Techmeme
August 21, 2013, 9:30 AM

Top News

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 …
Facebook Newsroom:
Technology Leaders Launch Partnership to Make Internet Access Available to All  —  Facebook, Ericsson, MediaTek, Nokia, Opera, Qualcomm, Samsung to be founding partners  —  MENLO PARK, CA, — Mark Zuckerberg, founder and CEO of Facebook, today announced the launch of internet.org …
Vindu Goel / New York Times:
Facebook Leads an Effort to Lower Barriers to Internet Access  —  MENLO PARK, Calif. — About one of every seven people in the world uses Facebook.  Now, Mark Zuckerberg, its co-founder and chief executive, wants to make a play for the rest — including the four billion or so who lack Internet access.
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.
Frederic Lardinois / TechCrunch:
Google's Stealthy Helpouts Live Video Commerce Service Makes Its First Public Appearance, Landing Page Now Live  —  Last month, our own Rip Empson broke the news that Google was working on Helpouts, a Hangouts-based marketplace “ that enables individuals and small and large businesses to buy and sell services via live video.”
Alexis Santos / Engadget:
LG Display claims a world's first with 2,560 x 1,440 LCD for smartphones  —  Full HD displays?  Eat your heart out, handset manufacturers.  LG Display has just laid claim to the world's first Quad HD (2,560 x 1,440) smartphone display, which also boasts the highest pixel density of a mobile device, clocking in at 538ppi.
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 …
Janko Roettgers / GigaOM:
Here's how Beats Music is curating its subscription service  —  Beats Music, the yet-to-be-launched digital subscription service spearheaded by Jimmy Iovine, wants to edge out competitors like Spotify and Rdio through human curation, but the company hasn't really explained how this will work.
Mat Honan / Wired:
The Great App.net Mistake  —  Before the great gold rush of venture capital and public offerings, there was an idea that the Internet should not just change the world, but actively make it a better place.  Profit and empowerment, the voices said, should coexist.
Tweets: @tcarmody and @jonrussell
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
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.
Mikey Campbell / AppleInsider:
Apple patents 3D gesture UI for iOS based on proximity sensor input  —  The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office on Tuesday published an Apple patent for a method of generating and manipulating a three-dimensional object on a computing device, with the process controlled by special gestures made above a touchscreen's surface.
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.

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Earlier Picks

Amy Gesenhues / Marketing Land:
Gregg Keizer / Computerworld: