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 r...
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. —...
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...
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.
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 reveal...
Avago to Buy LSI for $6.6 Billion
Avago Technologies plans to make the biggest acquisition in its history — with the help of a former owner. — Avago, a semiconductor company, said on Monday that it had agreed to buy the LSI Corporat...
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 i...
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 co...
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 …
Oculus Primed: Meet the Geniuses Who Finally Mastered Virtual Reality
In May 2012, a programmer named John Carmack—who, as a cofounder of id Software and the man behind games like Doom and Wolfenstein 3D, is widely seen as the father of 3D gaming—tweeted a picture of wh...
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 ...
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 …
Facebook No. 1 Mobile App Of 2013 But Google Has 5 Of Top 10
Nielsen published a range of year-end data today. Among other things the measurement firm said that 65 percent of American cell phone users now own smartphones. By comparison comScore says the figur...
AOL's Tim Armstrong reluctantly lets go of Patch as shareholder pressures mount
AOL Chief's White Whale Finally Slips His Grasp — Tim Armstrong, the chief executive of AOL, is finally winding down Patch, a network of local news sites that he helped invent and that AOL bought af...
NSA goes on 60 Minutes: the definitive facts behind CBS's flawed report
Our take on five things the spy agency would like the public to believe about its vast surveillance powers — The National Security Agency is telling its story like never before. Never mind whether ...
Google will not answer to British court over UK privacy claim
Search giant insists lawsuit concerning UK internet users' privacy should be brought in California where it is based — Google has been called “arrogant and immoral” for arguing that a privacy claim ...
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...
The Download Hits Middle Age (and It Shows)
The slow but steady rise of on-demand services like Spotify and Rdio coincided with a drop-off in sales for various download fomats. — The digital download hit middle age in 2013. Although retireme...
Nas and his manager have invested in 40 startups, and they're just getting started
Counting the rapper Nas among your investors undoubtedly carries cool points for any startup. But is there much value beyond dropping a famous name? Nas, and his manager Aymen Anthony Saleh, are wor...
Video: Steam Machine beta unboxing, gameplay, teardown and specs
Valve on Friday shipped Steam Machine beta units to 300 lucky developers, with some of them already posting details - including image galleries and hands-on videos - about the new console in town.
Despite higher ARPU generated by smartphones, carriers still complain of subsidy burden
Shameless Carriers — By Jean-Louis Gassée in mobile internet 4 Comments Tags: att, iphone, verizon … Until about two weeks ago, it seemed that our major wireless carriers had given …
Everything you need to know about the YouTube copyright crisis and why you should care
At the center of this week's confusing thicket of news and outrage surrounding YouTube video game copyright sweep is a very simple issue. — It's about freedom-of expression and the ability of critic...
Amazon Strikers Take Their Fight to Seattle
Amazon employees in Germany have been battling the retailer with a series of wildcat strikes, most recently at the end of November. These protests, involving hundreds of Amazon workers at two fulfill...
Tech Companies Press for a Better Retail Experience
SEATTLE — Looking for a holiday gift? Come on in. Relax. Take a seat in the leather chair. — Welcome to today's electronics store, a place that is now a little like entering a playground crossed ...