Techmeme: Facebook Launches “Donate” Button For Non-Profits That Also Collects Billing Info For Itself (Josh Constine/TechCrunch)

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December 16, 2013, 7:55 PM

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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 …

More: The Switch, The Register, The Verge, Daily Dot, Reuters, Business Insider, SiliconANGLE, Softpedia News, Mashable and emptywheel

Tweets: @jesselynradack, @weldpond, @qthrul and @youranonnews

Spencer Ackerman / Guardian:

NSA goes on 60 Minutes: the definitive facts behind CBS's flawed report — Our take on five things the spy agency would like the public to believe about its vast surveillance powers — The National Security Agency is telling its story like never before. Never mind whether that story is, well, true.

More: Slate and Yahoo! News. Tweets: @ggreenwald, @tonyromm, @schestowitz and @bartongellman. See also Mediagazer

Sara Morrison / The Wire:

‘60 Minutes’: NSA Good, Snowden Bad

More: Poynter, Errata Security, The Nation, CBS News, emptywheel, Computerworld and Techdirt

Tweets: @jbrodkin, @jaycstanley, @qhardy, @csoghoian, @nickbilton, @ggreenwald, @benpopper, @ggreenwald, @tonyromm and @pourmecoffee

See also Mediagazer

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 …

Guardian:

Edward Snowden says judge's ruling vindicates NSA surveillance disclosures

More: New York Times, The Register and TechCrunch. See also Mediagazer

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 …

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.

More: style is violence, AllThingsD, eWeek, TechHive, bizjournals, The Verge, GeekWire, Search Engine Land, Geek News Central, SlashGear, IntoMobile and CNET. Tweets: @dannysullivan

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 …

More: AppleInsider, Marketing Land, MacRumors, 9to5Mac, PadGadget, The Mac Observer and iPhone in Canada Blog

Tweets: @drbarnard, @jyarow, @jessicalessin and @ericfranchi

See also Mediagazer

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.

More: Reuters, The Lead with Jake Tapper, AppleInsider, MacRumors, 9to5Mac, Digits, The Verge, Mashable, MacDailyNews, Cult of Mac, iMore, NPR, Valleywag and TUAW

Tweets: @zekejmiller and @mikebeas

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 …

Tweets: @scottmaustin, @geoffreyfowler, @qthrul, @dsilverman, @nottechmeme, @waltmossberg, @ohnorosco, @blam and @joannastern. See also Mediagazer

Michael J. De La Merced / DealBook:

Avago to Buy LSI for $6.6 Billion — Avago Technologies plans to make the biggest acquisition in its history — with the help of a former owner. — Avago, a semiconductor company, said on Monday that it had agreed to buy the LSI Corporation for about $6.6 billion in cash …

More: bizjournals, VentureBeat, AllThingsD, PE Hub Blog, Bloomberg, ABC News, Tech Trader Daily, ZDNet, USA Today and Reuters

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?

More: Boing Boing, TorrentFreak, Guardian, Examiner, Ars Technica, Gizmodo, Gigaom, BetaNews, ExtremeTech, Softpedia News, TechHive, DSLreports, TechHive and internetretailer.com. Tweets: @chartier

Matthew Keys / The Desk:

Exclusive: Twitter working on “edit” feature for tweets — Twitter is working on a new feature that would allow users to edit tweets once they are published, three sources close to the project have confirmed to The Desk. — Those sources, who asked to be identified only as Twitter employees …

More: Gigaom, CNET, Ubergizmo, Daily Dot and The Next Web

Tweets: @mat and @jessicalessin

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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.

More: VatorNews, Gigaom, BGR, TechSpot, Techvibes Global News, Gigaom Research, FierceWireless, Ubergizmo, CrackBerry.com, IntoMobile, Financial Post, MobileSyrup.com, Lastest ITProPortal news, TheStreet.com and The Verge

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 …

More: Facebook, ReadWrite, CNET, Marketing Land, AllThingsD, Gigaom, Daily Dot, TechHive, VentureBeat, AllFacebook, SlashGear, The Next Web and Marketing Pilgrim. Tweets: @mikeisaac

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.

More: PC Magazine, Network World, Ars Technica, Engadget, Associated Press and News, The San Francisco …

Kevin Fitchard / Gigaom:

Sprint launches LTE in St. Louis, San Diego; wraps up 2013 with 300 4G cities — Sprint on Monday announced a new batch of 70 markets receiving its LTE network. Sprint filled in a few big holes in its metro coverage map, including San Diego and St. Louis, but mostly these rollouts …

More: CNET, iMore, DSLreports, Computerworld, Android Central, Droid Life and Engadget

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.

More: BuzzMachine, USA Today, TechCrunch, Wired, Consumerist, Businessweek, Business Insider and Gawker

Tweets: @pkafka, @peterlattman and @karenpinchin

See also Mediagazer

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 …

More: PR Newswire, Telegraph, Gigaom, 9to5Mac, BBC, TechWeekEurope UK, Daily Mail, SlashGear and Electronista

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 …

More: GeekWire, VentureBeat, Xconomy and Gigaom Research. See also Mediagazer

Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:

Crowdtilt Raises Another $23 Million From Andreessen Horowitz & Others For International Expansion, Enterprise Tools — Crowdfunding platform Crowdtilt wasn't looking to raise another round, but when their Series A lead investor Andreessen Horowitz offered to lead their B round, the team decided it would make sense given their plans.

More: AllThingsD, Venture Capital Dispatch, VatorNews, Y Combinator Posthaven and Forbes

David Streitfeld / NYT Bits:

Amazon Workers in Germany Strike Again — This post has been updated to include new reporting. — Amazon warehouse employees in Germany walked off the job again Monday even as they tried to take their case directly to the e-commerce giant's Seattle headquarters.

More: Reuters, VatorNews, ZDNet, GeekWire, Associated Press, Motherboard, GeekWire, Bloomberg, Softpedia News, The Register, Forbes and BBC

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.

More: Gigaom, Tech Trader Daily, ZDNet, StreetInsider.com and Bloomberg

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