Techmeme: Microsoft, suspecting NSA spying, to ramp up efforts to encrypt its Internet traffic (Craig Timberg/Washington Post)

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November 27, 2013, 9:10 AM

Top News

The Huffington Post:

Top-Secret Document Reveals NSA Spied On Porn Habits As Part Of Plan To Discredit ‘Radicalizers’ — WASHINGTON — The National Security Agency has been gathering records of online sexual activity and evidence of visits to pornographic websites as part of a proposed plan to harm the reputations …

More: The Switch, Gizmodo, BBC, Gigaom, CNET, The Register, I4U News and Guardian

Tweets: @attackerman, @ggreenwald, @benwizner, @cmuratori, @jonwesselaas, @zedshaw, @dangillmor, @csoghoian and @adamserwer

Craig Timberg / Washington Post:

Microsoft, suspecting NSA spying, to ramp up efforts to encrypt its Internet traffic — Microsoft is moving toward a major new effort to encrypt its Internet traffic after concluding that the National Security Agency may have broken into its global communications systems, said people familiar with the emerging plans.

More: The Verge, ZDNet, I4U News, Softpedia News, SlashGear, CNET, The Next Web, Digits and BGR

Tweets: @ggreenwald, @gushosein, @untoldcarlisle, @trevortimm and @youranonnews

Jon Russell / The Next Web:

Nokia announces the Lumia 525, an upgraded successor to the top-selling Lumia 520 — Nokia has extended its family of smartphones with the Lumia 525, an affordable device that succeeds the popular Lumia 520 - which is its top selling Windows Phone device worldwide.

More: Engadget, The Verge, Inquirer, BetaNews, ZDNet, Digital Trends, My Nokia Blog, LiveSide.net, WinBeta, Wpxbox and Electronista

Rebecca Grant / VentureBeat:

America falls a dismal 31st on ranking of consumer download speeds (report) — 30 countries have faster Internet than America, at least according to the most recent update from Speedtest.net. — Speedtest.net compares and ranks consumer download speeds around the globe, calculating the rolling mean in Mbps.

More: Trends in the Living Networks and SlashGear

Casey Sullivan / Reuters:

Hewlett-Packard, CEO Whitman ordered to defend securities class action — (Reuters) - A California federal judge has ordered Hewlett-Packard Co and Chief Executive Meg Whitman to defend a securities shareholder class action that claims they knew statements about HP's acquisition of software company Autonomy were misleading.

More: Bloomberg

Pankaj Mishra / TechCrunch:

Target (Yes, That Target) Wants To Launch An Accelerator In India — Target has long looked to India to fuel its software applications and back-office projects. Now, the Minneapolis-based retailer is doubling down on the country's tech potential. — Come January 2014 …

More: MediaNama, NextBigWhat.com and Engadget

Jordan Kahn / 9to5Google:

Google releases “OK Google” Chrome extension for hands-free voice search on the desktop — Google announced today on Google+ that it's releasing a new extension for Chrome that will enable hands-free activation of the voice search features it rolled out earlier this year.

Mike Orcutt / MIT Technology Review:

New inks and tools allow 3-D printing of lithium-ion technology. — By making the basic building blocks of batteries out of ink, Harvard materials scientist Jennifer Lewis is laying the groundwork for lithium-ion batteries and other high-performing electronics that can be produced with 3-D printers.

More: SlashGear, 3ders.org, TechSpot and Gizmodo

Jamie Rigg / Engadget:

Moto G review: an affordable smartphone, done right — Since Motorola was acquired by a certain tech giant last year, its new owner hasn't had a particularly strong impact on the way it does business. Not too long ago, in fact, Motorola dealt another brag-hand of Droids …

More: Wall Street Journal, Gearburn, The Pocket Gamer Podcast, Business Insider, TechCrunch and The Register. Tweets: @m4tt

Emil Protalinski / The Next Web:

Moto G now available unlocked in the US: 8GB for $179 and 16GB for $199, starts shipping on December 2

More: The Register, Engadget, eWeek, Android Police, CNET, MobileSyrup.com, The Verge, Pocket-lint, The Official Motorola Blog, Digital Trends, Phandroid, 9to5Google, SlashGear, AndroidGuys, Phones Review, TechnoBuffalo, Android Central, Gizmodo and BetaNews

Jessica Lessin:

With PrimeSense, Apple Got Key Mapping Technology — There's a lot of speculation about why Apple bought motion-sensor company PrimeSense. But I think the real reason has been overlooked. — PrimeSense's chips were in early versions of Microsoft's Kinect sensor, the gaming console …

More: Cult of Mac, BGR, SlashGear, iDownloadBlog.com, iPhone Hacks and iPhone in Canada Blog. Tweets: @panzer

Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:

Improved App Store Search Engine Now Corrects For Users' “Fat Finger” Mistakes & Other Misspellings — A recent change to Apple's App Store search engine now leads to improved search results for misspelled queries with small typos, we've learned. In addition, searchers looking for an app they know by name …

More: Business Insider, Search Engine Roundtable, Gigaom, iPhone Hacks, Cult of Mac, Ubergizmo, TUAW, SlashGear, iDownloadBlog.com, AppleInsider, App Advice, 9to5Mac, iPhone in Canada Blog and MacRumors

Alex Williams / TechCrunch:

Box Acquires dLoop To Enhance Security With Fine-Grained Data Analytics Technology — Box has acquired dLoop, a startup that provides ways for IT administrators to control access to content with finer granularity. The acquisition will give Box a level of data analytics that is often a required feature for enterprise customers.

More: Computerworld and ZDNet

Matthew Panzarino / TechCrunch:

Twitter Continues Tweet Recommendation Experiments With Fav Happy @Magicstats — Twitter continues to pull the string on personalization and recommendation with a new account called @magicstats. The account, whose description reads ‘I favorite the best tweets I see in real-time’ appears to be doing just that.

More: The Next Web and Business Insider

Emil Protalinski / The Next Web:

PayPal adds support for prepaid gift cards, thanks to patent-pending ‘pay anytime anywhere with any card’ system — PayPal today announced it has added support for prepaid gift cards, letting its users apply them to the purchase of products and services anywhere PayPal Checkout is available.

More: The Official PayPal, Engadget, BetaNews, TechCrunch, VatorNews and Softpedia News

Rob Wile / Business Insider:

Researchers Retract Claim Of Link Between Alleged Silk Road Mastermind And Founder Of Bitcoin — Two Israeli mathematicians are retracting their claim that there was a link between Bitcoin founder Satoshi Nakamoto and the man accused of running illicit online marketplace The Silk Road.

More: Dustin D. Trammell, Computerworld and InfoWorld

Tweets: @hdmoore, @rmac18, @rauchg and @kashhill

Ian Traynor / Guardian:

NSA surveillance: Europe threatens to freeze US data-sharing arrangements — After Edward Snowden revelations, EU executive underlines US compliance with European law and ‘how things have gone badly’ — The EU executive is threatening to freeze crucial data-sharing arrangements with the US …

More: EU Press Room, Gigaom, TechCrunch and Reuters

New York Times:

US senators Ron Wyden, Mark Udall, and Martin Heinrich: End the NSA dragnet, now — End the N.S.A. Dragnet, Now — WASHINGTON — THE framers of the Constitution declared that government officials had no power to seize the records of individual Americans without evidence of wrongdoing …

Tweets: @arusbridger, @jesselynradack, @anked, @ronwyden, @ggreenwald and @markudall

Neil Hughes / AppleInsider:

Touchscreen PCs expected to take 11 percent of 2013 notebook shipments — Apple has famously compared convertible Windows tablets to combining a toaster and a refrigerator, but competitors are still increasing their output of touchscreen notebooks in hopes of turning around slumping PC sales.

More: DisplaySearch, BetaNews, ZDNet, Softpedia News, BGR and PC World

Neil Hughes / AppleInsider:

90% of iPhone 5s models now in stock at Apple retail stores — Supply of Apple's new flagship handset, the iPhone 5s, has nearly caught up with demand, as a new survey of the company's retail stores finds that 90 percent of models are available. — Availability of the iPhone 5s is even greater …

More: Digits, MacRumors, CNET, The Next Web, The VAR Guy, App Advice, Business Insider, iDownloadBlog.com, Cult of Mac, BGR, Forbes, iClarified, 9to5Mac and Yahoo! News

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