Techmeme
July 31, 2013, 5:25 PM

Top News

Glenn Greenwald / Guardian:
XKeyscore: NSA tool collects ‘nearly everything a user does on the internet’  —  A top secret National Security Agency program allows analysts to search with no prior authorization through vast databases containing emails, online chats and the browsing histories of millions of individuals …
Andy Greenberg / Forbes:
NSA Director Heckled At Conference As He Asks For Security Community's Understanding  —  When NSA Director Keith Alexander appeared at the Las Vegas security conference Black Hat Wednesday morning, he hoped to mend the NSA's reputation in the eyes of thousands of the conference's hackers and security professionals.
Timothy B. Lee / The Switch:
Senators lash out at NSA for excessive secrecy  —  Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) lashed out this morning at “the lack of transparency” surrounding the collection of Americans' phone records.  Speaking at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, Franken blasted top intelligence officials for delays …
Tom Warren / The Verge:
Microsoft forced to rename SkyDrive following trademark case with broadcaster  —  A UK court recently ruled that Microsoft's SkyDrive name infringed on a trademark owned by British Sky Broadcasting Group (BSkyB), and the software maker has agreed to change the name of its cloud-based service worldwide as a result.
Mark Gurman / 9to5Mac:
Apple has A6-based iPad mini without Retina display in the works  —  Apple is testing a new iPad mini that includes a faster processor but not a Retina display, according to references in the iOS 7 SDK sent to us by a developer.  —  The references were located inside of a hidden file …
Christopher Mims / Quartz:
Google is testing a local news product for Google Now  —  Google has hatched a plan to boost the visibility of its existing local news product, and in the process is testing a whole new way to get people to pay attention to the news that is geographically most relevant to them.
App Annie Blog:
App Annie Index - Market Q2 2013: Google Play Exceeds iOS App Store in App Downloads by 10% in Q2 2013  —  Welcome to the App Annie Market Index, where at the end of each quarter, we review the latest download and revenue insights by stores, countries and categories.
AnandTech:
Update on GPU Optimizations in Galaxy S 4  —  Yesterday we posted our analysis of the Exynos 5 Octa's behavior in international versions of the Galaxy S 4 in certain benchmarks first discovered by Beyond3D user @Andreif7.  Samsung addressed issue on their blog earlier today:
Quip Blog:
Introducing Quip  —  Today, we are extremely excited to launch Quip.  Quip is a modern word processor that enables you to create beautiful documents on any device — phones, tablets and the desktop.  If you haven't already, download Quip to try it out.  —  Why Quip?
Tom Warren / The Verge:
Microsoft Office for Android now available, but not for tablets  —  Microsoft is extending its Office mobile software to Android this week, bringing basic editing to smartphones running Android 4.0 or higher.  Following the release of Office for iPhone, the Android variant is almost identical in what it provides and its requirements.
Liz Gannes / AllThingsD:
Dropcam Snaps Up $30M for Connected Video Cameras  —  A recent generation of Web-connected hardware startups — Withings, Fitbit (unofficial), and now Dropcam — have in the past few months raised $30 million each to scale their businesses.  Funnily enough, it seems to be a magic number for the cohort …
Mark Collins / GSM Insider:
Moto X To Use Nano-SIM Card, SIM Tray Leaks In Hong Kong  —  Moto X leaks again and again.  This time is about the Nano-SIM tray of the Moto X. It was leaked earlier in an Asian country, Hong Kong.  It looks like Moto X is available in different parts of the world.
Frederic Lardinois / TechCrunch:
Google Launches New Ad Unit For Responsive Sites  —  Google today launched a new responsive AdSense unit in beta that is specifically designed to run on sites that automatically adapt to different screen sizes.  Now that responsive design has moved from being just a buzzword to something …

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