NSA slides explain the PRISM data-collection program  —  The top-secret PRISM program allows the U.S. intelligence community to gain access from nine Internet companies to a wide range of digital information, including e-mails and stored data, on foreign targets operating outside the United States.

Encryption Has Foiled Wiretaps for First Time Ever, Feds Say  —  For the first time, encryption is thwarting government surveillance efforts through court-approved wiretaps, U.S. officials said today.  —  The disclosure, buried in a report by the U.S. agency that oversees federal courts …

Google's Quantum Computer Proven To Be Real Thing (Almost)  —  Google bought one.  So did Lockheed Martin, one of the world's largest defense contractors.  But we still can't agree on what it is they bought.  —  D-Wave, the company that built the thing, calls it the world's first quantum computer …

Getting ALL your data out of Google Reader  —  There remain only a few days until Google Reader shuts down.  Besides the emotions1 and the practicalities of finding a replacement2, I've also been pondering the data loss aspects.  As a bit of a digital pack rat, the idea of not being able …

Why Oracle And Salesforce, Once Bitter Rivals, Are Now On Cloud Nine  —  Marc Benioff and Larry Ellison, the CEOs of two of the more powerful enterprise companies in the world — Salesforce.com and Oracle — are not known to be the chummiest of pals.  Before this week's sudden peaceful truce …

A Venture SLA  —  There is an opportunity for a new VC Firm to brand itself.  Recent brands in Venture Capital arose from transparency and founder-friendliness.  YCombinator gives new, young, technical talent an entry into Silicon Valley.  500 Startups does it globally.  Fred Wilson blogs the business.

NSA Leak Vindicates AT&T Whistleblower  —  Today's revelations that the National Security Agency collected bulk data on the email traffic of millions of Americans provides startling evidence for the first time to support a whistleblower's longstanding claims that AT&T was forwarding global internet traffic …

Why Is Apple Still Wrangling Over E-Books?  —  A question hangs over Apple Inc.'s e-books trial: Why is Apple fighting the U.S. Department of Justice when the book publishers the agency also sued chose to settle?  —  The answer lies in part in what's at stake.

Silicon Valley prepares to push House toward immigration reform  —  The tech industry scored two major victories on immigration this week, but its toughest legislative battle on the issue lies ahead in the House.  —  The passage of the Senate's immigration bill is the closest the tech industry …

Demo of the first public website using Safari's new native push notifications feature [Video]  —  During the WWDC keynote, Apple introduced a new Safari 7 feature that allows developers to take advantage of native push notifications on their websites.  Unlike HTML5 push notifications …

Apple Finds It Difficult to Divorce Samsung  —  Apple is finding that breaking up with Samsung is hard to do.  For evidence, look no further than Apple's effort to find a company other than ferocious rival Samsung Electronics Co. to make the sophisticated chip brains used in Apple's iPads and iPhones.