Techmeme: Meet Vesper, a notes app with an all-star development team (Jason Snell/Macworld)

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June 6, 2013, 6:15 PM

Top News

Washington Post:

U.S. intelligence mining data from nine U.S. Internet companies in broad secret program — The National Security Agency and the FBI are tapping directly into the central servers of nine leading U.S. Internet companies, extracting audio, video, photographs, e-mails, documents and connection logs …

More: The Next Web and The Verge. Tweets: @mattbuchanan, @hunterw, @kurtopsahl, @declanm, @bruce_arthur, @mccarthyryanj and @kaepora

Washington Post:

Administration, lawmakers defend NSA program to collect phone records — The Obama administration and key U.S. lawmakers on Thursday defended a secret National Security Agency telephone surveillance program that one congressman said had helped avert a terrorist attack in recent years.

More: Guardian, Quartz, Mashable and Forbes

Anna Palmer / Politico:

Verizon on offense behind the scenes — Officially, telecom giant Verizon has no comment about turning over millions of customers call logs to the government. — But behind the scenes, the company is vetting requests from senior Capitol Hill aides and others, asking Obama administration officials …

More: The Atlantic Wire and The Verge

Glenn Greenwald / Guardian:

NSA collecting phone records of millions of Verizon customers daily

Peter Burrows / Bloomberg:

Apple Said to Start iPhone Trade-In Program in Stores — Apple Inc. (AAPL) is starting an iPhone trade-in program this month aimed at getting users to upgrade to the iPhone 5 and turn in older models, people with knowledge of the plans said. — Apple has teamed up with Brightstar Corp. …

Christina Bonnington / Wired:

Why Google Reader Really Got the Axe — When Google announced its plans to shutter Google Reader in March, the Internet freaked out. Twitter users raised their virtual pitchforks in outrage. Bloggers wept, scrambling to find a suitable replacement by the service's July 1 death date.

More: BGR, ParisLemon, Google Operating System, GigaOM, Business Insider, iDownloadBlog.com, 9to5Google, WebProNews, Gizmodo, SlashGear, The Verge and PhoneArena. Tweets: @hunterwalk

Jason Snell / Macworld:

Meet Vesper, a notes app with an all-star development team — Three people you may have heard of—writer John Gruber, developer Brent Simmons, and designer Dave Wiskus—have joined forces to create Q Branch, an app development company whose first product is a $5 iPhone app called Vesper.

More: MacStories, MacRumors, GigaOM, Business Insider, SplatF, iMore, Marco.org, ParisLemon and TUAW

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, Forbes, Bloomberg, AdAge, AdExchanger, VatorNews, Softpedia News, The Next Web, memeburn, GigaOM, Guardian, Businessweek and Marketing Land

Brian Klug / AnandTech:

Apple Not Throttling iPhone or iPad Cellular Throughput via Carrier Bundles — Yesterday there were some allegations made about whether Apple is intentionally throttling cellular data throughput on iPhones and iPads via some files used for network provisioning.

More: The Next Web and DSLreports

Spencer E. Ante / Wall Street Journal:

3-D Printer Firm MakerBot in Acquisition Talks — MakerBot Industries LLC, the fast-growing maker of 3-D printers, is in talks with suitors that could lead to the sale of the New York-based company, people familiar with the matter said. — The four-year-old startup was recently gauging …

More: Mashable, Betabeat, Quartz and Business Insider

Ken Yeung / The Next Web:

It's back (again): NY courts approve Uber, Hailo, green taxis in one fell swoop — Today, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced two noteworthy decisions by the state's Court of Appeals that is a victory for companies looking to get into the transportation business in the city.

More: CNET, AllThingsD, The Verge, VatorNews, TechCrunch, Betabeat, Skift and VentureBeat

Ina Fried / AllThingsD:

Facebook Adds Dock Feature in Effort to Make Its Home More Inviting — Facebook on Thursday announced that it has added a new feature designed to make its Facebook Home software more appealing. — The social network is adding a dock to Facebook Home that allows users to more easily access their favorite apps.

More: Engadget, CNET, 9to5Google, TechCrunch, The Verge, The Next Web and IntoMobile. Tweets: @panzer

Mark Gurman / 9to5Mac:

WWDC 2013 Roundup: iOS 7, OS X 10.9, MacBooks, ‘Genius-like’ Radio app (plus new tidbits) — By this time in 2012, Apple had taken the stage and dominated the news cycle multiple times to announce products like a new iPad, Apple TV, new Mac operating system, and various other software …

More: The Verge, MacRumors, Los Angeles Times, CNET and iMore

Andrew Sinkov / Evernote Blog:

Evernote Reminders Arrive on Android — Reminders, our most requested feature of all time, is now available on Android! With Reminders you get three great features all rolled into one: alarms, note based to-dos and the ability to pin notes to the top of your note list. Let's take a closer look.

More: The Next Web, MobileSyrup.com, Engadget, SlashGear, AndroidGuys, ZDNet and The Verge

Ryan Lawler / TechCrunch:

‘Uber For Local Home Services’ Provider ClubLocal Launches In The Bay Area — Uber pioneered the market for on-demand, one-click rides from your mobile phone, and over the past few years we've seen a ton of ‘Uber for X’ startups pop up in different categories.

More: VentureBeat, Wired, CNET, Screenwerk and socalTECH.com

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 …

Emil Protalinski / The Next Web:

Hulu Plus for iPad redesigned with new discovery panel, minimizing during playback, curated collections, and more — Hulu today revamped its Hulu Plus app for iOS, although the redesign is only for the iPad. You can download the new version now directly from Apple's App Store.

More: Hulu Blog, Gizmodo, Engadget, The Verge, MacRumors, GigaOM and 9to5Mac

Ryan Lawler / TechCrunch:

Video Discovery Startup Showyou Launches Channel Platform, Unveils A Revenue Model — We've been following video discovery startup Showyou since its very earliest days. The company has created an app that makes it easier for video viewers on a mobile phone or tablet to find new content, and share it with friends.

More: Engadget, GigaOM and VentureBeat

Christina Farr / VentureBeat:

Box rolls out new revenue-share plan, SDKs to help its app partners make money — Cloud storage player Box plans to split revenues with the developers writing apps for its storage and collaboration platform. — Box is focused on business customers rather than consumers …

More: InfoWorld, The Next Web, Engadget, ZDNet, ReadWrite, GigaOM and CNET

Ken Yeung / The Next Web:

Google: Search hits, YouTube views are key predictors of a movie's box office performance — Google has released a white paper that shows a proportional impact on a movie's box office success based on the number of searches that it receives. Among the insights, the company highlights …

More: Google, The Verge, Betabeat, Business Insider, Ubergizmo and Search Engine Watch

Steve Kovach / Business Insider:

BBM Is Not Coming To iPhone And Android On June 27 — There's a report spreading around today that BBM is coming to iPhones and Android devices on June 27. — The report is based on a tweet from T-Mobile's UK account, but the tweet has been deleted. — According to a source with knowledge …

More: Engadget, TechCrunch, SlashGear, CNET, The Verge, CrackBerry.com, The Next Web, PadGadget, App Advice, MobileSyrup.com, Digital Trends, Ubergizmo, LaptopMemo, iDownloadBlog.com, MacRumors, 9to5Mac and IntoMobile. Tweets: @markgurman

Emil Protalinski / The Next Web:

Microsoft launches Bing Translator for Windows 8 with over 40 languages, camera translation, and offline support — Microsoft today announced the release of the Bing Translator app for Windows 8 and Windows RT with support for more than 40 languages. You can download the app now directly from the Windows Store.

More: Bing, BetaNews, Daring Fireball, PC World, GeekWire, LiveSide.net, TechCrunch, Engadget and The Verge

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: Digital Media Wire, CNET, TechCrunch, Forbes, VentureBeat, BGR, FierceWireless, DSLreports and GigaOM. See also Mediagazer

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 and Data Center Knowledge

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