The NSA is coming under attack — no not an actual attack, a public relations attack — following the claim that the agency does not collect Americans’ web usage data. The claim was contradicted by a former NSA official, who is claiming that the agency is playing a “word game” and that it does, in fact, collect data from all over the web, unrelated to intelligence operations.
[Source: Engadget]
The company’s board will meet on Sunday night to decide whether or not to approve a $1.1 billion offer for the blogging site, sources told AllThingsD. [Source: AllThingsD]
The press received invites to a product-related press event in New York on May 20. A source told Bloomberg that it is regarding updates to the photo sharing site. [Source: Bloomberg]
The streaming version of the red, DVD-dispensing kiosks will launch on Google TV in the next few weeks. Soon after, the company, which is a joint venture between Redbox and Verizon, will look to add support to Roku. [Source: GigaOm]
It may live in the shadow of Curiosity, but NASA’s older rover has driven further than any other object on the surface of another body in our solar system. It’s cruised 22.22 miles, but that’s still short of the 23 miles a Soviet Union rover drove on the moon in 1973. [Source: The Verge]
Bang With Friends (hidden slightly by the name BWF Official) has been removed from the App Store by Apple. So for the time being, iPhone users who want to hook up on the go are out of luck. [Source: CNET]
A new study looked at “the geography of Twitter” finds that, “There is a strong difference in the geographic profiles of Twitter and mainstream media and that the intensity of discourse mentioning a country does not necessarily match the intensity of discourse emanating from that country in social media.” [Source: Poynter]
It’s being reported that Sony is going to appoint Chief Executive Osamu Nagayama as the new chairman of the company. The appointment will be finalized at the next board meeting on June 20. [Source: Reuters]
Panasonic has decided to cut 90% of Sanyo’s 2,500 workforce over the next three years. In addition, it may decide to absorb the company it acquired in 2010 entirely. [Source: Reuters]
Rumors have been circulating about Yahoo’s possible buyout of Tumblr. Now CNBC has tweeted that Yahoo will hold a “product-related” event where CEO Marissa Mayer will speak. [Source: @CNBC]
At Google’s I/O 2013 today Google gave some statistics about Google Play’s revenue. One standout is that in-app purchases are rising significantly, going up 7 times as much as there were this time last year. [Source: TechCrunch]
The NBA and Twitter have partnered up to stream playoff game highlights for the rest of the post-season. The video clips will be posted on NBA Digital’s Twitter account. [Source: Bloomberg]
Yahoo Japan reportedly detected an unauthorized attempt to access its system, which led to 22 million Yahoo IDs being leaked. However, the company claims no passwords or identity data for password reset were part of the leak. [Source: Reuters]
According to data from Onavo, Yahoo’s recent push in mobile apps may be bearing fruit for the company. Yahoo Weather now has a 3% marketshare for US iPhone users, and other Yahoo apps are also doing well. [Source: GigaOm]
Messaging app MessageMe has raised $10 million in its first round of funding. The round was led by Greylock Partners’ John Lilly. [Source: VentureBeat]
New York-based BitInstant, a startup that operates a Bitcoin transaction platform, has raised $1.5 million in seed funding. Winklevoss Capital led the round. [Source: TechCrunch]
BlackBerry announced earlier this week that BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) was coming to both iOS and Android. However, it was revealed today that the messenger will only be coming to smartphones, and not to any tablets. [Source: BGR]
AOL’s local content site Patch is bringing on a new CEO, Steve Kalin, who was the COO and President of the company. In addition to this, the memo announcing his arrival also reported that 3% of the staff was being laid off. [Source: AllThingsD]
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