Smooth Blog

Facebook announced today that is has surpassed 500 million active users worldwide on its site. That is half a billion users on a single website.

The social network started in 2004 as a way for people in Harvard to connect with one another. Within a year of it’s initial release, Facebook grew to over one million active users.

To help celebrate Facebook reaching half a billion users, Mark Zuckerberg, co-founder, CEO & president of Facebook, is launching Facebook Stories. The idea behind this new application is for users to share their success stories with the rest of the world, including one success story of a mother in Pheonix who read a friend’s status message telling her to check for breast cancer, who was diagnosed in time to treat the disease.

Facebook reached it’s last milestone of 400 million active users earlier this year in February. It took Facebook only six months to gain another 100 million active users.

In light of all of this, Facebook announced recently that a movie will be releasing soon, titled “The Social Network.” The movie will star Jesse Eisenberg as Zuckerberg, and will follow his life from through Harvard and how he created Facebook.

Jolicloud, the free netbook OS that strives to keep users always connected, has hit the 1.0 release milestone. An all new HTML 5-based front-end is the biggest touted feature. In a blog post describing the latest release, Jolicloud said, “Imagine an operating system centered around interacting with your friends. Imagine never having to worry about updates and software installs. Imagine that all your machines are automatically synchronized with one another. Imagine having your Internet ecosystem natively integrated to your machine, with all the coolest apps at your fingertips.”

Utilizing cloud-based syncing, among the new stand-out features is the App Directory, a curated application library that is manageable from any HTML 5 capable device. From here, apps can be organized and installed, and deleted, with all changes automatically pushed to all Jolicloud devices on the same account. App updates are also automatically pushed-out so there is no need to manually update. Jolicloud focuses on cloud-based computing, but apps may also utilize local storage. Noteable apps include: Firefox, Facebook, Twitter, Spotify, Boxee, Hulu and more. Networking is also a focus with the Social Stream hub providing integration with Facebook, Twitter, Google Reader and more.

The real draw of Jolicloud is its fresh and streamlined interface. It is compatible with most netbooks, can be installed directly from Windows, and is a free download. This may be just the thing to make the aging netbook segment exciting again.

Microsoft has just announced the pricing of Kinect for Xbox 360, the console accessory which allows hands free gaming. Kinect will come bundled with Kinect Adventures and will cost $149.99 in the U.S. when it is released on November 4 later this year. Microsoft is keen to remind people that the accessory will work with all Xbox 360 consoles ever sold.

As part of the announcement Microsoft has also revealed a new Xbox console to be sold alongside the recently redesigned Xbox 360 250GB. This new Xbox will be called the Xbox 360 4GB and will be priced at $199.99 and will go on sale on August 3; this appears to replace the Xbox 360 Arcade console.

Later this year will also see a Xbox 360 4GB and Kinect bundle which will include the console, Kinect senor and Kinect Adventures game for $299.99.

Retailers across the U.S. are opening pre-orders for Kinect today. Customers who pre-order will also receive a token to download three exclusive levels on the Kinect Adventures game. The other Kinect games, Kinectimals, Kinect Sports and Kinect Joy Ride will all be on sale for $49.99.

“Kinect for Xbox 360 offers tremendous entertainment value for the whole family,” said Dennis Durkin, Xbox 360 chief operating officer. “With full body, voice and the ability to play games with your friends right out of the box, Kinect is the most unique, complete and affordable way for everyone to enjoy controller-free fun and entertainment.”

Dubbed Kinect for Xbox 360, the controller-free game device is set to go on sale in November. The technology behind Kinect is fairly simple, a TV-mounted camera/microphone bar to sense motion, sound and movement. What’s new and ground breaking is the tracking of 3D movement as well as 2D movement. The system is also able to scan users faces and sign them into Xbox live, as well as react to vocal tone and pitch, and process this data in real-time.

Microsoft made the news with the grand unveiling of Kinect over a year ago. With over 40 million Xbox 360 consoles on the market, Kinect is expected to sell well across the world and entice non-gamers, young children, mothers and grandparents onto the Xbox 360 in the same way the Nintendo Wii did.

The pricing for Kinect and the new Xbox 360 console has also been announced for other countries around the world. In the UK Kinect will cost £129.99 and the aforementioned bundle will cost £249.99. Kinect will be available for retail on November 4.

Are you the type of person that likes free games?

Valve will be releasing Alien Swarm for free today on Steam. Alien Swarm was originally created as a mod for Unreal Tournament 2004 by Black Cat. The version Valve is releasing today has been completely re-written as a stand alone game and according to the official announcement, “In addition to the game, Valve will also release the complete code base for Alien Swarm. This includes updates to the Source engine SDK and full Steamworks integration. If you’ve ever thought about developing a mod on the Source engine with Steamworks, this release provides more insight and examples for using Steamworks in game production.”

The game uses Valve’s Source engine and will include full steam support. The game is a co-op, top-down shooter with one primary focus, blowing up aliens. In the game you can play as one of eight different characters in one of four different classes using up to 40 different types of weapons and equipment. Players will gain experience and level up as they play unlocking different items along the way.

The team that created the original Alien Swarm mod was hired by Valve back in 2008. Since being hired, they have helped in the development of the Left 4 Dead series, Portal 2 and in their spare time, the continued development of Alien Swarm.

Microsoft issued a security bulletin on Friday to warn customers of a 0-day exploit involving the Windows Shell.

The vulnerability is caused due to an error in Windows Shell when parsing shortcuts (.lnk). The flaw can be exploited automatically by executing a program via a specially crafted shortcut. Certain parameters of the .lnk are not properly validated on load, resulting in the vulnerability. Microsoft says it has “seen only limited, targeted attacks on this vulnerability.”

For the exploit to be successful it requires that users insert removable media (when AutoPlay is enabled) or browse to the removable media (when AutoPlay is disabled). According to Microsoft’s advisory, exploitation may also be possible via network shares and WebDAV shares. Microsoft states that the exploit affects all Windows versions since Windows XP, including Windows 7. However, Security Researcher Chester Wisniewski of Sophos, reports that Windows 2000 and Windows XP SP2 (both unsupported by Microsoft) are affected by the flaw.

Sophos explain that the flaw bypasses all Windows 7 security mechanisms, including UAC, and doesn’t require administrative privilege to run. In a blog posting, Sophos researchers demonstrate the flaw (see below) on Windows 7, which becomes infected with a rootkit as a result.

Microsoft says users could halt attacks by disabling icons for shortcuts and switching off the WebClient service. Unfortunately the suggestion is far from ideal for most corporate customers, disabling icon shortcuts will likely result in mass confusion for users and turning off the WebClient service will render Microsoft SharePoint useless. Microsoft has not confirmed when a patch will be made available for the issue. The company’s next patch Tuesday is scheduled on August 10.