Techmeme: Instagram now offers a little thing that matters: the ability to straighten photos (Om Malik/GigaOM)

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August 27, 2013, 9:35 AM

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Matthew Panzarino / TechCrunch:

Apple's iPhone Trade-in Program Is Already Being Piloted, Here's How It Works — Apple is about to introduce an iPhone trade-in program that will allow users to walk into a Retail store and trade up from an old model to a new one. We've heard some interesting details about the way that the program …

More: Ars Technica, LAPTOP Magazine, SiliconANGLE, Computerworld, Forbes, everythingiCafe, Macworld, iMore, Digits, Los Angeles Times, T3 News, iPhone Hacks, The Verge, MacNN, Apple Bitch, Patently Apple, AppleInsider and Gotta Be Mobile

Tweets: @jerols, @sbyrnes and @panzer

Mark Gurman / 9to5Mac:

Apple planning to launch iPhone trade-in program in September — Apple is beginning final preparations to launch an iPhone trade-in program in its retail stores as soon as next month, according to sources with knowledge of the initiative. This trade-in program will allow customers …

More: AllThingsD, Fortune, Mashable, Gizmodo, SlashGear, PhoneArena, Redmond Pie, Yahoo! News, I4U News, GigaOM, iClarified, TechnoBuffalo, iMore, MacNN and App Advice. Tweets: @markgurman. Thanks:@justinkahnmusic

Kurt Wagner / Mashable:

Facebook Unveils Shared Photo Albums — A picture's worth a thousand words, and now Facebook is letting others add to your conversation. — The world's largest social network announced shared photo albums on Monday, a new feature that allows multiple users to upload images to the same album.

Mark Gurman / 9to5Mac:

Apple launches more intuitive AppleCare support website, 24/7 chat — Earlier this month, we reported that Apple would soon introduce significant changes to its online AppleCare support portals. In line with our report, Apple has begun rolling out a redesigned AppleCare website to provide support …

More: iMore, iPhone, TUAW, iDownloadBlog.com, MacRumors, I4U News, AppleInsider, App Advice and iClarified. Tweets: @markgurman

NBC News:

How Snowden did it — When Edward Snowden stole the crown jewels of the National Security Agency, he didn't need to use any sophisticated devices or software or go around any computer firewall. — All he needed, said multiple intelligence community sources, was a few thumb drives …

More: Techdirt, Techdirt, ZDNet and The Daily Caller

Tweets: @raghos, @dhh, @csoghoian, @runasand, @kaepora and @csoghoian

Spiegel Online:

How America Spies on Europe and the UN

More: Techdirt and Network World

Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:

ARM Acquires Internet Of Things Startup Sensinode To Move Beyond Tablets And Phones — As more reports of ARM-based Windows and Apple devices continue to fill the airwaves — the latest being reports of a Surface 2 and Nokia's first Windows tablet, along with upcoming iPhone handsets …

More: ARM, VentureBeat, ZDNet, Computerworld, GigaOM and EE Times

JP Mangalindan / Fortune:

AllThingsD nears split with Dow Jones — Maybe the ‘D’ in AllThingsD should stand for ‘Deal.’ — FORTUNE — The future of influential tech website All Things Digital is close to being decided. — Reuters reported in February that AllThingsD co-executive editors Kara Swisher and Walt Mossberg …

Tweets: @mdudas, @mccarthyryanj, @rafat, @felixsalmon, @felixsalmon and @danprimack. See also Mediagazer

Om Malik / GigaOM:

Instagram now offers a little thing that matters: the ability to straighten photos — As a long time Instagram member, one of the lessons I have learned is that people like photos that are straight and aren't at some awkward angles. Why, I can't tell you, but good framing …

More: Instagram Engineering, The Verge, The Next Web, Macgasm, PC Magazine and ReadWrite

Justine Sharrock / BuzzFeed:

The Rise And Fall Of A Startup Mansion — Startups, pizza, ego, beer, filth. The collapse of a hacker house and the battle for Silicon Valley's soul. — a1.muscache.com — When William Hsu first moved to San Francisco to work in startups, he got a one-bedroom apartment.

Tweets: @jwherrman. Thanks:@mattlynley

Issie Lapowsky / Inc.com:

Paul Graham on Building Companies for Fast Growth — Graham's tech accelerator, Y Combinator, has minted many big hits, including Dropbox, Reddit, and Airbnb. Here's a conversation with the start-up guru. — Paul Graham's appetite for small talk is waning. “Are we starting yet?

More: Business Insider, ZDNet and Silicon Valley Watcher

Tweets: @mattrosoff, @ryanp2, @bowman and @mamund

Tom Warren / The Verge:

Windows 8.1 is officially finished, but everyone has to wait until October 18th — Microsoft is confirming today, after recent reports, that the company has completed Windows 8.1 and is releasing it to manufacturing (RTM). The finalization of the Windows 8 update means that hardware partners …

More: The Windows Blog, Ars Technica, AllThingsD, The Next Web, ZDNet, Engadget, Softpedia News and 5by5 Master Audio Feed. Tweets: @tomwarren

Dan Goodin / Ars Technica:

“thereisnofatebutwhatwemake” — Turbo-charged cracking comes to long passwords — For the first time, the freely available password cracker ocl-Hashcat-plus is able to tackle passcodes with as many as 55 characters. It's an improvement that comes as more and more people are relying …

More: ZDNet. Tweets: @sireel, @robhale77 and @lylepratt

Julian Assange / The Stringer:

Google and the NSA: Who's holding the ‘s**t-bag’ now? — It has been revealed today, thanks to Edward Snowden, that Google and other US tech companies received millions of dollars from the NSA for their compliance with the PRISM mass surveillance system. — So just how close is Google to the US securitocracy?

Tweets: @bkiran, @alirobe, @aaronwall, @howardweaver, @somersetbean, @daveying99, @chanders, @matthewstoller, @lisarein and @om

Cory Gunther / Android Community:

Hangouts update brings support for AT&T video calling — Back in May Google announced their new messaging service to replace Google Talk, and hopefully one day Google Voice. That being their new Hangouts app. It was revealed at Google I/O, and since has been updated with a slew of new features, smiley faces and more.

More: Engadget, Gotta Be Mobile, SlashGear, Android News, Rumours …, PhoneArena, Android Beat and I4U News

Lucian Constantin / PC World:

Following Google's lead, Mozilla considers rejecting long-lived digital certificates — Mozilla is considering the possibility of rejecting as invalid SSL certificates issued after July 1, 2012, with a validity period of more than 60 months. Google already made the decision to block …

More: cabforum.org, ZDNet, bugzilla.mozilla.org and Softpedia News

Dan Levine / Reuters:

U.S. judge approves Facebook privacy settlement over ads — (Reuters) - A U.S. judge on Monday granted final approval to Facebook's $20 million settlement of a lawsuit over targeted advertising despite objections that the deal did not go far enough to protect children's privacy.

More: GigaOM, Wired, Inquirer, The Atlantic Wire, ZDNet, I4U News, The Verge, TechCrunch, The Next Web, SlashGear and NEWS.com.au

Dana Wollman / Engadget:

Dell intros new Latitude business laptops, including a flagship Ultrabook (hands-on) — Fun fact: the XPS 13 Ultrabook we liked so much also happens to be one of Dell's best-selling products. It's been so successful, in fact, that even large corporations have been thinking of issuing it to their employees …

More: Inquirer, Softpedia News, Mashable, ZDNet, Gotta Be Mobile, Electronista, TechHive, Gearburn, VentureBeat and LAPTOP Magazine. Tweets: @charlesarthur

Mike Wehner / TUAW:

U.S. government finds 0.7% of all mobile malware affects iOS, while Android accounts for 79% — A cautionary memo put out by the US Department of Homeland Security and the US Department of Justice shows that, according to the government's findings, only 0.7 percent of all mobile malware is designed to take advantage of iOS.

More: Fortune, WMPoweruser, CNET, The Next Web, Electronista, Softpedia News, Ubergizmo, PhoneArena, I4U News, iDownloadBlog.com, SlashGear, Android Community and ZDNet

Laura Hazard Owen / GigaOM:

Apple: Feds aim to “give Amazon a significant competitive advantage” in ebooks case — In court filings posted Monday morning, Apple attorney Orin Snyder responded to the Department of Justice's revised proposed punishment for the tech company in the ebooks case.

More: AllThingsD, MacRumors, AppleInsider and Cult of Mac. See also Mediagazer

Todd Hoff / High Scalability:

Reddit: Lessons Learned from Mistakes Made Scaling to 1 Billion Pageviews a Month — Jeremy Edberg, the first paid employee at reddit, teaches us a lot about how to create a successful social site in a really good talk he gave at the RAMP conference. Watch it here at Scaling Reddit from 1 Million to 1 Billion-Pitfalls and Lessons.

Mary Jo Foley / ZDNet:

Windows ARM tablet rumors heat up: Surface 2, Nokia ‘Sirius’ on deck — Summary: There are at least two new Windows ARM tablets in the pipeline: The Microsoft Surface 2 and Nokia ‘Sirius,’ according to evolving rumors. — Many Microsoft watchers, customers and partners continue to believe …

More: The Verge, AdDuplex Blog, SuperSite for Windows, BGR India and pocketnow.com

Tom Warren / The Verge:

Nokia Sirius: a 10.1-inch Windows RT tablet that looks like a Lumia

David Talbot / MIT Technology Review:

Hacked Feature Phone Can Block Other People's Calls — Hacked Feature Phone Can Block Other People's Calls — Swapping software can give one GSM phone the power to prevent incoming calls and text messages from reaching other phones nearby. — WHY IT MATTERS — Most of the world's phones use the GSM standard.

More: SlashGear, Gizmodo, USENIX and T3 News

Tweets: @david_a_talbot and @techreview

Stefan Constantinescu / Android Beat:

Samsung Exec confirms Note III and Galaxy Gear launch for September 4th (next week!) — Lee Young-hee, executive vice president of Samsung's mobile business, told The Korea Times that Samsung will be unveiling the Galaxy Note III and Galaxy Gear smartwatch on September 4th.

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