Techmeme: A profile of Google Maps, an integral part of the company's future location-aware products (Adam Fisher/New York Times)

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December 15, 2013, 3:55 PM

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Adam Fisher / New York Times:

A profile of Google Maps, an integral part of the company's future location-aware products — Google's Road Map to Global Domination — Fifty-five miles and three days down the Colorado River from the put-in at Lee's Ferry, near the Utah-Arizona border, the two rafts in our little flotilla suddenly encountered a storm.

More: The Verge, Digits and Boing Boing

Tweets: @dannysullivan, @theinformation, @timoreilly and @stshank

New York Times:

Officials Say U.S. May Never Know Extent of Snowden's Leaks — WASHINGTON — American intelligence and law enforcement investigators have concluded that they may never know the entirety of what the former National Security Agency contractor Edward J. Snowden extracted from classified government computers …

More: Memex 1.1, TechCrunch, SlashGear and Business Insider

Tweets: @jesselynradack, @jpbarlow, @davidfrum, @trdeghett, @nxthompson, @jameeljaffer, @mlcalderone, @ggreenwald and @trevortimm

Conor Friedersdorf / The Atlantic Online:

How Americans Were Deceived About Cell Phone Location Data — Remember when multiple Obama Administration figures said the NSA doesn't collect it? That wasn't true. — Shortly after the earliest articles sourced to Edward Snowden appeared, Americans newly aware of the cell phones …

More: Washington Post. Tweets: @dafnalinzer

Jonathan Stempel / Reuters:

Lawsuit accuses IBM of hiding China risks amid NSA spy scandal

More: Business Wire, New Orleans Times-Picayune, AllThingsD, SlashGear and Businessweek. Tweets: @asher_wolf

Janko Roettgers / Gigaom:

Chromecast in 2014: an open SDK, big international plans and maybe even new devices — Google landed a bit of a coup with Chromecast this year, launching a device that no one saw coming but that has proven to be very popular. Next year, the company plans to take Chromecast even further …

More: PC Magazine, Android Central, Engadget, CNET, Ubergizmo, Geeky Gadgets, Wired.co.uk, Softpedia News and Electronista. Tweets: @zseward

Alexis C. Madrigal / The Atlantic Online:

2013: The Year ‘the Stream’ Crested — The Stream is fun and fast, but don't you miss the sense of an ending? — The Stream has been the organizing metaphor for the web for the past several years. In May 2009, a high-ranking editor of TechCrunch identified and summarized this grand shift …

More: Pretzel Logic. Tweets: @jayrosen_nyu, @stilgherrian and @homebrew

Tom Warren / The Verge:

Leaked Windows Phone 8.1 screenshot reveals new on-screen buttons — Microsoft is still testing its upcoming Windows Phone 8.1 update internally, but a leaked screenshot reveals how the company is moving to on-screen buttons in the future. The tiny image, published by @evleaks …

More: Digital Trends, Geeky Gadgets, Electronista, IntoMobile, TechnoBuffalo, Windows Phone Central, MobileSyrup.com, pocketnow.com and WinBeta

Allison Arieff / New York Times:

As tech companies embrace urban life, many in San Francisco remain closed off from their city — What Tech Hasn't Learned From Urban Planning — SAN FRANCISCO — The tech sector is, increasingly, embracing the language of urban planning — town hall, public square, civic hackathons, community engagement.

More: Tim McCormick. Tweets: @mattwarman, @meghanhade, @heif, @jsnell, @grescoe, @ivortossell, @qthrul, @jimray, @digiphile, @mnowster and @markoff

Yoree Koh / Digits:

Twitter Test Shows ‘Nearby’ Tweets — Twitter has an eye on your location — and is testing ways to share it with other nearby users. — The short-messaging service appears to be testing a new timeline for its mobile app, called “Nearby.” It shows recent nearby tweets, whether you follow the tweeter or not.

More: The Verge, Digital Trends, Ubergizmo, CNET, SlashGear, Electronista, The Next Web and TechCrunch

Cyrus Farivar / Ars Technica:

Boston Police indefinitely suspends license plate reader program — The Boston Police Department currently has 14 license plate scanners, which are often mounted on police cars. — cle0patra — The Boston Police Department (BPD) has indefinitely halted its use of license plate readers …

More: The Boston Globe, The Verge, SlashGear and RT

Tweets: @fallenpegasus, @ovaska and @freedomofpress

Leena Rao / TechCrunch:

As Software Eats The World, Non-Tech Corporations Are Eating Startups — Netscape founder and VC titan Marc Andreessen famously wrote back in 2011 that software is steadily eating the world, disrupting industries like music, retail and more. Now large corporations in these industries are starting to eat startups.

Tweets: @oriollloret, @jess, @alexisohanian and @mdudas

Peter Kafka / AllThingsD:

Amazon Pushes Installment Plan Payments for Kindle Fire HDX Tablets — Amazon seems to be selling a lot of its newest Kindle Fire tablets*. But it would like to sell many more. — So here's Jeff Bezos' newest pitch: Buy a Kindle Fire HDX tablet today, and we'll give you nine months to finish paying for it.

More: PC Magazine, The Verge, ZDNet, GeekWire and SlashGear

John Markoff / New York Times:

Google acquires Boston Dynamics, maker of BigDog, Petman, and other research robots — Google Adds to Its Menagerie of Robots — SAN FRANCISCO — BigDog, Cheetah, WildCat and Atlas have joined Google's growing robot menagerie. — Google confirmed on Friday that it had completed …

More: SlashGear, TechCrunch, Geeky Gadgets, AllThingsD, Ars Technica, Gizmodo, Laughing Squid, Ubergizmo, MIT Technology Review, CNET, Android Central, Forbes, Mashable, TechnoBuffalo, SlashGear, PC Magazine, VentureBeat, IEEE Spectrum, Digits, iMore, ZDNet, Pocket-lint, Associated Press, The Raw Story, ITworld.com, The Switch, Digital Trends, Electronista, The Verge, Kotaku, The Next Web, T3 News, Wired.co.uk, Softpedia News, Gigaom, Engadget, BuzzFeed, Union Square Ventures, 9to5Google and Business Insider

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