Techmeme
July 9, 2014, 1:30 PM

Top News

First Look Media:
NSA and FBI covertly monitored emails of several Muslim-Americans, including a political candidate and civil rights activists  —  Meet the Muslim-American Leaders the FBI and NSA Have Been Spying On  —  The National Security Agency and FBI have covertly monitored the emails of prominent Muslim-Americans …
Sarah Frier / Bloomberg:
High school interns hired by Silicon Valley's tech giants can make more than US average income  —  Silicon Valley's Talent Grab Spawns High-School Interns  —  Facebook Inc. (FB) rolled out the red carpet for Michael Sayman when the social network hired him for a job that started last month …
Alistair Barr / Wall Street Journal:
Google Cloud now offering 2TB of free storage for a year to compete with Amazon and Microsoft  —  With Google Offer, Cloud Storage Gets Closer to Free  —  Google Wednesday fired another shot in the price wars for cloud-computing services, offering businesses more free storage in an effort …
More: eWeek and 9to5Google
Darrell Etherington / TechCrunch:
Google Adds Android Smartphone And Tablet Screen Mirroring To Chromecast  —  Google has released a feature for Chromecast announced at Google I/O this year - Android device screen mirroring.  The update today brings the much-desired feature to all Chromecast-capable devices and makes Google Cast …
Faryaab S. / SamMobile:
Gear VR, Samsung's virtual reality headset, to launch at IFA 2014 early September  —  Exclusive: Samsung's virtual reality headset will be called Gear VR, launch at IFA 2014  —  A month ago, Engadget exclusively reported on Samsung's upcoming VR device, which is being developed in collaboration with Facebook's Oculus Rift.
Mark Spoonauer / LAPTOP Magazine:
Sony Nabs Verizon As Partner, Xperia Z2 First Exclusive  —  With its very light and waterproof design, the Sony Xperia Z2 is one of the best iPad Air alternatives, but most people don't know it exists.  Verizon hopes to change that by offering an exclusive version of the tablet with 4G LTE …
Nathan Ingraham / The Verge:
Adidas wants to put a personal trainer on your wrist with the Fit Smart  —  Nike might be planning to abandon its Fuelband hardware, but Adidas is taking the opposite path with the introduction of its new Fit Smart fitness tracking device.  It's a wrist-worn tracker that looks similar …
BBC:
Apple suffers Siri patent case defeat in China  —  Apple has failed in its attempt to get a Chinese company's voice-recognition patent ruled invalid.  —  The verdict threatens Apple's ability to offer its voice-controlled virtual assistant, Siri, in the country.
Andy Greenberg / Wired:
A profile of ex-Googler Morgan Marquis-Boire, now director of security at First Look Media  —  The Ex-Google Hacker Taking on the World's Spy Agencies  —  During his last six years working as an elite security researcher for Google, the hacker known as Morgan Mayhem spent his nights …
Seth Rosenblatt / CNET:
Android's phone wiping fails to delete personal data  —  Prepping an older phone for resale or as a donation?  A study shows you'll need more than the default data wipe tools to eliminate personal data and those embarrassing selfies.
Arik Hesseldahl / Re/code:
ServiceNow to Acquire Israel's Neebula for $100 Million  —  ServiceNow, the cloud software company that helps other companies automate their corporate IT environments, will pay $100 million in cash to acquire Neebula, an Israeli startup.  —  Neebula's speciality is a system for discovering …
More: RTTNews
Adrian Kingsley-Hughes / ZDNet:
Quarterly tablet PC shipments to fall for the first time ever  —  Summary: For the past several years, tablet PCs and smartphones have been the primary growth driver in the smart device category, but that cash cow might be running dry.  —  Adrian Kingsley-Hughes
Marcus Wohlsen / Wired:
UberX now 20% cheaper in NYC, undercutting taxis, and operating at a loss to make itself too big to ban  —  Uber's Brilliant Strategy to Make Itself Too Big to Ban  —  The question of how Uber would spend its billion-dollar investment was never really much of a riddle.
Anthony Ha / TechCrunch:
137 Ventures Raises $137M Second Fund To Offer Early Liquidity To Startup Execs  —  Secondary investment firm 137 Ventures is announcing that it has raised a $137 million new fund.  (That number has to be intentional, right?)  —  When the firm was founded in 2010, it was pitched as an alternative …
Blake Stimac / TechHive:
New custom ROM for LG G Watch promises better performance and battery life  —  While Android Wear hardware is only just now beginning to ship en masse, development looks to be coming along swimmingly.  New apps with Android Wear support are popping up quickly, but it's surprising …
Ben Thompson / stratechery:
Samsung's basic problem: no software-based differentiation, competing on price is not enough  —  Smartphone Truths and Samsung's Inevitable Decline  —  For me, anyway, the most surprising thing about Samsung's disappointing earnings was just how surprised many folks seemed to be.
Ryan Faas / CITEworld:
What businesses need to know about Android Work  —  Google announced its Android Work program during its developer conference in June.  The program, which will launch as part of Android L this fall, marks a turning point for Android in business.  Until now, there haven't been true across …
More: Android PoliceTweets: @mattrosoff
Daniel Cooper / Engadget:
UK joins the US in banning uncharged devices from flights  —  A few days ago, the US Government announced that all airline passengers with personal electronics would be required to turn their gadgets on in order to demonstrate that they work.  Now, the Department for Transport has announced …
Jeremy Kirk / PC World:
Facebook kills ‘Lecpetex’ botnet that turned 250k PCs into Litecoin-mining zombies  —  Facebook said police in Greece made two arrests last week in connection with a little-known spamming botnet called “Lecpetex,” which used hacked computers to mine the Litecoin virtual currency.

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More News

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