Techmeme
March 30, 2014, 11:50 AM

Top News

Spiegel Online:
GCHQ and NSA Targeted Private German Companies  —  Documents show that Britain's GCHQ intelligence service infiltrated German Internet firms and America's NSA obtained a court order to spy on Germany and collected information about the chancellor in a special database.
Threes:
Frustrated by popular fast following rip-offs like 2048, creators of Threes tout advantages of their 14-month development process  —  The Rip-offs & Making Our Original Game  —  It's been a weird and awesome couple of months.  Our expectations for our tiny game were well, fairly tiny.
Eric Mack / CNET:
HTC admits boosting One M8 benchmarks; makes it a feature  —  Some suspected the HTC One M8 of pumping up its processor for better benchmarks.  HTC's response: Of course it does.  In fact, it's now a feature.  —  If this phone wore pants, some think they would be on fire.  —  Brian Bennett/CNET
More: AmongTech, Engadget and GSMArena BlogTweets: @geekyranjitThanks:@ericcmack
Timothy B. Lee / Washington Post:
In new case, Supreme Court revisits the question of software patents  —  If you write a book or a song, you can get copyright protection for it.  If you invent a pill or a better mousetrap, you can patent it.  But for decades, software has had the distinction of being eligible for both copyright and patent protection.
Tweets: @samaaron and @checker
Ina Fried / Re/code:
Longtime Windows and Office Executive Antoine Leblond Leaving Microsoft  —  Antoine Leblond, one of several Windows unit executives sidelined in a reorganization last year, is leaving Microsoft.  —  Leblond, who spent nearly 25 years at Microsoft, will leave the company after Monday — his 9,000th day at the company.
More: WinBeta
Julie Zhuo / Medium:
Facebook designer defends scaled-back News Feed redesign, noting low-res monitors are too common for big photos  —  Whatever's Best For The People, That's What We Do  —  Earlier today, Dustin Curtis wrote a post about the recent Facebook desktop redesign.
Paul Graham / Y Combinator Posthaven:
Paul Graham steps away from Hacker News, handing control to five Y Combinator staffers  —  Meet the People Taking over Hacker News  —  I did several different things while I was working on Hacker News, and these will now be taken over by different people.  —  Kevin Hale (HN id kevin) will be in charge of design.
More: TechCrunch and Re/codeTweets: @rrhoover
George Anders / Forbes:
Sequoia Capital profiled as a feisty, decisive, luxury-eschewing band of outsiders  —  Inside Sequoia Capital: Silicon Valley's Innovation Factory  —  When Doug Leone arrived in Mount Vernon, N.Y. in 1968, the 11-year-old Italian immigrant didn't have a clue.

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Earlier Picks

Reuters:
Re/code:
Alistair Barr / Wall Street Journal: