Dropbox, available here is now offering users the opportunity to increase their storage space for free.

For every user you get to join, you get 250 MB of extra storage, up to a maximum of 3 additional GB, bringing the total storage capacity of DropBox without any recurring costs to 5 GB. Additionally, users can become a DropBox 'guru' and obtain another 250 MB for free.

With it's recent announcement of having exceeded 4 million users (in just one year of availability) we are seeing more and more signs of public computing becoming the norm.

In fact there are an increasing number of things you can do with DropBox to almost treat the service like a mobile computer. In this article detailing ways to stretch DropBox's functionality, the author suggests ways to sync up your music collections, keep track of your internet settings, use it to store all your passwords using KeyPass (A program similar to Password Safe that has been reviewed on this site) and more.

Another source goes so far as to suggest installing mobile versions of applications you typically use on DropBox, essentially allowing you to access a wealth of services from any device you can access the internet with.

The overwhelming popularity that DropBox has exhibited is fascinating because in the coming years, as such services get better, the need for powerful hardware or storage on local machines should fade. Why would you need a 250 GB hard drive if the collected cloud services you are using provide comparable storage?

DropBox to store data, eMail to store correspondence, Google Docs to store your documents, presentations, spreadsheets, your iTunes of the future could also be in the cloud, meaning your music and movies are stored for free...the increasing power of web based services will most likely have a strong influence on the future of computer design.

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