The NSA: An Inside View  —  In which I relate my experience as an NSA employee and impart my thoughts on the policies in place, my former coworkers, and the current cyber war.  —  I am an American patriot.  Many impressions may come to mind at that word, “patriot”: perhaps that I am a Republican …

The Download Hits Middle Age (and It Shows)  —  The slow but steady rise of on-demand services like Spotify and Rdio coincided with a drop-off in sales for various download fomats.  —  The digital download hit middle age in 2013.  Although retirement may be far in the future …

AOL's Tim Armstrong reluctantly lets go of Patch as shareholder pressures mount  —  AOL Chief's White Whale Finally Slips His Grasp  —  Tim Armstrong, the chief executive of AOL, is finally winding down Patch, a network of local news sites that he helped invent and that AOL bought after he took over.

Nas and his manager have invested in 40 startups, and they're just getting started  —  Counting the rapper Nas among your investors undoubtedly carries cool points for any startup.  But is there much value beyond dropping a famous name?  Nas, and his manager Aymen Anthony Saleh, are working hard to prove there is.

Amazon Pushes Installment Plan Payments for Kindle Fire HDX Tablets  —  Amazon seems to be selling a lot of its newest Kindle Fire tablets*.  But it would like to sell many more.  —  So here's Jeff Bezos' newest pitch: Buy a Kindle Fire HDX tablet today, and we'll give you nine months to finish paying for it.

Google will not answer to British court over UK privacy claim  —  Search giant insists lawsuit concerning UK internet users' privacy should be brought in California where it is based  —  Google has been called “arrogant and immoral” for arguing that a privacy claim brought by internet users …

A profile of Google Maps, an integral part of the company's future location-aware products  —  Google's Road Map to Global Domination  —  Fifty-five miles and three days down the Colorado River from the put-in at Lee's Ferry, near the Utah-Arizona border, the two rafts in our little flotilla suddenly encountered a storm.

Apple Can't Ban “Rate This App” Dialogs  —  There's been a lot of discussion in the last few days about those annoying “Rate This App” dialogs in far too many iOS apps today, initiated by John Gruber, summarized nicely by Chris Gonzales, and followed up with a nice discussion between Gruber and Daniel Jalkut in The Talk Show this week.

Chromecast in 2014: an open SDK, big international plans and maybe even new devices  —  Google landed a bit of a coup with Chromecast this year, launching a device that no one saw coming but that has proven to be very popular.  Next year, the company plans to take Chromecast even further …

Despite higher ARPU generated by smartphones, carriers still complain of subsidy burden  —  Shameless Carriers  —  By Jean-Louis Gassée in mobile internet 4 Comments Tags: att, iphone, verizon … Until about two weeks ago, it seemed that our major wireless carriers had given …