Google Android 4.4 KitKat brings some changes which will definitely raise some eyebrows, specially with users who are touchy about their privacy. After amending their TOS which enables Google to use your photos in advertisements all across the web via Google Shared Endorsement, the company is now making your Google+ photo connected to your phone number which will be shown to any user on their Android mobile phone as Caller ID when they dial your phone number. Currently this "Smart Caller ID" feature which is now live on Android 4.4 shows caller ID photos pulled automatically from verified Google Places and Google Apps customer accounts. This feature will however get expended to include personal Google+ accounts in early 2014, after this expansion anyone with an verified phone number and discovery turned on in G+ profile will have their names and profile photos display on each others screen even if they have not exchanged/saved contact information. Thankfully, users can easily opt-out and disable this feature as shown below.

After sending ads directly into user's inbox, Google has rolled out a new "Terms of Service" update on how they utilize user's information and photo in content and advertisement. Dubbed "Shared Endorsements", the new policy allows Google to use your face, name and reviews for advertisements as shown below. Starting November 11th, your name, photo and endorsements (reviews and facts like you follow a brand on Google+) will get displayed in ads on web which reaches around a billion users globally. Thankfully, Google allows us to Opt-out/disable this completely as demonstrated next.

In light of the PRISM spying by NSA, German experts earlier warned their Government against using Microsoft Windows 8 by companies and authorities. And once again a German data-protection specialist Johannes Caspar warns against using iPhone 5S's new Fingerprint ID function. While Apple claims this to be secure by saying 'your fingerprint is only stored on the iPhone, never transmitted over the network' the expert arguments that 'The biometric features of your body, like your fingerprints, cannot be erased or deleted and stay with you until the end of your life without changing. They are crucial and should not be used for something as non-vital or casual as unlocking your device.

Nike+ FuelBand is an modern age gadget which tracks users daily activities like running, walking, basketball, dancing and many other counting the amount of calories consumed. This data is then used to provide various reports and keeping log of their exercise routines, the wristband also lets users know how much fuel they have left in the tank keeping track of every move they make.

The product also lets users socially share data with each other, and this resulted in some privacy nightmare for an boy; when her girlfriend found out He was doing some "heavy exercise" at 1-2 AM when he was supposed to be at home. While this is an feature "by design" as users opts to share the data and this data sharing only let the girlfriend caught his boyfriend cheating on her.

Google and privacy does not go along very well, we have shared insightful videos like "The Google Master Plan" as well as humorous takes on the subject like "The Google Toilet" and "Google After 20 Years". Recently, Google made a major change to their "Privacy Policy" and unified it across all there services, once again raising eyebrows - here is a funny take on what happens when you ask Google about there privacy policy.

Continued after the jump...

We have seen humorous videos and pics on Google's increasing domination in our life and the privacy nightmare it creates - here is a serious video showing Google's increasing power and their "Master Plan".

Thanks to all the free services offered by Google, it knows too much about you - What you search, what websites you browse, what you email and to whom you talk etc., here is a hilarious take on this Google Privacy issue.

Video after the jump.

Online whistleblowing site Cryptome leaked an internal Microsoft document "Microsoft® Online Services Global Criminal Compliance Handbook" having information regarding what user-activity records Microsoft keeps for their online services and for how long in compliance with legal authorities, the site labeled the document microsoft-spy.zip but was soon taken down by their hosting provider after receiving an DMCA copyright infringement take-down notice from Microsoft.

However, the site is now back online and still hosts the microsoft-spy.zip along with various other "spying guides" like yahoo, Paypal, MySpace and Facebook to name a few.

There could be several reasons to use anonymous P2P networks like privacy concerns or for bypassing censorship, NodZilla is one such experimental decentralized, self-organizing, fault-tolerant peer-2-peer grid network meant for anonymous file-sharing and distributed services built on top of it like chat, efficient multicast video streaming, and secured file storage.

Unlike other similar file-sharing service Nodezilla offers cache features allowing servers to create local replicas of any data objects for providing faster access and robustness to network partitions help reducing network congestion by localizing access traffic. Furthermore, to strengthen the infrastructure against crash, information leakage, or become compromised the network makes use of full data redundancy and encryption techniques

Internet Explorer 8 Beta 2 is now available for public downloading, the most notable change being addition of a "Private Browsing" feature, dubbed "InPrivate™ Browsing" the feature when activated let users browse website off the record, not saving any browsing history, cookies, and any other browsing related data.