Techmeme
August 20, 2013, 12:45 PM

Top News

Pamela Jones / Groklaw:
Forced Exposure  —  The owner of Lavabit tells us that he's stopped using email and if we knew what he knew, we'd stop too.  —  There is no way to do Groklaw without email.  Therein lies the conundrum.  —  What to do?  —  What to do?  I've spent the last couple of weeks trying to figure it out.
Mike Masnick / Techdirt:
More NSA Spying Fallout: Groklaw Shutting Down  —  A few months ago, after the NSA spying stories first broke, we wrote about a bit from This American Life where the host, Ira Glass, was interviewing lawyers for prisoners detained at Guantanamo, about the impact of knowing that the government …
Liz Gannes / AllThingsD:
Google and Waze Start Mixing Their Maps for the First Time  —  Google today is introducing the first integrations between its homegrown Google Maps for mobile and its newly owned Waze.  —  Google adds Waze  —  The traffic tab on Google Maps for iOS and Android will now include accidents …
Alan Rusbridger / Guardian:
David Miranda, schedule 7 and the dangers reporters now face  —  As the events in a Heathrow transit lounge - and the Guardian offices - have shown, the threat to journalism is real and growing  —  In a private viewing cinema in Soho last week I caught myself letting fly with a four-letter expletive …
Timothy B. Lee / The Switch:
Matthew Panzarino / TechCrunch:
Instagram Cracks Down On Connected Apps Using “Insta” And “Gram”  —  Instagram has updated its brand guidelines to ban apps that feature either the word ‘Insta’ or ‘Gram’ in their names, and it has begun sending emails to existing apps requesting that they change those components ‘within a reasonable period’.
Nilay Patel / The Verge:
TiVo Roamio Pro review: this is the ultimate cable box  —  But it comes at a price  —  There is nothing more instantly dangerous to the average relationship than screwing up the TV.  —  It's just a fact, crystallized in 50 years of jokes about remote controls: who's holding it, how complicated it is, how many there are.
Laura Hazard Owen / GigaOM:
Barnes & Noble totally reverses strategy in train wreck of an investor call  —  Want to know what Barnes & Noble's plan is for the future?  In that case, it would be wise to ignore pretty much everything the company has said it was going to do in recent months.  —  Getting out of the tablet business?
Tweets: @pkafka
Om Malik / GigaOM:
What's inside Samsung's Galaxy Gear smartwatch?  Here are some key details  —  It was about a week ago when Bloomberg reported that Samsung was getting ready to launch its smart watch called Galaxy Gear.  Since then we have been calling around and our sources have come back with enough details …
Dan Seifert / The Verge:
Motorola pulls engraving features from Moto X for now, cites quality control issues  —  One of the allures of the Moto X is the ability to customize the appearance of the device to your own specifications — even down to having your own message printed on the back of the phone (provided you adhere to Motorola's guidelines, of course).
Evan Selinger / Wired:
The ‘Mood Graph’: How Our Emotions Are Taking Over the Web  —  Recently, URL shortener Bitly announced a beta version of its tool for “Feelings”, a “fun bookmarklet to express how you feel about the content you're sharing”.  Its tagline, however, is even more telling: “Because you don't ‘like’ everything.”
More: Digital TrendsTweets: @culturerevealed
Bernard Vaughan / Reuters:
Judge dismisses suit against AOL in patent sale to Microsoft  —  (Reuters) - A federal judge on Monday dismissed a lawsuit accusing AOL Inc and some of its executives of fraud for repurchasing 14.8 million shares in 2011 without disclosing that the company would sell a $1 billion portfolio of patents to Microsoft Corp months later.
More: ZDNet and CNET
Mark Gurman / 9to5Mac:
Key Nike FuelBand developer and fitness expert Jay Blahnik confirms new job at Apple, likely working on iWatch  —  Jay Blahnik, a globally recognized fitness expert and instrumental consultant in the development of several Nike fitness products, has confirmed his new role at Apple.
Ken Yeung / The Next Web:
Dropbox gives users 1GB of extra space just for linking their account with Mailbox  —  Cloud storage service Dropbox has revealed a nice little easter egg that is gives users 1GB of additional space for free.  All that's required to take advantage of this offer is to link your Mailbox account with Dropbox.
Chris O'Brien / Los Angeles Times:
Tech industry slips into a surprising slump  —  After a six-year boom ignited by the introduction of the iPhone in 2007, tech firms are in the unusual position of being laggards in the U.S. economy's recovery.  —  Microsoft is among the tech industry's biggest players struggling to navigate …
Tom Warren / The Verge:
Microsoft unveils ID@Xbox plan to lure indie developers to Xbox One  —  After unveiling its plans to support self-published games on Xbox One, Microsoft is detailing some of its additional efforts to support indie developers today.  As Sony continues to woo indie developers ahead …
Jeff John Roberts / GigaOM:
Feds seized $2.9M in Bitcoin funds from Mt. Gox, court docs show  —  The federal government sent a strong signal to Bitcoin traders earlier this year when the U.S. Department of Homeland Security seized an account belonging to Mt. Gox, the most popular exchange for people to buy and sell the crypto-currency.

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