Techmeme: Microsoft releases standalone Xbox Music and Xbox Video apps for Windows Phone 8 (Jon Fingas/Engadget)

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December 18, 2013, 5:45 PM

Top News

New York Times:

Obama Panel Recommends New Limits on N.S.A. Spying — WASHINGTON — A panel of presidential advisers who reviewed the National Security Agency's surveillance practices urged President Obama on Wednesday to end the government's systematic collection of logs of all Americans' phone calls …

Brendan Sasso / @brendansasso:

Here's the report from the NSA review group: http://www.whitehouse.gov/...

Tweets: @ggreenwald

Bloomberg:

Yahoo's Mayer Said to Warn of Internet Balkanization Over Spying

More: Washington Post, Businessweek, USA Today, The CIO Report, TheHill and Business Cloud News. Tweets: @trevortimm

Walter S. Mossberg / Wall Street Journal:

Top Products in Two Decades of Tech Reviews — Walt Mossberg on the products that changed the digital industry — Remember the Apple Newton? How about Netscape? Even if these products did not last until the present, they left their mark in the evolution of personal technology.

More: PadGadget, Daring Fireball, iPhone in Canada Blog, iPhone, Digits and The Verge

Tweets: @nycjim, @karaswisher, @digiphile, @fmanjoo, @mikeisaac, @cdixon and @robpegoraro

See also Mediagazer

The Switch:

Research shows how MacBook Webcams can spy on their users without warning — The woman was shocked when she received two nude photos of herself by e-mail. The photos had been taken over a period of several months — without her knowledge — by the built-in camera on her laptop.

More: BGR, The Verge, Engadget, Yahoo! News, Cult of Mac and Boing Boing

Darrell Etherington / TechCrunch:

Apple's New Mac Pro Goes On Sale Thursday Online And In Retail Starting At $2,999 — Apple has just announced that its new Mac Pro computer, featuring that signature ‘Darth Vader’ design, will be available for sale starting tomorrow, Thursday Dec. 19 beginning at $2,999.

Clare Jim / Reuters:

China Mobile chairman says still in talks with Apple on iPhone deal — (Reuters) - China Mobile Ltd said it's still in talks with Apple Inc to sell iPhones amid mounting industry speculation that the pair are about to announce a deal to net the technology giant hundreds of millions of potential new customers.

Liz Gannes / AllThingsD:

oDesk and Elance Merge to Create One Big Freelancer Company (But Still With Two Brands) — Elance and oDesk said today that they would merge. The companies have a lot in common — they both connect freelancers and gigs online — and they say they have a combined 10 million workers in 180 countries, with $750 million in 2013 billings.

More: NYT Bits, VatorNews, PandoDaily, oBlog, VentureBeat, The Next Web, Elance Blog, Bloomberg and Business Wire. Tweets: @om

Barb Darrow / Gigaom:

It's official: China is the wild, wild west of cloud computing — Within hours of Amazon's announcement of a new Beijing region for Amazon Web Services, IBM jumped into the mix, announcing a new relationship with 21Vianet to offer high-end SmartCloud Enterprise + cloud services from a new 21Vianet-hosted facility in Beijing.

More: IBM, The Register, ZDNet and Forbes

Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:

Amazon Raises Its Game Against Alibaba, Will Expand AWS Cloud Services To China In 2014

More: Amazon Web Services Blog, Wall Street Journal, Internet Evolution, VentureBeat, The Register, TechWeekEurope UK, Gigaom, GeekWire, ZDNet and The Next Web

Jonathan Stempel / Reuters:

Facebook, Zuckerberg, banks must face IPO lawsuit: judge — (Reuters) - A federal judge said Facebook Inc, Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg and dozens of banks must face a lawsuit accusing the social media company of misleading investors about its financial health before its $16 billion initial public offering last year.

More: AllFacebook, ZDNet, Telegraph and The Verge

Brian Krebs / Krebs on Security:

Sources: Target Investigating Data Breach — Nationwide retail giant Target is investigating a data breach potentially involving millions of customer credit and debit card records, multiple reliable sources tell KrebsOnSecurity. The sources said the breach appears to have begun …

More: The Verge

Jon Fingas / Engadget:

Microsoft releases standalone Xbox Music and Xbox Video apps for Windows Phone 8 — Microsoft appears to be taking a page from Google's approach to core software updates; it just launched standalone Xbox Music and Xbox Video apps for Windows Phone 8 users. The music app is largely …

More: The Verge, Xbox Wire, The Verge, PC World, Nokia Conversations, LiveSide.net, The Windows Blog, WebProNews, Windows Phone Central, Windows Phone Central, The Next Web, Wpxbox, Gigaom, Softpedia News, Gotta Be Mobile, WindowsObserver.com and Electronista

Alex Hern / Guardian:

Bitcoin plummets as China's largest exchange blocks new deposits — The digital cryptocurrency has lost almost 50% of its value overnight after BTC China said it could no longer accept deposits in the Chinese currency following a crackdown on third-party payment firms

More: Charlie's Diary, New York Times, CryptoJunky, CoinDesk, Ars Technica, Computerworld, TechCrunch, Tech in Asia, InfoWorld, The Switch, VentureBeat, Mashable, The Next Web, SlashGear, Daily Dot, Daily Mail and Business Insider

Tweets: @taylorlorenz, @jwherrman and @doublejake

Kevin C. Tofel / Gigaom:

In prep for an early 2014 launch, devs can access Pebble's smartwatch app store — With nearly 200,000 Pebble smartwatches on wrists, it's about time for a dedicated app store. The “Pebble appstore” — that's the branded name — is planned for early 2014, and on Wednesday, Pebble opened up early access for developers to prepare.

More: Pebble, developer.getpebble.com, The Verge, Ars Technica, iMore, 9to5Google, 9to5Mac, LAPTOP Magazine, TechCrunch, Engadget, BGR, TUAW and App Advice

Dan Goodin / Ars Technica:

Use of Tor helped FBI ID suspect in bomb hoax case — It's true that the Tor anonymity service helps people cover their tracks on the Internet. But when it's not used carefully, it can be the very thing that tips off the people the user wants to evade, as was demonstrated in a federal investigation earlier this week.

More: On The Media, The Switch, Business Insider, Schneier on Security, Forbes, ZDNet, NBCNews, The Verge and Daily Dot

Matthew Panzarino / TechCrunch:

‘Hatching Twitter’ Book Optioned For TV Show Development By Lionsgate — New York Times' columnist Nick Bilton's book Hatching Twitter: A True Story of Money, Power, Friendship, and Betrayal, on the dramatic origins of Twitter, has been optioned by Lionsgate for production as a TV show.

More: Nick Bilton, Hollywood Reporter, CNET, Gigaom, The Verge, The Next Web, Mashable and WebProNews. Tweets: @nickbilton. See also Mediagazer

Larry Dignan / ZDNet:

Oracle's Q2 better than expected; Hardware sales stabilize — Summary: The bleeding in Oracle's hardware business appears to have stopped and execs tout cloud bookings momentum. — Oracle's second quarter results were better than expected and the company said software as a service bookings growth was 35 percent.

More: Tech Trader Daily, Digits, Business Insider, Reuters and Wall Street Journal

Liz Gannes / AllThingsD:

Big Money for Mobile Crowdsourced Transit App Moovit, With Sequoia Leading $28M Round — The notion that public transportation is a large and growing global opportunity for a tech company might seem a bit of a strange one. But, as Moovit co-founder and CEO Nir Erez sees it …

More: VentureBeat, VatorNews, Gigaom, PandoDaily, PE Hub Blog, Business Insider, The Next Web and Skift. Tweets: @sequoia_capital

Thad Starner / Wired:

Wearables Pioneer: How Wearing Tech on Our Bodies Actually Helps It Get Out of Our Way — One of the rallying cries for Google Glass is to make technology that's there when you need it, gone when you don't. It is intended to help people get on with their lives, without focusing on the technology.

More: Gigaom

Ben Mutzabaugh / USA Today:

Delta CEO makes it clear: No voice calls on our flights — Delta Air Lines CEO Richard Anderson wants to be clear: His airline will not allow in-flight voice calls even if regulators allow it. — Anderson spelled out Delta's opposition to in-flight calls in a Wednesday memo to employees.

More: Delta Air Lines Newsroom, Engadget, DSLreports, Wall Street Journal, GeekWire, PC World, ZDNet, Business Insider, Mashable, Android Central and The Verge

Andy Greenberg / Forbes:

Google Glass Face Recognition App Coming This Month, Whether Google Likes It Or Not — Since Google Glass first appeared, its potential for facial recognition has been seen either as a privacy nightmare or as one of the headset's first truly intriguing uses. Google has declared itself in the first camp.

More: TechCrunch and TechHive

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