Techmeme: Administration, lawmakers defend NSA program to collect phone records (Washington Post)

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June 6, 2013, 10:30 PM

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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 …

Washington Post:

NSA slides explain the PRISM data-collection program — Through a Top-Secret program authorized by federal judges working under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), the U.S. intelligence community can gain access to the servers of nine internet companies for a wide range of digital data.

More: TechCrunch, BuzzFeed, Ars Technica, The Atlantic Wire, The Register, Business Insider, The Next Web, VentureBeat, Business Insider and Quartz

Tweets: @astepanovich, @dabeard, @fmanjoo, @dannysullivan and @maoxian

Wall Street Journal:

U.S. Collects Vast Data Trove — NSA Monitoring Includes Three Major Phone Companies, as Well as Online Activity WASHINGTON—The National Security Agency's monitoring of Americans includes customer records from the three major phone networks as well as emails and Web searches …

More: New York Times, Engadget, VentureBeat, The Huffington Post and iClarified

Harrison Weber / The Next Web:

Facebook, Apple, Google and Microsoft deny participation in US government spying program PRISM — Shortly after reports of PRISM surfaced — a program which reportedly enables the US government to tap directly into the central servers of nine US-based Internet companies …

More: Washington Post, Marketing Land, AllThingsD, Wall Street Journal, TechCrunch, The Verge, Hillicon Valley, Forbes, Business Insider, VentureBeat, Guardian, VentureBeat, Microsoft, Cult of Mac, Mashable and Quartz

Tweets: @cnbc, @waxpancake, @hblodget, @cnbc and @jessicalessin

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 Verge and Yahoo! News

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: Computerworld, PC World, Wired, VentureBeat, Guardian, ZDNet, eWeek, Quartz and AllThingsD

Zachary M. Seward / Quartz:

Twitter boosts its privacy cred with its absence from the NSA's surveillance program

More: The Next Web, VentureBeat and The Verge

Mark Felsenthal / Reuters:

Internet tapping aimed at non-U.S. people outside U.S. : official

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, iDownloadBlog.com, SlashGear, GigaOM, The Verge, 9to5Google and PhoneArena. See also Mediagazer

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: MacRumors, GigaOM, iPhone Hacks, AppleInsider, Electronista, The Next Web, Pocketnow and DSLreports

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, iMore, GigaOM, The Mac Observer, Daring Fireball, Business Insider, TUAW and MacRumors

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: AppleInsider, CNET, iPhone Hacks, MacRumors and Ubergizmo

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: Skift, AllThingsD, The Verge, VatorNews, VentureBeat and TechCrunch

Bloomberg:

TiVo Settles DVR Patent Dispute With Google's Motorola — TiVo Inc. (TIVO) settled a patent dispute with Google Inc. (GOOG)'s Motorola Mobility unit over digital-video recording technology, averting a trial that was scheduled to start next week. TiVo surged the most since January 2012.

More: Associated Press, CNET, Engadget, Variety, The Verge and Electronista

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, VentureBeat, MobileSyrup.com and SlashGear

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, Associated Press and Ubergizmo

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: Local Onliner, Local Media Watch, Wired, Screenwerk, VentureBeat, CNET and socalTECH.com

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, Quartz, Betabeat and Business Insider

John Paczkowski / AllThingsD:

Amazon Demanded Same Terms From Publishers For Which Apple is Now On Trial — When Apple negotiated its e-book contracts with the five publishers with which it would ultimately launch iBooks, the company demanded a “most favored nation provision” that required publishers to match …

More: paidContent, CNET, The Verge, Wall Street Journal and GeekWire. See also Mediagazer

Liz Gannes / AllThingsD:

Yahoo Mulling Buy of Address Book App Maker Xobni — Yahoo is in serious discussions to buy Xobni, maker of address book apps and plugins, according to sources familiar with the situation. — The two companies have been talking for a while, but a deal appears more imminent now, the sources said.

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: TechHive, The Verge, 9to5Google, CNET and TechCrunch. Tweets: @panzer

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: GigaOM, Engadget and VentureBeat

Matthew Panzarino / The Next Web:

Microsoft finally gets specific about Xbox One's internet connection, used games policy and Kinect privacy — Today, Microsoft has posted a series of articles detailing exactly the way that the Xbox One will handle a permanent internet connection requirement, how it allows users to trade …

More: Xbox Wire, Xbox Wire, Xbox Wire, Engadget, The Verge, The Register, TechHive, Xbox Live's Major Nelson, VentureBeat, Blue's News, GamePolitics blogs, Gematsu, Joystiq and TECHGEEK.com.au

Paul Sawers / The Next Web:

Wikimedia readies its ‘WYSIWYG’ visual editor for English-language Wikipedia articles starting early July — It's been a long time coming, but the Wikimedia Foundation is finally on the cusp of rolling out its visual ‘WYSIWYG’ editor for all Wikipedia users.

More: Wikimedia blog

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