New Rule: Congressmen Who Thought Iraq Had WMDs Can’t Talk About NSA Effectiveness

Senator Saxby Chambliss is either a blind war hawk or is deliberately misleading the public. Last week, after the National Security Agency had intercepted an al-Qaida conference call plotting attacks against U.S. embassies, Chambliss claimed it was proof that mass surveillance programs were effective. But the AP reports that the NSA’s controversial...

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Harry Houdini, Lock Picking, And Entrepreneurship

Editor’s Note: Semil Shah is a contributor to TechCrunch. You can follow him on Twitter at @semil.It’s summer here in Silicon Valley, and for my column this month, I’ll try to finally polish and publish some of the old posts that have been collecting dust in my “drafts” folder. Usually, I try to make the column timely, but not this time. Almost...

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30 New Franchises

Editor’s note: Scott Weiss is a partner at Andreessen Horowitz and the former co-founder and CEO of IronPort Systems, which was acquired by Cisco in 2007. He works with companies like Lyft, Dwolla, Platfora, App.net and Quirky. Follow him on his blog or on Twitter @W_ScottWeiss. There is a perfect storm of three distinct disruptive forces that...

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E-Cig Companies Will Never Promise To Help You Quit Smoking

Two or three years ago, e-cigarattes were exotic. These strange sticks, their ends LED-lit and their owners expelling odorless smoke – “It’s vapor!” – would look as futuristic as a Replicant’s food injector. They gave the smoker nebulous powers, namely the ability to smoke on a plane, and they were expensive and hard to find.Now, they’re everywhere....

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Sony’s Xperia Z Ultra is a powerful phone that’s too large for your hand

Mobile phones started off their life as rather large devices, but the industry worked hard to miniaturize them, and after years and years of progress, managed to produce tiny, powerful phones. Now, as smartphones take over the mobile device industry, their screens become larger, increasing the size of the devices once again. At the moment, this...

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$500 PS4 and PS Vita bundle would return PlayStation brand to dominance

Sony is betting big on cloud gaming for this upcoming console generation. From Gaikai streaming to internet-enabled remote play of PS4 games, Sony is primed to set the PS4 apart from the competition by utilizing the PlayStation Vita. While the Tokyo company’s mobile gaming sales haven’t been setting the world on fire, a rumored PS4 and Vita bundle...

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The Pirate Bay Celebrates Its 10th Birthday By Launching A Tor-Based Anti-Censorship Browser

The Pirate Bay (TPB), the torrent site that really doesn’t need an introduction anymore, celebrates its 10th birthday today. To mark the day, TPB launched PirateBrowser, “a bundle package of the Tor client (Vidalia), Firefox Portable browser (with foxyproxy addon).”The package, the group says, includes “some custom configs that allows you to circumvent...

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Casio Updates G-Shock Bluetooth Line With Added Functionality

Don’t call it a smart watch. The Casio GB line appeared in 2011 with little fanfare – it was up against devices like the Pebble in the public imagination and so an underpowered smartwatch was of little interest. However, Casio has updated their Bluetooth line with the GB-6900B And GB-X6900B, improved versions of their iconic G-Shock watches that...

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Apple Will Reportedly Unveil The Next iPhone On September 10

It’s about time for a new iPhone, and with the rumors about an iPhone 5S and maybe even a cheaper version getting stronger, AllThingsD now reports that the next iPhone will launch on September 10. Apple introduced the iPhone 5 on September 12, 2012, so there is a good chance AllThingsD’s sources are correct, though we haven’t heard anything from...

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StartupEquality.org: Remove Restrictions On Gay Investors

Editor’s note: Dan Shapiro served as the CEO of Google Comparison Inc., Sparkbuy, and Ontela. He’s the author of a forthcoming O’Reilly book on startup CEOs and a lucky dad. Follow him on Twitter @danshapiro.StartupEquality.org has a simple mission, which is to get same-sex couples the same rights to invest in startup companies as heterosexual...

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