Techmeme
December 16, 2013, 8:40 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?
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 …
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.
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 …
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.

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Devindra Hardawar / VentureBeat: