Techmeme
August 21, 2013, 12:35 AM

Top News

Wall Street Journal:
New Details Show Broader NSA Surveillance Reach  —  Programs Cover 75% of Nation's Traffic, Can Snare Emails WASHINGTON—The National Security Agency—which possesses only limited legal authority to spy on U.S. citizens—has built a surveillance network that covers more Americans' Internet communications …
NBCNews:
US doesn't know what Snowden took, sources say  —  HONG KONG - 2013: In this handout photo provided by The Guardian, Edward Snowden speaks during an interview in Hong Kong.  Snowden, a 29-year-old former technical assistant for the CIA, revealed details of top-secret surveillance conducted …
Vindu Goel / New York Times:
Facebook Leads an Effort to Lower Barriers to Internet Access  —  MENLO PARK, Calif. — About one of every seven people in the world uses Facebook.  Now, Mark Zuckerberg, its co-founder and chief executive, wants to make a play for the rest — including the four billion or so who lack Internet access.
Josh Constine / TechCrunch:
Facebook And 6 Phone Makers Launch Internet.org To Bring Affordable Access To Everyone  —  Facebook has just announced a partnership with Samsung, Ericsson, MediaTek, Nokia, Opera, and Qualcomm to launch Internet.org, a project aimed at bringing affordable Internet access to the five billion people without it.
More: EngadgetTweets: @shiraovide and @vindugoel
John McDermott / AdAge:
iTunes Radio to Debut in September With McDonald's, Nissan, P&G, Pepsi  —  Launch Partners Sign 12-Month Deals Worth Tens of Millions of Dollars  —  iTunes Radio, Apple's answer to Pandora, is set to debut next month with a handful of high-profile brand partners including McDonald's, Nissan …
Terrence O'Brien / Engadget:
PlayStation 4 hitting shelves on November 15th in the US for $399, November 29th in Europe and Latin America  —  There isn't much we don't know about the PlayStation 4 at this point.  Sony has let the details slip out in drips and drabs, dragging out the mystery as long as possible.
Josh Constine / TechCrunch:
TechCrunch's Picks: The Top 8 Startups From Y Combinator's Summer '13 Demo Day  —  Convenience tech, developer assistance, and services for senior citizens were the big trends amongst the 45 startups that pitched on the record today at Y Combinator's Summer 2013 Demo Day.
David Pogue / New York Times:
Siri vs. the Android: The Sequel  —  “Your review was the dumbest thing I've ever read.  It strains me to avoid profanity in describing how stupid you sound.”  —  That's the kind of e-mail that brightened my day after I reviewed Google's Moto X phone two weeks ago.
Tweets: @pogue and @nchan
Liz Gannes / AllThingsD:
Google and Waze Start Mixing Their Maps for the First Time  —  Google today is introducing the first integrations between its homegrown Google Maps for mobile and its newly owned Waze.  —  Google adds Waze  —  The traffic tab on Google Maps for iOS and Android will now include accidents …
Robinson Meyer / The Atlantic Online:
This Software Won't Let You Look Away  —  The creepiest educational technology yet  —  Updated, 3:45pm.  —  It's hard to imagine a creepier educational technology than “FocusAssist,” a new feature announced by online training company Mindflash last week.
More: CNET, Nextgov and ROUGH TYPE
Danielle Kucera / Bloomberg:
Amazon Ramps Up $13.9 Billion Warehouse Building Spree  —  Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN) is stepping up a warehouse building spree, signaling the urgency of getting products to customers more quickly amid rising competition from EBay Inc. (EBAY) and Wal-Mart (WMT) Stores Inc.
Tweets: @jordanr1000
Alexis Santos / Engadget:
LG Display claims a world's first with 2,560 x 1,440 LCD for smartphones  —  Full HD displays?  Eat your heart out, handset manufacturers.  LG Display has just laid claim to the world's first Quad HD (2,560 x 1,440) smartphone display, which also boasts the highest pixel density of a mobile device, clocking in at 538ppi.
Laura Hazard Owen / GigaOM:
Barnes & Noble totally reverses strategy in train wreck of an investor call  —  Want to know what Barnes & Noble's plan is for the future?  In that case, it would be wise to ignore pretty much everything the company has said it was going to do in recent months.  —  Getting out of the tablet business?
Laura Hazard Owen / GigaOM:
Liz Gannes / AllThingsD:
Coursera Adds Kleiner Perkins Partner Lila Ibrahim as President  —  Lila Ibrahim, an operating partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, will become president at the online education startup Coursera.  —  That's a lot of leadership at the top of the growing startup, which was founded less than two years ago.
Pamela Jones / Groklaw:
Forced Exposure  —  The owner of Lavabit tells us that he's stopped using email and if we knew what he knew, we'd stop too.  —  There is no way to do Groklaw without email.  Therein lies the conundrum.  —  What to do?  —  What to do?  I've spent the last couple of weeks trying to figure it out.
Frederic Lardinois / TechCrunch:
Google's Stealthy Helpouts Live Video Commerce Service Makes Its First Public Appearance, Landing Page Now Live  —  Last month, our own Rip Empson broke the news that Google was working on Helpouts, a Hangouts-based marketplace “ that enables individuals and small and large businesses to buy and sell services via live video.”
Adrianne Jeffries / The Verge:
Not OK, Cupid: dating site email security gaffe leaves your account wide open  —  Users may be exposing themselves without realizing it  —  A friend who recently started using OKCupid just forwarded me an email she got from the site, containing a funny message from a prospective suitor: “You seem nice.

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Earlier Picks

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Jon Russell / The Next Web:
Natasha Lomas / TechCrunch: