Techmeme: White House defends collecting phone records (Associated Press)

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June 6, 2013, 10:10 AM

Top News

Glenn Greenwald / Guardian:

NSA collecting phone records of millions of Verizon customers daily — Exclusive: Top secret court order requiring Verizon to hand over all call data shows scale of domestic surveillance under Obama — The National Security Agency is currently collecting the telephone records of millions …

Guardian:

Verizon forced to hand over telephone data - full court ruling — The US government is collecting the phone records of millions of US customers of Verizon under a top secret court order. Read the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court order

More: New York Times, VentureBeat, BetaNews, TechEye, Computerworld, Inquirer, Electronista, WebProNews, BBC, Post Politics, Mashable, Business Insider, www.idigitaltimes.co.uk, The Raw Story, Engadget, Telegraph, Softpedia News and SlashGear

Tweets: @mazmhussain, @ellievhall, @kurtopsahl and @mattblaze

Associated Press:

White House defends collecting phone records — WASHINGTON (AP) — The White House on Thursday defended the National Security Agency's need to collect telephone records of U.S. citizens, calling such information “a critical tool in protecting the nation from terrorist threats.”

More: Hillicon Valley, Gizmodo, CNET, The Verge, Reuters and SlashGear

Ellen Nakashima / Washington Post:

Report: Verizon providing all call records to U.S. under court order — The National Security Agency appears to be collecting the telephone records of tens of millions of American customers of Verizon, one of the nation's largest phone companies, under a top-secret court order issued in April.

More: The Raw Story

Kara Swisher / AllThingsD:

AT&T Discusses Entering Into a Joint Bid for Hulu With Chernin Group — According to sources close to the telecommunications giant, AT&T is in discussions with the Chernin Group about mounting a joint bid to acquire the Hulu premium video site. — It makes sense — in addition to its core phone business …

More: CNET, VentureBeat, TheStreet.com, DSLreports, BGR, VatorNews and TechCrunch

Mark Gurman / 9to5Mac:

MacBook Air refresh looks set for WWDC, potentially with faster Wi-Fi — Apple appears set to release new versions of its MacBook Air notebook computer at next week's Worldwide Developers Conference, according to information provided by a source. Earlier this week, we reported that Apple …

More: GigaOM, Macworld, Gizmodo, iPhone Hacks, www.idigitaltimes.co.uk, Softpedia News, Digital Trends, MacRumors and iMore. Thanks:@llsethj

Peter Kafka / AllThingsD:

Twitter Signs Its Second Big Ad Deal, This Time With WPP — In April, Twitter linked up with ad giant Starcom in a deal worth “hundreds of millions” over a few years. Now it has another one, with Starcom's rival WPP. — WPP's press release doesn't mention a dollar value …

More: WPP, Venture Capital Dispatch, The Next Web, Guardian, AdAge, Softpedia News, Mashable, memeburn and Bloomberg

Shara Tibken / CNET:

Focus, criticism shifts to Amazon in Apple e-book trial — The online retailing giant is accused of being a bully by two publishing company CEOs who testified during the trial. — NEW YORK — Amazon acted like a bully and threatened the publishers when discussing a new e-book sales structure …

More: AllThingsD, Reuters, AppleInsider, paidContent, MacDailyNews, Macgasm, Cult of Mac and MacNN. See also Mediagazer

John Paczkowski / AllThingsD:

Apple Says Differences in Publisher Deals Belie E-Book Conspiracy Charges

More: The Register, Fortune and AppleInsider

Mary Jo Foley / ZDNet:

Microsoft goes public with Windows 8.1 upgrade policies — Summary: Microsoft is sharing more on how existing Windows 8 and Windows RT users will be able to upgrade to Windows 8.1 ‘Blue’ preview and final. — With the public preview builds of Windows 8.1 due out later this month …

More: Inquirer, Geek.com, ITworld.com, WPDang and CNET

Alex Wilhelm / The Next Web:

N3twork raises a $12M Series A led by Kleiner Perkins to build an Internet based on your interests — Today N3twork announced that it has raised a $12 million Series A round of funding, led by Kleiner Perkins Caufield Byers, and participated in by Floodgate, and Google Ventures.

More: GigaOM, AllThingsD, VentureBeat, TechCrunch and Forbes

Rebecca Grant / VentureBeat:

Ayla launches with $5.4M to turn everything into a connected device — A world where humans interact with machines that respond to our every need may seem fantastical, but Ayla Networks launched today to make this sci-fi vision a reality. — Ayla's mission is to build an ecosystem for the Internet of Things.

More: NYT Bits, GigaOM, bizjournals and silicontap.com

Roger Cheng / CNET:

BlackBerry in talks to preload BBM on rival handsets — BlackBerry Chief Operating Officer Kristian Tear tells CNET that the company is talking to a number of partners and handset manufacturers. — BlackBerry is working with other handset manufacturers to get its BlackBerry Messenger service preloaded …

More: Digital Trends, ValueWalk, Gotta Be Mobile, BGR India, AndroidOS.in, The Verge, Macgasm, The Register, BGR and MobileSyrup.com

Melissa Grey / Engadget:

Time Warner updates browser version of TWC TV to allow for out-of-home viewing — For Time Warner Cable subscribers, sly on-the-job TV-watching is about to get easier (don't lie, we know you do it). Starting today, the browser version of TWC TV will offer on-demand and live content …

More: Electronista

Jim Finkle / Reuters:

Exclusive: Microsoft, FBI take aim at global cyber crime ring — (Reuters) - Microsoft Corp and the FBI, aided by authorities in more than 80 countries, have launched a major assault on one of the world's biggest cyber crime rings, believed to have stolen more than $500 million from bank accounts over the past 18 months.

More: TechNet Blogs, Inquirer, CNET, The Register, Hillicon Valley, The Verge, SiliconANGLE, SlashGear, The Next Web and Engadget

Brian Womack / Bloomberg:

Google's YouTube Triples Mobile Sales Amid Wireless Shift — Google Scores YouTube Mobile Ad Sales Jackpot — Google Inc. (GOOG)'s YouTube has tripled advertising sales on mobile devices in the past six months, the company said, contributing as much as an estimated $350 million to revenue at the video-sharing website.

More: 9to5Mac, Guardian and memeburn. See also Mediagazer

Aaron Smith / Pew Internet:

56% of American adults are now smartphone owners — Findings — 56% of American adults are now smartphone owners — For the first time since the Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life Project began systematically tracking smartphone adoption, a majority of Americans now own a smartphone of some kind.

More: SiliconANGLE, BGR, Forbes, HotHardware.com News, CNET, The Verge and Examiner

Agam Shah / PC World:

AMD breaks from Windows exclusivity, adopts Android and Chrome OS — After years of Windows OS exclusivity, Advanced Micro Devices is opening the door to design chips to run Google's Android and Chrome OS in PCs and tablets. — AMD is expanding OS options as it designs chips based on x86 …

More: CNET, ZDNet, TechEye, Ars Technica, Gizmodo, Fudzilla, Ubergizmo, Business Insider, Neowin and Examiner

Aaron Souppouris / The Verge:

Samsung Galaxy S4 update addresses storage complaints with move to SD card feature — Samsung has begun rolling out a software update for its Galaxy S4 that adresses a few issues early adopters have been complaining about. The 16GB variant of the Galaxy S4 has been slammed for only giving users 9.15GB …

More: SamMobile, Engadget, CNET, Inquirer, 9to5Google, Softpedia News, Android Police, MobileSyrup.com, Mashable, Ubergizmo, BGR India, SlashGear, Pocketnow and Unwired View

Roger Cheng / CNET:

BlackBerry's next flagship phone: the all-touchscreen A10 — Sprint has already committed to selling the A10, which is the successor to the Z10, in November, CNET has learned. — BlackBerry's next flagship smartphone, the all-touchscreen BlackBerry A10, will launch during the holidays, CNET has learned.

More: ZDNet, ValueWalk, BGR India, PhoneArena, Phones Review, The CIO Report, IntoMobile and Unwired View

Jordan Crook / TechCrunch:

Snapchat Launches v5.0 With Revamped UI, Swipe Navigation, And In-App Profiles — Snapchat, the app that lets you send pics and videos that self-destruct, has just released a huge update to version 5.0 “Banquo” (I'll get to that in a minute), which includes a dramatic revamp of the app's UI.

More: The Verge

Joe / iTweakiOS:

The Ugly Truth: Your iPhone and iPad Are LIMITED (T-Mobile the Exception) — For a long time now, possibly years, Apple iPhone and iPad users have always wondered why their devices seemed to be “out-performed” by Android devices, mainly Samsung Galaxy phones, when it came to cellular networking speeds and performance.

More: MacRumors, CNET, Gotta Be Mobile, MacDailyNews, iPhone, iDownloadBlog.com, iClarified, Cult of Mac and AppleInsider

Nick Summers / The Next Web:

EE hits 500k UK subscribers, will launch shared 4G plans and pre-pay mobile broadband this summer — Mobile network operator EE has reached 500,000 subscribers in the UK and announced plans to launch shared 4G plans and pay-as-you-go mobile broadband later this summer.

More: Inquirer, ZDNet, GigaOM, Engadget, PC Pro, Reuters, Telegraph, Crave and SlashGear

Leena Rao / TechCrunch:

Home Improvement And Repair Marketplace Porch Raises $6.3M From SV Angel, Jeff Skoll And Others — Porch, a soon to be launched home improvement and repair marketplace, has raised $6.25 million is funding from SV Angel, Chamath Palihapitiya, Javier Olivan, Jeff Skoll, Bill Lee, Geoff Entress, Charles Moldow, and others.

More: GeekWire, VentureBeat and GigaOM

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