Techmeme: Michael Birch's Bebo prequel (Adam L. Penenberg/PandoDaily)

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July 6, 2013, 11:55 PM

Top News

Jonathan Watts / Guardian:

Venezuela, Nicaragua and Bolivia offer asylum to Edward Snowden — President Maduro offers to protect NSA whistleblower ‘from persecution by the empire’ and rejects US extradition request — Bolivia, Venezuela and Nicaragua have offered asylum to Edward Snowden, the US whistleblower …

More: CNN, BBC, USA Today, Reuters, bigstory.ap.org, ABC News, The Independent, The Seattle Times, Associated Press and World News

Tweets: @ggreenwald, @dhh and @wikileaks

See also Mediagazer

Andy / TorrentFreak:

RIAA Hits 25 Million Google Takedowns, Web Blocking Making Things Worse — Back in May the RIAA reached a historic milestone in its quest to remove copyright-infringing links from the Internet. — The music industry group asked Google to remove the 20 millionth URL from its indexes …

More: I4U News, Gizmodo and Softpedia News

Jeff Blagdon / The Verge:

Alleged ‘budget’ iPhone revealed in photos and video by company selling Android knock-offs — Photos and video of what's purported to be the new low-cost iPhone popped up online overnight, possibly giving us the closest look yet at Apple's newest device. The images even look identical …

More: Techdy Blog, MacRumors, MobileSyrup.com, TechCrunch, AppleInsider, Engadget, Business Insider, SlashGear, 9to5Mac, iMore, SlashGear, TechnoBuffalo and Engadget

Emily Chung / CBC News:

Ultrafast internet service launched by Vancouver start-up — OneGigabit to offer Google Fiber-like internet speeds for $45 to $65 a month — A new Vancouver-based internet provider says it will be offering fibre internet at a speed of one gigabit per second — 60 times faster than the Canadian average …

More: FierceCable and The Verge

Adam L. Penenberg / PandoDaily:

Michael Birch's Bebo prequel — Of all the interviews I did for my book, Viral Loop, the one I enjoyed most was with Michael Birch. This was about six months after he sold Bebo, the social network he had largely bootstrapped with his wife, Xochi, for $850 million to AOL.

Tweets: @bleongcw

Christopher Mims / Quartz:

Almost every major consumer electronics manufacturer is now working on a smart watch — Something about the ailing PC industry, competition among makers of smartphones and the endless quest for the next big thing has nearly every major consumer electronics manufacturer working on a smart watch or at least contemplating it.

More: Kindle Review, eWeek, Stowe Boyd, Inquirer and IntoMobile

Dan Seifert / The Verge:

HTC One Android 4.2 update kills the awful menu bar, adds Instagram to BlinkFeed — The long-awaited Android 4.2 update for the HTC One has been slowing making its way around the world over the past week or so, but thanks to Android Central, we now have a good look at what's on tap in it.

More: Android Central, T3 News, AndroidHeadlines.com, ZDNet, Android Authority, International Business Times and Phones Review

Kashmir Hill / Forbes:

How To Opt Out Of AT&T's Plan To Sell Everything It Knows About You And Your Smartphone Use — Your smartphone knows a lot about you. It's with you all the time. It knows which apps you use. It knows which websites you visit. And it knows your gender, your age, and even how fit you are.

More: TechCrunch, Business Insider, AndroidHeadlines.com, WebProNews, The Mac Observer and SiliconANGLE

Somini Sengupta / New York Times:

After a Stumble, Tech Lobby Refocuses on Immigration — MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. — On a recent Monday evening, in a large, warmly lighted room at a technology incubator here, guests drank pinot noir, waiters offered seared tuna, and a young man in a T-shirt and sneakers introduced himself …

More: PSFK, The Verge, CNN and Betabeat

Reuters:

Japan's DoCoMo holds out to iPhone mania, but at what cost? — NTT DoCoMo Inc, Japan's largest mobile provider and a pioneer of the mobile Internet, is one of just a few holdouts among the world's big mobile carriers not offering Apple's iPhone to its 60 million customers.

More: iMore, TechnoBuffalo, MacRumors, iClarified, Unwired View, iDownloadBlog.com, MacNN, AppleInsider and MacDailyNews

Lance Whitney / CNET:

IT spending to rise just 2 percent this year, says Gartner — The new forecast is down from the prior projection of 4.1 percent, due largely to changes in U.S. dollar exchange rates. — Global IT spend will likely hit $3.7 trillion this year, inching up just 2 percent from 2012's $3.6 trillion, research firm Gartner said today.

More: FierceCIO:TechWatch, Gartner, eWeek, TechCrunch, TechSpot, The Register and BGR. Tweets: @qthrul

Laura Hazard Owen / GigaOM:

Amazon and Barnes & Noble slash prices on tablets in Europe — Consumers in Europe are getting better deals on tablets this week, as both Amazon and Barnes & Noble dropped prices on their devices. — Barnes & Noble, which sells Nook products only in the U.K. and not the rest of Europe …

More: Kindle Review, The Digital Reader, IntoMobile, AndroidOS.in, The Next Web, Android Authority, GSMArena Blog and SlashGear

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