, but it's increasingly difficult, largely because each app runs in its own isolated "sandbox." The phone even verifies its operating system when it boots. Today the Apple iPhone 4S and iPad 3 are trustworthy mobile computing systems that can be used for mobile payments, e-commerce, and the delivery of high-quality paid programming—all of which bring Apple significant revenue in the form of commissions.

In fact, in its efforts to make its devices more secure, Apple has crossed a significant threshold. Technologies the company has adopted protect Apple customers' content so well that in many situations it's impossible for law enforcement to perform forensic examinations of devices seized from criminals. Most significant is the increasing use of encryption, which is beginning to cause problems for law enforcement agencies when they encounter systems with encrypted drives.

Thing reviewed:
iOS Security Apple, May 2012

"I can tell you from the Department of Justice perspective, if that drive is encrypted, you're done," Ovie Carroll, director of the cyber-crime lab at the Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section in the Department of Justice, said during his keynote address at the DFRWS computer forensics conference in Washington, D.C., last Monday. "When conducting criminal investigations, if you pull the power on a drive that is whole-disk encrypted you have lost any chance of recovering that data."
Mass-market cryptography hasn't been thought of as a potential threat to law enforcement since the "crypto wars" of the 1990s. Back then there was a very public battle against U.S. laws and regulations that limited the use and export of cryptographic technology. On one side, civil liberties groups and business interests said that the public needed strong cryptography to protect privacy and financial transactions. On the other side, law enforcement organizations warned that the same technology would empower drug dealers, kidnappers, money launderers, and terrorists.

Law enforcement lost the crypto wars: today there is essentially no restriction on mass-market cryptography. Fortunately, few of the predicted horribles came to pass. One reason is that the encryption systems developed and sold to consumers over the past 20 years have had an Achilles' heel: there has been no good way to let users securely manage encryption keys. Cryptography, for all its power, provides no security unless the keys used to lock the data remain secret.

Enter the iPhone. Apple's security architecture is so sturdy, and so tightly woven into its hardware and software, that it is both easy for consumers to use encryption on their phones and very difficult for someone else to steal the encrypted information.

At the heart of Apple's security architecture is the Advanced Encryption Standard algorithm (AES), a data-scrambling system published in 1998 and adopted as a U.S. government standard in 2001. After more than a decade of exhaustive analysis, AES is widely regarded as unbreakable. The algorithm is so strong that no computer imaginable for the foreseeable future—even a quantum computer—would be able to crack a truly random 256-bit AES key. The National Security Agency has approved AES-256 for storing top-secret data.

Apple did not respond to requests for comment on this story. But the AES key in each iPad or iPhone "is unique to each device and is not recorded by Apple or any of its suppliers," the company said in a security-related white paper. "Burning these keys into the silicon prevents them from being tampered with or bypassed, and guarantees that they can be access only by the AES engine."

What this means in practice is that when iOS devices are turned off, the copy of the encryption key in the computer's accessible memory is erased. That is why an investigator who gets a suspect's phone would have to try all possible keys—the task deemed impossible by the NSA.

The iPhone and iPad do keep a copy of the encryption key deeper in flash memory—otherwise there would be no way for the device to recover data when it was turned back on. But that encryption key is itself protected by the user's "PIN lock," a code that must be entered before the device can be used.
The iPhone always supported a PIN lock, but the PIN wasn't a deterrent to a serious attacker until the iPhone 3GS. Because those early phones didn't use their hardware to perform encryption, a skilled investigator could hack into the phone, dump its flash memory, and directly access the phone's address book, e-mail messages, and other information. But now, with Apple's more sophisticated approach to encryption, investigators who want to examine data on a phone have to try every possible PIN. Examiners perform these so-called brute-force attacks with special software, because the iPhone can be programmed to wipe itself if the wrong PIN is provided more than 10 times in a row. This software must be run on the iPhone itself, limiting the guessing speed to 80 milliseconds per PIN. Trying all four-digit PINs therefore requires no more than 800 seconds, a little more than 13 minutes. However, if the user chooses a six-digit PIN, the maximum time required would be 55 days; an eight-digit PIN would require more than 15 years. That's good enough for most corporate secrets—and probably good enough for most criminals as well.
"There are a lot of issues when it comes to extracting data from iOS devices," says Amber Schroader, CEO of Paraben, a supplier of forensic software, hardware, and services for cell phones. "We have had many civil cases we have not been able to process ... for discovery because of encryption blocking us."

Another iPhone innovation has to do with how and where data gets encrypted. Years ago encryption wasn't used very often because it was difficult to implement and computationally expensive—it took a lot of resources. Not so with the iPhone. Apple designed iOS devices so that the hardware that encrypts data is in the path the data travels when it moves from flash storage to the iPhone's main memory. This means that data can be automatically decrypted when read from flash into memory and reëncrypted when saved from memory back to flash. On the iPhone, encryption is essentially free.

That makes it possible to offer services like Foxygram, an iPhone app that allows users to share encrypted data in the knowledge that it cannot be intercepted and provided to law enforcement. Markus Kangas, cofounder of the app's creator, FoxyFone, says the goal is to "provide easy-to-use secure messaging for everyone and at the same time protect user privacy." He adds: "We are not there to police people."

Google's Android operating system also supports encrypted storage, but only for some of the data on the phone. More important, there is no key burned into the hardware, so even complex passwords can be broken by extracting them and using a network of a few hundred computers. BlackBerry phones, on the other hand, also have a strong encryption system that can be based on multiple factors in addition to the user's PIN.
But the BlackBerry system is designed for business customers and is harder to use than Apple's, which is made for the consumer market. Now that hardened, military-grade encryption is tough and easy for consumers to use—assuming the user has set a PIN lock that's both long and hard to guess—the nightmare scenario of the crypto wars may finally have come to pass.

Download Windows Essentials 2012: Drops Support for Live Mesh

Windows Essentials 2012 Released. Drops Support for Live Mesh

Microsoft has just released Windows Essentials 2012 (formerly Windows Live Essentials) that includes updated versions of Windows Movie Maker and Photo Gallery, along with the new SkyDrive app for Windows 7 and Windows 8. Other applications included in the Essentials Pack are Mail, Family Safety, and Windows Live Writer. Microsoft has understandably decided to drop a few applications from the 2012 edition such as Bing Bar and Messenger Companion. But the major disappointment comes from the fact that after installing Windows Essentials 2012 you can no longer use Live Mesh.


Microsoft had already announced that Live Mesh will be superseded by SkyDrive which Microsoft will be pushing to all customers of Windows 8 via the deeply integrated cloud service. But there were no plans to discontinue the Live Mesh service. As of now, Microsoft runs two independent file synchronization service - Live Mesh and SkyDrive. Both has its uses and benefits, but Live Mesh is technically the superior service between the two. What’s surprising is that updating Windows Live Essentials 2011 with Windows Essentials 2012 automatically uninstalls Live Mesh from the computer.

Users who want to continue using Live Mesh are instructed by Microsoft to not install Windows Essentials 2012. At this point, the future of Live Mesh is unsure and it doesn't look good.
Coming back to Windows Essentials 2012, the new Windows Movie Maker and Photo Gallery boasts of several new features.

What’s New in Windows Movie Maker

• Video Stabilization: Movie Maker takes advantage of new technology in Windows 8 to smooth out your wobbly videos. Just select the shaky video and choose from a variety Video stabilization options and Movie Maker will smooth it out. This feature is unavailable on Windows 7.
• Music: Download creative commons music from variety of online sources such as AudioMicro, Free Music Archive and the Vimeo Music Store integrated with Windows Movie Maker.
• Voice Narration: If you want to narrate your movie, Movie Maker has added a third audio track for narration. When you want to add narration to your video, just select the video with narration and the program will automatically strip out the audio and replace it with your narration track.
• Waveform visualizations: The added waveform visualizations to both the music track and videos enable you to quickly see where you need to cut or trim your video to match your music.
• Text Effects: Ability to enhance the text by placing an outline around your text.
• H.264 by default: Movie Maker saves to this format by default making it easier to publish your video to popular sharing websites without re-encoding.

What’s New in Photo Gallery

• Auto Collage: Includes a new Auto Collage feature Photo Gallery where you just select seven or more photos and the program arranges them in a collage for you. See comparison auto-collage making software.
• Publish to Vimeo: Upload and share your videos straight to Vimeo from both Photo Gallery and Movie Maker.

Download:
Windows Essentials 2012 Full offline installer
Web installer

Valve Confirms Steam for Linux

Although I don’t write about Linux much, this is a news that is worth reporting – the game distribution platform/software Steam is coming to Linux. This is probably one of the biggest news in the history of Linux, and without exaggerating, because lack of games is one of the primary reasons that keep people away from this open source operating system. For more than a decade, we have been hearing about the imminent arrival of the “year of Linux on the desktop”. Seems like the year has finally arrived.

Yesterday, Valve launched the official Valve Linux blog and announced that work is underway on a port of Stream for Linux. Valve will be initially targeting Ubuntu 12.04 – Ubuntu being the most popular distribution and having recognition with the general gaming and developer communities - and the first game that has been confirmed for Linux is Left 2 Dead 2.

The goal of the Steam client project is a fully-featured Steam client running on Ubuntu 12.04. We’ve made good progress this year and now have the Steam client running on Ubuntu with all major features available. We’re still giving attention and effort to minor features but it’s a good experience at the moment. In the near future, we will be setting up an internal beta focusing on the auto-update experience and compatibility testing.

Gaming is one of the aspects of computing that is rather weak on the Linux platform. While there are many native games available on Linux, most of the popular Windows games are still aren’t available on Linux. It should be noted that games already run quite well under Linux via Wine – an implementation of the Windows API that runs on top of Linux, but with Steam getting behind the gaming scenario should get better.

[via Geek]

Now You Can Export Your Google+ Circles to Another Account

When Google+ was launched in June last year, initially businesses and non-human entities were not allowed on the social network. They even terminated any business accounts that it spotted on Google+. But businesses wanted to be a part of Google+ from the start and so many businesses and brands started using regular Google+ accounts. A few months later when Google introduced Google+ Pages for business, many businesses found themselves with two Google+ accounts, and some were forced to abandoned their old accounts. On Thursday, Google launched a new tool that allows these businesses or any individual to migrate data from one Google+ account to another.

The tool, which is part of Google Takeout, the company’s initiative at making data portable, allows users to transfer their circles from one Google+ account to another and automatically forward followers to their new account.

The transfer process needs to be started through Google Takeout, but the transfer doesn’t happen immediately. There is a seven-day wait period after which Google will take another two days to transfer the data over. During this period, users won’t be able to share anything on either of their Google+ accounts, add or remove people to and from their circles, and block or ignore people. An account transfer also affects people who have added these account profiles to their circles, as they won't be able to add, remove, block or ignore these profiles during the transfer.

When the transfer is completed, your circles, blocks, and ignores will be copied from the source account to the destination account. Your profile information, posts, and comments will not be not be transferred to the destination account. Similarly, authorship information and Google+ pages that you manage with your source account will not be transferred to the destination account.

At this point, you can choose to delete the source Google+ profile or let it stay.

More information on the transfer process can be found on the Google+ help page.

[via GigaOm]

 

 

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Microsoft Word 2013 Will Support PDF Viewing and Editing

Microsoft’s upcoming word processing suite Office 2013 is about to get a big upgrade. According to Liveside, Microsoft Word 2013 will be able to open PDF files and even edit them.

Until now, editing PDF documents wasn’t easy or cheap. Free PDF editors are few and far between and their PDF editing abilities are limited. The only true PDF editor in existence today is Adobe Acrobat. It’s still unclear up to what extent Microsoft Word 2013 will allow PDF editing though.

Word 2013 reportedly provides a “stunning new reading experience for both traditional Word documents and PDFs that reflows text in a columnar view automatically”. Interesting, the default layout on a traditional landscape PC screen uses a left-to-right scrolling mode, not top-to-bottom as has always been the case with such document-based applications.

Word 2013 will also support bookmarking pages that will allow users to return back to where they left when they closed the document last.

It must be noted that Office 2010 already supports saving documents in the PDF format, but this is the first time the Office application will be able to open and view PDF documents. Office 2013 may sound the death knell for Adobe Reader and many PDF reading utilities such as Foxit Reader. An unexpected outcome of the built-in PDF editing feature will be that the PDF documents will no longer be considered non-tamperable.

The first public beta of Office 2013 is expected to be released sometime next week.

Windows XP to Windows 8 Upgrade Possible

There is some good news for users who have been thinking about moving from their current Windows operating system to the soon-to-be-released Windows 8, particularly those who are running the ancient Windows XP OS: yes, there is an upgrade path available for you guys. Three years ago, when Windows 7 was released Microsoft didn’t have an upgrade option for Windows XP, which was pretty odd since Windows XP was the most used operating system then. Although XP no longer holds the title it still holds an imposing one-forth market share, and Microsoft isn’t going to leave them behind this time.

Only those machines running Windows XP with Service Pack 3 will be able to upgrade to Windows 8, but only personal files/data only will be maintained and not personalized settings. One cannot jump from Windows XP to Windows 8 and expect to keep all their programs and settings, since there is little common between the two operating system. That fact that Windows XP users won’t have to back their personal files before Windows 8 installation is good enough.

For the rest, the upgrade is expected to be smooth. According to details published on ZDnet:

• Users will be able to upgrade to Windows 8 (the name of the entry-level consumer version of the operating system) from Windows 7 Starter, Windows 7 Home Basic and Windows 7 Home Premium while maintaining their existing Windows settings, personal files and applications.
• Users will be able to upgrade to Windows 8 Pro from Windows 7 Starter, Windows 7 Home Basic, Windows 7 Home Premium, Windows 7 Professional and Windows 7 Ultimate while maintaining their existing Windows settings, personal files and applications.
• Users will be able to upgrade to Windows 8 Enterprise (available to volume licensees with Software Assurance contracts only) from Windows 7 Professional and Windows 7 Enterprise while maintaining their existing Windows settings, personal files and applications.
• Users will be able to upgrade to Windows 8 from Windows Vista (without SP1 installed) but only personal files (meaning data only) will be maintained. If upgrading from Vista with SP1, personal data and system settings will be maintained.
• Users will be able to upgrade to Windows 8 from Windows XP with Service Pack 3 or higher but only personal files/data only will be maintained.

Users won’t be able to upgrade or keep their Windows settings, files or applications if doing a cross-language installation. However, users will be able to keep personal files/data during a cross-language install by using Windows 8 Setup. Cross-architecture upgrades — i.e., 32-bit to 64-bit or vice versa is not possible. These users won’t be able to keep their existing Windows settings, personal files and applications or data.

Microsoft had earlier announced an attractive Windows 8 upgrade offer, via which users who purchase Windows 7 PCs between June 2, 2012 and January 31, 2013 can upgrade to Windows 8 Pro for only $14.99.

Custom Themes for Gmail: Add Your Own Images as Background

Here is a heads up for those who love using themes on Gmail, particularly those HD themes with a high quality image behind the Gmail interface. It’s now possible to use a custom image as a background, thus giving your inbox a personal touch. In the showcase video (embedded below), a number of personalized themes are shown in quick succession, and I have to admit it does look dandy.

Simply click on gear icon on the right and from the menu select Themes. Custom themes are available in two options, Light and Dark. You can upload your own images from the computer, select one from your Google+ photos or simply paste any image URL. If you don't have a particular image in mind, Google provides a rich, searchable gallery of photos to choose from. Try searching for ‘hdr scenery’ or ‘bokeh wallpaper' in the Featured tab.

Custom Themes will be rolled out to all users over the next couple of days.

[via Gmail blog]

Skype Introduces Ads During Calls

Skype for Windows has announced a new feature called Conversation Ads, which displays advertisement within the calling window during Skype-to-Skype audio call. The ads will only appear for users who do not have Skype Credit or subscriptions, which means the majority of free Skype users. Fortunately, the company says that the ads will be silent, non-expanding and will run after the connection has been established and the program has completed the regular detailed quality checks on the connection.

Apparently Microsoft is attempting to recoup some of the cost that went into acquiring Skype. Microsoft paid $8.5 billion to get Skype last year, and the acquisition is yet to produce fruit. Although advertisement seems to be the easiest way to bring in revenues, the decision is likely to anger a large number of users who are fed up with Skype’s continues downward spiral regarding quality.

Thankfully, the ads are unobtrusive and banner-type which adds little distraction to the conversation particularly since users don’t stare at the program window when audio calling. Things, however, could turn for worse if Microsoft-Skype decides to introduce audio ads in-between calls or if it starts showing overlay ads in video calls. That could alienate users.

Skype is attempting to present the news as an improvement saying the ads “could spark additional topics of conversation that are relevant to Skype users and highlight unique and local brand experiences.”

“Ultimately, we believe this will help make Skype a more engaging and useful place to have your conversations each and every day”, the blog post of the announcement read.

In order to target ads, the system may use non-personally identifiable demographic information (e.g. location, gender and age). Skype does provide an option to opt-out of allowing Skype to use some of this non-personally identifiable information from the Privacy menu in Tools -> Options of Skype for Windows. If the user opts-out, they will still receive advertisements relevant to their location, but Skype will not use other demographic information for this purpose.

[via The Verge]

Bing Adds Interactive Presentations to Search Results Called Qwiki

Today search engine Bing started adding interactive multimedia presentations called Qwiki to their search results page. Qwikis combine images, videos and maps complete with narration, that are embedded into Bing results and can be played directly inside the search page. Qwikis will initially appear for Wikipedia search results, but the plan is to expand the integration to other websites as well.

What are Qwikis? Qwikis are interactive presentations combining images, videos, maps and spoken narration. In other words, Qwikis are a gateway for further exploration that offer a unique, visual experience to help you quickly get information and do more. With features like snapshot, which we introduced with the recent Bing redesign, we made it easier to takeaction directly from the results page. With Qwikis and other visual elements in Bing, we’re helping people decide what they want to do by creatively exposing them to information that might otherwise take them awhile to find.

When the search result page has links to Wikipedia, you will find the Qwiki play button underneath. Not all Wikipedia results carry Qwiki though. You can expect to find Qwikis for popular search terms, places, events, famous personalities etc.

Users can cycle through the presentation, pause the video, and click on the images. Clickable items within the presentation either launch a new search or takes the users to the source of the embedded content.

You can watch a video demonstration of Qwiki here but the best way to experience Qwiki is to try it out yourself.

Grooveshark’s Beluga Reveals Music Listening Habits of the World

Grooveshark has just launched a new real-time search tool called Beluga that provides insight into the listening habits of 20 million Grooveshark users, offering us some interesting information and trend about artists and their fanbase.

“By combining extensive market research with listening activity from Grooveshark's 20 million monthly users all over the world, Beluga produces a comprehensive picture of any artist's fanbase. Easily see where an artist's music is trending as well as fans' demographics and interests, which can help with routing tours, developing show lineups, choosing merch, finding ideal promotion areas, and connecting with fans on an in-depth level.”

One simply searches for an artist and Beluga displays, at first glance, the demographic, geography, as well as highlight some of the interesting market research relating to that specific artist. This include market correlations, certain habits of the listeners of that artist (such as which video games they play, what pets they own, and whether they have tattoos etc.), demographics and a map of where most fans are located around the world, along with a gender breakdown.

Of course, the data only represents Grooveshark users who have taken the survey, but those are interesting data nonetheless.

All the information provided can be exported to CSV files, and access to Beluga is free and completely unrestricted. You don’t even have to register at Grooveshark.

[via Mashable]

Windows 8 Drops Aero. Goes Metro All The Way Down

Many users pointed out that the classical Aero desktop didn’t blend with the Metro start screen, a “fact” that apparently Microsoft has started to take notice. So last Saturday, over at the Building Windows 8 blog, Microsoft engineers wrote a 10,000 worded post describing why they decided to move away from the Aero desktop, an interface that became wildly popular when it made its appearance in Windows Vista.

We spent a lot of energy carefully considering how substantially to update the appearance of the desktop in Windows 8. We looked at many, many pictures, and considered hundreds of designs. … In the end, we decided to bring the desktop closer to the Metro aesthetic, while preserving the compatibility afforded by not changing the size of window chrome, controls, or system UI. We have moved beyond Aero Glass—flattening surfaces, removing reflections, and scaling back distracting gradients.

We applied the principles of “clean and crisp” when updating window and taskbar chrome. Gone are the glass and reflections. We squared off the edges of windows and the taskbar. We removed all the glows and gradients found on buttons within the chrome. We made the appearance of windows crisper by removing unnecessary shadows and transparency. The default window chrome is white, creating an airy and premium look. The taskbar continues to blend into the desktop wallpaper, but appears less complicated overall.

To complete the story, we updated the appearance of most common controls, such as buttons, check boxes, sliders, and the Ribbon. We squared off the rounded edges, cleaned away gradients, and flattened the control backgrounds to align with our chrome changes. We also tweaked the colors to make them feel more modern and neutral.

However, as Paul Thurrott points out, the reasons Microsoft puts forward in support for the removal of Aero isn’t convincing, but rather full of hypocrisy. Paul notes that while the Aero glass border is gone the rest of the UI retains the old look which still has a lot of chrome and visual cacophony Microsoft talks about getting rid of.

On the other hand, removing Aero will sure have a positive effect on laptop’s battery life. Although Aero glass looks nice it drains the battery. Users had the option to turn Aero off, but the alternative – Aero Basic, is ugly. The new Metro explorer looks comparatively better.

These changes will not be included in the coming Release Preview. You can hope to see them all in the final release of Windows 8.

Get Ready for Dropquest II and a Chance to Win 100GB of Dropbox Space

Dropbox’s most tempting feature is it’s referral program that gives users the opportunity to increase their storage space by several Gigabytes simply by getting their friends to sign-up and doing odd jobs like connecting their social accounts or uploading pictures from their cameras. Occasionally, Dropbox would improve their referral program, add new tasks or cooperate with other businesses to give more free space. One new opportunity is coming next week.

Dropbox just made a pre-announcement for Dropquest II – an online scavenger hunt game which will have people, within a week’s time, cranking their brains to solve several increasingly difficult puzzles in a quest to score some free Dropbox space. Last year’s Dropquest engaged half a million people, which in my book, is a huge success. Dropbox promises that this year's quest will be harder than last year's and will require “a discerning eye and tons of creativity to solve”. Last year’s Dropquest was finished in a little under 2 hours, but Dropbox’s team believes that this year’s quest will take at least 5 hours to accomplish.

But the rewards are enticing: the person who completes the quest the fastest will see their Dropbox space increased to a whopping 100GB, for life. The winner will also receive an assortment of goods including a hoodie, t-shirt and an invitation to help write the next Dropquest.

Rest of the prizes include more Dropbox space in slabs of 20GB, 5GB, 2GB and 1GB. Everyone who completes Dropquest will get at least 1 GB of extra free space, even if they participated last year.

Dropbox says that it will not tolerate use of their support, forums, or blog for Dropquest hints or answers and they will disqualify anyone caught doing this. Last year, the entire Dropquest walkthrough was leaked and anybody who cared to complete got away with an extra GB of space.

Dropquest starts Saturday, May 12, at 10AM PST (17:00 GMT) on this page.

[via Softpedia]

Facebook Offering Free Antivirus Licenses

Facebook today announced the Antivirus Marketplace that’s offering its 900 million users free downloads and six-month licenses from several antivirus companies including Microsoft, McAfee, TrendMicro, Sophos, and Symantec. Aside from downloadable and installable malware protection, these five companies will also augment Facebook’s URL blacklist system to prevent malicious URLs from being shared on the network. This means that whenever you click a link on Facebook, not only will be it checked against Facebook’s blacklist, but also the blacklists provided by Microsoft, McAfee, TrendMicro, Sophos, and Symantec.

The free downloads and six-month licenses available via the Antivirus Marketplace are:

• Microsoft Security Essentials (free)
• McAfee Internet Security 2012
• Trend Micro internet security for PCs and Macs
• Sophos Anti-Virus for Mac, Home Edition
• Norton AntiVirus

Other than Microsoft Security Essentials, which is entirely free, each download is accompanied by six months of free updates, but users are limited to just one free antivirus application per Facebook account. Of course, if you have more than a couple of members in your household and all share the same PC you can each snag a 6-month license and stay protected for several years. It’s even likely that Facebook will sign-up even more antivirus companies into its marketplace.

[via Facebook]

Opera to Discontinue Unite, Widgets and Voice

The Opera browser has three add-on platforms - Extensions, launched last year, Widgets and Unite. Today the company announced that it will retire two of the platforms in the upcoming Opera 12 release. The platforms that got the axe are Unite and Widgets. Also phased out will be speech recognition, text-to-speech and VoiceXML. Starting with Opera 12, Opera Unite and Opera Widgets will be turned off by default for new users. The two Add-on platforms will be completely removed in a later releases before the end of this year.

Over the last six years we have learned a lot from our work on Opera Widgets and Opera Unite, and when we later built the extension platform for Opera 11 we benefited significantly from this experience. Our extension technology has been a great success, with millions of monthly downloads, and so far completely dwarfing the other platforms. Recently, Opera also shipped a labs version with extension support in Opera Mobile, investigating a fully cross-platform extension environment.

Moving forward we want to focus on one high quality Add-on platform across our products, rather than spending resources on maintaining legacy systems. The know how and and technologies from Unite and Widgets are already being reused in other Opera products. An example is the recently announced UPnP support in Opera Dragonfly.

Opera Unite is a framework that allows for several web services to be hosted from the user's computer, including a web server for hosting a site, file and photo sharing, a chat room, and streaming media and more. An Opera Unite user's applications run on a domain associated with their My Opera Community account, and are accessible from any web browser. It’s a totally radical product which cannot be replaced by extensions.

Opera Unite has fairly large number of users. For instance, the most popular Unite app Media Player (which allows streaming music from the home computer over the Internet) has 4.8 million total downloads and 3,956 instances running at this very moment. Over 9000 downloads were recorded during the last week. While these numbers may look small compared to total number of Opera installer downloads, it indicates that the Unite platform is well loved and very much active.

Opera Widgets was another good platform that never received attention from Opera developers once it was released. The ability to run these widgets out of the browser was the only noteworthy upgrade to the platform. Most of the widgets in the gallery were falling out of use because the Widget API was becoming incompatible with every update of the browser.

As happens whenever a service/feature is discontinued, the decision wasn’t well received by Opera Unite and Widgets users. The decision might make sense as it will allow developers to focus on only one add-on platform – extensions, but Opera Unite and Widgets will be missed.

Tabs Synchronization Available in Chrome Beta

Google Chrome has built in synchronization tool that allows users to keep all their data synchronized between different devices running Google Chrome. These include bookmarks, history, extensions, apps, typed passwords, autofill, themes and settings. Now with the latest Chrome Beta, you can sync your open tabs too.

When you’re signed in to Chrome, the tabs you have open on one device will be available on all your other devices. Just click the “Other devices” menu at the bottom on the New Tab page. You may not yet see it as it’s being rolled out to Beta channel users in the coming week.

With a click, you can find and open the tabs you accessed on another machine. If you use Chrome for Android Beta, the tab will also be available on your phone. The tab’s back and forward navigation history is also included, so you can pick up browsing right where you left off.

You can grab Chrome beta from here.

[via Chrome Blog]

Tour Inside the White House on Google Street View

The White House routinely organize tours for visitors, but getting into the building requires some planning and about a month of waiting. If you aren’t able to get a ticket for the tour, Google has made an arrangement by bringing you the White House through its Street View cameras. President Obama and first lady Michelle Obama announced this morning that the White House has been added to the Google Art Project as part of an effort to make the president's house more accessible.

The White House tour is a part of the Google Art Project, launched in March last year, which offers virtual tours of major museums throughout the world.

"The White House isn't simply a home to first families or meeting space for world leaders, it's also known as 'The People's House,' a place that should be open to everyone. And that's why we've made it a priority to invite young people, military families, and Americans of all ages to join us here at the White House," Mrs. Obama says in a video for the Google Art Project.

"Thousands of people have walked these halls and gazed at the artwork," Mrs. Obama says. "They've examined the portraits of Washington, Lincoln and Kennedy. They've imagined the history that's unfolded here. And now you can do all of that without leaving your home. So go ahead, look around, enjoy the history and the beauty of these rooms. Because after all, this is your house, too."

Along with the White House, Google has added several new exhibits including the Museum of Islamic Art in Qatar and the National Gallery of Modern Art, Delhi. The original Art Project counted 17 museums in nine countries and 1,000 images, almost all paintings from Western masters. Today, the Art Project includes more than 30,000 high-resolution artworks, with Street View images for 46 museums, with more on the way.

Google Introduces Account Activity

Google has launched a new feature called Account Activity, that summarizes what you have been doing with Google’s various products including who you email, what devices you use and where you’ve been. Users who sign up for the service will receive monthly email reports about the Google services they use and how they use it. Users can also view these reports at any time by logging into their account and accessing their Account Activity page.

Account Activity is an alarming insight into how much information a signed-in Google user actually hands to the company. Among other things, the monthly report will detail the number of emails you've sent and received, the number and types of searches you've conducted while signed into your Google account, the places that you've signed in from and the different platforms and operating systems you've used while signed in.

Account activity can be actually useful in some cases, for instance, to keep track of one’s usage and catch any misuse. For example, Account Activity can help users see if anyone has been signing into their Google accounts on locations where they don't visit or from devices they don't own, and thus give them the ability to change their password to stop unauthorized use.

Account activity is an opt-in service. Since opting out doesn’t means Google will stop tracking you, it’s better to just opt-in and find out how much Google knows about you. Besides, stats about one’s activities is fun.

[via Google Blog]

Google Street View Goes into the Amazon Jungle

Back in August last year, a few members of Google Street View and Google Earth Outreach team went into the Amazon Basin to collect ground-level images of the rivers, forest and communities in the Rio Negro Reserve. They are back and the pictures and videos they collected are now available through the Street View feature on Google Maps.

Take a virtual boat ride down the main section of the Rio Negro, and float up into the smaller tributaries where the forest is flooded. Stroll along the paths of Tumbira, the largest community in the Reserve, or visit some of the other communities who invited us to share their lives and cultures. Enjoy a hike along an Amazon forest trail and see where Brazil nuts are harvested. You can even see a forest critter if you look hard enough!

The project was made possible in partnership with the Amazonas Sustainable Foundation (FAS), the local nonprofit conservation organization that invited the teams to the area. Google used the Street View trike and a tripod camera with a fisheye lens to capture both the natural landscape and the local communities. In all, more than 50,000 still photos were stitched together to create immersive, 360-degree panoramic views.

Many areas of the Amazon, including Rio Negro Reserve, are under the protection of the Brazilian government with restricted access to the public, so we hope that this Street View collection provides access to this special corner of the planet that many of us otherwise wouldn’t have the chance to experience. Together with FAS, we’re thrilled to help everyone from researchers and scientists to armchair explorers around the world learn more about the Amazon, and better understand how local communities there are working to preserve this unique environment for future generations.

[via Google Latlongblog]

14 Photojournalism News Sites Similar to The Boston Globe’s ‘The Big Picture’

The Big Picture is a popular photo blog curated by the news website Boston Globe. The Big Picture features rich, dramatic and vivid photographs that highlights news stories from around the world. While photo blogs is an old thing, what sets The Big Picture apart from the rest are its large-format and high quality photographs. The Big Picture succeeded where others failed because of its simplicity. The photos that appear on The Big Picture take advantage of the maximum amount of screen real estate that is available and allows every detail of the photograph to be seen.

The Big Picture was launched in May 2008, and its success encouraged other news outlets to follow suit, starting a promising trend of beautiful photo storytelling. If you love The Big Picture, don’t miss these top photojournalism news sites on the web.

Also read: Boston Globe Big Picture gallery downloader

The Atlantic - In Focus

In Focus is The Atlantic's news photography blog. It was started by Alan Taylor in January 2011 - the very person who created The Big Picture for The Boston Globe. 

In Focus offers the opportunity to see the photos at the largest possible size. The default width of the pictures is 1024 pixel, but if your your monitor and bandwidth can handle, you can switch to even higher width of 1280 pixel. The website also supports keyboard shortcuts - "j" and "k" keys or the left and right arrow keys to move down or up within an entry.

BBC News – In Pictures

BBC needs no introduction. It’s one of the oldest and biggest news organization of the world. The In Pictures feature of BBC website published high quality photo galleries every day.

Los Angeles Times – Framework

Framework, the photography and video blog of the Los Angeles Times, celebrates the power and explores the craft of visual storytelling. The blog highlights the work of Times photojournalists who frame by frame, document the drama, the emotion and sometimes the humor of life. Framework also aims to serve as a resource hub for photography, multimedia and video enthusiasts who share our passion.

MSNBC – Photoblog

The MSNBC Digital Network is a collection of innovative and powerful news brands that include msnbc.com, TODAY, NBC Nightly News, msnbc TV, NBC Sports, Newsvine, EveryBlock and BreakingNews.com. MNSBC’s photo archive goes back to 2006.

The New York Times – Lens

Lens is the photography blog of The New York Times, presenting the finest and most interesting visual and multimedia reporting — photographs, videos and slide shows. A showcase for Times photographers, it also seeks to highlight the best work of other newspapers, magazines and news and picture agencies; in print, in books, in galleries, in museums and on the Web.

Reuters - Full Focus

Reuters Full Focus is a large format showcase of Reuters award-winning photography that tells stories from around the world. It also has a forum that provides an opportunity for viewers to share their insights and perspectives on the photographs and the topics they address.

The Wall Street Journal – Photo Journal

The Wall Street Journal is an American English-language international daily newspaper, the largest in the United States, by circulation. It has a circulation of 2.1 million copies (including 400,000 online paid subscriptions), as of March 2010. The Journal has been printed continuously since its inception on July 8, 1889. The newspaper version of WSJ has won the Pulitzer Prize thirty-three times.

Foreign Policy - Photo Essay

Founded in 1970 by Samuel Huntington and Warren Demian Manshel, and now published by the Foreign Policy Group, a division of the Washington Post Company, Foreign Policy is the premier, award-winning magazine of global politics, economics, and ideas. The online edition of Foreign Policy was launched in January 2009.

Time Lightbox

TIME’s photography blog, LightBox, was launched exactly a year ago on March 14, 2011. Since then it has published well over 500 posts - an average of ten a week.

Sacramento Bee - The Frame

Founded in 1857, The Sacramento Bee is the flagship of the 30 daily and almost 50 non-daily newspapers owned by The McClatchy Company. The third-largest newspaper corporation in the country in terms of circulation, McClatchy prints more than 3.2 million papers each day, read by millions more all over the world via a covey of Web sites on the Internet. The Frame is the photography blog of The Sacramento Bee.

CNN Photos

CNN debuted its news website CNN.com on August 30, 1995. The site attracted growing interest over its first decade and is now one of the most popular news websites in the world. The widespread growth of blogs, social media and user-generated content have influenced the site, and blogs in particular have focused CNN's previously scattershot online offerings. CNN Photos is a relatively new addition to the website.

Denver Post – Plog

Plog is the photography blog of Denver Post, a daily newspaper published in Denver, Colorado, since 1892. DenverPost.com receives 4.6 million monthly unique visitors accessing 29 million pages.

Chicago Tribune Photo Nation

The Chicago Tribune is a major daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, United States, and the flagship publication of the Tribune Company. Formerly self-styled as the "World's Greatest Newspaper" (for which WGN radio and television are named), it remains the most read daily newspaper of the Chicago metropolitan area and the Great Lakes region and is currently the eighth largest newspaper in the United States by circulation.

Tampabay – All Eyes

All Eyes is the photography blog of Tampa Bay times, that features the best news photos from Tampa Bay and around the world. News photos are added almost every day from the staff of the Tampa Bay Times, from photographers around the world and from residents right here in Tampa Bay.