• NSA phone surveillance program likely unconstitutional, federal judge rules – The judge has delayed a preliminary injunction on the phone metadata collection program until the government can appeal. Also Edward Snowden says judge’s ruling vindicates NSA surveillance disclosures
• An NSA Coworker Remembers The Real Edward Snowden: ‘A Genius Among Geniuses’ – An anonymous NSA staffer who worked with Snowden tells Forbes that the whistleblower was a talented worker who was give top-level access because of his skills.
• Obama to Meet With Tech Giants Over Surveillance, Obamacare – They’ll meet today, and also discuss ways in which the feds and the tech industry can partner to boost economic growth.
• NSA surveillance critic Bruce Schneier to leave post at BT – Security guru Schneier says his departure has nothing to do with BT’s involvement in enabling British government access to user data.
• Qualcomm Insider: Apple 64-Bit Chip ‘Hit Us in the Gut’ – An anonymous Qualcomm employee says the appearance of the 64-bit A7 processor in the iPhone 5s set off an industry panic. Now, the handset makers that get chips from Qualcomm are demanding a similar processor, which Qualcomm is scrambling to make.
• Mac Pro Build-to-Order Upgrade Pricing Revealed – Apple business sales staff has begun quoting prices to customers who want customized Mac Pro units. There’s still no date for general availability.
• Apple Is Building an RTB Platform to Sell In-App Ads – Apple will let advertisers bid on placement in apps in real-time. The company is also pushing harder to sell ads for iTunes Radio.
• Testing a New Way to Watch Promoted Videos in News Feed – Facebook has been allow videos to autoplay in the news feed without audio. Now it’s going to do the same with video ads.
• Facebook No. 1 Mobile App Of 2013 But Google Has 5 Of Top 10 – New Nielsen data shows 65 percent of cell phone users have smartphones. And Tops of 2013: Digital
• Motorola loses appeal to overturn Microsoft patent ruling – The loss comes in a federal circuit court over a patent involving the syncing of calendars.
• Google steals star engineer away from Microsoft – Blaise Agüera y Arcas had worked on Microsoft’s Photosynth product and was a key developer of Bing Maps.
• Windows Phone 8.1 includes notification center and Siri-like personal assistant – These features aren’t expected to formally unveiled until April.
• Google, Facebook Push to Control Web’s Pipes – These tech giants and others have funded undersea cables and bought up so-called “dark fiber”, making them rivals to traditional telcos.
• Oculus Primed: Meet the Geniuses Who Finally Mastered Virtual Reality – A profile of the startup most likely to bring real virtual reality to the gaming masses.
• Comcast Will Spend Millions Developing And Promoting Khan Academy To Encourage Low-Income Broadband Adoption – Comcast will promote the learning centers alongside its budget tier aimed at low-income homes.
• Amazon Studios to begin shooting original series in 4K – Streaming those should really challenge your data caps.
• Sprint launches LTE in St. Louis, San Diego; wraps up 2013 with 300 4G cities
• WSJ Announces Personal Tech Reviewing Team – Apparently, it takes four people to fill Walt Mossberg’s shoes.
• Video: Steam Machine beta unboxing, gameplay, teardown and specs – Recipients of the beta Steam Machine console from Valve have posted plenty of videos online showing off the new device. Also Everything you need to know to install SteamOS on your very own computer
