One of the upcoming features is single sign-on (SSO). Dropbox’s Anand Subramani explains:

SSO works behind the scenes to let users sign in just once to a central identity provider, like Active Directory, and securely access all their business apps, like Dropbox. With SSO, companies can put their existing trusted identity provider in charge of the authentication process.

For users, SSO means ease — one fewer password to remember and one fewer step to get to your work. Once logged in to your system, there’s no need to sign in to Dropbox separately. For IT admins, SSO means additional security and administrative management. Single sign-on gives you complete ownership of the authentication process and works with your company’s existing password policies. It also easily ties into the existing Dropbox provisioning and de-provisioning API to provide further Active Directory integration.

The company is working with various identity providers on single sign-on. These include Ping Identity, Okta, OneLogin, Centrify, and Symplified. The feature is coming next month. It will take advantage of the industry standard Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML).

Dropbox claims to be used by 2 million businesses and 95% of the Fortune 500.

“By bringing Dropbox to Yahoo! Mail, it’ll now be easier for you to send, receive, share and manage your attachments,” says Yahoo in a blog post.

Dropbox’s Joshua Jenkins says, “Email attachments can be tricky: they’ve got file size limits, you can’t keep them updated, and when you add people to a thread, attachments are the first to get left behind. he Yahoo! Mail team decided to fix this—by integrating with Dropbox!”

“Since this integration is Dropbox-powered, you can even send that big album of vacation pics without worrying about the 25 MB file limit,” he says. “Plus, it’s easy to save any photo, video, or doc in your Yahoo! Mail straight to your Dropbox, where you can get to it from anywhere.”

If you don’t already use Dropbox, you can click on any attachment in Yahoo Mail, select “Save All,” then “Save to Dropbox,” and it will give you instructions for setting up an account. Otherwise, you can just start using it.

You can send new attachments from Dropbox in Yahoo Mail by selecting the dropdown next to the paperclip icon, and hit “Share from Dropbox”. For large files, you can drag and drop the attachment into email, but send it through Dropbox.

The integration is available in English, French, German, Italian, and Spanish.

In a series of tweets from about 10 hours ago, Dotcom announces some early stats for Mega. The biggest surprise is definitely how fast Mega has grown since its launch. We know that the site has over 1 million registered users, but it’s obviously higher than that now. Dotcom isn’t sharing the exact number, however, because he says he can’t believe it.

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Kim Dotcom
@KimDotcom

If I would tell you how many signups we had since the launch you wouldn’t believe it. I can’t believe it. So, I won’t tell you.

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18 hours ago via web · powered by @socialditto

Although we can’t see how many registered users the site has, we can see that it’s growing astronomically thanks to a tweet from Dotcom that compares Mega’s traffic to established file sharing service Dropbox.

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Kim Dotcom
@KimDotcom

Alexa stats: Unbelievable growth. #Mega rises and Dropbox drops. http://t.co/ryVoc898

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1 hour ago via web · powered by @socialditto

He also tweeted out that Mega is now the largest .co.nz site on the Internet. I’m betting the folks in Gabon were now wishing they let Dotcom keep his original me.ga domain name.

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Kim Dotcom
@KimDotcom

Alexa stats: After just 3 days #Mega is now the biggest .co.nz site in the world. Viva New Zealand! http://t.co/CxTptSpj

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1 hour ago via web · powered by @socialditto

Of course, the launch has not been without some issues. The ever increasing demand for Mega is causing the site to load slowly for some while others are having issues with uploading. Dotcom is aware of the issues and is promising to get everything under control:

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Kim Dotcom
@KimDotcom

The massive global PR around the #Mega launch is simply to big to handle for our start-up. I apologize for poor service quality

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18 hours ago via web · powered by @socialditto

Follow @KimDotcom

Kim Dotcom
@KimDotcom

We are working 24/7 and expect normal operations within 48 hours. Lesson learned… No fancy launch event for Megabox

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18 hours ago via web · powered by @socialditto

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Kim Dotcom
@KimDotcom

We are making good progress. Adding servers & fixing bugs. It should not be long until you can enjoy #Mega without hiccups.

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10 hours ago via Twitter for iPhone · powered by @socialditto

Another issue Dotcom now faces are reports that Mega’s much hyped security and encryption are not as protective as he claims. He says that he he will be addressing those issues soon:

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Kim Dotcom
@KimDotcom

There have been a few wrong reports about our encryption & security. Expect a blog post on #Mega later today.

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10 hours ago via Twitter for iPhone · powered by @socialditto

Mega has already proven to be a success, but how long will it last? TorrentFreak reported yesterday that anti-piracy group StopFileLockers is already attempting to shut off Mega’s revenue streams. Similar groups are probably exploring their options in regards to Mega as well. Dotcom claims his new site is legal, but the media industry will no doubt find something to complain about.

“Since the beginning, Dropbox users have remained at the heart of the company’s mission,” a spokesperson for the company tells WebProNews. “People from around the world have shown countless and unique ways to use Dropbox to simplify their lives every day. As Dropbox continues to grow and innovate, the team is renewing their commitment to their users who have made Dropbox what it is.”

Dropbox also revealed that it now has paying users in over 200 countries.

“Once upon a time, Dropbox had its humble beginnings in a Boston train station when I forgot my USB stick at home. We’re still unsure if it was fate or fluke, but one thing’s stayed the same all these years: each of us has a unique reason for using Dropbox,” Drew Houston writes on the Drobbox blog. “100 million reasons later, we’re still building and improving Dropbox not only for ourselves, but also for all of you and your awesome stories that continue to inspire us.”

“Among these is Coach Stringfellow in Utah,” Houston adds. “High school football’s a big deal — while there are the lights, crowds, and cheerleaders, less visible are the sweat and tears needed to build a great team. Coach Stringfellow and his players use Dropbox to study game films and scouting reports on their own terms. And because Dropbox keeps everyone connected, the Bountiful Braves have the edge they need to play stronger and smarter.”

There’s a video about the coach in the blog post, where the company calls upon users to share their own stories about their reasons for using Dropbox, for the chance to win 10GB for life (if it’s in the top 100) or 100GB (if it’s in the top 10).

A spokesperson for Dropbox tells WebProNews that the partnership builds upon its “mission to create easier ways for people to be more productive, collaborate, and access their life’s work whenever they need it, whether from mobile devices or multiple computers.”

“Now you can share notes with your study group, add the latest game schedule to your basketball team’s group, or post a birthday video to your family’s group at lightning speed from wherever you are,” says Dropbox’s Chris Varenhorst. “Just like other posts to Facebook Groups, people can like or comment on anything you share from within the group. And if you make any edits to a file you’ve shared, the group will get an update automatically!”

When users link their Dropbox accounts to their Facebook accounts, they can search through Dropbox and select what they want to share. Docs, photos, and videos shared from Dropbox will show up on the group’s wall.

The integration is rolling out today. If you can’t see it yet, you should be able to shortly.

Many Google users are familiar with this type of system, which it made available to all users in February 2011. It got some attention earlier this month, thanks to the highly publicized hacking of Wired writer Mat Honan, who acknowledged that had he set up the feature, much of his trouble could have possibly been avoided.

Google’s Matt Cutts blogged about it dispelling some myths.

“Turning on two-step verification is simple,” Dropbox’s Dan Wheeler says of the new feature. “Go to the new Security tab in your Dropbox account settings and enable two-step verification in the ‘Account sign in’ section.”

“From there, just follow the steps to set up two-step verification,” he adds. “Detailed setup instructions are also available in our Help Center. On your desktop or mobile devices, you’ll only need the code the first time you sign in to Dropbox. On the web, you can also select the option to “Trust this computer” and you won’t need to re-enter a code again.”

In addition to two-step verification, Dropbox also now has away to view all active logins to your account through the Security tab. The company says it is also working on automated mechanisms to identify suspicious activity.

“You no longer have to hit refresh as you wait for your friend to share those super-important files or worry about getting out of sync,” Dropbox’s Danny Weinberg said in a blog post. “The latest files just automatically appear on your page. After all, every second counts!”

Weinberg suggests opening two browser windows and trying to rename, add, or remove files, to see the change happen immediately in the other window.

Dropbox also recently launched some security updates, such as Google-like two-factor authentication, new mechanisms to help identify suspicious activity, and a new page that lets users examine active logins. Dropbox says it may also require you to change your password in some cases. More on the security updates here.

The new service called boxupus combines the power of torrents and Dropbox into one, easy to use service. Users can add torrents to Dropbox and the files will be downloaded to the digital file locker for all who share the account. The creators told TorrentFreak that the service is meant to bring torrents into the future that is the Cloud.

The main benefit of being part of the cloud is that the downloads are taken care of by the team at boxupus. It means that all torrents downloaded by users will be tied to boxupus making it essentially anonymous for all who use it. The other benefit is that users can start downloads of torrents no matter where they are and have them available via Dropbox at any time.

The company has had to answer to allegations that they have become a new Megaupload since they added the public folder option. They responded to the allegations by removing the ability to create public folders, but users can share their Dropbox accounts so it’s kind of moot point. It remains to be seen how they will respond to the existence of boxopus.

If you want to try out boxopus for yourself, just hit up their Web site. It’s free for now while it’s in beta, but the creators told TorrentFreak that they have plans to monetize the service in the future. As for those monetization plans, it will probably be similar to how Dropbox monetizes its storage.

The iOS update includes the ability for iPhone and iPad users to automatically upload photos and video over either Wi-Fi or data. To encourage Apple fans to use this new capability, Dropbox is offering, in 500 MB increments, 3 GB of extra storage space to users to activate the automatic uploading feature. To take better advantage of the new feature, users are now able to upload files of any size, and can now move and delete sets of files. The gallery view in Dropbox now allows users to see all of the pictures and videos they have uploaded, regardless or whether they were uploaded automatically. The app is available for free in the Apple App Store.

As for the public folders news, it was first reported by German site Mobi Flip that Dropbox developers were receiving an email from the company stating that new Dropbox accounts will not be able to create public folders after July 31. It is stated in the email that currently existing public folders will be left alone, and will continue to function. This email was sent to developers because many apps that use Dropbox make API calls to a user’s public folder, which obviously won’t exist for new users in a couple of months.

Dropbox is dropping public folders in favor of a new public link feature it announced in April. Mobi Flip speculated that public folders used for hosting copyrighted or malicious content may have been part of the reason for the change. What is clear is that, even with bandwidth limits, non-dropbox users who download from public folders are costing Dropbox money. The new link feature directs those who click on a link to a Dropbox page, where the linked content can be securely displayed by Dropbox.

(via Mobi Flip)

Dropquest is a multi-step scavenger hunt that has you solve a series of puzzles (inspired by the likes of MIT’s mystery hunt or notpron [though not nearly as time/effort-consuming]). Everyone who completes Dropquest will get at least 1 GB of space (even if you participated last year). Also, everyone starts at the same time, but the questers who finish the soonest get amazing prizes!

The prizes are listed as follows:

1st place (1): Dropbox employee hoodie, LIMITED EDITION Dropbox Hack Week t-shirt, Dropbox drawing signed by the entire Dropbox team, invitation to help write the next Dropquest, 100 GB for life!

5th place (100): 1 GB for life!

Dropquest started on Saturday, and they quickly had a winner, but according to Dropbox’s last update on Twitter, there were still plenty more prizes to give out. If you go to the Dropquest site, it appears to still be open.

According to Dropbox, everyone who completes Dropquest will get at least 1GB of extra free space.