Techmeme: Microsoft Quietly Shuts Down MSN TV, Once Known as WebTV (Kara Swisher/AllThingsD)

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July 8, 2013, 5:05 AM

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Eric Lichtblau / New York Times:

In Secret, Court Vastly Broadens Powers of N.S.A. — WASHINGTON — In more than a dozen classified rulings, the nation's surveillance court has created a secret body of law giving the National Security Agency the power to amass vast collections of data on Americans while pursuing not only terrorism suspects …

More: GigaOM, Wall Street Journal, Digital Trends, Network World, Concurring Opinions, Boing Boing and The Huffington Post

Tweets: @ggreenwald, @thijsniks, @mattblaze, @dhh, @dhh, @richardson_mich and @csoghoian

Ezra Klein / Wonkblog:

Did you know John Roberts is also chief justice of the NSA's surveillance state? — Chief justice of the United States is a pretty big job. You lead the Supreme Court conferences where cases are discussed and voted on. You preside over oral arguments. When in the majority, you decide who writes the opinion.

Tweets: @csoghoian and @benparr

Washington Post:

Agreements with private companies protect U.S. access to cables' data for surveillance — The U.S. government had a problem: Spying in the digital age required access to the fiber-optic cables traversing the world's oceans, carrying torrents of data at the speed of light.

More: Wonkblog and Ars Technica. Tweets: @zerocinemacom and @peternotail

Sam Byford / The Verge:

Top iOS apps and games go free ahead of App Store's fifth anniversary — ‘Infinity Blade II,’ Traktor DJ, ‘Sword and Sworcery,’ Day One, and more — A host of highly regarded apps for iPhone and iPad have gone free today in what could be a major celebration to mark five years since Apple launched the App Store.

More: AppleInsider, Engadget, BGR India, PhoneArena, SlashGear, Softpedia News and Mashable

Kara Swisher / AllThingsD:

Microsoft Quietly Shuts Down MSN TV, Once Known as WebTV — Microsoft said that its MSN TV service will be closing down at the end of September, in a post on its Web site and in an email to users. — MSN TV, of course, was born of WebTV, which was thought up by well-known entrepreneur Steve Perlman.

More: CNET, Gizmodo, The Register, Computerworld, bit-tech.net, Softpedia News, www.idigitaltimes.co.uk, The Verge, VentureBeat, Engadget, GeekWire, TechSpot, SlashGear, Geek News Central, Ubergizmo and T3 News

Tweets: @adamclarkestes, @film_girl and @zseward

Quentin Hardy / NYT Bits:

Technology Workers Are Young (Really Young) — It's well known that technology is a young man's game. Still, it is surprising to see just how young (and how male). — PayScale, a company based in Seattle, has determined that the median age of workers at many of the most successful companies …

More: memeburn, Silicon Valley Watcher and ZDNet. Tweets: @ejacqui

Joanna Stern / ABC News:

With New Improvements, Facebook Brings Graph Search Function to All U.S. Users — Get ready for your Facebook search bar to start looking a little different. — Starting Monday Facebook will begin rolling out the advanced search feature it announced earlier this year to all users in the United States.

More: New York Times, VatorNews, The Verge, memeburn, SlashGear, Associated Press, The Next Web, TechCrunch, Engadget, CNET and Softpedia News

Nick Bilton / NYT Bits:

Disruptions: How Driverless Cars Could Reshape Cities — SAN FRANCISCO — By now, seeing one of Google's experimental, driverless cars zipping down Silicon Valley's Highway 101, or parking itself on a San Francisco street, is not all that unusual. Indeed, as automakers like Audi …

Tweets: @mikerugnetta and @aarieff

Bloomberg:

Zynga's Mattrick Looked to Buy Company While at Microsoft — Don Mattrick, the former head of Microsoft Corp. (MSFT)'s entertainment division who takes the reins as chief executive officer of Zynga Inc. (ZNGA) today, has been hankering to run all or part of the social-gaming company for at least three years.

More: GeekWire, Motley Fool, GamesIndustry International and VG247

Sarah Young / Reuters:

App developer Shazam gets $40 mln backing from tycoon Carlos Slim — (Reuters) - Smartphone app developer Shazam has found an unlikely ally in the form of Carlos Slim, one of the world's richest men, who is investing $40 million to back the development of the start-up best known for helping music fans identify catchy songs.

More: AllThingsD, NEWS.com.au, TechCrunch, VentureBeat, CNET, The Next Web, Financial Times, Sky News and ZDNet

Eric Pfanner / New York Times:

Samsung Cuts Its Forecast as Sales Growth Slows for Its Costliest Smartphones — Samsung Electronics may be having the same problem Apple has: nearly everyone in the world who can afford an expensive smartphone has one already. — Samsung, the largest maker of consumer electronics …

More: Reuters, Android Beat, PhoneArena, CNBC, Forbes, BGR and PC Magazine

Reuters:

Governments to target tech giants' tax avoidance: draft — (Reuters) - Western governments are set to target a range of tax loopholes used by technology giants including Apple, Amazon as part of an international drive to tackle corporate tax avoidance, a draft action plan seen by Reuters said.

More: memeburn

Mark Gurman / 9to5Mac:

Apple testing Android-like local voice dictation for iOS — Apple is testing a local, offline version of Dictation voice input for iOS devices, according to strings of code found inside of the iOS 7 beta. The code, which was discovered by Hamza Sood, is located inside of both iOS 7 betas, but it is not present in iOS 6.

More: Business Insider, iDigitalTimes, iDownloadBlog.com, App Advice, iPhone Hacks, MacNN and iClarified. Thanks:@madfruitstand

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