Techmeme: With New Outsourcing Deal, BlackBerry Cancels Two Phones (Will Connors/Digits)

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December 24, 2013, 9:05 AM

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Barton Gellman / Washington Post:

Snowden says “the mission's already accomplished”, and he first shared concerns with numerous NSA co-workers — Edward Snowden, after months of NSA revelations, says his mission's accomplished — MOSCOW — The familiar voice on the hotel room phone did not waste words.

Sean Gallagher / Ars Technica:

The National Security Agency's oversharing problem — The National Security Operations Center at NSA, photographed in 2012—the nerve center of the NSA's “signals intelligence” monitoring. — National Security Agency — In the days after the attacks on September 11, 2001 …

Dana Wollman / Engadget:

Apple Mac Pro review (2013): small, fast and in a league of its own — It would be an understatement to say that Apple's Mac Pro workstation was getting a little long in the tooth. As of summer 2012, it was missing Apple's own Thunderbolt ports, not to mention 802.11n WiFi.

More: The Verge, 9to5Mac, ZDNet, Cult of Mac, PC Magazine, iPhone in Canada Blog, TechCrunch, MacRumors and Business Insider

Bloomberg:

Apple-Backed Rockstar Said to Hold Discussions to Sell Patents — A consortium created by Apple Inc. (AAPL), Microsoft Corp. and other technology companies to acquire $4.5 billion of patents from Nortel Networks Corp. in 2011 is holding discussions to sell a portion of those patents, according to people with knowledge of the plans.

More: CNET, Cult of Mac, iDownloadBlog.com, The Mac Observer, iPhone in Canada Blog, iPhone Hacks, AppleInsider, 9to5Mac, MacRumors and iClarified. Tweets: @jeffjohnroberts

Mark Gurman / 9to5Mac:

Apple acquired mapping firm BroadMap's talent, location-infused Evernote competitor Catch — Apple has been on a roll this year in terms of acquisitions. According to Apple CEO Tim Cook, the Cupertino firm acquired 15 companies this year, but only ten have been revealed.

Jonathan Stempel / Reuters:

Hulu must face privacy lawsuit, U.S. judge rules — (Reuters) - Hulu has failed to persuade a federal judge to dismiss a lawsuit accusing the video streaming service of illegally sharing users' viewing history with Facebook Inc and business metrics company comScore Inc.

More: SlashGear, Hollywood Reporter, Reuters, MediaPost, Electronista and The Next Web. Tweets: @samschech

BBC:

Mariposa botnet ‘mastermind’ jailed in Slovenia — A hacker accused of masterminding one of the biggest ever botnets has been sentenced to just under 5 years in jail. — Matjaz Skorjanc was arrested in 2010 after a two-year investigation into malware that had hijacked about 12.7 million computers around the world.

More: Graham Cluley

Bloomberg:

Italy Approves ‘Google Tax’ on Internet Companies — Italy's Parliament today passed a new measure on web advertising, the so-called “Google tax,” which will require Italian companies to purchase their Internet ads from locally registered companies, instead of from units based in havens such as Ireland, Luxembourg and Bermuda.

Tweets: @jessedrucker

Dan Goodin / Ars Technica:

Prestigious speaker Mikko Hypponen cancels RSA talk to protest NSA deal — Friday's report that RSA received $10 million to make an NSA-favored random number generator the default setting in its BSAFE crypto tool aren't yet creating any problems on Wall Street, with stock for parent company EMC rising 2 percent on Monday.

More: F-Secure Antivirus …, Computerworld, The Next Web, The Register, AllThingsD, CSO Blogs, Gigaom and OSDir.com

Tweets: @mikko, @panther_modern, @gcluley, @mikko, @ioerror and @uvicjames

Will Connors / Digits:

With New Outsourcing Deal, BlackBerry Cancels Two Phones — A small item from BlackBerry's earnings-related filing Friday got lost in the news of its hardware partnership with Taiwan's Foxconn Technology Group-sales of its new phones have been so bad that BlackBerry was forced to cancel the rollout of two not-yet-released phones.

More: eWeek, Inquirer, Digital Trends, T3 News, The Verge, TechnoBuffalo, IntoMobile, BerryReview, CNET, CrackBerry.com, MobileSyrup.com, BGR and SlashGear

BBC:

Royal pardon for codebreaker Alan Turing — Computer pioneer and codebreaker Alan Turing has been given a posthumous royal pardon. — It overturns his 1952 conviction for homosexuality for which he was punished by being chemically castrated. — The conviction meant he lost …

More: Guardian, The Independent, New York Times, Gigaom, TechEye, Mashable, NBCNews, rc3.org, Bloomberg, SlashGear, Associated Press, BuzzFeed, The Register, Telegraph, men, Mirror.co.uk, Scotsman and The Verge

Tweets: @stephenfry, @dawsepaul, @burnettedmond, @michaelklurfeld, @ahawkinson, @nchan, @codinghorror, @dannyshawbbc, @jamesrbuk, @karaswisher, @moulinjules and @doirekeenan

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