Techmeme: Surveillance ‘partnership’ between NSA and telcos points to AT&T, Verizon (Declan McCullagh/CNET)

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June 27, 2013, 11:05 PM

Top News

Guardian:

NSA collected Americans' email records in bulk for two years under Obama — • Secret program launched by Bush continued ‘until 2011’ — • Fisa court renewed collection order every 90 days — • Current NSA programs still mine US internet metadata

More: The Verge, Digits, Techdirt, Wired, TechCrunch, Computerworld, SiliconBeat, Forbes, Business Insider, The Daily Caller and Ars Technica

Tweets: @mat and @davidkenner

Phillip Molnar / Monterey County Herald:

Restricted web access to The Guardian is Armywide, officials say — The Army admitted Thursday to not only restricting access to The Guardian news website at the Presidio of Monterey, as reported in Thursday's Herald, but Armywide. — Presidio employees said the site had been blocked since …

More: dissenter.firedoglake.com. Tweets: @attackerman, @tedlieu, @chrismegerian, @gaberivera, @felixsalmon and @timothys. See also Mediagazer

Guardian:

How the NSA is still harvesting your online data

Tweets: @jeffjarvis and @ethanz. See also Mediagazer

Declan McCullagh / CNET:

Surveillance ‘partnership’ between NSA and telcos points to AT&T, Verizon

More: Guardian

Amir Efrati / Wall Street Journal:

Google Is Developing Android Game Console — Google Inc. is developing a videogame console and digital wrist watch powered by its Android operating system, according to people familiar with the matter, as the Internet company seeks to spread the software's domination beyond smartphones …

Ragavan Srinivasan / Facebook:

Introducing the Facebook for Android Beta Testing Program — Android's openness, reach, and diversity create enormous opportunities for developers. At Facebook, we've been able to utilize Android's flexibility to innovate in ways that aren't possible on other platforms, like building the first version of Home.

More: Pocketnow, Pocket-lint, AllFacebook, MobileSyrup.com, PhoneArena, SlashGear, PC Magazine, Mashable and Inside Facebook

Dieter Bohn / The Verge:

Facebook announces Beta Program for its main Android app, ironically uses Google Groups — In a meeting with journalists today, Facebook announced it's offering a Beta Program for its app on Android, allowing users to test upcoming versions. The first beta will be available today.

More: TechHive, CNET, ZDNet, Engadget, VentureBeat, Macgasm, GigaOM and 9to5Google

Josh Constine / TechCrunch:

Leaked Details Of Facebook's New Chat Rooms Feature — Facebook has built a new feature codenamed “Host Chat” that lets people set up chat rooms their friends can join without an invitation, a source familiar with the feature tells us. I've contacted Facebook and it confirms it has begun testing this feature in the wild.

More: TechnoBuffalo, CNET, Electronista, Gizmodo, Ubergizmo, AllFacebook, Macgasm, BestTechie and Pocket-lint

Kevin Poulsen / Wired:

WikiLeaks Volunteer Was a Paid Informant for the FBI — On an August workday in 2011, a cherubic 18-year-old Icelandic man named Sigurdur “Siggi” Thordarson walked through the stately doors of the U.S. embassy in Reykjavík, his jacket pocket concealing his calling card: a crumpled photocopy of an Australian passport.

Tweets: @mlcalderone. See also Mediagazer

Want China Times:

Hon Hai reveals iPhone-compatible smartwatch — Taiwan's Hon Hai Precision Industry — the main manufacturer of Apple's iPhones and iPads, better known by its trading name Foxconn — showcased a smartwatch on Wednesday that can be connected wirelessly to an iPhone, which the company hopes …

More: CNET, MacRumors, AppleInsider, TechnoBuffalo, TUAW, iPhone in Canada Blog, TechSpot, BGR, App Advice, Liliputing, Engadget and Electronista

Ryan Lawler / TechCrunch:

Personal Assistant App Donna Goes Live, With Better Battery Performance And Instant Uber Requests — Personal assistant app Donna is ready to help simplify users' lives, and is being launched on the Apple App Store today to do just that. With the general release also comes a few new features …

More: Valleywag, BestTechie, GigaOM and Inc.com

Joshua Kopstein / The Verge:

Former high-ranking US general reportedly being targeted in Stuxnet leak investigation — NBC News is reporting that retired Marine Gen. James “Hoss” Cartwright, the former second highest ranking officer in the US military, is currently under investigation for leaking classified information about Stuxnet …

Michael Isikoff / NBC News Investigations:

Ex-Pentagon general target of leak investigation, sources say

More: Al Jazeera English, CNET, Ars Technica, Associated Press and The Atlantic Wire

Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:

Yahoo News Gets A Makeover, But The Bigger Improvements Are Under The Hood — A little over a month after Yahoo partnered with Twitter to beef up its homepage news feed with relevant tweets from news organizations, the company is today announcing a major makeover for one of its flagship properties, Yahoo News.

More: Yahoo!, Marketing Land, The Next Web, Mashable, TechHive, VentureBeat, Mercury News, BetaNews, CNET and iDownloadBlog.com. See also Mediagazer

Emil Protalinski / The Next Web:

Google starts letting organizations borrow its Street View Trekker to record imagery for Maps — Google today announced it is kicking off a new Google Maps pilot program that lets third-party organizations borrow the Street View Trekker and contribute imagery back to the service.

More: Google LatLong, CNET, GeekWire, BestTechie, TechCrunch, Engadget, Ubergizmo, Softpedia News and CBS San Francisco

Ashley Parker / New York Times:

Immigration Overhaul Passes in Senate — WASHINGTON — The Senate on Thursday approved the most significant overhaul of the nation's immigration laws in a generation with broad bipartisan support, sending the bill to the Republican-controlled House, where there is significant opposition …

More: CNET, The Hill, Los Angeles Times, VentureBeat, PandoDaily, Bloomberg, Agence France Presse, BBC and TIME

Casey Newton / The Verge:

First clues emerge about Jelly, Twitter co-founder's mysterious new startup — On April 1st, Twitter co-founder Biz Stone posed a question on a company blog: “What is Jelly?” The answer, he said, is a new company and product named after the jellyfish. Unmentioned in the post is that Jelly …

Joel Rosenblatt / Bloomberg:

Apple Can't Add Galaxy S4 to Samsung Patent Lawsuit — Apple Inc. (AAPL) lost its bid in a lawsuit to add Samsung Electronics (005930) Co.'s Galaxy S4 smartphone to a list of products it alleges to infringe its patents. — The decision yesterday by U.S. Magistrate Judge Paul S. Grewal …

Frederic Lardinois / TechCrunch:

Adobe Acquires Conversational Marketing Platform Neolane For $600M In Cash To Bolster Its Marketing Cloud — Adobe today announced that it has acquired Neolane, a conversational marketing company with an annual revenue of just under $60 million, in a transaction that's worth $600 million in cash.

More: Adobe, AdExchanger, Computerworld, VentureBeat, GigaOM, Forbes, internetretailer.com and ZDNet

Greg Kumparak / TechCrunch:

Unity Game Engine Announces Xbox One Support, Goes Free For Windows Phone 8 Developers — Unity, the cross-platform 3D engine and game development tool that's been on something of a roll lately, has a few more bits of good news today. At Microsoft's Build 2013 conference this morning …

More: Unity Technologies Blog, Xbox Wire, The Verge, VentureBeat, TechHive, Polygon, Gamasutra, The Escapist and destructoid

Adi Robertson / The Verge:

Foursquare rolling out its first native tablet app on Windows 8

More: Engadget, GeekWire, CNET, VentureBeat, PC Magazine, TechWhack and About Foursquare. Tweets: @panzer

Emil Protalinski / The Next Web:

Google adds its experimental QUIC network protocol to latest Chrome build, delivering HTTP over UDP — Google today took the wraps off a new experimental protocol called Quick UDP Internet Connections (QUIC) and added it to Chrome Canary, the latest version of its browser.

More: Chromium Blog, Softpedia News and TechWhack

Mark Suster / Both Sides of the Table:

GRP Announces $200 Million Fund. Rebrands as Upfront Ventures — I am super excited to announce that today is a day of lots of new things for my partners & me: A new fund, a new office and a new brand. Let's start with the fund. — We have previously raised funds in 1996 ($200 million) …

More: Forbes, TechCrunch, VentureBeat, TechCrunch, The Next Web, Domain Name Wire, VatorNews and PE Hub Blog. Thanks:@msuster

Emil Protalinski / The Next Web:

Twitter #Music for iOS updated with genres, five new charts, and in-app Rdio authentication — Twitter today released the first update to its Twitter #Music app for iOS. You can grab the new version now directly from Apple's App Store. — The biggest addition is undoubtedly genres …

More: TechCrunch, MacRumors, CNET, Engadget, AppleInsider and 9to5Mac

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