Google has cut the price to store photos at its Picasa Web Albums site by a factor of eight.
The photo-sharing site offers 1GB of photo and video storage for free, but now going beyond that limit costs less. The options now range from $5 a year for 20GB to $4,096 a year for a whopping 16 terabytes.
"Today we're dramatically lowering our prices to make extra storage even more affordable. You can now buy 20GB for only $5 a year--that's twice as much storage for a quarter of the old price, and enough space for more than 10,000 full resolution pictures taken with a five megapixel camera. Since most people have less than 10GB of photos, chances are you can now save all your memories online for a year for the cost of a triple mocha," programmer Elvin Lee said in a blog post Tuesday.
A lot of us have well over 5 megapixels per shot to contend with, but it's still interesting. When Google introduced the option to pay for extra storage in 2007, it cost $20 a year for 6GB.
The move is the latest to indicate that Picasa, although not a high-priority Google project like Chrome or search, does have a pulse. Last year, it added face recognition to the Web site and followed suit this year with the free Picasa photo editing software the company offers. And in March, Google started adding advertisements to the Picasa site.
Picasa is gradually getting more sophisticated, but as far as I can tell it has yet to dethrone Yahoo's Flickr as a preferred hub of at the center of a lot of photography activity on the Web. Picasa is fine for sharing snapshots with the family, but it's not really the place to join groups, chat on forums, and discover what the photography world is up to.
Picasa's more modest scope isn't a problem--plenty of people just want to share some photos, after all, and Google generally tries to offer services with broad rather than specific appeal--but Flickr has more vitality in this more social era of photography--at least among its "pro" subscribers who pay $25 a year.
Another interesting comparison is Facebook, with an extraordinary 2 billion photos uploads each month and a well-used system to identify who's in a photo that Flickr only just began offering. While Facebook has a strong social angle, though, it cuts down photos to a lower resolution and really is more a place for sharing snapshots than for digging into the world of photography.
Picasa's price cut raises an interesting prospect for photography enthusiasts, though. If it's going to set its prices to try to match some portion of the dropping prices of hard drives--not just this week, but regularly--it'll gradually become a more appealing place to back up photos in the cloud. Of course, like Flickr, it's chiefly for JPEG files, not the larger and more awkward raw files serious photographers often use. But even a JPEG backup is useful, especially with synchronization tools built into the Picasa software.
Paying Google $256 per year for 1TB of Picasa storage space is getting in the vicinity of the $100 price or so a 1TB external hard drive costs. Of course you only have to pay once for the hard drive, and even a slow USB hard drive is faster to access than photos on the Net, but Google's price includes backup and some assurance that you'll still have your photos if someone steals your laptop or your hard drive fails. Plus, of course, you get to share your photos.
A big gap here is support for raw files, something that SmugMug offers in its Amazon Web Services-based SmugVault. But that costs 22 cents per gigabyte per month, a price that rapidly gets steep when you consider how fast a modern SLR can fill up a 4GB flash memory card. SmugMug, a subscription-only site, caters to the serious set, though.
MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.--For almost all of its existence, Mozilla Messaging has been known for Thunderbird--e-mail software with the traditional view that a person's PC is the center of their computing existence.
Now, though, the Mozilla Foundation subsidiary's scope is expanding beyond the confines of the computer under your desk or on your lap. In the near term, the new Thunderbird 3 is becoming more integrated with the Web. And in the longer term, the Raindrop project has the potential to lift your inbox all the way to the cloud.
"For us it's really important to have Thunderbird. It's also important to not stay in the blinders of that scenario," Mozilla Messaging CEO David Ascher said in an interview at the company's headquarters here. With Raindrop, "We're focusing on best experience for messaging in a Web application."
Mozilla Messaging CEO David Ascher
(Credit: Stephen Shankland/CNET)The change reflects the changing nature of computing. Where Thunderbird's chief competition once was now software such as Microsoft's Outlook, it's now also got to reckon with Google's Web-based Gmail service and its ilk, Ascher said.
Thunderbird is still a priority. Thunderbird 3 is set to arrive next week in near-final form--though nearly a year later than had been planned--but Mozilla Messaging has high hopes the new version will be faster, easier to use, and more versatile through the addition of third-party extensions.
Universal inbox
Raindrop is something of an ultimate inbox in the company's vision, a Web application that draws not just from e-mail but from other communication conduits such as Twitter, Facebook mail, and instant messaging. Its goal isn't just to consolidate today's overabundance of communications channels, it's to help prioritize what's important and put off what's optional until a more convenient time.
"We're breaking the notion of one list coming in, in chronological order," he said. What just arrived isn't necessarily the most important thing to do, though human minds are prone to thinking it is.
Some aspects of Raindrop's future are more certain than others. It's way to early to say when the company might release its first version of the actual software, but one thing that's settled is that Raindrop won't be a service Mozilla offers. Instead, the software will run on others' servers--at Internet service providers, for example.
"Hosting a messaging system for the world is not something we can afford right now," Ascher said. Still, it's revealing that the company chose to create Raindrop as a server-based technology accessible through a Web browser rather than as PC-based software.
Will Raindrop rule the roost?
In the longer term--say 2015--might Raindrop replace Thunderbird as people's messaging interface of choice? Perhaps.
"I suspect some people will and some people won't," he said. "I think desktop software still has a bunch of user benefits that will last for quite awhile."
Persuading everybody to freely cooperate with Raindrop could be tough. Sites like Facebook like their central positions in people's electronic lives and like to serve ads next to their content. In time, though, Ascher believes they'll come aboard.
"I think in the long term, openness wins," he said.
Even without Raindrop, Thunderbird 3 will integrate with the Web. It's got Firefox's engine built in for displaying Web pages, a fact that means the software can display Web content.
That ability means Thunderbird can, for example, show Yahoo and Google calendars in separate tabs. There's little in the way of integration with those services today, but it can be added, Ascher said. He expects plenty more add-ons will bring it closer to the cloud, too. He didn't mention it, but even Raindrop could be added in its own compartment.
Mozilla Messaging smells money
Mozilla Messaging is part of a peculiar organizational structure. In the beginning the non-profit Mozilla Foundation oversaw the open-source software that was the core of Netscape Communicator. Eventually, that software split into two main components: the Firefox browser and the Thunderbird e-mail software.
The foundation set up two subsidiaries to oversee the two projects, first Mozilla Corp. for Firefox in 2005 and second Mozilla Messaging for Thunderbird in 2007. Ascher has since 2007 led the latter, which employs six engineers and nine others.
It also draws on the expertise of many volunteers in the open-source world who translate the software, write add-ons, and help debug it. Because of this help, Mozilla Messaging gets by with only one quality assurance employee and one marketing employee, and Thunderbird 3 will arrive in more than 40 languages.
The subsidiary today gets its funding from its nonprofit Mozilla Foundation parent, which in turn receives the lion's share of revenue from search advertising revenue that results from searches Firefox sends Google's way. Ultimately, Ascher wants Mozilla Messaging to be financially self-sustaining. But how?
"I'm not sure yet. I think what we're looking for are rev models like Firefox--revenue models where the user benefits and doesn't have to pay anything, and somehow enough money flows into Mozilla Messaging to fund development long-term," Ascher said.
That may sound like a lot of hand-waving, but Ascher points out he has no investors looking for a big and quick return on the money they invested, so Mozilla Messaging is a relatively cheap operation to run.
Ads? No thanks
One route the company won't take is advertising, the approach that's vital to Gmail, Hotmail, and Yahoo Mail, as well as to Firefox.
"I don't think people benefit from advertising in mail," he said. "One reason it works for search engines is people often are searching to buy. They're happy to see ads. It helps them. I don't think that works in e-mail."
Today, there are probably somewhere between 10 million and 20 million Thunderbird users, said Rafael Ebron, Mozilla Messaging's director of marketing. That's a far cry from Firefox, whose users total more than 300 million, Mozilla says.
But both projects can punch above their weight. Just being a freely available alternative--whether with Thunderbird or with Raindrop--can steer other products and services, Ascher believes.
"Firefox had an influence over people greater than its market share," Ascher said. "I don't think we'd need to manage everybody's e-mail servers for us to have an influence over the e-mail landscape and make sure everybody has a better experience."
Facebook's "like" feature has been around since February, but the massive social network never provided users with a way to quickly voice their opinions going the other way. French developer Thomas Moquet took matters into his own hands by creating a cute (albeit useless) Firefox extension that adds a dislike button to Facebook, letting users who have it installed mark things they don't like.
In order to make the tool work, Moquet had to use his own servers, which keep track of every item that's disliked as well as who clicked it. Any other Facebook users who have the extension installed can then see who disliked it right next to the usual like list.
Feeling grumpy? Add a "dislike" button to Facebook.
(Credit: CNET)There are a few very clear downsides to this system, one being that if the dislike servers ever go down, you won't be able to see what you or others have marked as not liking. It also cannot be seen by other users who don't have the extension installed. Nonetheless, it fits in quite well with the rest of the Facebook interface, peacefully coexisting alongside the likes while adding a bit of snark.
It's worth noting Facebook's exclusion of a dislike button was under the pretense that likes were added as a quick way to replace simple one-word comments. By adding a like button the hope was both to better surface content in its news feeds, as well as cut down on throwaway comments like "this is great!" or "cool."
Facebook dislike is an experimental add-on, meaning you'll have to grab it from Mozilla's add-ons site. See also the competing Facebook Dislike Button add-on, which goes one step further and will actually send the person who's news item it is a Facebook note saying that you didn't like what they posted. Ouch.
A new variant of the Bredolab Trojan horse is attached to a fake "Facebook Password Reset Confirmation" e-mail, security firm MX Labs is reporting.
Some users are receiving the e-mail from "The Facebook Team," according to the security firm. The sender's e-mail address displays "service@facebook.com." In reality, the address and sender were spoofed.
MX Labs found that the e-mail was accompanied by an attachment named, "Facebook_Password_4cf91.zip and includes the file Facebook_Password_4cf91.exe" that, the e-mail claims, contains the user's new Facebook password. The security firm said that the element between the underscore and .zip are randomly chosen letters and numbers for each recipient.
When a user downloads the file, it could wreak havoc on their computer. MX Labs said in a blog post that the Trojan horse Bredolab "executes files from the Internet, such as rogue anti-spyware. To bypass firewalls, it injects its own code into legitimate processes svchost.exe and explorer.exe. Bredolab contains anti-sandbox code (the trojan might quit itself when an external program investigates its actions)." In other words, it's nasty.
Once it makes its way to the user's PC, Bredolab creates "%AppData%\wiaservg.log" and "%Programs%\Startup\isqsys32.exe" in the user's system files. MX Labs said that it also creates two new processes, called "isqsys32.exe" and "svchost.exe."
Another security watchdog, M86 Security, wrote that there's more to the outbreak than Bredolab. After it sneaks its way onto the user's computer, M86 said, Bredolab downloads a bot called Pushdo. The company found that Pushdo immediately starts "spamming out more of these Facebook password reset e-mails."
For its part, Facebook was quick to point out that the e-mail containing the virus wasn't coming from the social network.
"This virus is being distributed through email, not on Facebook," a Facebook spokesperson wrote. "The email is disguised as a Facebook password reset e-mail with an attachment that purportedly contains the new password, but is actually the virus. We're educating users on how to detect this through the Facebook Security Page."
Facebook said that users should be "suspicious of unexpected emails claiming to be from Facebook." The company also said that it will never send users a new password as an attachment.
Those users that have downloaded the file should use anti-malware software to remove it. Click here for a list of security software available from CNET's Download database.
Updated at 1:03 p.m. PDT to include new details from M86 Security.
Don Reisinger is a technology columnist who has written about everything from HDTVs to computers to Flowbee Haircut Systems. Don is a member of the CNET Blog Network, and posts at The Digital Home. He is not an employee of CNET. Disclosure.
At one time or another, most of us have recommended an iPhone/iPod Touch app to friends or family members--usually by tweeting, e-mailing, or Facebooking about it.
Yappler Sync takes that concept to the next level, allowing you to build a custom list of the apps you like and then share that list via the social solution of your choice.
At the same time, Yappler Sync helps you discover more cool apps by perusing the lists built by others.
All you do is install the eponymous utility, which is available for Windows and Mac, then build your list and decide how to share it.
Unfortunately, I discovered a few irksome aspects of the service, starting with this: Yappler builds your list based on every app in your iTunes library, not just those currently in residence on your iPhone. Thus I ended up with some 270 apps to cull--and they weren't even listed alphabetically.
Meanwhile, it's not immediately clear how you're supposed to "discover" other users' lists (unless they're shared with you directly). The Yappler site catalogs all the apps in the App Store (84,000 and counting, in case you're wondering), with a handy advanced-search option that lets you specify criteria like price and rating.
But the only way to find other users and their lists is by perusing the reviews for any given app, then looking for clickable usernames. And once you do find another user's list, all you really get is a batch of icons. So JoeAppUser has Buzzingo on his iPhone--how does that really enlighten me?
Of course, Yappler Sync is more about the social aspect of app-sharing, hence the ties to Facebook, Twitter, and the like. And it's nice how it can automatically update your list when you install new apps. Plus, it's free, so I can complain only so much.
On the other hand, this isn't much different from posting, say, a list of books you've read. Without knowing more about each book and, more importantly, why you liked it, where's the value?
Multiprotocol-messaging client Digsby has announced new features at DemoFall focusing on a completely revamped Twitter interface.
At the time of writing, users must download Digsby build 65, which will then auto-update to build 67, which includes the new features.
The new Twitter timeline window in Digsby features new posts at the bottom, plus a Favorites option.
(Credit: Screenshot by Seth Rosenblatt/CNET)Once logged in, users, set to follow Digsby on Twitter by default, are given two ways to manage their tweets. The tweet timeline is a single-window column that starts with the oldest ones at the top. It is accessible only by double-clicking on the Twitter bar in the Digsby Buddy List pane.
Running the oldest tweets on top runs counter to the Twitter Web site, as well as just about every other Twitter client around, and already, there's a heated debate over the tweet order in the Digsby blog post announcing the new feature.
Most recently received tweets and the status update box reside at the bottom of the timeline window, but every time you open the timeline window, it will go to your most recently read new tweet. Mouse over a tweet, and Twitter functions such as Reply, ReTweet, and Direct Message will appear.
There's also a new option that should be familiar to Internet Explorer users: Favorite. Mark a tweet as Favorite, and when you switch the view to Favorites--accessible behind the drop-down arrow at the top of the window--you'll see a list of all your Favorite-marked tweets. Other options include a History view that shows off only your tweets, as well as group creation and editing.
Digsby's mouse-over Twitter stream.
(Credit: Screenshot by Seth Rosenblatt/CNET)Mouse over the "quick look" Twitter pop-up window that's part of the Digsby Buddy List, and the tweet timeline runs in the traditional direction. Although Reply, ReTweet, Direct Message, and Favorite are also available from this view, forcing users to switch tweet stream directions depending on which pane they're using doesn't strike me as particularly logical. There's no option for altering the defaults in the timeline or the quick-look pane.
Twitter account options in Digsby.
(Credit: Screenshot by Seth Rosenblatt/CNET)In Digsby build 67, users get two methods for updating their tweets. They can use the text field at the bottom of the Twitter timeline pane, or use the global status updater available from the drop-down menu at the top of the Buddy List. It comes with a character counter, useful, even though the global updater can be toggled to work for other social-networking statuses. The Twitter timeline text field and the global-status updaters will both automatically shorten URLs and automatically upload photos. Auto-shortening can be toggled in the drop-down menu by clicking on character count.
Some users have been complaining about stability problems that are probably related to the untested nature of programs that debut at DemoFall. If you don't mind the unusual flow of the timeline window, or if you're a Digsby user to begin with, this Twitter implementation isn't perfect, but it's a strong step forward for a program that already supports MySpace, Facebook, and LinkedIn.
The new Seesmic Desktop app lets Facebook fan page managers update them in sync with Twitter.
(Credit: Loic Le Meur / Seesmic)There are a handful of Twitter apps out there that can also update Facebook statuses, and no clear market leader, but the new build (version 0.6) of Seesmic Desktop may soon be the app of choice for marketers who use Twitter and Facebook for brand promotion. That's because it can now manage activity on Facebook's "fan pages" as well as personal profiles, meaning that the operators of these pages can update them in sync with Twitter accounts.
"With the Facebook Page feature, you have greater control on how you market your business, oversee your brand, listen to your fans and build your community," a release from Seesmic explained. Facebook, it should be noted, has launched its own feature to push fan page updates directly to Twitter.
If you're an ordinary Facebook user who doesn't manage any fan pages, Seesmic Desktop can also track status posts from those that you subscribe to.
Seesmic Desktop was built after parent company Seesmic, which had previously built a video-commenting company, acquired Twitter desktop app Twhirl.
Founder Loic Le Meur also announced that 2.5 million people have now downloaded Seesmic Desktop, and that Seesmic has partnered with Twitter image-sharing app Yfrog to be its default image provider. It's the second partnership deal for Yfrog in a month, having inked a deal with URL shortener Bitly a few weeks ago. That's probably disconcerting news for Yfrog rival Twitpic, once the unequivocal big player in Twitter image uploads.
Facebook's freshly overhauled iPhone app (Facebook for iPhone 3.0) is so stuffed with goodies, that we were anticipating a similar bounty of features with the much-awaited Facebook for Android.
Shame on the Google/Facebook development team (mostly Google's, with consulting from Facebook) for creating an abbreviated app that fails to offer a complete Facebook.com experience, and shame on us for holding Google up to the high standards we've come to expect from, well, Google.
Having said that, the Facebook for Android 1.0 application is by no means a failed application. Its features are limited, sure, but the app completes its actions as advertised. In the sense of delivering on its promised functionality, it is a success. We just wanted it to be so much more. The good news is, the app can only mature from here. Check it out in the First Look video above.
Scan your Facebook news feed with the new Android app.
(Credit: Facebook)While iPhone owners have long had a powerful Facebook app with a wide range of functionality, Google Android users have had to make do with the mobile version of the social networking site (called Facebook Lite). Not only does it offer limited features, but also it is clunky and rather difficult to navigate.
But that changed Tuesday when a new and long-awaited Facebook app hit the Android market. The free app offers many of the features that you've come to expect on the iPhone app and the full version of the site. You can scan your news feed, view your friends' walls and user information, comment on status updates, hit the "like" button, take and upload photos, add new friends and post status updates of your own. What's more, you can add a notification widget to your home screen and you even can shake to refresh your news feed.
Though we welcome the extra features, the interface and navigation appear a bit convoluted as of now. For example, it takes a lot of clicks to get to a friend's profile and list of friends. Also, you can't get Facebook chat or access to messaging for now. We assume those features will be added soon.
It's worth noting that while Facebook is listed as the developer in the Android Market, according to Facebook's official Web page for the app, it was not developed by the company. From what we hear, Google developed the app with Facebook's help.
We installed the app without incident on our T-Mobile MyTouch 3G. Check back soon for a full review.
Last week when it first updated, we related our first impressions of Facebook for iPhone 3.0. Now that's we've spent some more quality time with it over the weekend, we can confirm that the 3.0 update is huge. Sure, it takes up more room on your iPhone or iPod Touch, but that's not what we meant.
The real growth spurt comes from the pile of new and improved features that Facebook has poured into the app. They range from the typical--support for landscape mode, capability to change your profile picture--to the powerful--such as creating photo albums and kicking off a text message or call from the Facebook interface.
That last point echoes a central thesis in a June 2009 Wired article ("The Great Wall of Facebook"): by storing intensely personal data about real people--their likes and dislikes, e-mail addresses, friends, activities, and even phone numbers--Facebook is creating a formidable "second Internet" to rival Google. Indeed, the SMS and phone call triggers on Facebook for iPhone 3.0 (and a similar feature on Facebook for BlackBerry that hooks into your address book) do influence, even facilitate, the way you contact friends in real life. Now you can rely on a Web-based network as a point of entry to your actual social life.
But that feature is just one of many. See the new Facebook for iPhone 3.0 in action in this First Look video. If you have used it, let us know how you like it.
