Hotmail users will be getting a new outlook on email before long. Late Monday, Microsoft announced that the preview phase for Outlook.com, the software giant’s new and improved Webmail service, is over after being used by more than 60 million people in its six months of existence. Now that’s it’s ready for prime time, Microsoft plans to migrate current Hotmail users over to the new interface by the time summer rolls around. Fear not; the transition shouldn’t be too painful, as your mail, contacts, and current account settings will come along for the ride.

There’s a lot to love about the Outlook.com migration if you’re a Hotmail user. First of all, you get a Webmail service with a clean, modern interface that is much easier on the eyes than the crowded 90’s-style look of Hotmail. Microsoft’s new Webmail service also integrates with Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn so you can see social updates from your contacts right in your e-mail window. If you already integrated these accounts with Windows Live, these settings should also come with you.

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Ben Weitzenkorn

Whoever successfully cracks Google’s Chrome operating system at this year’s Pwnium hacking contest will walk away with a piece of the pi.

Google, which had previously offered totals of $1 million, then $2 million, in prizes for successful hacks, is upping the ante at the contest, to be held in March at the CanSecWest security conference in Vancouver, B.C. The company is offering a total of $3.14159 million in cash rewards.

That’s a nod to pi, math’s most intriguing irrational number, and to the added challenges that come with cracking Google’s ever-improving security measures.

It’s unlikely that any single hacker will get the whole pi. Instead, many contestants could win $110,000 for each temporary compromise of Chrome OS, or $150,000 for each compromise that survives a system reboot.

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By Cliff Edwards, Bloomberg News

SAN FRANCISCO — Netflix Inc., the world’s largest subscription video service, adopted a so-called poison pill to protect against a hostile takeover after billionaire investor Carl Icahn acquired an almost 10 percent stake in the company.

The stockholder rights plan, approved unanimously by Netflix’s board on Nov. 2, would be triggered if an “activist shareholder” acquired 10 percent of the stock, or an institutional investor bought 20 percent, Jonathan Friedland, a company spokesman, said in an interview.

The move is designed to make a hostile takeover too expensive and gives Netflix Chief Executive Officer Reed Hastings a tool to thwart Icahn or other potential buyers. Icahn, 76, said on Oct. 31 he had acquired stock and options representing 5.54 million Netflix shares. He said the video service is an attractive takeover target for larger companies, including Amazon.com and Verizon Communications, that have entered the market Netflix pioneered.

Brittany Hillen

For the first time since the dot-com bust 11 years ago, PC shipments are expected to decline 1.2% from last year, with an anticipated drop from 2011′s 352.8 million units to 348.7 million units. PC sales have been lagging all year, with a recent study showing that out of the top four vendors, only Lenovo experienced an increase in sales. While disconcerting, the hope that back-to-school sales would boost the numbers, as is usually the case, kept everyone optimistic.

Earlier in 2012, as Intel showed off a variety of ultrabooks and the first glimpses of Windows 8 emerged at CES, the industry was hopeful that sales would increase as the year went on. Analysts believed that the innovation displayed would go on to drag lagging PC sales back up, and that all would be well. When the Q1 data came in and showed poor sales, nervousness arose, but optimism was still prevalent.

Cole Garner Hill

We first started hearing murmurs of Apple’s intentions to enter the Internet music streaming service game around the time of the company’s big iPhone 5 event, and now it seems we may be waiting a little longer than expected. Speaking to a “source close to the situation,” Sony/ATV, the world’s largest music publisher, and Apple can’t reach an agreement on a per-song rights fee, according to the New York Post.

Such rights are usually a fraction of a cent per stream, but Sony/ATV was allegedly seeking a higher royalty rate from Apple.

Apple is seeking far more flexible licensing than the agreements Pandora, the current dominant Internet radio service, has managed to arrange. Apple’s licenses would allow users to play a selected artist more times than Pandora, and would allow the company to point people to the iTunes Store to generate music sales.
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By Jon Fingas

Google makes a lot of acquisitions, some of them more important than others. Its latest purchase might skew towards the grander side, as it just bought imaging app developer Nik Software. While the company is known for pro photography apps like Capture NX and its Efex Pro series, the real prize might be Snapseed, Nik’s simpler image tool for desktop and iOS users. Both Nik and Google’s Senior Engineering VP Vic Gundotra are silent on the exact plans, but it doesn’t take much to imagine a parallel between Facebook’s buyout of Instagram and what Google is doing here: there’s no direct, Google-run equivalent to Instagram’s social photo service in Android or for Google+ users, and Nik’s technology might bridge the gap. Whether or not Googlegram becomes a reality, the deal is likely to create waves among photographers of all kinds — including those who’ve never bought a dedicated camera.

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