Having kickstarted the Data Liberation Front movement inside Google, and as an advisor on open source matters, Brian Fitzpatrick knows the inner workings of the search giant very well indeed.

We caught up with him at OSCON in Portland, Oregon.

Linux Format: How did the Data Liberation Front come about inside Google?

Brian Fitzpatrick: It came from a number of things. I guess it first started when I graduated from college, and I couldn't take my email with me. And when I got to Google, I did open source stuff for a year and a half, or two years, and we were asking: "What else can we do in the Chicago office that's philosophically equivalent to open source, but not necessarily open source?"

I talked to a lot of people, and we were told to always focus on the user. I thought, 'I'm not going to be the guy to make Google the next two billion dollars – but what can I do that's going to make a big difference?'.

So I saw that we're getting to a point where big companies have a lot of data – where people are storing data in other companies. We don't need another kind of lock-in in the world, right?

The way I saw it was, Google never locked users in for search. Why do you use search? Is it because you have a two-year contract? Did you buy a piece of hardware to use it? No! If you don't want to use it, you just use another search engine. Who gives a damn?

The way we keep you as users is to make it better. Rapid innovation, rapid iteration. So we thought, 'If we make it even easier for people to leave our products, we're going to be forced to iterate even more quickly, and make our products better'. Everybody benefits from that, right?

Users benefit from it, and we benefit because we're competing really fairly. I mean, as an engineer, I'd much rather build a better product than build bigger walls around a product.

LXF: Kind of unusual...

BF: Well it is unusual, but the thing to remember is that, today, we're in an unusual world. Fifteen years ago, if I had told you, "In 2011 there's going to be a global distribution centre that costs almost nothing to send things on," what would you say? You'd be like, "Oh come on! Is it teleportation?"

But here we are in 2011 with the internet. It's a game-changer – it has changed the game in so many ways. And this is another one. It's really easy for people to switch software, and it's really easy for people to try new software.

And that's great – people who, in the past, have been very afraid of computers embrace them. They'll try new things really quickly.

LXF: Was the Data Liberation Front scratching an itch within Google – like engineers wanting to move data around in their own projects?

BF: Sure, as an engineer I don't want to waste my time schlepping bits from one place to another. If it's easier for you to take it out, it's easier for you to get it in. We want to go both ways on that.

I think a lot of people misunderstand why we do it. I think they understand why we do open source – they say, "Oh, Google wants everyone to think they're nice and cuddly." But the fact of the matter is, it's good for our business. It keeps us competitive. If we start building bigger walls, and leave our products to lie fallow, what's going to happen? Some start-up who really wants our customers is going to come and build an amazing product. Any other competitor can do it, and they take our users away.

LXF: It must be a hard thing to pitch to the bean counters, and the people controlling all the money at the top…

BF: I was a little reticent at first, thinking, 'Am I going to get fired?'.

LXF: So it was you that actually pitched the idea then?

BF: Sure. The first time I went and talked to Eric Schmidt about this, he said: "Why are you in here talking to me about this? Why aren't you out there doing it?" So off I went, and when everyone found out about it, they found it fits in with our mission and our philosophy.

I want to live in a world, and in the internet, in the future, where things are open and it's easier to move from one place to another. We're still very early in the life of the internet – a lot of the ways we deal with data are very specific to implementations. If you were to rent an apartment, and they said you can't take anything out when you leave, would you stay there?

LXF: If it was a really good apartment!

BF: Really? You'd leave all your family photos, wedding pictures? Would you check yourself into prison, automatically? People do this all the time with their data! That's the way I see it.

LXF: It must've been a pretty big technical challenge, if you were going from a standing start. Like with Gmail…

BF: Gmail is pretty big, but say that something is a "technical challenge" at Google and it's a little dicey, right? Because we're going to index the entire web, right? And we're going to serve up ads faster than you can sneeze. That's a technical challenge!

I would say there have been a lot of challenges in getting going, but those are about integration and doing things securely. Finding ways to build on APIs if they exist, or building new APIs if they don't exist.

LXF: Does it affect the way that new products at Google are designed, to actually incorporate the Data Liberation aspect?

BF: People are thinking of it sooner and sooner. People used to think about it after launching a product, and now people are thinking about it before launch. And teams have been reaching out to us to say, "Hey, how do we do this right?"

LXF: Do you see that becoming an official policy one day at Google? Like, if you make a new product there must be a way to get the data out?

BF: Well, I hesitate to make something an official mandate or policy, because when you come up with a policy there are always situations where an exception is worthwhile. My belief is to make it more part of the culture, so that it's something that people are voluntarily doing. They're thinking, 'This is something I want my product to have'.

So I'm not big into setting firm policy unless I feel there's a real danger to something or someone. For some products, depending on how fast they're iterating, it's easier to get something at launch.

LXF: At the moment, on the Data Liberation Website you get a list of products and methods for getting them out. Is the idea to move them all into Google Takeout, so eventually you have a big tarball that you download?

BF: I'd like to see everything in Google Takeout – we'll see if we can get there; that's a lot of work. But it's your data, and you should have control over it.

My thought beyond that is, people tend to mis-trust big companies – Google gets a hard time because of the whole 'Don't be evil' thing, but I'm glad of that. I'm glad that people hold us to a higher bar. People don't think of other large companies and say, "Oh my god, they treated me poorly!" No, they say, "They treated me poorly, and that's what I expected."

LXF: Our lives are in Google...

BF: Right. So if you say, "I don't trust Google," or "I'm not happy with the direction they're going," or whatever, you can take your data – your trust – and go somewhere else with it.

LXF: How popular has it been? Do lots of people use the service?

BF: Not a lot of people – we've been liberating data for years, and it's sort of like an emergency stairwell on a building. In the case of a fire drill, you take the stairwell out, but every day you use the elevator.

So it's not something that people use frequently, but the response we've got from users when they've heard about it is astounding. People have been really excited about it. They see it as a commitment – putting your money where your mouth is, so to speak.

Essential iCloud guide: Introduction

Poor old MobileMe. It tried hard, but never quite delivered. Expensive, sometimes slow and saddled with a clumsy name, it has long had the air of an unloved child.

Its development cycle was long and drawn out. And by the time Steve Jobs announced the end of its short and undistinguished life, just two years after its rebirth from the ashes of .Mac, few were inclined to shed any tears.

Yet it wasn't all bad. The email service was stable and largely dependable. It synced our contacts, so we didn't need to tap them all in on an iPhone keyboard, and the calendar tool always made sure we turned up on time, wherever we happened to be.

Apple knew this as well as anyone, which is why it chose to preserve those parts, jettisoning the web publishing, photo gallery and iDisk, as it set about building iCloud.

Housed in a vast data centre in North Carolina, iCloud is Apple's next-generation online service. It syncs your iPhone, iPad, Mac and iPod touch. It can track a lost device, copy your iPhone snaps over the web so they're safely backed up on your Mac, and synchronise your iWork files so that whatever device you're using, downtime is never wasted time.

Over the next few pages, we'll show you how to set up your Mac and iOS devices to use iCloud, how to sync your apps and data, and how easy it is to back up your documents to the web. You'll soon see that MobileMe's demise really was the iCloud with a silver lining.

Whether you're moving an existing MobileMe account to iCloud or setting it up for the first time, Apple has applied its trademark logic to the process to make it as simple as possible.

The most important step you need to take is to make sure all of your devices are up to date and running the most recent versions of each headline app. Here we'll walk you through the process, step by step.

Update your Mac

To take advantage of all of iCloud's features you need to be running OS X Lion. This is now well bedded in and although some older machines appear to run a little slower than they did under Snow Leopard, it's generally proved to be fault free and enjoys good compatibility with existing third-party hardware and software.

iCloud requires Lion version 10.7.2 or later, which is the version currently being shipped through the App Store (£21). If you upgraded to Lion when it shipped back in July and haven't touched it since then, run Software Update now to downloaded the latest revision before going any further.

Lion only works on Macs running on an Intel Core 2 Duo, Core i3, i5 or i7, or Xeon processor. That precludes the earliest Intel Macs and anything running a PowerPC processor.

It requires a minimum of 2GB of RAM, 7GB of hard drive space and Mac OS X 10.6.6 or later. This was the first version of the OS released via the Mac App Store, through which the 4GB installer must be downloaded.

If you're on a capped broadband deal or you don't have broadband, then all is not lost. Head for a bricks-and-mortar Apple Store if you have one within reasonable driving distance and download it there using the free Wi-Fi.

Alternatively, order the £55 OS X Lion USB Thumb Drive from http://store.apple.com/uk/product/ MD256Z/A. It's over twice the price of the downloaded edition, but it does come on one of the best-looking thumb drives we've ever seen.

Update iPhoto/Aperture

One of the most exciting features of iCloud is Photo Stream, which automatically copies the 1,000 photos you've most recently taken over the last 30 days between your iPhone, iPad and iPod touch, as well as backing them up to any Mac running iPhoto or Aperture.

Again, you'll need to ensure that you're running the very latest edition of either of these applications. In the case of iPhoto, that's iPhoto 11 version 9.2 or later, while Aperture users should be running version 3.2 or later.

Both of these are available through the Mac App Store (iPhoto 11 costs £10.49; Aperture 3 costs £55).

Update iTunes

iCloud has taken over from MobileMe as the main synchronisation conduit for all of your data on Apple's integrated ecosystem. That includes not only your contact, email accounts, calendars and so on, but also your purchases through the iTunes Store, iBook Store and Mac App Store.

That means that any purchase you make on any of your devices, or through iTunes on your Mac, will automatically be synchronised on each of your other devices. This works on your iPhone, iPad and iPod touch as soon as you upgrade to iOS 5 and activate iCloud.

But to get the Mac side of things working you need to upgrade to iTunes 5 or later, again through Software Update.

Update iOS devices

iCloud is compatible with the iPhone 3GS, 4 and 4S, iPad and iPad 2, and the third- and fourth-generation iPod touch. Each must be running iOS 5 to gain access to options for enabling the integrated iCloud features that sit at the heart of the OS.

The original iPhone and iPod touch only support as far as iPhone OS 3.1.3, and the iPhone 3G and second-generation iPod touch, iOS 4.2.1. If you're updating several identical devices at one time, download the iOS 5 setup files manually so that you don't tie up your internet connection as iTunes retrieves them for each device individually. See here for the direct download links and instructions on how to apply each patch.

Be aware that if you follow this route, the bundles differ according to which device you want to update. So while the OS underpinning your iPad 2, iPhone 4 and iPod touch might all be called iOS 5, they differ sufficiently for you to require a different setup file for each one.

The simplest route to updating your device, therefore, is to connect it to your Mac using USB and launch iTunes. iTunes will check Apple's servers for the iOS 5 update and patch your device. Click Download and Update to proceed, having already performed a manual synchronisation to ensure there's an up-to-date backup of your data in place should anything go wrong.

Once you've updated to iOS 5, all future software updates can be performed directly through the phone without plugging it in to your Mac. Tap Settings > General > Software Update to check for new releases.

You'll also need to update your Apple TV to take advantage of Photo Stream and access your previous iTunes purchases. Do this by using your remote to select Settings > General > Software Update. When Apple TV has located the installer, click Download and Install (or Download Now on a first-generation Apple TV). When the download completes on Apple TV 2, the update will have been applied. On Apple TV 1, click Update Now. Note that only Apple TV 2 is compatible with iCloud Photo Stream.

With all of your devices and applications up to date, it's time to take the plunge and set up your iCloud account properly. For existing MobileMe members, this is a simple matter of transferring your existing account. Everyone else, however, is starting from scratch. Turn the page to get started.

Setting up iCloud

iCloud for new users

Signing in to iCloud requires an Apple ID. If you've ever bought anything from one of Apple's online stores – music, apps, books, videos and so on – you already have an Apple ID.

If you can't remember what it is, point your browser at https://iforgot.apple.com, click Forgot Apple ID and enter your name, address and email address (or, if you can remember your Apple ID but you've forgotten your password, simply enter your ID in the box and click Next).

If you don't already have an Apple ID you can sign up for one for free without making any purchases at https://appleid.apple.com. Your selected Apple ID will take the form of an email address, but note that you can't use an existing MobileMe address here.

If you have one, it counts as an existing Apple ID, so you can use that to set up your Mac and iOS devices. So with your Apple ID registered, point your browser at http://icloud.com and sign in.

MobileMe users

As you already have an account set up, you need to convert it to iCloud. Open a browser window and visit www.me.com/move. You'll need to enter your MobileMe password to authorise the transfer.

There's no such thing as an iCloud family account, so master account holders of MobileMe Family Packs will have to transfer each user individually.

Data synchronisation

Like MobileMe before it, iCloud synchronises all of your day-to-day data, including appointments and contacts, between each of your devices. Again, setting this up is a two-step process conducted first on your Mac and then on your iOS device.

Open System Preferences > iCloud on your Mac and log in using the Apple ID and password tied to your iCloud account. Now check the boxes beside the data you want to synchronise, including Contacts, Calendars, Bookmarks and Mail & Notes.

As with MobileMe, this latter option doesn't synchronise your email messages – just your account settings. However, it does synchronise jottings created using the Notes application on your iPad or iPhone, filing them neatly inside the OS X Mail application.

Now turn to your iOS device and add your iCloud account: tap Settings > Mail, Contacts, Calendars > Add Account… and enter your Apple ID credentials, choosing iCloud as the account type. With this in place, step back to the overall Settings screen and tap iCloud, followed by the sliders beside the data types you want to synchronise. That way they match the ones you activated on your Mac.

Bear in mind that the more you synchronise, the more you'll eat into your storage allocation, with even Mail and any attachments in your inbox, outbox, drafts and folders counting against your limit. Photo Stream is the only synchronisation feature that Apple excludes from its calculations when working out how much you've used. And for good reason: it would be impossible for you to accurately judge in advance the exact size of each picture you take and how much space it will occupy on Apple's servers.

You should therefore avoid synchronising more data types than you need if you want to avoid having to upgrade to a paid account at some point in the future.

iTunes Store syncing

iTunes' status has been demoted slightly since the arrival of iOS 5 in that you don't need to use it to set up a new iPhone, or necessarily plug in your phone using USB to sync it. However, it remains a hub for your incoming data and an essential backup location for downloaded apps, books and music, so that should you lose your iOS device you won't also lose all your purchases.

Launch iTunes and click iTunes > Preferences > Store, then click the check boxes beside Music, Apps and Books to automatically download all purchases made on your iOS devices simultaneously to your iTunes library. This saves you syncing your device manually the next time you want to create a backup.

Setting up iTunes is only one half of the process, as you need to enable the same options on your iOS devices. Here, click Settings > Store and tap the sliders beside Music, Apps and Books to activate synchronisation.

On the iPhone and on 3G-enabled iPads you'll find a further option here to download your purchases over the cellphone network. Tap the slider beside Use Mobile Data to do this, but only if you're sure you're happy for your mobile 3G data allowance to be used in this way. If you are intending to take your device overseas, be sure to disable this particular feature. The excess fees you'll be charged for data roaming will make even a free app painfully expensive.

How to free up space on your iCloud account

1. Consider an upgrade

Every iCloud account comes with 5GB of free storage, which you can optionally upgrade by 20GB or 50GB for £28 and £70 a year respectively. You might consider doing this when things start to get tight. But before you do, how about clearing out some unused files?

2. Manage current storage

You can manage your iCloud storage from either your Mac or an iOS device. If you're at your Mac, simply open System Preferences > iCloud and click the Manage… button. On iOS, tap Settings > iCloud > Storage & Backup > Manage Storage.

3. Clear unused files (OS X)

On OS X, click through the various apps that are authorised to save data to your iCloud space to see which apps are hogging more than their due. Select the files you don't need any more and press Command+Delete to remove them, or click Delete All to clear out all files of that type.

4. Clear unused files (iOS)

On your iOS device, tap the name of each application in turn, followed by Edit, and then the red circles beside the names of the files you want to remove. This calls up a series of red Delete buttons. Simply tap these to confirm the removal.

5. Buy more storage

If you still need more storage, step back to Manage Storage on iOS, or click Buy More Storage… in OS X and select the amount of extra space you want to buy. Bear in mind that the specified quantities are in addition to your free 5GB account.

6. Downgrade options

Avoid paying for additional storage that you may no longer need when your account comes up for renewal by setting it to a more appropriate level. Click Downgrade Options… and select your new account quota. Note the billing details at the top of the pane.

Essential iCloud guide: Photo Stream

Photo Stream is like Time Machine for your iPhone snaps. Take a photo on any device running iOS 5 or later and it'll be synchronised to all of your other devices, and your Mac, without any input from yourself.

It's quite magical the first time you see it in operation, but how does it work, and how can you put it to use?

Set up Photo Stream

Enable Photo Stream on your iOS device by tapping Settings > iCloud > Photo Stream and tapping the action slider so that it reads 'ON'. You can now step out of settings and get on with using your device as usual.

On your Mac, Photo Stream helpfully synchronises with iPhoto 11 or Aperture 3.2. You can enable it through System Preferences by clicking in the Photo Stream check box on the iCloud pane. You now need to decide which application should act as the archive for your remotely shot images. (Apple doesn't allow you to send them simultaneously to iPhoto and Aperture.)

Open either application's Preferences and click the toolbar's Photo Stream icon, then tick the box to Enable Photo Stream, followed by either or both of the options to automatically import and automatically upload new photos. We would recommend at the very least enabling automatic import so that you maintain a complete archive of your iOS photos on your Mac.

Unlike the photos in the Photo Streams on your iOS devices, these will never be removed from your account, even after the 30-day limit.

Do you really need to enable automatic uploads? That depends on what your plans are. Are you going to be importing several hundred holiday shots when you return from your travels? It's better to decide now whether you want them to also be sent to your iOS device. If not, uncheck that option.

Photo Stream only works over Wi-Fi, so it won't hammer your 3G bandwidth and risk taking you close to your mobile contract's monthly cap. One less thing to worry about when you're on holiday!

Every time you take a photo on any iOS 5 device linked to your iCloud account, it's uploaded to Apple's servers when you quit the Camera app. From there it's sent back down to your other iOS devices and your Mac.

The next time you fire up iPhoto or Aperture (depending on which you have linked to your iCloud account) you'll find a Photo Stream entry in the sidebar containing a copy of each of your iOS photos. Your pictures will also appear on the second-generation Apple TV running software update 4.4 or later.

Photo Stream on iOS

Things work slightly differently on an iOS device to the way they do in Aperture or iPhoto. Images shot on any device are saved locally, as usual, to the Camera Roll in the Photos app.

Step back one level from here on the iPhone or iPod touch, or use the buttons at the top of the screen on the iPad, and you'll see a new library called Photo Stream. This is where you'll find your synchronised images, whether they were snapped on an alternative iOS device or synchronised through iPhoto or Aperture.

Any photo taken on an iOS device will remain on that device until you actively choose to delete it. However, items that appear only in the Photo Stream album will be removed from the device after 30 days. They will also be removed from the Photo Stream album on an iOS device one at a time if you add more than 1,000 during that 30-day period, with the oldest one in each instance being killed off to make way for each new addition.

It's therefore vitally important that you take an active interest in saving (and backing up!) your synchronised pictures. Fire up iPhoto or Aperture at least once a month to make sure you have a copy of your images on your Mac. And if you want to keep synchronised photos on any iOS devices other than the ones originally used to take them, copy them to your Camera Roll by following the instructions in the walk-through below.

Images downloaded to your Mac are saved at their native resolution, so for anything taken using the rear camera on an iPhone 4S that means the full 8 megapixels. This matches some compact cameras on sale just a couple of years ago.

However, images sent to Photo Stream on an iOS device are first reduced in size to optimise them for display on that particular device's screen. The exact resolution will depend on the dimensions of the original, but Apple currently uses 2048x1535 pixels (3 megapixels) as its benchmark.

Photo Stream is compatible with JPEG, TIF, PNG and RAW images imported from your iPhoto or Aperture library. These formats are in turn converted as part of the transfer process.

How to archive synchronised photos on an iOS device

1. Select Photo Stream

To save synchronised images from being expired and disappearing from the Photo Stream on your iOS device, you should copy any you want to keep to your Camera Roll. Open the Photos app and step back to the albums page, then select Photo Stream.

2. Tick images

Tap the shortcut button on the toolbar (it looks like a box with an arrow curling out of it) and select the images you want to copy by tapping on each one in turn. As you do, they'll be given a small red tick to show which have been selected.

3. Tap to keep

Tap the save button at the foot of the screen to store them in your Camera Roll. The images will be left in place on your Photo Stream and removed when their time is up, but the versions you saved will be kept on your device until you remove them manually.

How to delete your Photo Stream

1. Log in to iCloud

Although your Photo Stream contents don't count against your iCloud storage limit, there may be times when you want to delete the contents of the stream entirely. Log in to your iCloud account at icloud.com and click the iCloud icon in the top-left corner.

02. Delete remote photos

Click your name at the top of the screen to open your account preferences. Click the Advanced button and then, click Reset Photo Stream. This clears out the images on Apple's servers but leaves them where they are on your Mac and iOS devices.

3. Delete local photos

To remove the images from your iOS device, open Settings > iCloud > Photo Stream and tap the activity button so that it reads 'OFF'. You'll be asked for confirmation, after which all of the synchronised photos will be removed, leaving in place only original and saved snaps.

Essential iCloud guide: Backups and storage

As we've already discussed, iCloud takes care of backing up all of your iOS purchases on your Mac, and simultaneously installs any apps you buy on your Mac to each of your iOS devices. However, you can now go one step further and save your device backups directly to the cloud.

Previously, every time you synchronised your iPhone, iPad or iPod touch with iTunes on your Mac it would create a local backup. That way, should the worst happen, you could easily recover your documents, contacts, appointments and apps. That's still an option, but in iOS 5 and iTunes 5 Apple has improved on this feature in two ways.

First, you can now enable wireless backups to iTunes so that whenever your device is plugged into a power source and connected to the same Wi-Fi network as your iTunes library, it will automatically synchronise the two. You can opt instead to save that backup to iCloud, so that should your Mac be damaged or lost your backup won't be lost with it.

To enable this, connect your iOS device to your Mac, select its entry in the iTunes sidebar, and click the Back up to iCloud radio button on the Summary page. Now your device will be backed up once a day whenever it's plugged in.

The final piece of the iCloud puzzle (at least until iTunes Match arrives in the UK) is Documents in the Cloud, which maintains a backed-up copy of all of your remotely edited Pages, Numbers and Keynote documents.

Synchronisation with iCloud requires the latest versions of the iOS iWork apps. These updates are free for all existing users, but if you don't already have them, the apps are sold individually at £6.99 apiece through the App Store. They're all Universal apps, so work on the iPad, iPhone and iPod touch.

You need to opt in to use iCloud with each application individually. If you're firing up any one of them for the first time you'll be given the option to do this on the startup screens. But if you've already been using them in the past, you can activate them through the iOS Settings application where they appear among the third-party apps at the bottom of the menu.

Working with documents

Open the iWork app of your choice and create a new document by tapping the '+' in the upper left corner of the screen. We'd recommend ignoring the option to use iDisk as this will disappear over time, so it makes sense to get out of the habit as soon as you can.

Tap Create Document and choose a document type in the usual way, then start working. When you've finished, and you return to the document menu, you'll notice that its thumbnail has a small arrow on a turned-over corner. This is a warning that the document hasn't yet been backed up to iCloud.

Your documents will automatically sync to the same apps on any other iOS device the next time you start them up, and are also saved to your online iCloud account. Point your browser at www.icloud.com/iwork, and you'll see that there are individual tabs for Keynote, Pages and Numbers, with the relevant documents organised inside each one. Here, things don't work quite as smoothly as you might hope…

Apple has made great claims about iCloud's ability to synchronise your documents across all devices. It says you can shut down your Mac on your way out the door and finish working on your document, spreadsheet or presentation on your iPad on the way home.

Technically that's true, but only if when using OS X you manually copy your data to and from iCloud. To access the document created on your iOS device, click it in the web interface and select the format in which you'd like to download it. Choose from the native iWork formats, their Microsoft Office equivalents and PDF.

To send documents from your Mac to your iOS device, select the relevant application by clicking its name on the tabs at the top of the web interface; then drag the file into the document management area that fills the rest of the screen. A progress gauge monitors its passage onto iCloud.

We can expect to see more apps exploit Documents in the Cloud, as Apple has opened up the underlying hooks that will enable third-party coders to integrate the service into their own apps. But we would also hope to see iCloud integrated directly into the OS X iWork apps so that we no longer need to open a browser window to access our iOS documents.

How to manage iCloud files in your browser

1. Rename files

Click once on the document's filename and type a new name, pressing return as you would in the Finder to confirm the change. Filenames can be up to 255 characters in length and contain anything you like – so long as they don't start with a colon, dot or slash.

2. Copy a document

Click once on the document's thumbnail icon, followed by the cog icon, and then select Duplicate Document from the drop-down menu. The next time you check your iOS devices you will see that the file has been duplicated and is ready to work on.

3. Keyboard navigation

Now press Ctrl+Esc to activate the keyboard, then use the cursor keys to move around your files in the browser view. Pressing Shift+Esc has the same effect as clicking the iCloud icon – you will be taken back to the applications menu.

Anonymous has upped the ante in its bid to air the world's dirty linen in public by releasing a recording of what is apparently a phone call between the FBI and UK police, as well as an email between the agencies discussing online hacking.

The FBI has confirmed that the audio is real and told the Associated Press that it "was intended for law enforcement officers only and was illegally obtained".

Curious comms

Anonymous has been busy of late, taking down any website it feels has contributed to the arrest of Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom and its latest stunt proves that the hacking collective has no plans to give up embarrassing and obstructing the FBI in its bid to tackle piracy and hacking online.

Anonymous first announced the conference call leak on the @AnonymousIRC Twitter account. A tweet was posted which said: "The FBI might be curious how we're able to continuously read their internal comms for some time now." This was followed by a link to an MP3 of the recording.

Anonymous has urged its followers to upload the audio to as many places as possible so that it is not taken down.

Speaking about the hack, Graham Cluley from Sophos said: "The assumption has to be that an Anonymous hacker had access to one of the recipients' email accounts, and thus had secret access to the confidential call."

Skype has announced the latest update to its video-calling service, Skype 5.8, which offers up Full HD video calling and even more interaction with Facebook.

There haven't been many webcams that have gone Full HD but in a blog post Skype notes that the Logitech C920, which does all of its encoding inside the camera, is a good fit for this hi-def loving update.

"Now you can make crystal clear video-calls with your loved ones or business contacts by utilising the latest technology for Skype and Logitech, which is incorporated into the latest update to Skype for Windows and the Logitech C920 webcam," explained the blog.

We are guessing you can also call people you hate in crystal clear Full HD as well, but we'll have to get in touch with Skype to confirm this.

Facebook calling

The other significant addition to Skype is that you can now call your Facebook friends straight from the Skype application.

This is in beta at the moment, but it does offer both audio and video calling.

The list of changes is a little bit 'meh' from here on in, with Bing toolbar integration, a push to Talk option in Skype hotkeys and also a Skype Updater.

That's right, this update brings with it a way to update Skype. Head over to Skype now to get the latest version of the video-calling service.

Google's new one-stop-shop privacy policy continues to cause trouble for the search engine, as one EU regulatory body asks it to 'pause' the plans.

The EU's Data Protection Working Party is investigating the changes and has written to Google's CEO Larry Page asking for more time to examine the new policy before it comes into effect.

Google is set to combine its privacy guidelines for most of its various products into one over-arching privacy policy, but it has come under fire for giving itself the ability to track users' data across different products.

Pause for thought

The Data Protection Working Party's letter explains, "We call for a pause in the interests of ensuring that there can be no misunderstanding about Google's commitments to information rights of their users and EU citizens, until we have completed our analysis".

"We wish to check the possible consequences for the protection of the personal data of these citizens in a coordinated way."

The scrutiny should come as no surprise to Google, as Sophos' Graham Cluley told TechRadar: "Google has been dragged over the coals by privacy regulators in the past, and chances are that these changes will also be scrutinised by the powers that be."

Shows what we know - according to a source speaking to the Telegraph, Google was surprised to receive the letter although this mysterious Googler went on to say that "the tone of its letter was significantly less aggressive than those Google has received in the past".

The new privacy policy is set to come into effect on 1 March.

With all the talk of 300Mbps broadband and increased national average speeds, it would have been very easy to miss one of the most important points made in Ofcom's latest research into the UK's internet connections – that millions are settling for crappy connections for no good reason.

It's obviously a good thing that the average speed of broadband connections has increased, up from 6.8 to 7.6mbps in a year, but given that those willing to pay for the privilege (and in the right area) can now get 100Mbps it was inevitable that this would tug up the average.

For me, the fact that Ofcom felt the need to highlight its concerns that people were settling for much worse connections when they could upgrade for little or no extra money, was much more important.

"More than 4 in 10 broadband consumers remain on packages with speeds of 10Mbps or less even though many of them would be able to get a higher speed at little or no extra cost if they switched package or provider," said Ofcom's report.

Why choose below average?

So the question here is why? Why are people forking out for broadband and getting less than 10Mbps?

First up there's a huge and very disgruntled group that are geographically disadvantaged; with many rural areas still incapable of achieving anything like 10Mbps.

But Ofcom says that 'many' would be able to get more bang for their buck, which brings us back to our original question.

Presumably another big group can be excluded because they get bundled services – meaning that their broadband is part of a package of services for things like television.

Within that group you have those that just take broadband because it is there and don't really need fast connections at all and those that don't want the inconvenience of finding another provider – even if the service is better.

And then you have another group – quite possibly the largest within Ofcom's 'many' – those that simply do not upgrade for no good reason.

Confusion reigns

And that's where you hit a major issue; a huge swathe of those people won't even know that their poor internet connection is costing them the same as a better one.

A huge swathe of people that have been left confused and bewildered by the frankly ludicrous misdirection and half-truths in the way companies advertise their broadband speeds.

A huge swathe of people who feel that switching their broadband over is likely to be a confusing, difficult and lengthy process involving call centres, canned music and often obtuse service.

A huge swathe of people that should have been helped much more, and much earlier, by the watchdogs that have allowed the ISPs to ride roughshod over what is clearly right and what can be argued in a court of law.

Fair price, fair product

For most of the people who read TechRadar things like what a megabit and megabyte are, the differences between fibre to the cabinet and fibre to the home and what the star next to "unlimited" data really signifies allow us to make good decisions on our broadband.

But for millions of others they just want to pay a fair price for a fair product and not have to worry about the terminology, and that only works when there are safeguards in place.

They want to be told the truth without hyperbole or companies hiding behind semantics, they don't want to be told they could get up to a speed, they want to know speed that will be. They think that companies should be fair to them, not sticking small print in fair usage policies.

And now, ridiculously belatedly, there are: advertising must be clearer and more accurate, data must be more rigorous and companies will have to give more actual, you know, factual information to people who want to sign up.

But for many the damage has been done; broadband didn't need to be confusing or difficult but companies have made it so and many of the ISPs seem to be genuinely miffed that they are finally being brought to task.

So perhaps the real question is not why people are not getting fair broadband for a fair price, but how they were allowed to reach this state of affairs in the first place.

With Sky announcing broadband TV and thus its intentions towards film and TV streaming this week, should the existing services be quaking in their boots?

After all, Sky already has robust deals in place with movie studios that feed its much-loved premium Sky Movies channels as well as having a couple of fingers in the production pie and premium sporting coverage to boot.

Scary stuff for Lovefilm, Netflix and Blinkbox then? "Sky has certainly thrown down the gauntlet by breaking away from its traditional subscription model," Blinkbox's chief operating officer Adrian Letts told us.

But it's not all doom and gloom as Letts added that the extra competition could bring prices down: "Increased competition can only benefit the customer in the long term and service providers will be more aware than ever of price point".

Bring it on

Sky's entrance to the streaming market puts more emphasis on TV programming, echoing the way things were going anyway. Even the advent of Netflix helped focus the services on their televisual offerings, with Lovefilm's chief marketing officer, Simon Morris telling TechRadar, "TV always has been and will continue to be an important part of our offering."

Amazon-owned Lovefillm is no stranger to competition, having taken on the high street and won, even in its very early days when "the industry was very aggressive and arrogant".

But with free on-demand catch-up services like iPlayer, 4OD, YouView and ITV Player making their way on to every console, tablet and smart TV out there, the film catalogue will become more important to these streaming services.

So Sky has Sky Movies which would seem to give it an unfair advantage – after all, its pay TV on top of pay TV that has still managed to pull in thousands of subscribers with its alluring film line-ups.

But Sky has come under fire for making "excessive profits" on Sky Movies and is now required to make public when its deals with the six major Hollywood studios are coming up for renewal so that other services are able to bid.

And Lovefilm, Netflix and Blinkbox each have exclusive deals of their own with various studios and Blinkbox for one is staying diplomatic on the prospect of its mega new competitor:

"Premium online video services such as Sky are all helping to grow the market and raise awareness of internet-delivered movies and TV," said Letts.

"Sky's new service [will] really play to its strengths of high value sports programming, however, at Blinkbox we're totally focused on offering the latest movie releases in the highest quality available, to deliver the best viewing experience for our customers."

Oh we'll bring it

It's these latest movie releases that will win and lose the streaming war. Netflix, for example, is already coming under fire for its aging back catalogue – although the company chose not to talk to us for this article, its chief product officer Neil Hunt told us at the launch that Netflix is going after "the richest possible content that we can afford for £5.99 a month" and that doesn't include bleeding-edge blockbusters.

Sky hasn't revealed its pricing structure yet, but has said it will be a hotch potch of pay-per-view and subscription streaming; if it can compete with Netflix on price and out-do it on content, the 'flix may be in trouble.

The more flexible services, like Lovefilm which offers a combination of streaming subscription, newer films on PPV and physical DVD rentals, and BlinkBox that simply asks you to pay individually for each film, may sit more easily alongside Sky's new service.

Until we know more about Sky's plans for its broadband TV offering, it's all a bit up in the air. What's for sure is that the British consumer will soon have even more streaming options to choose between – gauntlets have been thrown, let the battle commence.

BT has deemed the super-ultra-fast broadband trials it was running in Cornwall a success, promising a commercial roll out in early 2013.

When we say super-ultra-fast broadband, we're talking about 300Mbps fibre-to-the-premise (FTTP) which will see fibre laid all the way to your actual home, as opposed to fibre-to-the-cabinet (FTTC) which is slower because the fibre runs only to those messy green boxes on the street that are forever being vandalised.

The trials in St Agnes, Cornwall, saw BT testing a solution that allows it to use the existing to-the-cabinet fibre then adding on the to-the-premise bit afterwards, something it calls 'FTTP on demand'.

But first, this

With the aim to start rolling out the 300Mbps FTTP broadband by Spring 2013, that leaves a good year to fill.

Luckily BT is planning to introduce a faster variety of FTTC in 2012 as well, set to double today's downstream sppeds from 40Mbps to 80Mbps, complemented by upstream speeds of 20Mbps.

Over 7 million UK households can now access fibre broadband over BT's network, with the company hoping to see this figure rise to ten million in 2012 and to two-thirds of the UK by the end of 2014.

Week in Tech: Facebook soars while others struggle

All hail the new king of tech! After months of speculation, Facebook's becoming a public company: the social network will be looking to raise $5 billion later this year in a share offering that could value the firm at as much as $100 billion.

As you might imagine, founder Mark Zuckerberg was in triumphant mood. "You're all my bitches now!" he crowed, announcing a host of new features that will share your most shameful secrets with everybody you've ever met and everybody the people you've ever met have ever met.

Okay, he didn't, but he did write a letter.

"You're all my -" Only kidding. His letter explains that, despite what you might think, Facebook was never about money. It's all about bringing people together. Facebook "was built to accomplish a social mission — to make the world more open and connected." Also, we've always been at war with Eurasia.

Facebook's IPO will make Zuckerberg very rich, but what will it do for the rest of us? Kate Solomon says everything's doomed. DOOMED!

"Going public will mean it has to answer to outside shareholders who don't give a hoot about Facebook itself as long as the revenue comes flooding in," she says. "You might not notice it at first, you might not notice it for a year, but as far as Facebook goes, the glory days are behind us. It's all downhill into corporate doom and marketing speak from here on out."

For now, though, Facebook's star is in the ascendant - but other tech empires appear to be crumbling. Sony's latest financial results reported a whopping 24% decline in consumer sales, mainly due to poor TV sales, and reduced its forecasts for sales of digital cameras and PS3s.

Sony has also announced a new king: CEO Howard Stringer is being replaced by current acting vice president Kazuo Hirai.

Amazon profits slump

Maybe Sony should take a leaf out of rising tablet star Amazon, whose massive tablet sales have been achieved through the clever tactic of allegedly losing money on every sale.

Amazon's in it for the long term, which is just as well, as its latest figures aren't brilliant. The firm sold twice as many Kindles in 2011 as it did in 2010, but profits have slumped.

The firm is being cagey about how many Kindle Fires it's sold, too: while analysts suggest the number could be as high as 6 million, Amazon's keeping schtum. It's not being very precise about its future either: in the first quarter of 2012, Amazon says, it'll either make a profit of $100 million or a loss of $200 million. Or maybe something else. Who knows? Not Amazon.

Could fixed-line ISPs' empires be next in the firing line? Probably not, despite bright ideas such as Three's brilliantly named Web Cube. Instead of a traditional broadband connection with minimum contract terms and phone line rental, the Web Cube uses Three's network to deliver a Wi-Fi access point that isn't tied to a particular building.

The Web Cube isn't particularly fast - 10Mbps is a potential maximum - but then, it seems our fixed line broadband isn't much better. Telecoms watchdog Ofcom says that many of us are getting crappy connections instead of blistering broadband speeds.

Part of the problem, it seems, is us: we're not all taking advantage of the fastest services around. "More than 4 in 10 broadband consumers remain on packages with speeds of 10Mbps or less even though many of them would be able to get a higher speed at little or no extra cost if they switched package or provider," Ofcom says.

Even when we do switch, though, we continue to get considerably less than the speeds ISPs tell us we'll get - the UK average has barely cracked 7Mb, whereas the average speed advertised by ISPs is eleventy billion Mbps.

10 things Zuck's letter teaches us about Facebook

Mark Zuckerberg announced this week that Facebook was finally going public. With the social network now filing for an IPO and looking to raise around $5 billion in cash, it's clear that the site is no longer the cuddly social network it once was.

Now it is a legitimate business which is setting out to change the face of the internet forever and line investors' pockets in the process.

With the filing of an IPO, Zuckerberg penned a lengthy letter to investors which outlined just what Facebook is about and how it won't change even when it floats on the stock market.

TechRadar has read the letter, wiped the tears from its eyes – tears of sadness that we will never be able to afford Facebook shares – and here are the 10 things we think that the letter teaches us about Facebook.

1. Facebook was built to accomplish a social mission

The Social Network may have implied that Zuckerberg's main reason for creating Facebook was to impress the ladies but Zuck sees it differently, writing: "Facebook was not originally created to be a company. It was built to accomplish a social mission – to make the world more open and connected."

And if getting a girlfriend was a bi-product of this more open and connected world, then so be it.

2. Facebook was inspired by the printing press

When Gutenberg (Johannes, not Steve) created the printing press, we're guessing he had no idea that one day his machine would inspire humans to poke each other and let the world know what they were listening to. But, according to Zuckerberg, this is where the idea of Facebook stemmed from.

"At Facebook, we're inspired by technologies that have revolutionised how people spread and consume information.

"We often talk about inventions like the printing press and the television – by simply making communication more efficient, they led to a complete transformation of many important parts of society. They gave more people a voice. They encouraged progress. They changed the way society was organised. They brought us closer together."

They also brought us the Daily Mail and Jeremy Kyle, so it's not all good.

3. Facebook is about the relationship between two people

To paraphrase Notting Hill, Zuckerberg was just a boy, standing in front of a screen, asking it to love him before Facebook came along. Then when he created the site he found that he could actually make contact with other people. Still through a screen, but they were definitely real. And this is at the heart of Facebook, according to the letter.

"We hope to strengthen how people relate to each other. Even if our mission sounds big, it starts small – with the relationship between two people.

"Personal relationships are the fundamental unit of our society. Relationships are how we discover new ideas, understand our world and ultimately derive long-term happiness."

Someone pass the sick bag.

4. Facebook wants to fix the world's economy

The world's economy is screwed because the banks have been playing with real cash like it were a game of Monopoly. But don't worry as Facebook is here to save the day.

"We hope to improve how people connect to businesses and the economy," stated the letter.

"We think a more open and connected world will help create a stronger economy with more authentic businesses that build better products and services.

"As people share more, they have access to more opinions from the people they trust about the products and services they use. This makes it easier to discover the best products and improve the quality and efficiency of their lives."

Hopefully if Fred Goodwin is reading this, then it will remind him to change his Facebook status from 'knight of the realm' to 'no longer friends with the Queen'.

5. Facebook wants to fix the world's governments

Not content with being the Robin Hood of the tech world and bringing money back to the people, Zuckerberg also wants to make governments more honest.

"We hope to change how people relate to their governments and social institutions," Zuck explained.

"We believe building tools to help people share can bring a more honest and transparent dialogue around government that could lead to more direct empowerment of people, more accountability for officials and better solutions to some of the biggest problems of our time."

6. Facebook only makes money to build better services

Zuckerberg is a paper billionaire and everyone associated with Facebook is about to be a little richer but making money isn't the real reason behind going public. Well, it is but this money is going to go straight back into the development of Facebook.

"Simply put: we don't build services to make money; we make money to build better services," wrote Zuckerberg.

"And we think this is a good way to build something. These days I think more and more people want to use services from companies that believe in something beyond simply maximizing profits."

7. Facebook going public is its thank you to employees

Zuckerberg is taking Facebook public to say thanks to those who made it a success. No, not the Winklevoss twins, silly – the people who are working at the company now.

"We're going public for our employees and our investors. We made a commitment to them when we gave them equity that we'd work hard to make it worth a lot and make it liquid, and this IPO is fulfilling our commitment.

"As we become a public company, we're making a similar commitment to our new investors and we will work just as hard to fulfil it."

8. Facebook is pro hacking

Staying close to his coding roots, Zuckerberg used a significant chunk of his letter to tell his investors that hacking is a good thing and Facebook was built upon the ethic of letting coders do what they want. We're thinking this wasn't an invite to Anonymous to DDoS the site on a regular basis, more like pointing out that hacking can be good as well as bad.

"The word "hacker" has an unfairly negative connotation from being portrayed in the media as people who break into computers. In reality, hacking just means building something quickly or testing the boundaries of what can be done. Like most things, it can be used for good or bad, but the vast majority of hackers I've met tend to be idealistic people who want to have a positive impact on the world."

9. Facebook is broken but fast

There's a reason why Facebook updates its site and it gets a lot of negative feedback. This is because Zuckerberg stands by the idea that you have to break things to find out how they work. This is fine if you are a small startup but when you have billions of eyes on your site daily, someone is going to notice if something is borked – not that Zuckerberg seems to care.

"Moving fast enables us to build more things and learn faster. However, as most companies grow, they slow down too much because they're more afraid of making mistakes than they are of losing opportunities by moving too slowly. We have a saying: 'Move fast and break things.' The idea is that if you never break anything, you're probably not moving fast enough.

10. Facebook is all about being open

Stop tweaking your privacy settings people – let the world see what you are up to. Come on, this is the reason you tell all about your meaningless life on Facebook isn't it?

Well, even if you are not going to open up, Zuckerberg wants Facebook to be as open as possible.

"We believe that a more open world is a better world because people with more information can make better decisions and have a greater impact," explained the letter.

"That goes for running our company as well. We work hard to make sure everyone at Facebook has access to as much information as possible about every part of the company so they can make the best decisions and have the greatest impact."