Techmeme: Google sticks with VP8, opposes Cisco's push to make H.264 the default codec for WebRTC (Janko Roettgers/Gigaom)

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October 31, 2013, 8:50 AM

Top News

Washington Post:

NSA infiltrates links to Yahoo, Google data centers worldwide, Snowden documents say — The National Security Agency has secretly broken into the main communications links that connect Yahoo and Google data centers around the world, according to documents obtained from former NSA contractor Edward Snowden …

Washington Post:

How the NSA is infiltrating private networks — The NSA, working with its British counterpart, the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), secretly taps into the internal networks of Yahoo and Google, the two biggest Internet companies by overall data traffic.

More: Marketing Pilgrim and Associated Press. Tweets: @dannysullivan

Andrea Peterson / The Switch:

PRISM already gave the NSA access to tech giants. Here's why it wanted more.

More: Mercury News, CNET, New York Times and emptywheel. Tweets: @d_seaman

Mike Masnick / Techdirt:

NSA Issues Non-Denial Denial Of Infiltrating Google & Yahoo's Networks

More: emptywheel

Amir Efrati / jessica lessin:

Android's Next Targets: Wearables, TVs, Low-End Phones — The launch of Google Inc.'s Android KitKat, the next version of the most widely used operating software for smartphones and tablets, is drawing near. Google executives haven't announced a release date but people who have been briefed on KitKat say that it is coming soon.

More: The Droid Guy, The Verge, MobileSyrup.com, Electronista, 9to5Google, Ubergizmo, Engadget, Yahoo! News, PhoneArena, Gearburn, The Next Web, Android Beat, Android Central and SlashGear

Tweets: @ericnewcomer and @amir

Facebook:

Facebook Reports Third Quarter 2013 Results — Facebook, Inc. (NASDAQ: FB) today reported financial results for the third quarter, which ended September 30, 2013. — “For nearly ten years, Facebook has been on a mission to connect the world,” said Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook founder and CEO.

More: Gigaom, TechCrunch, The Next Web, Tech Trader Daily, Wall Street Journal, CNNMoney.com, TechHive, ZDNet, ITworld.com, AllFacebook, WebProNews, AllThingsD, BGR, Marketing Land, Engadget, Reuters, ZDNet, Digits, VentureBeat, Forbes, GeekWire and MobileSyrup.com

Tweets: @jonerlichman, @tim, @nickbilton, @thestalwart, @hunterwalk, @panzer, @hamburger and @benedictevans

Josh Constine / TechCrunch:

Facebook Admits Some Decrease Of Usage Amongst Young Teens For The First Time

More: SiliconANGLE, Forbes, blogs.telegraph.co.uk, ReadWrite, The Huffington Post, CNET, Bloomberg, Digits, Los Angeles Times, Mashable and VatorNews

Tweets: @pkedrosky and @joshconstine

Thanks:@chrisvelazco

Matthew Panzarino / TechCrunch:

Facebook's Q3 '13 Beats With $2.02B Revenue, $0.25 EPS, With 49% Of Ad Revenue Now Via Mobile

More: TechCrunch, bizjournals, AdExchanger, The Register, eWeek, VatorNews, ReadWrite, internetretailer.com and Electronista

John Koetsier / VentureBeat:

Facebook grows per-user revenue in every single global territory

Matt McGee / Marketing Land:

Google's Glass Accessory Store Is Coming Online (Wow. Stuff's Expensive!) — Google is bringing an official accessory store for Google Glass online this evening, based on reports first shared in a private Google forum for Glass Explorers. — The store appears to be part of the “My Glass” …

More: The Verge, Gizmodo, IntoMobile, Electronista, Phandroid, Softpedia News, Mashable, Glass Almanac, Glass Almanac, Android Beat and The Next Web. Thanks:@mattmcgee

Lisa Chow / NPR:

Top Reviewers On Amazon Get Tons Of Free Stuff … You're on Amazon.com. You're buying, say, a toaster, and you're checking out the customer reviews. You assume the people writing these reviews are people like you — people who wanted a toaster, went online and bought one.

More: The Verge, Consumerist and Daily Dot

Matt Buchanan / New Yorker:

After Walt Mossberg and David Pogue: Waiting for the Next Great Technology Critic — For well over a decade, the two most influential voices about consumer technology have been a sixty-six-year-old man who lives just outside of Washington, D.C. and a fifty-year-old man who resides in Westport, Connecticut.

Tweets: @fmanjoo, @laurengoode, @jasonkincaid and @samfbiddle. See also Mediagazer

Rich McCormick / The Verge:

Steam rises to 65 million active users, eclipsing Xbox Live — Steam now has more than 65 million active accounts. The figure marks a 30 percent rise in players over the last year. The video game digital download platform also boasts daily peak concurrent users of more than six million.

More: Engadget, Gigaom, Gearburn, BGR, Gotta Be Mobile, SlashGear, Softpedia News, IGN, ComputerAndVideoGames.com, Brier Dudley's blog, The Tech Report and Kotaku

Phys.org:

Future Internet aims to sever links with servers — This is a diagram showing how information would be shared on the PURSUIT Internet, compared with the present architecture. Credit: Barney Brown, University of Cambridge. — A revolutionary new architecture aims to make the internet more …

More: Gigaom, Gizmodo and redOrbit

Josh Lowensohn / CNET:

Apple working on a fix for new Retina MacBook input issues — Apple on Wednesday acknowledged an issue with some models of its newest MacBook Pro with Retina Display that would leave the keyboard and trackpad unresponsive. — Those computers were released last week alongside the debut of new iPads.

More: Inquirer, Engadget, The Verge, I4U News, iClarified, AppleTell, Ubergizmo, AppleInsider, Cult of Mac, 9to5Mac, MacRumors and Softpedia News

Zac Hall / 9to5Mac:

Fantastical 2: The calendar Apple should have built... again — After bringing natural language input to the mobile calendar experience with Fantastical for iPhone last November, Flexibits today released a brand new version of what was already my absolute favorite calendar app.

More: MacStories, Engadget, iMore, The Verge, iPhone, Gigaom, TechCrunch, iMore, TUAW, Redmond Pie, Pocket-lint, PandoDaily and Cult of Mac

Janko Roettgers / Gigaom:

Google sticks with VP8, opposes Cisco's push to make H.264 the default codec for WebRTC — There goes that plan to unite the industry behind one video single codec: Google intends to stick with VP8 as its default codec for real-time communication, even after Cisco won support from Mozilla …

More: Cisco Blog, Monty Montgomery, The Mozilla Blog and Softpedia News

Tweets: @backlon, @glynmoody and @nikcub

Wall Street Journal:

NSA Fallout Hits AT&T's Ambitions In Europe — AT&T Inc. T -0.03% 's ambitions to expand in Europe have run into unexpected hurdles amid the growing outcry across the region over surveillance by the National Security Agency. German and other European officials said any attempt by AT&T …

More: Gigaom and SlashGear. Tweets: @samschech

Parmy Olson / Forbes:

Flurry in 400K apps, tracks 1.2B devices a month with a reach greater than Facebook or Google — Meet The Company That Tracks More Phones Than Google Or Facebook — Picture this scenario. A bored woman sits waiting in an airline lounge. She scrolls through her iPhone and taps …

Tweets: @forbes

Jon Brodkin / Ars Technica:

Sprint promises 60Mbps LTE today, demos gigabit cellular in the lab — Sprint today said it has demonstrated 1Gbps “over-the-air speed at its lab,” in an early preview of things to come. — The cellular company calls the technology “Sprint Spark.” Sprint claims that Spark …

More: Featured News, AllThingsD, Faster, Gotta Be Mobile, The Verge, dailywireless.org, Yahoo! News, Digits, NVIDIA, AnandTech, iDownloadBlog.com, Ubergizmo and LAPTOP Magazine

Kevin C. Tofel / Gigaom:

Sprint intros first phones to tap its trio of 4G LTE network frequencies

More: Sprint, AndroidHeadlines.com, Computerworld and Droid Life

Sean Gallagher / Ars Technica:

HealthCare.gov deferred final security check, could leak personal data — Ben Simo's analysis of data sent by HealthCare.gov to analytics providers shows information that could be used to hijack a user's account. — Ben Simo, Is There A Problem Here? — Apparently, HealthCare.gov isn't just having a few backend problems.

More: Is There A Problem Here?. Tweets: @kerpen and @cjoh

TIME:

Exclusive: Password-Reset Security Glitch Fixed on HealthCare.gov

More: Associated Press, The Verge, Is There A Problem Here?, Is There A Problem Here?, Nextgov, The Switch and The Verge

Taylor Soper / GeekWire:

World's first Bitcoin ATM sees 81 exchanges, $10,000 in transactions during first day — History was made in Bitcoin world on Tuesday when the world's first Bitcoin ATM opened in Vancouver, B.C. — At the Waves Coffee House in downtown Vancouver, 81 people made Bitcoin transactions that totaled $10,000.

More: CBC News, The Register, ABC News, Mashable, ctvnews.ca, english.cri.cn, Reuters, TIME, SiliconANGLE and CoinDesk

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