Techmeme: $1,099 iMac review: lose 50% of your performance to save 18% of the money (Andrew Cunningham/Ars Technica)

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July 7, 2014, 1:15 AM

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Washington Post:

In a cache of 160K conversations intercepted by NSA, 90% of those surveilled were not the intended targets — In NSA-intercepted data, those not targeted far outnumber the foreigners who are — Files provided by Snowden show the extent ordinary Web users are caught in the net

Vinod Khosla / Khosla Ventures:

Fireside chat with Google co-founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin — At the annual KV CEO Summit, we were fortunate to have both Larry Page and Sergey Brin sit down to discuss a wide range of topics including the acquisition that never was (although not for lack of trying!) …

More: TechCrunch, Business Insider, CNET, chris dixon's blog, StrictlyVC, VentureBeat and Re/code

Tweets: @counternotions, @teamcleveland, @counternotions, @stevenlevy, @bijans and @dshaywitz

Jerry Neumann / Reaction Wheel:

To succeed at investing when you're not a YC or Sequoia, focus on a single sector — Betting on the Ponies: non-Unicorn Investing — I bet on a horse called the Bottle of Smoke — I have decided to angel invest. Any advice? — I spent some time decades ago in the horse-racing world …

Tweets: @daniellemorrill, @patio11, @davemcclure and @mdudas

Kwame Opam / The Verge:

TSA blocking uncharged mobile devices from flights at some international airports — International travelers will have to make sure they charge all their devices before boarding their flights. In an announcement made Sunday, the TSA now plans on blocking flyers with uncharged phones …

More: TSA, NBC News, Associated Press, TechCrunch, PC World, The Next Web, The Register, ZDNet, Slate, iPhone in Canada Blog, Engadget, Gizmodo, PandoDaily, Guardian, Windows Phone Central, The Hill, The Daily Beast, SlashGear, Ubergizmo, Gawker, CNN and WebProNews

Tweets: @felixsalmon, @tomgara, @declanm and @csoghoian

Benedict Evans:

Android L and iOS 8 mark the first true mobile platform philosophy divergence since the iPhone — The next phase of smartphones — It's now 7 years since the iPhone reset the phone business, and indeed the entire computing and internet businesses. But it was pretty clear …

More: Ars Technica and Monday Note. Tweets: @stevesi

Andrew Cunningham / Ars Technica:

$1,099 iMac review: lose 50% of your performance to save 18% of the money — Technically, this is the $1,299 iMac, not that you'd be able to tell the difference. — Apple's new $1,099 iMac will undoubtedly be a popular computer. People in the know who want the most computing bang …

More: Tom's Guide, PC Magazine and Tapscape. Tweets: @stevesi

Jason Del Rey / Re/code:

Google sets aside as much as $500M to expand Shopping Express nationwide, fend off Amazon — Inside Google's Big Plan to Race Amazon To Your Door — Google is the undisputed king of search in all but one lucrative and vital category: product searches. — Over the past decade …

Tweets: @stilenius and @stevesilberman. Thanks:@delrey

Jason Abbruzzese / Mashable:

Will Facebook Backlash Kill Scientists' Data Dream? — The difference between Facebook users and lab rats? Lab rats can see who's conducting the experiment. — Facebook's 2012 experiment on 689,003 unsuspecting users has stoked controversy for breaking ethical norms that are widely recognized by academics and researchers.

More: Guardian

Reed Albergotti / Wall Street Journal:

Facebook's Data Science group has run hundreds of tests with few boundaries until recently

More: Andrew Ledvina, Ubergizmo, Washington Post, VentureBeat, Jay Rosen, Dave Winer, The Verge, Tech Times, CNET, USA Today, The Register, Engadget, Ubergizmo, BGR and PandoDaily

Tweets: @levie, @mikeisaac, @jdickerson, @reedalbergotti and @eric_andersen

Thanks:@evelynrusli

danah boyd / Medium:

We need to hold all companies accountable, not just Facebook, for how they manipulate people

More: Guardian, VentureBeat, Memex 1.1, Dare Obasanjo's weblog and Beyond Search

Tweets: @phillmv and @pomeranian99

New York Times:

With Revenue Roaring, Twitter's Advertising Team Is Untouched by Turmoil — Twitter's top executive ranks have been transformed in the past year, from its general counsel to, most recently, its chief financial officer. — Many of the executives have left or been pushed out as Twitter's chief executive …

More: AdExchanger. Tweets: @karaswisher, @sacca and @ashleymayer

Jay Yarow / Business Insider:

A Google Employee Says Google Employees Are Too Confident, And Too Isolated From The Real World — A Google employee has written a post about what it's like working at the company. — At his blog, Apenwarr, Google Fiber engineer Avery Pennarun is largely complimentary of Google and its employees …

More: apenwarr and Daring Fireball. Tweets: @jonphillipssf and @mims

Mathew Ingram / Gigaom:

ReservationHop is just the latest startup idea to exploit financial opportunity without thinking about ethics — It's getting harder to tell what's a real Silicon Valley startup and what's a parody — Maybe it's the foolish amounts of venture capital swirling around Silicon Valley …

More: TechCrunch, PandoDaily and Business Insider

Tweets: @mikalfm, @mathewi, @jayrosen_nyu, @evanselinger and @sarahharbin

Quartz:

Following Netflix, YouTube shames ISPs delivering slow video with message underneath videos — YouTube, following Netflix, is now publicly shaming internet providers for slow video — When videos blur, buffer, or won't play altogether, YouTube is now pinning the blame on your internet service provider.

More: The Verge, Business Insider, The Next Web, Gizmodo, Ubergizmo, VentureBeat, Re/code, Geek News Central and Mashable. Tweets: @alexisohanian

Michael Mace / Mobile Opportunity:

Amazon's Fire Phone is an experiment to mitigate mobile's threat to traditional e-commerce — The Real Meaning of the Fire Phone — People have been asking my opinion of the new Amazon Fire Phone, but I've had a lot of trouble answering. My first reaction was overwhelmingly blah.

Tweets: @stevecheney, @hugh_w_forrest, @michaelmace, @fuelcut and @hunterwalk

Jason Del Rey / Re/code:

Fab's CEO, Still Standing, Is Plotting The Next 20 Years — Forget what you know about the old Fab. This time CEO Jason Goldberg thinks he's finally got it right with a new furniture site called Hem. — Investors can be forgiven for demanding Goldberg's head given the sheer number of pivots the e-commerce site has endured.

Tweets: @adamjh, @ajs, @kenli729 and @delrey

Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:

On The Hunt For Better Margins, Fab Debuts Hem, A New Furnishings And Design Brand

More: BestTechie, ArcticStartup, Racked National, The Next Web, Co.Design, VatorNews and Digital Trends. Tweets: @ingridlunden

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