Media News

Click here to receive mediabistro.com's Morning Media Newsfeed via email.

First Female U.S. Astronaut, Sally Ride, Comes Out In Obituary (Buzzfeed / Politics)
Sally Ride, who died today after a 17-month battle with pancreatic cancer, was the first female U.S. astronaut in space and became friends with Tam O'Shaugnessy at the age of 12. It was not until today, however -- nearly 50 years after meeting -- that their 27-year romantic relationship was made public. The pioneering scientist was, a statement from Sally Ride Science announced, survived by "Tam O'Shaughnessy, her partner of 27 years." With that simple statement -- Ride came out.

Silicon Valley Says Step Away From the Device (NYT)
Stuart Crabb, a director in the executive offices of Facebook, naturally likes to extol the extraordinary benefits of computers and smartphones. But like a growing number of technology leaders, he offers a warning: log off once in a while, and put them down. The concern, voiced in conferences and in recent interviews with many top executives of technology companies, is that the lure of constant stimulation -- the pervasive demand of pings, rings and updates -- is creating a profound physical craving that can hurt productivity and personal interactions.

Can Skype 'Wiretap' Video Calls? (CNN)
The video calling service Skype recently made a change to how it routes calls. Hackers and bloggers are saying the changes, which push some of the video calling process onto Skype's own computers instead of onto random machines on the Internet, could help the app spy on users' calls, presumably at the request of a court or government.

More Newsfeed here...