Techmeme: Justice Dept. to Congress: We want greater email, Facebook, Twitter snooping powers (Zack Whittaker/ZDNet)

Open Links In New Tab

Mobile Archives Advertise Site News

March 19, 2013, 12:45 PM

Top News

Jungah Lee / Bloomberg:

Samsung Preparing Wristwatch as It Races Apple for Sales — Samsung Electronics Co. (005930) is developing a wristwatch as Asia's biggest technology company races against Apple Inc. (AAPL) to create a new industry of wearable devices that perform similar tasks as smartphones.

Darrell Etherington / TechCrunch:

Samsung Confirms It Will Build A Smart Watch As Speculation About Apple's iWatch Continues — Samsung is indeed working on a smart watch, the company's Executive Vice President of Mobile told Bloomberg in an interview today. “We are preparing products for the future, and the watch is definitely one of them …

More: PandoDaily, TechNode, TweakTown News and Gearburn

Russell Holly / Geek.com:

Google expected to unify chat under the name Babble … - Home - Apple - Gadgets - Mobile - Games - Chips - - Forums - Shop

More: CNET, Ars Technica, Business Insider, Gizmodo, iDownloadBlog.com, Softpedia News, AndroidGuys, BestTechie, FierceMobileContent News, Mashable!, Electronista, Gotta Be Mobile, Androsym, AndroidHeadlines.com, Android and Me, SlashGear, MobileBurn.com, 9to5Google and Droid Life. Tweets: @joshconstine. Thanks:@salcan

Lorraine Luk / Wall Street Journal:

HTC's Rollout of Flagship Smartphone Delayed — TAIPEI—The rollout of HTC Corp.'s new flagship smartphone is being pushed back due in part to some component shortages, executives said, a setback for the Taiwanese smartphone maker attempting to turn around its sales.

More: The Verge, GigaOM, ZDNet, Business Insider, digitaltrends.com, Inquirer, Engadget, VentureBeat, Gizmodo, Pocketnow, FierceWireless, Droid Life, AndroidOS.in, Softpedia News, PhoneArena and SlashGear

Mark Gurman / 9to5Mac:

Apple releases iOS 6.1.3 with Lock screen security flaw fix, Maps improvements for Japan — Apple has released iOS 6.1.3 to end users today. The update includes a security flaw fix involving the iOS device Lock screen. Additionally, the new update includes fixes for the Apple Maps application for Japan.

More: The Next Web, Engadget, MacRumors, The Verge, TechCrunch and Gizmodo

Brian Stelter / New York Times:

ABC Works on an App for Live Streaming Shows to Mobile Devices — THE WALT DISNEY Company, while sorting out the future of the online video Web site Hulu, has an app in the works that may render Hulu passé for some people. — The app will live stream ABC programming to the phones …

More: CNET, Gizmodo, Engadget, WebProNews, iDownloadBlog.com, Media Decoder, FierceMobileContent News, digitaltrends.com and The Verge. See also Mediagazer

Evelyn M. Rusli / Wall Street Journal:

Tensions Rise Between Facebook, Developers — The Social Network Steps Up Efforts to Curb Spam, But Developers Say It Is Blocking Competing Apps — Last month in Paris, developer Antoine Morcos received an unexpected email: Facebook Inc. said it was cutting ties with his photo-sharing application, Vintage Camera.

More: Betabeat, Business Insider and ValueWalk

Tweets: @davidu, @scottmaustin, @panzer and @scottmaustin

David Kravets / Wired:

Feds: No Warrant Needed to Track Your Car With a GPS Device — The President Barack Obama administration is claiming that authorities do not need court warrants to affix GPS devices to vehicles to monitor their every move. — The administration maintains that position despite …

More: Ars Technica, CNET, SlashGear, Hillicon Valley and Gizmodo

John Poole / Primate Labs Blog:

Samsung Galaxy S 4 Benchmarks — Android Authority ran Geekbench 2 on the new Samsung Galaxy S 4 last week and posted the results on YouTube. I thought it would be interesting to see how the Samsung Galaxy S 4 compares to other popular smartphones. — I've charted the Geekbench 2 scores …

More: BGR, The Full Signal, MacRumors, Daily Mobile, PhoneArena, Redmond Pie, iDownloadBlog.com and 9to5Google

Kyle Wiens / Wired:

Forget the Cellphone Fight — We Should Be Allowed to Unlock Everything We Own — While Congress is working on legislation to re-legalize cellphone unlocking, let's acknowledge the real issue: The copyright laws that made unlocking illegal in the first place. Who owns our stuff?

More: DSLreports

Zack Whittaker / ZDNet:

Justice Dept. to Congress: We want greater email, Facebook, Twitter snooping powers — Summary: As a US House committee prepares to meet to discuss changing outdated email privacy laws, the US government will today tell lawmakers that it wants greater powers to access email data …

More: CNET, The Verge, Google Public Policy Blog, Engadget, Betabeat, WebProNews, CNET and Hillicon Valley

Michael Grothaus / Co.Labs:

An In-Depth Comparison Between iOS Map Frameworks: Apple MapKit vs. Google Maps SDK — “When we first got sight of Apple's maps in the iOS 6 SDK beta at WWDC 2012, we were excited,” says Lee Armstrong, developer of the popular Plane Finder app, which tracks planes in flight all over the world.

More: AppleInsider, Cult of Mac and iPhone Hacks

Zack Whittaker / ZDNet:

EU plans stronger consumer law enforcement after Apple warranty case — Summary: The European Commission is frustrated that its member states have on the most part failed to take action against Apple for flouting EU law, and warns that enforcement must be actioned in order to protect the rights of ordinary citizens.

More: NASDAQ.com, MacRumors, AllThingsD, GigaOM, Engadget, AppleInsider, 9to5Mac and The Verge

Alexander Limi / Alex Limi:

Checkboxes that kill your product — (To read this article with its formatting and typography intact, click here) — If I told you that a company is shipping a product to hundreds of millions of users right now, and included in the product are several prominent buttons that will break …

Tweets: @codinghorror

Florian Mueller / FOSS Patents:

Nokia wins German patent injunction against HTC over power-saving technology — This morning Nokia won a German patent injunction against HTC that may give the Finnish handset maker enough leverage to sell a patent license to its Taiwanese rival unless Qualcomm, which provides baseband chipsets to HTC …

More: CNET, ZDNet, ValueWalk, Engadget, Windows Phone Central, WMPoweruser, SlashGear and Neowin

Mary Jo Foley / ZDNet:

Microsoft to push Windows 7 Service Pack 1 to users starting March 19 — Summary: Microsoft is starting to push Windows 7 SP1 to Windows 7 users via Windows Update, ahead of the early April end-of-support date for the RTM version of the product. — As Microsoft marches toward …

More: The Windows Blog, PC Magazine, VentureBeat, The Next Web, FierceCIO:TechWatch News, Engadget, The Register, SuperSite for Windows, SlashGear, WinBeta, Computerworld, Geek.com and Neowin

Drew Olanoff / TechCrunch:

Google Chromebooks Go Global: Now Available In Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Ireland And The Netherlands — Google has learned all that it needs to learn about the reception of its Chromebook laptops in the U.S. and UK and has announced availability of Acer, HP and Samsung flavors …

More: Google Chrome Blog, LAPTOP Magazine, Official Google Australia Blog, Official Google Canada Blog, googleenterprise.blogspot.ca, NEWS.com.au, CNET, The Next Web, Softpedia News, BetaNews, GigaOM, ZDNet, Engadget and The Verge

Jeff Blagdon / The Verge:

LG calls out Samsung for possible eye-tracking patent infringement in Galaxy S4 — Yonhap News reports that the Korean cousins Samsung and LG are in a row over the eye-tracking technology in their respective flagship phones, the Galaxy S4 and Optimus G Pro.

More: Yonhap News Agency, VentureBeat, SiliconANGLE, Inquirer, The Next Web, Macgasm, Mashable!, IntoMobile, SlashGear, Ubergizmo, Sammy Hub and Android Authority

Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:

ARM CEO Warren East Is Stepping Down And Getting Replaced By President Simon Segars — Warren East, the executive who has seen UK semiconductor juggernaut ARM Holdings through some of its most explosive growth, fuelled by deals with companies like Apple for its iPhone and iPad devices …

More: ARM, Engadget, Neowin, ZDNet, The Register, TechEye, SlashGear, VentureBeat, GigaOM, Electronista, The Verge and Inquirer

Stephen Shankland / CNET:

Google undeletes RSS extension for Chrome browser — TheIt's not dead after all. Google has resurrected an extension that lets Chrome handle RSS and Atom feeds, even though it's not resurrecting the related Google Reader service. — The 868,163 people who've installed Google's RSS-handling extension …

More: TechCrunch and WebProNews

Sean Gallagher / Ars Technica:

Same hacker may have targeted Ars, reporter Krebs, and Wired's Honan — Security reporter Brian Krebs has uncovered some details about one of the people tied to the denial of service attack on his site and the fraudulent 911 call that brought armed police to Krebs' doorstep.

More: Krebs on Security, Betabeat, Gizmodo, Softpedia News and The Verge

Tom Warren / The Verge:

Skype for Windows Phone updated with People Hub integration and HD video support — After temporarily disabling People Hub integration in Skype for Windows Phone, Microsoft is pushing out a fresh update this week that brings back the feature to its latest mobile OS.

More: GigaOM, Engadget, CNET, TechCrunch, LiveSide.net, BetaNews, Skype BlogsSkype Blogs, SuperSite for Windows, VoIP & Gadgets Blog, WMPoweruser and Pocket-lint

Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:

Ex-Googlers Launch Sift Science, A Fraud-Fighting System For Websites, Backed By $5.5M In Funding From Union Square, First Round, YC & Others — Sift Science, a Y Combinator-backed startup founded by former Google engineers, is today launching its fraud-fighting service based on machine learning …

More: AllThingsD, Union Square Ventures, Wired, Sift Science Blog, VentureBeat, GigaOM and The Next Web

Nilay Patel / The Verge:

Samsung weird: how a phone launch went from Broadway glitz to sexist mess — Surprise! Corporate influence and ‘Sex and the City’ don't mix well — “While the ladies cool off, why don't you tell us about S Health?” — That line, uttered with complete sincerity, was the capstone …

Stephen Shankland / CNET:

RapidShare scraps unlimited storage with short notice — Even customers who paid in advance for long-term unlimited storage at RapidShare will see it disappear on March 20. The company says its terms of service permit such abrupt changes. — Online storage provider RapidShare is expanding …

More: TweakTown News

Sponsor Posts

Google:

Try Gemini 3 Pro — Google's newest and most intelligent AI model that helps you bring any idea to life

Shopify:

Shopify's new AI commerce stack — Their VP of Product digs into just-launched products to help entrepreneurs and developers build with the latest AI and tech.

Zoho:

From content collaboration to content intelligence: Zoho WorkDrive's 2025 journey — As 2025 draws to a close, we're reflecting on a year marked by meaningful progress, purposeful innovation, and continuous learning at Zoho WorkDrive.

IDrive:

Protecting your Cloud Applications Data — Backing up Office 365, Google Workspace, Dropbox & Box data is critical to preventing data loss or corruption, complying with laws and avoiding critical downtime in case of a disaster.

Sponsor Techmeme

Featured Podcasts

Hard Fork:

Why Roomba Died + Tech Predictions for 2026 + A Hard Forkin' Xmas Song

The future is already here. Each week, journalists Kevin Roose and Casey Newton explore and make sense of the latest in the rapidly changing world of tech.

Subscribe to Hard Fork.

Big Technology Podcast:

Sam Altman: How OpenAI Wins, AI Buildout Logic, IPO in 2026?

The Big Technology Podcast takes you behind the scenes in the tech world featuring interviews with plugged-in insiders and outside agitators.

Subscribe to Big Technology Podcast.

Access:

Betting on reality with Kalshi CEO Tarek Mansour

A show about the tech industry's inside conversation, hosted by tech reporter Alex Heath and founder whisperer Ellis Hamburger.

Subscribe to Access.

Lenny's Podcast:

The new AI growth playbook for 2026: How Lovable hit $200M ARR in one year | Elena Verna (Head of Growth)

Interviews with world-class product leaders and growth experts to uncover actionable advice to help you build, launch, and grow your own product.

Subscribe to Lenny's Podcast.

Channels with Peter Kafka:

"Neither Side Is Used to Losing." Lucas Shaw on What's Next for Netflix and Paramount in the Battle for Warner Bros.

Media and tech aren't just intersecting - they're fully intertwined. To understand how those worlds work, Peter Kafka talks to industry leaders, upstarts and observers.

Subscribe to Channels with Peter Kafka.

Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith:

Ted Sarandos: Netflix and how tech changed storytelling

Microsoft Vice Chair and President Brad Smith speaks with leaders in government, business, and culture to explore the most critical challenges at the intersection of technology and society.

Subscribe to Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith.

Add your podcast here

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 12:45 PM ET, March 19, 2013.

The most current version of the site as always is available at our home page. To view an earlier snapshot click here and then modify the date indicated.