Techmeme: Presidential Task Force Recommends Overhaul of Surveillance Tactics of NSA (Siobhan Gorman/Wall Street Journal)

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December 13, 2013, 5:10 PM

Top News

Michael Sippey / Twitter Blog:

Reverting the changes to block functionality — Earlier today, we made a change to the way the “block” function of Twitter works. We have decided to revert the change after receiving feedback from many users - we never want to introduce features at the cost of users feeling less safe.

Matthew Panzarino / TechCrunch:

Twitter Reverts Changes To Blocking Functionality After Strong Negative User Feedback

More: CNN, hypatia dot ca, CNET, Consumerist, Forbes, InvestorPlace, SiliconANGLE, Matt Gemmell, Engadget, CNET, Business Insider, Medium and ReadWrite

Tweets: @anildash and @glennf

Wall Street Journal:

Sprint Preparing a Bid for T-Mobile US — An Offer Would Test U.S. Regulators's Willingness to Have Just 3 Major Carriers — Sprint Corp. is working toward a possible bid for rival T-Mobile US Inc., people familiar with the matter said, setting the stage for a giant telecom merger …

More: Cult of Mac, 9to5Google, Forbes, GeekWire, AppleInsider, CNET, BGR, MacRumors, 9to5Mac, The Verge, Gigaom, The Next Web, DSLreports, TheHill, iDownloadBlog.com, Phandroid, Gizmodo and Business Insider

Tweets: @tapbot_paul, @saschasegan, @saschasegan, @nerdtalker, @zacharye, @tim_stevens, @tim_stevens, @bxchen, @whatthebit and @amir

Jason Del Rey / AllThingsD:

Report: Readers who own a Kindle spend $1,233/year on Amazon; those who don't spend $790 — The Amazon Kindle Numbers That Jeff Bezos Must Really Care About — We all know that Amazon's annual touting of its new Kindles as the best-selling Kindles ever has become laughable since the company …

More: TechHive, Fortune, Internet Evolution, GeekWire and Softpedia News

Tweets: @bgurley and @strngwys

Siobhan Gorman / Wall Street Journal:

Presidential Task Force Recommends Overhaul of Surveillance Tactics of NSA — Draft Proposals Would Change Spy Agency's Leadership to Civilian, Limit How It Gathers and Holds Information — WASHINGTON—A presidential task force has drafted recommendations that constitute a sweeping overhaul …

More: Washington Post, New York Times, Techdirt, AllThingsD, CNET, Wired, CNET, Softpedia News, emptywheel, TheHill, TechCrunch and The Verge

Tweets: @lorenzofb, @normative, @digiphile, @dandrezner, @ggreenwald, @emptywheel and @kevinbankston

Spencer Ackerman / Guardian:

NSA review to leave spying programs largely unchanged, reports say — A participant in a White House-sponsored review of surveillance activities described as “shameful” an apparent decision to leave most of the National Security Agency's controversial bulk spying intact.

More: The Verge, The Hill and Federal Computer Week

John Paczkowski / AllThingsD:

iPhones Dominate Sales at All Four Major U.S. Carriers — Apple's latest iPhones are topping the charts at U.S. carriers. — That's the latest from Canaccord Genuity analyst T. Michael Walkley, who says that the iPhone 5s and iPhone 5c have been among the top three sellers …

More: BGR, 9to5Google, SlashGear, TUAW, FierceMobileIT News, Los Angeles Times, 9to5Mac and The Droid Guy

Bloomberg:

Google considering moving away from Intel with its own, ARM-based server chips — Google Said to Mull Designing Chips in Threat to Intel — Google Inc. (GOOG) is considering designing its own server processors using technology from ARM Holdings Plc (ARM), a move that could threaten Intel Corp. …

More: Wired, Android Beat, SiliconBeat, Gigaom Research, Softpedia News, Inquirer, Reuters, ExtremeTech, SiliconANGLE, TechSpot, VentureBeat, Forbes, The Verge, Geeky Gadgets, Gigaom, Gizmodo, SlashGear and Ars Technica

Tweets: @whatthebit and @bradcasemore

Electronic Frontier Foundation:

Google Removes Vital Privacy Feature From Android, Claiming Its Release Was Accidental — Yesterday, we published a blog post lauding an extremely important app privacy feature that was added in Android 4.3. That feature allows users to install apps while preventing the app …

More: Computerworld, The Verge, ReadWrite, 9to5Google, Guardian, Network World, InfoWorld, Business Insider, Softpedia News and Boing Boing

Tweets: @ncweaver, @daviottenheimer, @csoghoian and @csoghoian

Robert McMillan / Wired:

U.S. Government Nastygram Shuts Down One-Man Bitcoin Mint — Mike Caldwell spent years turning digital currency into physical coins. That may sound like a paradox. But it's true. He takes bitcoins — the world's most popular digital currency — and then he mints them here in the physical world.

More: The Verge, CoinDesk, Hit & Run, Geek.com, SiliconANGLE, RT and PC Magazine. Tweets: @binarybits

Horace Dediu / asymco.com:

How many Americans will be using an iPhone when the US smartphone market saturates? — As previously noted, the US smartphone market has followed an almost perfectly logistic growth. The measured data (via comScore, in green below) follows a predictive logistic function (thin blue whose formula is discussed here).

More: App Advice and Gigaom

Josh Constine / TechCrunch:

Leaked Facebook Video Ad Pitch Deck Reveals Plans To Steal TV And YouTube Dollars — “Avoid saying anything negative about YouTube - leave the impression of the user experience up to them” Facebook tells its adtech partners in a leaked, confidential deck that teaches them to sell Facebook's video ads.

More: AllFacebook and Business Insider

Alistair Barr / USA Today:

Amazon said to launch Pantry to take on Costco, Sam's — Pantry is set to launch in 2014 and will let Amazon Prime members buy consumer packages goods that will be shipping in a set sized box with a maximum weight limit, sources say. — SAN FRANCISCO — Amazon.com is working …

More: PC Magazine, Wired, Business Insider, Electronista, VentureBeat, TechnoBuffalo, Geek.com, Consumerist, SlashGear, Geeky Gadgets, CNET, Gizmodo, WebProNews, The Verge, Seeking Alpha and GeekWire. Tweets: @tristanwalker

Bloomberg:

Verizon close to buying Intel's Internet-based pay-TV startup OnCue, may announce the deal next week — Verizon Said Near Agreement to Buy Intel's Start-Up TV Service — Verizon Communications Inc. (VZ) is near an agreement to purchase Intel Corp. (INTC)'s Internet-based pay-TV start-up, according to people familiar with the deal.

More: Gigaom and SlashGear

Dean Takahashi / VentureBeat:

ARM acquires maker of game graphics and lighting technology Geomerics — ARM bought Geomerics, maker of graphics and lighting tech for games like Primal Carnage. — Processor design firm ARM has expanded into hardcore graphics technology with the acquisition of Geomerics …

More: ZDNet, Engadget, AppleInsider, Mobile Marketing Watch, 4-traders, Gigaom, Inquirer, iMore, TechSpot, 9to5Mac, App Advice and Electronista

Darrell Etherington / TechCrunch:

Qualcomm Will Elevate COO Steve Mollenkopf To CEO Role In March, So Hands Off, Microsoft — Qualcomm will replace current CEO Paul Jacobs with current COO Steve Mollenkopf starting on March 4, immediately following the company's annual shareholder meeting. This announcement comes only seven …

Jack Clark / The Register:

Facebook's monster PHP engine ready to muscle into ARM server chips — It's not just Google mulling a shift to Intel's arch rival — Facebook has taken further steps in its quest to move to running production workloads on ARM-powered servers. — The smoking gun for this dramatic shift …

More: HipHop Virtual Machine, Gigaom and Joseph Scott. Thanks:@mappingbabel

Alex Colon / Gigaom:

Holiday deal: Get $50 off the Nexus 7 at Office Depot — This holiday season, it seems that if you try you really hard, you don't have to pay full retail price for almost anything. This week has brought us good deals on tablets from Amazon and Apple, and now you can get quite a nice price on this year's Nexus 7 as well.

More: Phandroid, The Verge and The Droid Guy

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