Techmeme
June 28, 2013, 1:10 AM

Top News

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 …
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
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 …
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.
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 …
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.
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 …
Dina Bass / Bloomberg:
Microsoft Seeks End to Dinosaur-Era Software Upgrade Cycle: Tech  —  Microsoft Corp (MSFT)., which for decades has refreshed its popular Office corporate software just once about every three years, says it will soon switch to weekly updates.  —  It's a radical shift as Microsoft overhauls …
More: BGR and WebProNews
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.
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 …
Emily Gera / Polygon:
Microsoft no longer charging developers for Xbox updates (update: MS confirms)  —  Microsoft is no longer requiring developers to pay a fee to patch Xbox 360 and Xbox Live Arcade games, after dropping their earlier policy that placed a hefty sum on game updates, Eurogamer reports.
Carl Franzen / The Verge:
US Defense Department developing secure 4G network and updating rules for cyberwarfare  —  The US military is in the process of building its own secure 4G wireless network and is also updating its rules of engagement — the guidelines that combat personnel are required to follow when deciding …

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Earlier Picks

Billy Gallagher / TechCrunch:
Joel Rosenblatt / Bloomberg: