You can check out the new photo timeline by heading over to SkyDrive, or via the image below if the update hasn’t rolled your way yet. Photographs are sorted in a way that aggregates them based on album and time. For example, one batch of images taken an hour or two before a second batch will show up in its own separate collection, making it easier to find images. Navigation can be accessed via month in yearly groupings. There’s also a filmstrip view (above) for watching them in a slideshow.

That change aside, users will also find that uploading photographs using SkyDrive’s desktop application will be faster after the update arrives. According to Microsoft, this change is to address feedback it has received from users about how long it took to upload images, resulting in changes to both server code and the application itself. Uploads are said to be 2x to 3x faster.

Using thumbnails, users can find the file they’re looking for faster by narrowing in on the ones related to the application to which it pertains. To facilitate this, there’s a new layout for thumbnails, and beyond that the addition of thumbnails for both PowerPoint and Word files, adding to the rate at which items be located.

As we noted earlier this week, Microsoft also recently announced that full-resolution SkyDrive image and videos uploads for Windows Phone users was going global, giving users in previously unavailable markets access to the feature. Says the SkyDrive update notice, this feature has now officially be rolled out across the global for all users.

SOURCE: Windows

This is essentially part of an ongoing effort from the search giant to further streamline all of its services and integrate them with one another, creating a seamless ecosystem of Google services. Instead of 10GB in Gmail for attachments and email messages and 5GB for documents and other media in Google Drive, the two are coming together to share amongst each other, as well as Google+ Photos joining the party.

This is good news for users who need more storage for one service more than the other. For example, I store a lot of photos and documents on Google Drive, but my Gmail bin is barely full. With the unified storage, I’ll now have more room in Google Drive for more photos and documents without sacrificing space in Gmail.

However, this means that Google is getting rid of one of its storage plans. You’ll no longer be able to grab 25GB of extra space for $2.50 per month. If you currently have that plan, Google will allow you to keep it until you cancel or change to another plan. After that, you won’t be able to opt for the 25GB plan any more. The cheapest plan now is an additional 100GB for $4.99 per month, which is half the price that Dropbox charges currently.

If you’re a Google Apps user, these changes will also take affect for you, but instead of 15GB of shared storage, you’ll receive a 30GB pool of storage to share amongst the three Google services. To make sure that you know how much storage you’re using for each service, Google will include a handy pie chart that breaks down the amount of storage your using for either Gmail, Drive, or Google+ Photos. Frankly, we’re not too surprised by this move, and we’ve been wondering when Google would finally make a move like this. It’s always been a shame that we could never use our Gmail storage for Google Drive, but finally, that’s changed.

SOURCE: Google Drive Blog

This feature will be available within the next few days to everyone using Windows Phone 8, and will be accessible in Photo settings. Heading to a Windows Phone 8 device’s Photo app, heading down to the three dots (aka More), hitting Settings and SkyDrive will bring up the Auto Upload options. With this option tapped, users will no longer only see two options, they’ll see six.

In SkyDrive storage, Windows Phone 8 users will see the ability to upload both videos and photos to the cloud in Good Quality and Best Quality sizes. If a user selects Good Quality for photos, they’ll be using wifi and their wireless data connectivity to do so. Both Good and Best quality uploads for Video require wifi, while Best requires wifi for photos.

This release has been, according to the developers behind the project, deliberately taken slow to make sure it was a quality experience. Because of this, global availability has been awaited for quite a while (for some). The full roll-out is scheduled to begin as soon as today – have a peek and see if you’re hooked up now!

SkyDrive is attached to not just Windows Phone 8 device at this point in history, but Windows 8 devices as well. Here in the spring of 2013, Microsoft’s SkyDrive reliance is heavy, and it can be expected to continue for cloud storage straight from the company for some time to come.

SOURCE: Windows Phone Developers

The new app from Amazon can automatically upload photos that you take with your iPhone directly to your Amazon Cloud Drive, and within the app, all your photos will be organized and ready to browse or share. However, just like with Dropbox’s automatic photo upload feature, it only works when the app is open due to limitations within iOS.

The Android version of the app launched back in November, and unlike iOS users, the app is able to upload photos directly to Amazon’s Could Drive whether the app is open or not. However, unlike Apple’s Photo Stream, you can view the photos in a web browser from any computer, just like with Dropbox and even Google Drive, which begs the question: Is Amazon’s cloud offerings good enough to take on Google and Dropbox?

Amazon offers users 5GB for free to start out with, and paid options are available for those who need more storage space (plans start at 20GB for $10 per year). With Google Drive, you also get 5GB free, with paid options starting at just $2.49 per month for 25GB). As for Dropbox, you start off with a measly 2GB for free, but can upgrade for $10 per month, which will land you 100GB. So, all of these options clearly offer different paying schemes, but if you’re already invested in Amazon’s ecosystem, the addition of Cloud Drive Photos will be a welcomed.

VIA: PC Mag

SOURCE: iTunes App Store

Actually baking the functionality into an existing site is straightforward, with it requiring the addition of just a couple of lines of HTML. After that, a new “Save to Drive” option will show up, with the choice of adding multiple buttons for different downloads on each page using the JavaScript API.

Google has already been working with a number of sites – including O’Reilly, which will allow ebooks to be saved straight to Google Drive storage, and Delta Dental, which will make dental records and statements easily shuffled over to the cloud – to get the feature up and running, but now has made it publicly available. There’s more technical documentation if you want to dig through the minutiae.

Of course, some Drive users have been sharing files with the online storage service from their browser already, thanks to various plugins that are already available for browsers like Chrome. These extensions generally add a right-click context menu option, to save links and media, such as photos and document downloads.

Ironing out the hassles of getting files from one place to another is a big issue for cloud provider services, given the number of options for free storage space users have to choose between. The hope, of course, is that the free capacity will quickly be used up, and free subscribers turned into paying ones. Google offers 100GB for $4.99 per month – shared between Google Drive and Google+ photo galleries, among other things – or 200GB for $9.99 per month, with higher-tier packages also available.

The full-resolution backup ability will soon be available everywhere, with some Windows Phone 8 users who were previously unable to use the feature already seeing it. Those who haven’t gained the ability yet are told to be patient, with Microsoft saying that it has “just start to light it up.” You should see the feature by this weekend, however, according to the company’s timeline.

Those with access will need to enable the feature in order to use it, which is done via the device’s menus. Head into Photos, then More. Tap Settings -> SkyDrive. Those who have gained the new ability will see a different SkyDrive Storage screen than the one they previously had, with the new one including the option “Best quality” under both Photos and Videos.

Select the box for both options if you want to upload full-resolution of both images and videos, or only select one if, for example, you’re only interested in image backup. You’ll notice a snippet that says Wi-Fi is required in order to utilize full-resolution backups, meaning it’ll happen when you’re connected to your wireless network. This is to keep your phone bill from skyrocketing.

[via Windows]

Both Android and iOS devices working with Amazon Cloud Player are ready for action with Ford SYNC AppLink-equipped vehicles. The iOS version has been outlined this week with dashboard controls as well as voice recognition abilities. Users will also be hearing their tunes with high-quality 256kbps audio straight from their vehicle’s speaker system.

With Amazon’s system, users will have the ability to play music wirelessly from their iOS device or through their Cloud Player. With Cloud Player, music is accessed through Amazon’s online archive, this allowing the user’s vehicle and iOS device to free up local storage space for alternate media.

This push is affecting the 2013 Ford Fiesta, Mustang, Focus, C-MAX Hybrid, E-Series, F-150, Expedition, Fusion, and Super Duty models, and will quite likely be appearing on future vehicles with Ford SYNC AppLink embedded as well. This connectivity should be appearing on and with your vehicle and iOS device starting today. Android users should, by all means, have had this connectivity working nicely since February – if you’re still waiting, make a move!

Starting today, Google Drive users utilizing the service on their PC or Mac can share directly from within the folder using a couple of simple mouse clicks, both rapidly speeding up the rate at which one can share content and also bringing the service in line with some other services that have offered this feature – or one remarkably similar – for quite awhile now.

You can see the feature in action in the screenshot above. Right-clicking on the file you want to share, such as a text document, picture, or something else entirely, pulls up a menu with various options, which hasn’t changed and will look familiar to those who already use the service. This is with the exception of the last entry in the list, under Google Drive -> Share…

If you’re not seeing the new feature yet, be patient – Google says in its announcement on Google+ that the feature is being rolled out over the course of this week, so you might not be seeing it yet, and may not see it until Thursday or Friday. While you’re waiting, you can check out some other recent Google Drive news from us by hitting up this link here.

[via Google+]

The news of a Dropbox-centric developer conference hints to the possibility that the company will be looking to revamp its cloud offerings over time with more features, thanks to its network of developers and partners. As for what we’ll see at the conference, that’s still up in the air, but Dropbox says that “people create more than a billion memories, thoughts, and moments in Dropbox every day,” and the company is looking to bring “together our community of developers and partners to build on these experiences and design the future.”

The conference looks to be invitation only, and tickets are $350 per person, but if you want to get in, you can request an invitation on their website by filling out some basic information, like your name, email address, and your occupation. However, you’ll most likely have to be involved with Dropbox in some capacity in order to attend.

Dropbox has been looking to integrate with more and more services over the past year or so, and a developer conference is a great place to make that kind of business happen. In the world of cloud storage, having your service integrated into as many products as possible is a fairly good way to get more people to use your service.

Verizon says the service will be rolled out to its customers in the coming weeks, but those running Android can head over to the Google Play Store and grab the app now. Those with an iPhone will have to wait for the iOS app, which is said to be “following soon,” although a specific date wasn’t provided. Once the Apple-centric app rolls out, those who own devices running both mobile operating systems will be able to upload and access their content using the service from both devices.

The carrier says it plans to have other mobile operating systems supported later this year. A total of 125GB of data can be stored using the service, with customers getting the first paltry 500MB of that data for free. That changes after the limit is hit, with users needing to switch to a for-pay subscription that is charged monthly for the duration in which the data is stored.

For $2.99 a month, users can upload up to 25GB of data, with the price increasing a tad from there to $5.99 monthly for 75GB and $9.99 per month for 125GB. Once the 125GB of data is hit, users will have to look elsewhere for their cloud storage needs. The Verizon Cloud app is available for smartphones running Android 2.2 and higher, and is currently sitting at version 13.2.5.

[via Verizon Wireless]

The new locations will have access to the service by the end of May. The LG Cloud service is a content streaming service that allows users to stream various content directly to their LG Cinema 3-D Smart TV. The LG Cloud service also provides a place for LG smart TV owners to store entertainment content that can be automatically synchronized between various devices they own such as computers, smartphones, and TVs.

The new service offers users access to multiple content types including video, photos, and music once the user uploads content to their account. The service allows users to upload content one time and then access it on multiple devices. The LG Cloud service offers users up to 5 GB of content storage at no cost.

LG offers access to the content stored on its Cloud using a PC client, website, or smart device. LG also says that in the future, smart home appliances will be able to access the shared content stored on the LG Cloud. If you’re wondering what sorts of smart appliances LG may be talking about, we’ve seen refrigerators that have integrated TV screens in the past. The LG Cloud service also allows users to pause content on one device, and resume watching from that exact spot on another device.

[via LG]

The company behind the product has now turned to Kickstarter to raise the money it needs to come to market. The project had a goal of $100,000 and with 29 days to go, it has surpassed that goal with a total of over $153,000 pledged at the time of writing. 1438 people have backed the project so far.

Space Monkey is described as a next-generation cloud service and for $10 a month; you get a terabyte of storage space. The company promises that the Space Monkey service is up to 60 times faster than other cloud services. The idea behind the project remains the same, rather than having to send your data across the Internet to some big data center, Space Monkey puts the cloud server in your home or office.

That means uploading data from devices in your home or office directly to the cloud is much quicker. However, you can still access your data and upload data to your personal cloud server via Space Monkey at the same speed as traditional cloud-storage networks anywhere you have access to the Internet. Currently a pledge of $109 or more will get you the 1 TB Space Monkey for 12 months.

[via Kickstarter]

The company mentioned last week that they would be announcing the next generation in Moonshot hardware, and as expected, they’re starting out the week on a high note with the new line of servers. HP mentions that with the growing needs of internet users, cloud data storage will grow exponentially, to the point where larger and larger facilities will have to be built in order to meet the demand of storage needs.

However, HP says that Moonshot will dissolve the need for bigger and bigger data centers, saying that the new Moonshot servers can take up 80% less space, as well as use up to 89% less energy and be 77% less costly than traditional servers. HP even went as far as saying that the new Moonshot systems are comparable to the move from Unix to x86 servers, as well as the innovation of blade servers.

The new Moonshot systems are available today in the US and Canada, while availability in Europe, Asia, and Latin America will start next month. Pricing begins at a whopping $61,875 for the enclosure, 45 HP ProLiant Moonshot servers, and an integrated switch, but clients will be able to customize their setup to fit their own needs.

Google also promises that loading times and editing are much quicker on this release, although we didn’t seem to notice a huge difference in that respect — you’re mileage may vary as far as that’s concerned. It still took a couple of seconds for documents to load, and creating a new document took even longer.

The Mountain View-based company also included the usual consortium of bug fixes in this release, which will hopefully fix any quirks that you might have been having with the app recently. Other than that, you can expect the same experience on the app. It’s certainly not a huge update, but the added bonus of landscape mode is a Godsend if you ask us.

Google has been keeping a good eye on its line of iOS apps and is even updating them in a timely fashion. While the app didn’t support editing when it first launched on Apple’s platform, the company eventually added editing support later on, with spreadsheet editing being tacked on back in November. Google has yet to add more capabilities like this, but could be a matter of time before they do.

The Dropbox integration only supports English, French, German, Italian, and Spanish, but you’ll be able to access your Dropbox folder from right inside your Yahoo Mail inbox. You can save attachments in email messages directly to your Dropbox, or include attachments into outgoing email using files from your Dropbox.

Current Dropbox and Yahoo Mail users can take advantage of the integration right this second, and if you don’t have a Dropbox account, you’ll be able to create one right from Yahoo Mail. What’s perhaps one of the more notable features to come from this integration is that you don’t have to worry about the 25MB attachment limit in Yahoo Mail, since all the files are stored in the cloud in your Dropbox.

This is very similar to how Google’s Gmail integrates with Google Drive. Users can quickly and easily attach files that are located in Google Drive and send them along in an email without having to worry about searching around for the files you need in the regular file explorer on your desktop.

Essentially, the Nebula One is a turnkey computer, that takes an ordinary rack of servers and turns them into a full-fledged cloud storage system running OpenStack, which is an open source cloud computing platform. CEO and former NASA CTO Christopher Kemp says that these systems combine computing powers, storage, and networking all into one machine.

Nebula One runs Cosmos, which is Nebula’s distributed enterprise cloud operating system, and it configures any servers that plug into the Nebula hardware. What perhaps so impressive about it is that it’s built for self-service and supports APIs for OpenStack and Amazon Web Services. It also works with IBM, Dell, or HP servers.

Kemp says that the Nebula One is plug-n-play, meaning that you can just plug it in, and after it automatically configures, it’ll be booted up to the cloud. He notes that you don’t need extra services to purchases, and you don’t need to hire professionals to set it up. Kemp notes it’s as easy as turning on the power switch. According to their website, you can get the Nebula One with as much as 2,400TB of storage and 9,600GB of memory, with 1,600 processing cores. Or if you’re more of a cheapskate, the lowest they offer is 96TB of storage, 384GB of RAM, and 64 processing cores.

The Windows and Mac apps for Cloud Drive have been updated with file syncing, allowing you to share files between multiple computers, which may not seem too enthralling at this point, and it’s certainly nothing groundbreaking, but it moves Cloud Drive one step closer to being a decent cloud storage service that could take on the likes of Dropbox and SkyDrive.

The new feature allows you to upload files from one computer and have them show up on other computers that you have connected to your Amazon Cloud Drive account, as well as the web interface, which you can access on any computer that doesn’t have the Cloud Drive app installed, allowing you to access your files from anywhere that has a computer.

Amazon Cloud Drive also comes with 5GB free, which is more than Dropbox’s 2GB free, which seems rather low compared to today’s standards. However, while Cloud Drive does have an Android version for mobile users, there’s no iOS version to be found yet, so Dropbox still has a slight lead right now, but it’s only a matter of time before they get some real competition creeping up on them.

The process works similarly to other services with the feature. Users first need to enable two-step verification on the Apple ID website. After that, you can use your mobile device to receive verification codes either through a text message or using the Find my iPhone app in order to sign into Apple services.

This new feature for iCloud comes months after technology journalist Mat Honan was hacked and all of his iOS and Mac devices were erased, thanks to some clever social engineering by the hacker. Apple promised to beef up its security, and has introduced two-step verification today to prevent such things from happening again.

Currently, several companies support two-step verification, including Google, Dropbox, Facebook, Amazon, and Yahoo. Essentially the feature requires two types of verification in order to log into services, one of which is a virtual verification (like a password), and the other is a physical verification (a mobile phone in this case). This prevents anyone from accessing your account, even if they know the password.

[via 9to5Mac]

According to FCW, Amazon won a cloud-computing contract with the CIA that’s worth up to $600 million over a 10-year period. According to the report, the new cloud service will help the CIA “keep up with emerging technologies like big data in a cost-effective manner not possible under the CIA’s previous cloud efforts.”

However, it’s not exactly clear what the CIA has planned for the new cloud system, but it seems that the CIA is mostly focused on becoming more efficient with newer technologies, and it seems like the new service will work just like most other cloud service, except it’ll be on heavy lockdown by the CIA, allowing only authorized users to access confidential files from any device.

While there’s no concrete confirmations on the deal between the two organizations, it wouldn’t be too surprising if the CIA ended up moving into the 21st century with a better cloud storage implementation, especially with Amazon behind the wheel. Neither Amazon or the CIA were willing to comment on the situation.

[via Gizmodo]

Some of Google’s examples share some overlap, at least at first glance, with other services, like Google Docs, though with the benefits of a huge chunk of online space and Drive’s other advantages. Neutron Drive now supports a collective editor feature for any document or source code file you have in your Drive account, with room for multiple people to work on the same file simultaneously:

Elsewhere, there’s collaboration support for project scheduling, with Gantter using the new API to bake in IM-style chat, project editing, and Gantt diagram manipulation. Obviously there are controls around who can access documents and who can edit them, as well as color-coding so that each person’s changes are trackable:

Finally, from Google’s showcase, there’s draw.io, which as the name suggests is a diagramming app. Just as with the multi-author Gantt diagrams in Gantter, draw.io allows a remote team to work together on flowcharts, electronic circuits, and other diagrams:

Those developers keen to get onboard with the Drive Realtime API can find documentation and examples here, plus there’s a step-by-step guide to implementing it. There’s also a realtime collaborative Rubik’s Cube style puzzle you can play with.

Exactly what the nature of the problem might be is unclear, and according to Google’s status dashboard Drive is the only web service to be encountering issues today. However, there have been reports on Twitter that Gmail, Google Reader, Docs, and other services have also been sluggish in their responsiveness.

Drive has made headlines in recent days, after a new notetaking service intended to challenge Evernote and OneNote was spotted apparently prematurely public over the weekend. Google Keep was briefly available at a Drive sub-domain, though there’s no official word from the company as to when – or even if – it will launch properly.

Meanwhile, Google continues to come under fire from Google Reader users, furious that their RSS aggregator will be shut down by July. Google’s habit of juggling services and weeding out those it claims are the least popular has left some concerned that the products they currently rely on, such as Docs and Drive, may one day be shuttered should Google decide it is not getting the return on investment it requires.

Update: Google says that Drive “has already been restored for some users, and we expect a resolution for all users within the next 1 hours.”

Dropbox says that they fell in love with Mailbox right away, describing the app as “simple, delightful, and beautifully engineered.” Dropbox discovered that Mailbox’s calling was the same as theirs: “to solve life’s hidden problems and reimagine the things we do every day.” That’s when the Dropbox folks realized they would make a team.

Mailbox said that rather than grow the app and the company on its own, they’ve decided to join forces with Dropbox to possibly achieve more than what they could do on their own. The Mailbox app itself will still be sticking around and won’t be changing, save for a few new features coming in the future, including Dropbox integration, according to a hint from Mailbox CEO Gentry Underwood.

Exact plans for the acquisition haven’t been disclosed, but we should definitely be seeing more features coming to Mailbox. We reviewed the app shortly after its release, and its certainly worth a try. The developer says that 60 million emails are going in and out per day, and the company’s service capacity has grown 2,000x since launching last month.

The desktop client for Dropbox lives in the system tray or the menu bar (depending on whether you have Windows or Mac), so all the updates and new features are happening there. Specifically, Dropbox made it easier to access shared files, and you can also accept or decline invitations to shared folders right from the dropdown menu.

You’ll also get notifications in real-time as people share files with you. Dropbox also made it much easier and quicker to see what files have recently changed in your Dropbox, and they also added a new way to share files with a link. You can easily click “Share” on any recently-changed file and paste the link to the person you want to share it with.

However, the desktop client wasn’t the only thing to get the new features today. The mobile app for both iOS and Android both received an update that will provide notifications for shared folders. It’s not a huge update for the mobile version, but some users will enjoy getting the improved notifications on their smartphones.

Houston mostly spoke in general terms, but he specifically called out Apple’s iCloud service and said that iCloud users can only share files across iOS devices and not over Android devices. In other words, a lot of cloud storage services that companies and manufacturers roll out are not cross-platform compatible.

Houston says that “you shouldn’t have to care about the logo on the back of your phone or computer, it should just work with everything you have.” He certainly has a point there, and it’s that kind of limitation that Dropbox wants “to help remove for people.” Dropbox is compatible on almost all platforms, and you can share files across different mobile operating systems without any trouble.

Of course, Dropbox has scored partnerships with Samsung and HTC in the past, noting that these companies are the smart ones by not rolling out their own proprietary cloud service, but rather using Dropbox, which is more widely used anyway, with other 100 million users and over one billion files being uploaded every day across 500 million mobile devices.

[via Macworld]

Many users took to Dropbox’s support forums and stated that many of their Dropbox-exclusive e-mail accounts were compromised. They are receiving phishing e-mails from fake LinkedIn and PayPal e-mail addresses, as well as “offers” from casinos and gambling sites. The PayPal phishing e-mails are more frightening because they appear very similar to real PayPal transaction e-mails, and to the unaware user, could result in their computers being infected by malware.

Dropbox states that this attack may have been a long, postponed effect from its previous security compromise last July. The attacks doesn’t seem as widespread as they were last year, but then again, more affected users can come forward and post their own reports soon.

If you believe you’re one of the affected users, Dropbox encourages you to forward the spam emails to their support e-mail address. A spokesperson for Dropbox stated, “If you’ve received spam to an email account you only use for Dropbox, please send the message (including full headers) to support-security@dropbox.com to help our ongoing investigation.” It is also suggested that you change your e-mail password as well as your Dropbox password.

[via Dropbox]

Overall, Evernote has more than 50m users worldwide, growing by 80,000 or so a day. The UK contributes around 3,000 to that daily figure, the company says.

Launched back in 2008 as a way to synchronize digital notes across multiple devices, Evernote has since expanded with native apps for iOS, Android, and other phone/tablet OSes, plus the ability to search text even when it’s included in a photo. The company has also inked deals with others to expand its footprint, including integrating Evernote into Samsung’s Galaxy Note series, and into Livescribe’s Sky WiFi smartpen.

In both devices, Evernote is used as a sync hub, with Livescribe going one step further and building an HTML5 sharing system that allows handwritten notes stored in Evernote to be reviewed by others complete with real-time audio. There’s more on that in our Sky smartpen review.

Meanwhile, Evernote hasn’t let up on Apple integration, even though the iPad lacks a proper stylus. Having acquired Penultimate, an app for handwritten notes on the iPad, it made it a free download and baked in search for cursive text.

Dropbox first launched in 2007, just when smartphones were beginning to take off, and the service was only able to sync files between different computers, but eventually the company added support for a smartphones and tablets. As for the future, Dropbox is constantly looking to expand and offer more features to its users. Just earlier this month, Dropbox introduced a new admin panel for businesses.

Houston also was trying to passive-aggressively get mobile carriers and manufacturers in on the Dropbox fun. He says that there’s “untapped opportunity” for carriers that could partner up with Dropbox, using a possible family plan as an example. Houston says that Dropbox could “tie a family together in a way that’s broader than just a billing relationship.”

Houston also mentioned the great partnership opportunities with handset manufacturers, and used Samsung and HTC as an example, where users who log in or sign up with a Samsung or HTC phone get a certain amount of extra storage for free. Of course, manufacturers who have their own cloud service are a little nervous to jump ship — as Samsung was — but Houston mentions that by using Dropbox, manufacturers can build the cloud storage service “onto all these core features on the phone.”

[via CNET]

Someone accidentally forgot to renew the SSL Certificate for the service, which expires one year after it’s renewal date, and thus caused outages throughout the entire Azure cloud-system. Over 52 different Azure services were offline or suffering from poor performance due to the SSL certificate expiring, which also shed some light on a similar outage that Azure faced back in August of 2012. The outage back then was caused by a similar system configuration mistake and left many users in Western Europe without access to the service.

Alongside the outages of Windows Azure, many users have also reported that they had issues with their Xbox’s Music and Videos services. Users were unable to stream, download, or purchase products from the Zune Marketplace. While the Zune Marketplace is also based on a cloud-platform, Microsoft stated that the issues with Zune have no relation to the Azure outages.

Microsoft has restored the Azure cloud-platform today, but are still currently undergoing some tests. While users may have access to their information, Microsoft issues a warning saying that within the next 24 hours, they might see some disruptions to their service. Hopefully these outage issues don’t become an annual thing with Microsoft Azure.

[via Microsoft]

You have 6 options to choose from when buying the Mega services through Bitvoucher. There are 3 monthly options, ranging from 500GB for 0.5150 Bitcoin to 4TB for 1.5462 Bitcoin. There are also 3 yearly options, with 500GB for 5.1551 Bitcoin (which comes out to about 0.4296 Bitcoin per month) to 4TB for 15.4663 Bitcoin (about 1.2889 Bitcoin per month).

Dotcom also tweeted that Mega plans on offering secure e-mail, chat & voice, video, and “mobile” services. He talks about how services such as Gmail, iCloud, and Skype are based in the U.S., making them not private enough. The data contained in this services can be viewed by the U.S. government if they demand access to them. His tweet regarding the issue says, “Fact: Gmail, iCloud, Skype, etc. have to provide (by law) secret & untraceable NSA backdoors to all your data. #GetOutNow.”

Dotcom says that Mega is all about privacy and that they are “The Privacy Company”. It wants no roots with the U.S. government and wants to offer users a safe and private place for them to share data. Mega has come a long way, reaching over 3 million users in only 4 weeks. It’s definitely gone a long way in a short amount of time, and it’d be interesting to see where it’s headed next. Are you using the Mega cloud-storage service?

[via Dotcom]

The new admin console is ultimately centered around two ideas: visibility and control. The new features offer improvements in both of these categories. For visibility, you can view recent activity, web sessions, linked devices, and third party apps for each member on the team. You can also get an overall activity chart for everyone on the team, and even download and print out handy reports of usage.

As for control, Dropbox now lets admins set sharing controls at the account level, meaning that you can determine which files are to be kept within the company, or let users decided what gets shared. You can also require that everyone enable two-step verification, just in case you want added security to your work, and there are options to remove users from the group in case they leave the company, and even send out password reset emails to users.

Essentially, Dropbox is making it easier for IT admins to manage the team and the company’s files in an easy-to-use control panel. Plus, Dropbox never has any confusing settings, and always strives for user-friendliness, so while it’s always good to have a knowledgable IT admin on staff, pretty anyone could run the admin console if need be.

It could be that Dell is simply sponsoring the promotion, but given that it’s an “Exclusive Offer,” we can’t see where the exclusivity lies. Either way, if you’re not already signed up for a Box account, this is your chance to get 50GB of cloud storage space for free. They’ve given away 50GB free before, but that’s the highest that the company has gone with its promotions.

Box is about the only cloud storage provider that gives you a ton of space for free right away. Dropbox gives you 2GB after signing up, and you can earn more with referrals, but that can take some work. Box is really the only simple cloud solution that can be considered a viable backup resource.

Here’s the catch, though. Box only allows, at the most, 250MB files, so you might as well forget about backing up home videos. However, Box offers paid accounts that get rid a lot of the limitations that you’ll come across. Plus, 50GB for free may not seem useful now, but who knows when you’ll need it. Either way, it’s handy to have just in case.

To celebrate the milestone, Microsoft introduced the ability for users to share and edit Office documents with users without a Microsoft account. Previously, only Microsoft account holders could share documents with one another, but the company has made it possible for outside users to edit documents and apply the changes anonymously.

Microsoft says the new feature is actually from requests from many users who were begging the company to include more lax sharing options. Students were actually the largest from the group who requested the feature, saying that they were wanting to share documents with other users that didn’t have Microsoft accounts.

Microsoft says that people who you share a document with can now just go from clicking the link sent to them from a collaborator to editing the document in a snap without any hassle. Of course, Google Drive has had this kind of feature for a while now, but it’s nice that other cloud office suites are taking advantage of it as well.

It would seem the problem lies with sites that index the content on Mega, with one site in particular – Mega-search.me – getting some attention today. Users can submit submit links for their Mega files to Mega-search.me, allowing others to access them. Apparently, these copyright holders are finding their content through indexes like Mega-search.me and then issuing takedown requests.

That all appears to add up, but now we run into another problem, as content that’s completely legal is also being taken down. Many of the links on Mega-search.me have gone dead in just a matter of hours, with users seeing their legal content disappearing after receiving a DMCA takedown request. This isn’t very easy to explain, but TorrentFreak suggests that someone out there is filing fake DMCA requests and Mega is complying with most of the copyright warnings.

Another possibility is that Mega itself is targeting these indexes as a way to prevent users from finding and sharing copyrighted content uploaded to the site. Whatever is happening, it’s got some Mega users understandably upset, and the rest of us scratching our heads. We’ll be keeping an ear to the ground for more information, so keep it here at SlashGear for additional details.

The new features aren’t available just yet, though. The company says that users should be seeing the new features in the next few months. However, it’s important to note that Documents Preview won’t support all file types, but the more popular ones will be supported, including .doc, .docx, and .pdf. For files that are not supported, users will still have the option to download or share the file like usual.

Dropbox also updated photo views on the web interface, laying out photos in a grid of thumbnails and organizing them chronology by when they were taken, rather than by name. A similar feature has already launched in Dropbox’s Android app in a bit of a beta preview of this functionality, but it will hit the web interface within a few months. Furthermore, the company is making it easier to share photos, allowing users to select photos from the web viewer and create new albums to share to social media or send through email.

These updates and new features are just another stepping stone for Dropbox to become more than just a simple file-sharing service. The company is looking to make it easier to manage all those files that you store in your Dropbox, and of course, many of them are photos and documents that can take a while to sift through if not organized properly.

[via Forbes]

This has a number of benefits, as it means you won’t be subject to size restrictions like you are with other services. One of the major headaches with services like Dropbox and SkyDrive is that you’re limited in how much you can have in your synced folders – for Dropbox, for instance, you get 2GB of free space, and that runs out quick when you’re trying to sync multiple video files at once. Once you’ve hit that cap, you’ll need to shell out some cash if you want more space.

That’s not a major complaint, as these are companies that exist to make money after all. BitTorrent’s Sync, on the other hand, is free to use. You won’t have to worry about limits on the amount you can transfer from one device to another, which probably sounds like a Godsend to those who constantly have to rely on cloud services to move files between devices.

As cool as it sounds, there’s one slight problem: BitTorrent Sync isn’t available to use just yet (unless you love pre-alpha testing). It’s currently in the testing stages, but it shouldn’t be more than a few months before Sync is available to BitTorrent users. What do you think of this new cloud service from the people behind BitTorrent?

[via NBC News]

Dotcom’s service here is what he describes as a culmination of seven years working with the largest file serving service in the world, Megaupload, here in 2013 made to be “the best cloud storage business the world has ever seen.” Dotcom’s questions from WSJ also included a query on how large Mega would be getting, be it as large or larger than Megaupload. Dotcom let it be known that “it will hopefully take off within a year” but that “it’s just so good that it’s going to spread” – confidence indeed!

Perhaps the most important bit that Dotcom went into here in the security and multi-tiered service that Mega is now and will soon offer to its users. The following is what Dotcom describes as new and unique about Mega as compared to the Megaupload and Megaupload-like sites of the past:

“I would say the biggest new development is on-the-fly encryption. Without having to install any kind of application—it happens in your browser in the background—it encrypts, giving you privacy. This means when you transfer data, anyone sitting on that line will get nothing as it is all scrambled and impossible to decrypt without your key. This is going to take encryption to the mainstream.

We have some servers in New Zealand, we have some servers in Europe and we have invited hosting partners to sign up to join us. Basically anyone can connect a server in their hosting facility, hook it up to Internet, give us access and we can make it a Megaserver. Every file that is being uploaded to Mega is not just on one server, meaning if one hosting company goes bankrupt then those files will be on least two servers in the world and in two different jurisdictions.” – Dotcom

Have a peek at the timeline below to see what’s happened with Mega since it’s launch and stay tuned as we follow this service through the future as well. Do you use Mega right this minute? Did you utilize Megaupload before it was cut down at the knees by the government powers that be? Let us know what you think!

While some users were able to successfully create an account and start uploading files, they quickly discovered that uploads would freeze. Gizmodo‘s own Joe Brown mentioned that after 23 hours of an upload in progress, “not one byte transferred.” However, other users can’t get into the new service at all, thanks to confirmation emails gone missing.

Some users can’t even get the site to load in order to log in. It’s definitely not surprising when a new service underestimates the crowd that will show up at launch, and it’s not the first time this has happened with any new service. With that said, it seems like companies should be smart enough now that they should just always expect a larger crowd than anticipated, just in case. It’s a precaution that will save a ton of headaches right off the bat.

However, Kim Dotcom is obviously aware of the issue and is getting top men to resolve the problems as quickly as possible, although his timeline for a “smooth experience” was simply just “soon.” Dotcom says that the new service is “slowly stabilizing” and the team is “still fixing small bugs and issues with some servers.”

“The new Mega encrypts your data transparently in your browser, on the fly” the company says of its file security system. “You hold the keys to what you store in the cloud, not us.”

As for those who find 50GB isn’t enough for their needs, Mega expects to offer three “Pro” tiers initially. €9.99 ($13) gets you 500GB, €19.99 ($27) gets you 2TB, and €29.99 ($40) gets you 4TB. Bandwidth for each package comes in at 1TB, 4TB, and 8TB per month, respectively.

You’ll also need to be running Chrome for the best experience since, as Mega explains, currently none of the other common browsers support all elements of the feature-set the cloud system requires. “ If you are planning on using MEGA frequently, there is currently no alternative to using the most advanced browser currently in existence” Mega concludes, “Google Chrome.”

Mega’s roadmap for the future is certainly ambitious. The company plans to release an API, as well as local apps for desktop and mobile use, plus an instant-messaging service for Mega users to communicate with each other.

The landing page at Mega.co.nz now redirects to Kim.com/mega, and it’s important to note that the service isn’t finished just yet. Once the site launches tomorrow for everyone, users will be aware of a roadmap that will include future features to be added, such as an SDK with fully documented API and different collaboration features.

One of the biggest features of the new service is that new users will receive 50GB of free storage when they sign up, but those that require larger storage needs can opt for different paid tiers. The “Pro” options offer 500GB, 2TB, and 4TB of cloud storage for €9.99, €19.99 and €29.99, respectively. The 500GB package comes with 1TB of bandwidth, and the 2TB and 4TB plans are given 4TB and 8TB of bandwidth, respectively.

Obviously, it’s still too early to tell if the service will take off. So far, though, there doesn’t seem to be any major setbacks to Mega, but we’ll see once the service officially launches tomorrow. The service eventually plans to add filesystem integration for Windows, with Mac and Linux versions coming as well. There will also be mobile apps for multiple mobile OSes that will allow users to sync files across different platforms.

[via TechCrunch]

According to the announcement, Instra Corporation will be responsible for providing tech support and helping with daily operations during the website’s launch, which is expected to bring in an onslaught of users. Instra Corporation’s CEO Brian Clarkson offered this statement. “The new Mega promises a revolution in online privacy with one-click encryption for every user, creating a secure online cloud storage service for Internet users across the globe.”

Mega’s founder Kim Dotcom announced on October 18 that he would be launching a new service to replace Megaupload. This came after a raid on Dotcom’s house, during which he was arrested and spent a short time in jail. To keep this from happening again, the new website is said to be “raid-proof” due to an encryption system that holds Mega blameless of any copyrighted material it ends up hosting.

Following this, the website was taken offline by the massive amount of traffic it received in early November, confirming suspicions that it will be slammed with traffic when it launches in two days. Dotcom will hold a launch event at his New Zealand mansion, although details are scant on what the event will actually entail. Says Kim, “Expect a press conference like no other.”