Pwn2Own & Chrome

Put your computer hacking skills to use and try to hack Google's Chrome OS in the 2011 Pwn2Own competition for $20K.

"The Chrome prize is only the latest in a string of incentives from Google for anyone who can demonstrate security flaws in its products. In January of last year, it launched a bug-buying program to pay as much as $1,337 for information about critical security bugs in its browser. Within six months, it upped that maximum payout to $3,133.70. (Both numbers contain a coded reference to the word LEET, or “elite” in hacker jargon.)"


So nerdy... but I love it! Read the rest of the Forbes blogpost here.

Google Street View for Art Museums!

What a cool project--Google recently took its street view technology into museums so that people can take virtual tours of museums and see artwork up close. Through this partnership with museums, we the public can arguably get "closer" to paintings via digital means than we could at the actual museum with cordons.

Check out the project at www.googleartproject.com--it's worth it!

Free Google Voice Phone Booths

The Googleplex in Mountain View won't be the only place to boast of a British-style, Google-themed phone booth. In celebration of the new Google voice call feature within Gmail, Google is planning on installing these phone booths high-traffic places (college campuses!). Calls made from these booths will be free.

Read the entire Fast Company article here.

Google's New Approach to China

Big news: Following an investigation into some Gmail and intellectual property security breaches from China, Google decided that they will no longer accept censorship as a condition for being permitted the use of their Chinese Google site (www.google.cn). A briefing on the events that led to their decision can be found on the Official Google Blog.

Highlights from the post:

• "We have taken the unusual step of sharing information about these attacks with a broad audience not just because of the security and human rights implications of what we have unearthed, but also because this information goes to the heart of a much bigger global debate about freedom of speech."

• "We launched Google.cn in January 2006 in the belief that the benefits of increased access to information for people in China and a more open Internet outweighed our discomfort in agreeing to censor some results."

• "We have decided we are no longer willing to continue censoring our results on Google.cn, and so over the next few weeks we will be discussing with the Chinese government the basis on which we could operate an unfiltered search engine within the law, if at all. We recognize that this may well mean having to shut down Google.cn, and potentially our offices in China."

"Don't be evil," indeed. Read the full post here (highly recommended!). The NYTimes also has a writeup of the policy shift.

Thanks for the find, Sarah and Ryan!