Facebook, Microsoft release number of data requests from government Facebook and Microsoft for the first time on Friday said they had gotten data requests from the government under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, but they added that the U.S. government did not permit them to provide specific figures. Instead, the government allowed the companies to release only broad numbers with no breakdowns. Over the last six months of 2012, Facebook said, it had received as many as 10,000 requests from local, state and federal agencies, which impacted as many as 19,000 accounts. Facebook has 1.1 billion accounts worldwide. Microsoft said that it received between 6,000 and 7,000 similar requests, affecting as many as 32,000 accounts. The Washington Post
Encrypted e-mail: How much annoyance will you tolerate to keep the NSA away? In an age of smartphones and social networking, e-mail may strike many as quaint. But it remains the vehicle that millions of people use every day to send racy love letters, confidential business plans, and other communications both sender and receiver want to keep private. Following last week's revelations of a secret program that gives the National Security Agency (NSA) access to some e-mails sent over Gmail, Hotmail, and other services -- and years after it emerged that the NSA had gained access to full fiber-optic taps of raw Internet traffic -- you may be wondering what you can do to keep your messages under wraps. Ars Technica
Intel removes modest 'free' overclocking from standard Haswell CPUs Intel's K-series processors offer fully unlocked multipliers that place few restrictions on overclocking. With Sandy Bridge and its Ivy Bridge successor, Intel has also allowed limited overclocking on regular Core i5/i7 CPUs that aren't part of the K series. On those regular-model chips, one may increase the maximum Turbo multipliers by four "bins" above stock, effectively delivering up to a 400MHz overclock. That boost won't get you into the near-5GHz territory attainable with fully unlocked versions, but it's a nice freebie that most CPUs and coolers can tolerate. The Tech Report
After profits, defense firm faces pitfalls of cybersecurity When the United Arab Emirates wanted to create its own version of the National Security Agency, it turned to Booz Allen Hamilton to replicate the world’s largest and most powerful spy agency in the sands of Abu Dhabi. It was a natural choice: The chief architect of Booz Allen’s cyberstrategy is Mike McConnell, who once led the N.S.A. and pushed the United States into a new era of big data espionage. It was Mr. McConnell who won the blessing of the American intelligence agencies to bolster the Persian Gulf sheikdom, which helps track the Iranians. The NY Times
The trajectory of television -- starting with a big history of the small screen Though it's a relatively recent invention, television is a pillar of Western -- and even global -- culture. Even if you're that one guy who makes it a point to mention that you don't watch or even own a television, your life has inevitably been shaped by the small screen to some degree. Popular culture has its moments of being swept up in the comedies and dramas of the airwaves, and television (cable news in particular) indelibly established in the minds of the world that instant access to breaking news on faraway continents is a normal thing. Ars Technica
Intel 2014 Haswell-E to pack 8 cores, DDR4, X99 PCH and more Intel’s next-generation performance oriented platform, Haswell-E is scheduled to make its debut in the 2H of 2014. The world semiconductor leader will be stepping up its game a notch and offer an 8 core desktop CPU for the first time (the biggest leap since the introduction of 6 core CPUs a couple of years back). Perhaps this sudden urge to deliver 8 cores comes with the fact that Haswell will not be succeeded by Broadwell 14nm Tick in 2014 (I’m sorry to break all your hearts on this). Instead, we’ll be treated to a Haswell refresh... VR-Zone
The secret war Inside Fort Meade, Maryland, a top-secret city bustles. Tens of thousands of people move through more than 50 buildings -- the city has its own post office, fire department, and police force. But as if designed by Kafka, it sits among a forest of trees, surrounded by electrified fences and heavily armed guards, protected by antitank barriers, monitored by sensitive motion detectors, and watched by rotating cameras. To block any telltale electromagnetic signals from escaping, the inner walls of the buildings are wrapped in protective copper shielding and the one-way windows are embedded with a fine copper mesh. Wired
Change the world In 1978, the year that I graduated from high school, in Palo Alto, the name Silicon Valley was not in use beyond a small group of tech cognoscenti. Apple Computer had incorporated the previous year, releasing the first popular personal computer, the Apple II. The major technology companies made electronics hardware, and on the way to school I rode my bike through the Stanford Industrial Park, past the offices of Hewlett-Packard, Varian, and Xerox parc. The neighborhoods of the Santa Clara Valley were dotted with cheap, modern, one-story houses -- called Eichlers, after the builder Joseph Eichler -- with glass walls, open floor plans, and flat-roofed carports. The New Yorker
How Linux Foundation runs its virtual office The Linux Foundation, the nonprofit that manages much of the day-to-day business behind the open source operating system, maintains a small office in San Francisco. Stop by, however, and you probably won't find anyone there. That's because the organization's 30-something employees work virtually. It's like the anti-Yahoo: Just about everyone, including Linux kernel creator Linus Torvalds, works from home. InformationWeek
India to send world's last telegram. Stop. At the Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL), India's state-owned telecom company, a message emerges from a dot matrix printer addressing a soldier's Army unit in Delhi. "GRANDMOTHER SERIOUS. 15 DAYS LEAVE EXTENSION," it reads. It's one of about 5,000 such missives still being sent every day by telegram -- a format favored for its "sense of urgency and authenticity," explains a BSNL official. The CS Monitor
Build your own DIY Digital Stabilized Camera Gimbal Videographer Tom Antos created this advanced DIY camera stabilizer which he demonstrates in this video. Although this surly isn’t as sophisticated as the MōVI M10 handheld 3-axis digital stabilized camera gimbal, its still quite impressive and only cost a few hundred dollars if you feel like building it yourself. LensVid
CPUID's CPU-Z arrives on Android via Google Play About three years ago, I remember one of the biggest problems I had while sorting out phones was figuring out what SoCs were inside them. Manufacturers weren't yet open to disclosing what silicon was inside, and there wasn't any SoC messaging or branding from any of the numerous silicon vendors. There was a pervasive sense of contentedness everywhere you turned with the current model where what was inside a handset was largely a black box. AnandTech
Secret to prism program: even bigger data seizure In the months and early years after 9/11, FBI agents began showing up at Microsoft Corp. more frequently than before, armed with court orders demanding information on customers. Around the world, government spies and eavesdroppers were tracking the email and Internet addresses used by suspected terrorists. Often, those trails led to the world's largest software company and, at the time, largest email provider. The Associated Press
Firm bets solar phone screens will be the answer to slow-moving battery tech Regular readers of ExtremeTech know that battery tech always seems to be standing just at the base of a mountain of progress, but can never quite start the climb. There are always new advancements, but never ones that seem like they’ll be put into consumer products anytime soon. So, it may be time to look for alternative power sources for mobile devices, perhaps a solar-powered smartphone screen. ExtremeTech
Sources: Microsoft is paying developers up to $100,000 to write Windows Phone 8 apps Microsoft openly pays developers up front for writing Windows Phone 8 apps. The company right now has an offer to pay $100 for any app that gets published in the Windows store by the end of the month. But there's a cap: up to $2,000 per developer. Word is that Microsoft is offering some developers way more than that, as much $100,000 to bring their apps to Windows Phone 8. Business Insider
What is a next-gen game? This November, the Xbox 360 will be eight years old. The PlayStation 3 will be seven. At the 2013 Electronic Entertainment Expo, we finally got acquainted with their successors. The new Xbox One and PlayStation 4 represent a new generation of consoles, the fabled "next generation," and with them comes the tantalizing possibility of "next-gen" games. Why else would we spend upwards of $399 on a new game console? The Verge
