Techmeme: NSA files: why the Guardian in London destroyed hard drives of leaked files (Julian Borger/Guardian)

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August 20, 2013, 11:50 PM

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Wall Street Journal:

New Details Show Broader NSA Surveillance Reach — Programs Cover 75% of Nation's Traffic, Can Snare Emails WASHINGTON—The National Security Agency—which possesses only limited legal authority to spy on U.S. citizens—has built a surveillance network that covers more Americans' Internet communications …

Julian Borger / Guardian:

NSA files: why the Guardian in London destroyed hard drives of leaked files — A threat of legal action by the government that could have stopped reporting on the files leaked by Edward Snowden led to a symbolic act at the Guardian's offices in London — Guardian editors on Tuesday revealed …

More: The Verge, TechnoLlama, Pressthink, Digital Trends, TechCrunch and Wired

Tweets: @youranonnews and @markseibel

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NBCNews:

US doesn't know what Snowden took, sources say — HONG KONG - 2013: In this handout photo provided by The Guardian, Edward Snowden speaks during an interview in Hong Kong. Snowden, a 29-year-old former technical assistant for the CIA, revealed details of top-secret surveillance conducted …

More: Hillicon Valley. Tweets: @r343l, @petersuderman, @realchadtaylor, @jeffjarvis, @mattmdiaz and @techopirate. See also Mediagazer

John McDermott / AdAge:

iTunes Radio to Debut in September With McDonald's, Nissan, P&G, Pepsi — Launch Partners Sign 12-Month Deals Worth Tens of Millions of Dollars — iTunes Radio, Apple's answer to Pandora, is set to debut next month with a handful of high-profile brand partners including McDonald's, Nissan …

More: ParisLemon, Macworld, The Register, 9to5Mac, TechSpot, TUAW, MacRumors, The Next Web, iDownloadBlog.com, iPhone Hacks, Apple Bitch, Ubergizmo, TechnoBuffalo, VentureBeat, SlashGear, Cult of Mac, AppleInsider, The Mac Observer, GigaOM, App Advice, Engadget, MacNN and iLounge

Tweets: @pkafka, @jherskowitz and @learmonth

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Josh Constine / TechCrunch:

Facebook And 6 Phone Makers Launch Internet.org To Bring Affordable Access To Everyone — Facebook has just announced a partnership with Samsung, Ericsson, MediaTek, Nokia, Opera, and Qualcomm to launch Internet.org, a project aimed at bringing affordable Internet access to the five billion people without it.

Vindu Goel / New York Times:

Facebook Leads an Effort to Lower Barriers to Internet Access

More: The Verge, AllThingsD, Engadget and CNN

Tweets: @facebook, @nateog, @jguynn, @brianstelter and @markgurman

newsroom.fb.com:

Technology Leaders Launch Partnership to Make Internet Access Available to All

More: The Next Web and GigaOM. Tweets: @ericsson and @jguynn

Terrence O'Brien / Engadget:

PlayStation 4 hitting shelves on November 15th in the US for $399, November 29th in Europe and Latin America — There isn't much we don't know about the PlayStation 4 at this point. Sony has let the details slip out in drips and drabs, dragging out the mystery as long as possible.

More: PlayStation.Blog, VentureBeat, The Register, TechHive, Kotaku, The Next Web, AllThingsD, I4U News, BGR, ABC News, Penny Arcade, WebProNews, Giant Bomb, Gotta Be Mobile, Gizmodo, Digits, Electronista, Polygon, The Verge, GeekWire and Ars Technica. Tweets: @tomwarren

Alex Wilhelm / TechCrunch:

Twitch Integrates With PlayStation 4 For Streaming And Viewing Video Game Content

More: Engadget, The Official Twitch Blog, The Next Web and Mashable

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.

More: GigaOM, werd.io, TechCrunch, Inquirer, PandoDaily, ITworld.com, Daily Dot, TechSpot, OStatic blogs, Popular Science, eWeek, ZDNet, BBC, The Verge, Naked Security, SecurityWeek, Electronista, NPR, ReadWrite, VentureBeat, Techdirt, I4U News and PC Magazine

Tweets: @privacyint, @puellavulnerata, @piecritic and @rsingel

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David Pogue / New York Times:

Siri vs. the Android: The Sequel — “Your review was the dumbest thing I've ever read. It strains me to avoid profanity in describing how stupid you sound.” — That's the kind of e-mail that brightened my day after I reviewed Google's Moto X phone two weeks ago.

Tweets: @pogue and @nchan

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 …

Josh Constine / TechCrunch:

TechCrunch's Picks: The Top 8 Startups From Y Combinator's Summer '13 Demo Day — Convenience tech, developer assistance, and services for senior citizens were the big trends amongst the 45 startups that pitched on the record today at Y Combinator's Summer 2013 Demo Day.

More: TechCrunch, TechCrunch, TechCrunch, VentureBeat, GigaOM, TechCrunch, Mattermark, VentureBeat, SiliconBeat and Valleywag

Tweets: @amir, @brianp, @arrington and @startupljackson

Joan E. Solsman / CNET:

Netflix inks exclusive deal for first-run Weinstein films — The Internet's biggest on-demand video service will stream movies from the indie film studio before any other pay-TV providers starting in 2016, the same year it kicks off a similar Disney deal. — Follow @@joan_e

More: Tech Trader Daily, Engadget, DSLreports, USA Today, The Wrap, GigaOM and Associated Press. See also Mediagazer

Robinson Meyer / The Atlantic Online:

This Software Won't Let You Look Away — The creepiest educational technology yet — Updated, 3:45pm. — It's hard to imagine a creepier educational technology than “FocusAssist,” a new feature announced by online training company Mindflash last week.

More: CNET, Nextgov and ROUGH TYPE

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?

More: Android Community and SlashGear. Tweets: @pogue and @pkafka. See also Mediagazer

Laura Hazard Owen / GigaOM:

Bad earnings for Barnes & Noble: Nook revenues plunge 20%; Riggio won't take stores private

More: Barnes & Noble, Inc., AllThingsD, MarketWatch, DealBook, internetretailer.com, Associated Press, ZDNet, LAPTOP Magazine, Electronista, Engadget, TechCrunch and Reuters

Tweets: @sarahw and @peterlauria3

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Danielle Kucera / Bloomberg:

Amazon Ramps Up $13.9 Billion Warehouse Building Spree — Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN) is stepping up a warehouse building spree, signaling the urgency of getting products to customers more quickly amid rising competition from EBay Inc. (EBAY) and Wal-Mart (WMT) Stores Inc.

Tweets: @jordanr1000

Hannah Karp / Wall Street Journal:

Vevo in Deals With Apple, Samsung for TV Programming — Online Music-Video Company to Deliver On-Demand Programming Via Set-Top Boxes, Television Sets — Music-video company Vevo LLC is migrating from YouTube to the boob tube in a back-to-the-future attempt to recreate something akin to the original MTV.

More: MacRumors, AppleInsider and Digits. Tweets: @ethanwsj

Liz Gannes / AllThingsD:

Coursera Adds Kleiner Perkins Partner Lila Ibrahim as President — Lila Ibrahim, an operating partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, will become president at the online education startup Coursera. — That's a lot of leadership at the top of the growing startup, which was founded less than two years ago.

More: VentureBeat, Coursera Blog and bizjournals

Tweets: @kpcb and @rschon

Lindsey Turrentine / CNET:

Welcome to CNET, Tim Stevens — Starting this September, one of tech's best-known comes to CNET. He'll bring his storytelling skills with him. — Tim Stevens — Two years ago, Tim Stevens and I met for a few minutes after work one day not long after he had taken the helm at Engadget.

More: Digital Displacement. Tweets: @lturrentine, @tim_stevens, @theromit, @darrenmurph and @tim_stevens

Jay Greene / The Seattle Times:

Amazon blasts GAO and IBM over $600 million CIA contract — A redacted version of a lawsuit Amazon filed against the federal government became public today, offering a look at the company's effort to block rebidding of its lucrative CIA deal. — Amazon Web Services' battle with IBM …

More: GeekWire and The Register. Tweets: @iamjaygreene

Adrianne Jeffries / The Verge:

Not OK, Cupid: dating site email security gaffe leaves your account wide open — Users may be exposing themselves without realizing it — A friend who recently started using OKCupid just forwarded me an email she got from the site, containing a funny message from a prospective suitor: “You seem nice.

More: Betabeat, Valleywag, VentureBeat, Business Insider and Online Dating Insider

Tweets: @xor, @adrjeffries, @kevinmarshall and @adrjeffries

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