Techmeme: How the CIA's $600M deal with Amazon Web Services will enable 17 federal agencies to cooperate (Frank Konkel/GovExec.com)

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July 20, 2014, 1:15 AM

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John Napier Tye / Washington Post:

Meet Executive Order 12333: The Reagan rule that lets the NSA spy on Americans — In March I received a call from the White House counsel's office regarding a speech I had prepared for my boss at the State Department. The speech was about the impact that the disclosure …

More: ACLU, Electronic Frontier Foundation and Guardian

Tweets: @astepanovich, @csoghoian, @trevortimm, @csoghoian and @kenroth

Ashlee Vance / Businessweek:

Amazon's Cloud Is One of the Fastest-Growing Software Businesses in History — Five billion dollars. — That's how much Amazon.com (AMZN) will rake in from its cloud computing business this year, according to a new estimate from Pacific Crest Securities. If true, it's an incredible figure.

More: Re/code. Tweets: @ahess247 and @bfrist

Cyrus Farivar / Ars Technica:

Sites like Travelocity pass full plaintext credit card numbers and IP addresses to DHS, which retains them for years — Ars editor learns feds have his old IP addresses, full credit card numbers — FOIA request turns up 9 years of records, including plaintext credit card numbers.

Tweets: @jwilkins, @ashk4n, @mikedoherty_ca and @mikedoherty_ca

Chance Miller / 9to5Google:

Google and Samsung's relationship continues to worsen, this time over wearables — According to a new report out of The Information, the already tense relationship between Samsung and Google has begun to worsen thanks to both of their own lines of wearables.

More: The Information, Gotta Be Mobile, Engadget, AppleInsider, Inquirer, BGR, Electronista, Android Beat, The Verge, Ubergizmo, Mashable, Business Insider, SlashGear, Phandroid, TechnoBuffalo, TechHive, Wearable World News, Pocketnow and the rajam report

Frederic Lardinois / TechCrunch:

With 1M Sold In The Last Quarter, Google's Chromebooks Are A Hit With Schools — During its earnings call this week, Google announced that it — and its partners — sold a million Chromebooks to schools in the last quarter. Overall PC sales worldwide were about 76 million in the last quarter …

More: Google Enterprise Blog, EdSurge, AndroidHeadlines.com, 9to5Google, Gigaom and Business Insider

Josh Constine / TechCrunch:

Snapchat Files Trademarks To Handle Payments — Snappay? Snapchat may try to monetize by processing peer-to-peer payments, money transfers, or online payments, according to two trademarks it filed earlier this week. Owned by Snapchat and filed on July 11th by an attorney at Cooley …

More: PC Magazine, iMore, The Verge, VatorNews, The Next Web, memeburn, Business Insider and ReadWrite

Hayley Tsukayama / Washington Post:

Kindle Unlimited: worth it if you buy 12+ books/year and find the limited catalogue appealing — Is Kindle Unlimited worth it? — Some things to think about before you sign up for Amazon's latest service. (Photo by David McNew/Getty Images) — Amazon.com introduced a new subscription service, Kindle Unlimited, on Friday.

More: The Verge, TechCrunch and ReadWrite. See also Mediagazer

Evelyn Rusli / Wall Street Journal:

GitHub incident shows how rising startups often lack the HR support to deal with office imbroglios — Incident Shows How Rising Startups Are Often Ill-Equipped to Deal With Complex, Inter-Office Dynamics — One anonymous post turned the world of GitHub, a San Francisco-based software startup, inside out.

More: ReadWrite

Frank Konkel / GovExec.com:

How the CIA's $600M deal with Amazon Web Services will enable 17 federal agencies to cooperate — How the CIA Partnered With Amazon and Changed Intelligence — National Reconnaissance Office in Chantilly, Virginia Trevor Paglen — The intelligence community is about to get the equivalent of an adrenaline shot to the chest.

More: The Daily Caller

Adrianne Jeffries / The Verge:

How warped incentives for Comcast's “retention specialists” lead to a vexing cancellation call — Here's why your Comcast rep is yelling at you — Warped employee incentives and an absence of competition make bad customer service inevitable — In 2006, a man named Vincent …

More: DSLreports, Venture Chronicles, Gizmodo, FierceCable and Technologizer

Tweets: @davewiner, @cfcamerer, @paleofuture and @levie

Jason Del Rey / Re/code:

Starbucks will let customers place pickup orders via mobile app in one test market this year — Starbucks Has Bigger Plans in Mobile Payments Than Most People Realize — A decade after the idea was first sketched on the proverbial drawing board, Starbucks is poised to finally let its customers order their coffees from their phones.

More: Engadget, PC Magazine, Android Police, Ubergizmo, Gotta Be Mobile, iPhone in Canada Blog, The Verge, VentureBeat, Cult of Mac and Wall Street Journal

Claire Cain Miller / New York Times:

How some universities have attracted more women to computer science: mentoring, high school programs, and revamped introductory courses — Women in Tech: Some Universities Crack Code in Drawing Women to Computer Science — One of the reasons so few women work in tech is that few choose to study computer science or engineering.

Tweets: @johnmaeda, @christinelu, @scott_kerr and @jeremysliew

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