Dropbox’s dreams and hiding from the NSA: top stories you should read

Take some cloud storage, throw in a bit of paranoia and a self driving car and what do you get? Some of the top tech stories featured in this week’s round up.

Ok, so it’s a little bit more than that — we also take a look at Pandora’s PR problem and how London’s Tech City got off the ground:

Dropbox blows up the box, connecting every app, file, and device

It started out as a simple cloud storage offering that meant you no longer had to email yourself stuff — but now Dropbox is becoming much more. Wired speaks to the Dropbox team about their focus on real-time file syncing, making data from apps less dependent on Android or iOS-imposed boxes and the quest for a cross-platform utopia.

So, you want to hide from the NSA? Your guide to the nearly impossible

In the wake of Edward Snowden’s revelations that the NSA is quite interested in what you get up to online (and has a method for getting your favourite tech sites to feed it that information), a trip to Gmail or Facebook has taken on a slightly different meaning. But how could you avoid all that snooping? With difficulty. The Atlantic Wire details the “deeply paranoid and complex life you must live in order to assure that the government leaves you alone.”

Goodbye Mr Silva — A brief history of East London’s ‘Tech City’

From the early startups making a global impact to the current vibrant tech scene in and around England’s capital, TechCrunch gives an interesting overview into how East London’s Tech City became a hub for technology and innovation, helped by entrepreneurs and government officials alike.

How driverless cars could reshape cities

As Google forges ahead with its plan for self-driving cars and motor manufacturers step up the development of autonomous vehicles, the New York Times considers how entire cities could be impacted by cars that wouldn’t need to be parked for lengths of time by their owners, how much money, petrol and carbon emissions could be saved and if traffic jams will become less of a daily pain.

Pandora’s PR problem: how the web radio titan became music’s big villain

Their problems turning a profit are well known, and they’ve even been accused of tricking artists into agreeing to lower royalties by Pink Floyd — but is internet radio service Pandora the bad guy or just the victim of a few missteps? Why has Spotify got the green light from artists, while Pandora’s quest to stop paying high fees for its music has been met with outrage?