Techmeme
August 15, 2015, 3:15 PM

Top News

ProPublica:
NSA spying relies on AT&T's “extreme willingness to help” tap Internet communications, say newly-disclosed Snowden documents  —  NSA Spying Relies on AT&T's ‘Extreme Willingness to Help’  —  by Julia Angwin and Jeff Larson, ProPublica; Charlie Savage and James Risen …
New York Times:
Amazon tests how far to push white-collar workers to achieve its ever-expanding ambitions, creating a bruising, data-driven workplace  —  Inside Amazon: Wrestling Big Ideas in a Bruising Workplace  —  SEATTLE — On Monday mornings, fresh recruits line up for an orientation intended to catapult …
Alyson Shontell / Business Insider:
Sources: Comcast will partner with publishers like Vox, Buzzfeed, others to launch Watchable, a major online video platform to rival Facebook and YouTube  —  Comcast is about to launch a major video platform called Watchable to rival Facebook and Google  —  Comcast is preparing to launch …
Emil Protalinski / VentureBeat:
Kaspersky CEO: False positives affected us too, Reuters report does not contain ‘a shred of evidence’  —  Reuters published a story today claiming security firm Kaspersky Lab tried to damage rivals (including Microsoft, AVG, and Avast) by tricking their antivirus software programs …
Joseph Menn / Reuters:
Mark Harris / Guardian:
Documents show Apple has talked with GoMentum Station, a high-security road testing facility for autonomous and connected vehicles  —  Documents confirm Apple is building self-driving car  —  Exclusive: Correspondence obtained by the Guardian shows Project Titan is further along …
Howard Mintz / Mercury News:
US Court of Appeals rejects Samsung's request for rehearing of patent case against Apple  —  Apple v. Samsung: court rejects Samsung's latest appeal  —  A federal appeals court Thursday refused to re-examine Samsung's appeal of a stinging 2012 jury verdict that found the tech giant violated Apple's iPhone patents.
Ron Lieber / New York Times:
Alleged sexual assault by Airbnb host highlights need for the company to improve safety policies  —  Airbnb Horror Story Points to Need for Precautions  —  Early in the evening of July 4, Micaela Giles's mobile phone started sounding alerts, and a series of messages straight out of a horror movie began scrolling down her screen.
Klint Finley / Wired:
Swiss researchers working to make two-factor authentication easier with Sound-Proof, which replaces numerical codes with digital signatures from ambient sound  —  The Noise Around You Could Strengthen Your Passwords  —  Last year after nude photos apparently stolen from various celebrities …
Fred O'Connor / PCWorld:
Puerto Rico is out as Project Ara's first test market, but Google isn't nixing the program  —  Google has scrapped plans to use Puerto Rico as the initial test market for its Project Ara modular-smartphone initiative, but interested developers and DIYers need not despair.
Cody Toombs / Android Police:
Google Play Services v7.8 Completes Rollout, Adds New Mobile Vision API With Face Detection And Barcode Reader, Improves Cloud Messaging  —  Google Play Services v7.8 Completes Rollout, Adds New Mobile Vision API With Face Detection And Barcode Reader, Improves Cloud Messaging With Priority And Localization

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Shan Wang / Nieman Lab: