If you’ve submitted a comment, signed up for a newsletter, or uploaded a photo to the Internet at any point in the past five years, there’s a good chance you’re familiar with the CAPTCHA system. CAPTCHAs are the annoying little verification windows that pop up, asking you to decipher a nearly unrecognizable series of letters or words, and Web users have hated them for years.
But if these silly security systems make you want to bust your keyboard in half, you’ll be happy to hear that we may very well be seeing the last days of the obnoxious, text-based CAPTCHA system, and the next verification system you see online may make you happy to view advertisements for the first time ever.

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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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