Techmeme
December 16, 2013, 8:15 PM

Top News

Andy Greenberg / Forbes:
An NSA Coworker Remembers The Real Edward Snowden: ‘A Genius Among Geniuses’  —  Perhaps Edward Snowden's hoodie should have raised suspicions.  —  The black sweatshirt sold by the civil libertarian Electronic Frontier Foundation featured a parody of the National Security Agency's logo …
Sara Morrison / The Wire:
Josh Gerstein / Politico:
Judge: NSA phone program likely unconstitutional  —  A federal judge ruled Monday that the National Security Agency program which collects information on nearly all telephone calls made to, from or within the United States is likely unconstitutional.  —  U.S. District Court Judge Richard Leon found …
Nick Wingfield / NYT Bits:
Photosynth creator and architect of Bing mobile and mapping leaves Microsoft to join Google  —  A Microsoft Star Goes to Google  —  SEATTLE — Blaise Agüera y Arcas, a respected engineer and software designer at Microsoft, has left the company to join its rival Google.
Tom Warren / The Verge:
Windows Phone 8.1 includes notification center and Siri-like personal assistant  —  Microsoft is preparing to ship its Windows Phone 8.1 update with two significant changes: a notification center and a Siri-like personal assistant.  Sources familiar with Microsoft's plans have revealed …
Zeke J Miller / TIME:
Obama To Meet Tech Execs Over NSA Spying, Obamacare Website  —  President Barack Obama will meet with many of Silicon Valley's best-known executives Tuesday at the White House to discuss the troubled Healthcare.gov website and controversial surveillance programs run by the National Security Agency, the administration announced.
Garett Sloane / Adweek:
Apple pushes iTunes Radio ad sales, builds real-time bidding exchange for in-app ads  —  Apple Is Building an RTB Platform to Sell In-App Ads  —  Apple leadership has given the iAds team a new mission: always be selling iTunes Radio.  And while the sales team is busy pushing Apple radio inventory …
Brian R. Fitzgerald / Digits:
As Walt Mossberg exits, WSJ's new personal tech team includes Geoffrey Fowler and new hires Joanna Stern, Wilson Rothman, and Nathan Olivarez-Giles  —  WSJ Announces Personal Tech Reviewing Team  —  Today we are announcing expanded Wall Street Journal coverage of personal technology …
Peter Kafka / AllThingsD:
Ho Ho No!  Amazon Apologizes After Customers Lose Access to Christmas Content.  —  If you buy a digital song, book or movie, do you really own that song, book or movie?  —  Or are you just renting a collection of bits, which are never really going to be yours?
Will Connors / Wall Street Journal:
Two More Executives Leaving BlackBerry  —  EVP of Global Sales, Official in Charge of M&A Strategy to Depart in Weeks  —  TORONTO—The leadership upheaval at BlackBerry Ltd. continues under interim Chief Executive John Chen, according to people familiar with the matter.
John Coté / San Francisco Chronicle:
S.F. rolls out 3 miles of free Wi-Fi along Market Street  —  It's a bit like free citywide Wi-Fi on the installment plan.  —  After announcing a deal in July to bring free Wi-Fi to San Francisco's public parks, the city will officially roll out free wireless connectivity Monday along a main transit spine - Market Street.
Josh Constine / TechCrunch:
Facebook Launches “Donate” Button For Non-Profits That Also Collects Billing Info For Itself  —  Facebook unveiled a “Donate Now” button today to make it much easier for non-profits to take contributions.  A nice side effect for its business?  The button will collect credit card numbers …
Chris Smith / BGR:
Video: Steam Machine beta unboxing, gameplay, teardown and specs  —  Valve on Friday shipped Steam Machine beta units to 300 lucky developers, with some of them already posting details - including image galleries and hands-on videos - about the new console in town.
David Carr / New York Times:
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.
Josh Halliday / Guardian:
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 …
Peter Kafka / AllThingsD:
TV Check-In Company Viggle Buys Facebook Publisher Wetpaint  —  Viggle, the company that rewards people for watching TV shows, has bought Wetpaint, a Facebook-centric publisher that specializes in writing about TV shows.  —  The deal, which is costing Viggle $30 million in cash and stock …
Arik Hesseldahl / AllThingsD:
Violin Memory Fires CEO Basile as IPO and Quarterly Results Disappoint  —  Violin Memory, the flash-storage player, just fired CEO Don Basile (pictured) in the wake of the lousy performance of its initial public offering and quarterly results that were worse than anyone expected.
Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:
Amazon Reportedly Buys Mobile Payments Startup Gopago, Working On An ‘Ambitious’ New Project  —  Looks like Amazon may have quietly made another acquisition, and another move to expand its role in the world of mobile: Italian newspapers are reporting that the e-commerce giant has acquired Gopago …

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Devindra Hardawar / VentureBeat:

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