Techmeme: Amazon Kindle HDX 8.9 review: a high-end tablet at a mid-range price (Brian Heater/Engadget)

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November 7, 2013, 1:55 AM

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@twitter:

We just priced our IPO. pic.twitter.com/NWXaO4Myq0

More: Digital Trends, The Register, Newsy, CNET, Bloomberg, ReadWrite, Reuters, Forbes, SlashGear, bizjournals, ZDNet, GeekWire, CNNMoney.com, The Technology Chronicles, Ars Technica and Mashable

Tweets: @davewiner, @alex, @dealintel, @fmanjoo, @rmac18 and @ampressman

Bloomberg:

Twitter raises $1.82 billion at a valuation of $18.1 billion, pricier value than Facebook — Twitter Raises $1.82 Billion, Pricier Value Than Facebook — Twitter Inc. (TWTR) raised $1.82 billion in its initial public offering, seizing on surging investor demand to price at a more expensive valuation than rival Facebook Inc. (FB)

Peter Eavis / DealBook:

Twitter's Market Valuation Suggests Wall St. Sees Huge Growth Potential

Douglas MacMillan / Digits:

Square Exploring 2014 IPO With Banks — Technology entrepreneur Jack Dorsey is trying to pull off two high-profile initial public offerings in the span of one year. — Square Inc., the payments startup with a square credit-card reader that plugs into Apple and Android-based mobile devices …

More: San Francisco Chronicle, Inc.com, Business Insider, Electronista, MoneyBeat, bizjournals, The Verge and CNET

Tweets: @cnbcnow, @scottmaustin, @dmac1 and @danprimack

Ellis Hamburger / The Verge:

Minting Cash: how Square designed a product with no design at all — Is the best interface no interface? — Robert Andersen was feeling flustered. Square founder Jack Dorsey had asked him to design a product that was so simple, it wouldn't even have an interface. “Square Cash” would let people send money over email.

Frederic Lardinois / TechCrunch:

Microsoft Updates Office 365, Brings Real-Time Collaboration To Free Office Web Apps, Adds Yammer To All Enterprise Versions — It's been six months since Microsoft launched Office 365, its subscription-based version of Office for businesses and consumers. Over 2 million consumers now subscribe …

More: ZDNet, The Verge, Engadget, Ars Technica, The Microsoft Office Blog, PC World, The Microsoft Office Blog, SlashGear and The Microsoft Office Blog

DISH Network:

Blockbuster to End Domestic Retail, DVD By Mail Services — ENGLEWOOD, Colo.—(BUSINESS WIRE)—DISH Network Corporation (NASDAQ: DISH) today announced that its subsidiary, Blockbuster L.L.C., will end its retail and by mail DVD distribution operations by early-January 2014.

Justin Bachman / Businessweek:

Blockbuster's Death Scene Won't End the Video Rental Store

More: New York Times and ParisLemon. See also Mediagazer

Matthew Panzarino / TechCrunch:

Google Says Its Mystery Barges May Be Used As Interactive Space Where People Can Learn About Its Technology — Google has issued a statement (finally?) about its months-long mystery barge project. The barges, which are anchored in both Portland, Maine and San Francisco …

Brian Heater / Engadget:

Amazon Kindle HDX 8.9 review: a high-end tablet at a mid-range price — It's worth noting just how far Amazon has come since the early days of the Fire line. With the first generation, it was tough to see the tablet as anything more than a content-delivery device designed to keep users locked into the Kindle ecosystem.

More: TechHive, The Verge, CNET and Mashable

Will Connors / Digits:

Full Text of BlackBerry CEO Thorsten Heins Goodbye Letter — Earlier this week, BlackBerry called off a plan to go private but did make a big change in the executive suite: Chief Executive Thorsten Heins is out, to be replaced by Silicon Valley veteran John S. Chen.

More: BerryReview, The Verge, CrackBerry.com and MobileSyrup.com. Tweets: @wconnors

Ellis Hamburger / The Verge:

Facebook redesigns the Like button for the first time — When you're redesigning the Like button, which appears on over 7.5 million websites, the details count. Every pixel you change, color you swap, and drop-shadow you alter will get seen 22 billion times per day, Facebook says.

More: Facebook Developer Blog, TechCrunch, Engadget, Pocket-lint, AllFacebook, Gizmodo, Soshable, The Next Web and Newsy

Aaron Souppouris / The Verge:

Samsung admits its software needs improving, commits half of R&D workforce — Samsung is just like the Red Sox — Samsung today admitted it needs to work on software, an area it's “not as good” at as hardware. Samsung Vice Chairman & CEO Kwon Oh-hyun compares the company's software efforts …

More: Korea Real Time, PhoneArena, TechSpot, iDownloadBlog.com, Android Beat, Ubergizmo, CNET, iClarified, FierceWireless, LAPTOP Magazine, 9to5Google, ZDNet, SlashGear, DisplayBlog and The Next Web

Steven Millward / Tech in Asia:

Samsung says 100 million Galaxy S and Note phones will ship this year, coins terrible word “fonblet”

More: The Verge, TechCrunch and Gizmodo

Tweets: @phonewisdom and @darth

Dieter Bohn / The Verge:

The Nexus 5 isn't pure Android, it's pure Google — In this, the fifth year of Android's existence, we also have seen the release of the fifth Nexus phone — appropriately enough called the Nexus 5. Meanwhile, it's been two years since we saw the release of Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich …

More: Computerworld, Softpedia News, Gotta Be Mobile, Phandroid, ZDNet, PhoneArena and Droid Life. Thanks:@aashutoshvatsa

Jay Yarow / Business Insider:

Microsoft Is Making An Astonishing $2 Billion Per Year From Android Patent Royalties — Microsoft is generating $2 billion per year in revenue from Android patent royalties, says Nomura analyst Rick Sherlund in a new note on the company. — He estimates that the Android revenue has a 95% margin, so it's pretty much all profit.

More: BGR and Daring Fireball

Andy Greenberg / Forbes:

‘Silk Road 2.0’ Launches, Promising A Resurrected Black Market For The Dark Web — The Silk Road is dead. But the dark web dream lives on. — On Wednesday morning, Silk Road 2. came online, promising a new and slightly improved version of the anonymous black market for drugs …

More: All Things VICE, Ars Technica, The Verge, TechCrunch, Gizmodo, Examiner, Daily Dot, Guardian, CoinDesk, VentureBeat, VICE, Salon and Gawker

Frederic Lardinois / TechCrunch:

New Google Maps For Desktop Brings Back Pegman, Adds Waze Data And 3D Earth Tours — Google today launched an update to its new Google Maps for desktop that brings traffic data from Waze to the desktop for the first time (it's already integrated into the mobile Maps apps).

More: Google LatLong, Search Engine Land, 9to5Google, Engadget, SlashGear and The Next Web

Derrick Harris / Gigaom:

Facebook open sources its SQL-on-Hadoop engine, and the web rejoices — Facebook has open sourced Presto, the interactive SQL-on-Hadoop engine the company first discussed in June. Presto is Facebook's take on Cloudera's Impala or Google's Dremel, and it already has some big-name fans in Dropbox and Airbnb.

More: Facebook, GitHub, AllFacebook, VentureBeat, Business Insider, ITworld.com, The Register, Computerworld and The Next Web

Sarah Kliff / Wonkblog:

HealthCare.gov's head tech guy is out — A Medicare official who oversaw HealthCare.gov's botched launch will leave the federal government for the private sector, according to an e-mail sent late Tuesday to Medicare employees. — Tony Trenkle is the chief information officer at the Center …

More: New York Times, The Verge and Mashable. Tweets: @fmanjoo

Frederic Lardinois / TechCrunch:

YouTube Starts Rolling Out Its New Commenting System Based On Google+ — In September, YouTube announced that it would soon roll out a new commenting system powered by Google+. After testing it on channel discussion tabs for a few weeks, it's now starting to roll it out to all videos on the site.

More: YouTube Blog, The Verge, The Next Web, CNET, Computerworld, SlashGear, WebProNews, 9to5Google, Android Central, Music Ally, Engadget, Phandroid, Marketing Pilgrim and Google Operating System. Tweets: @dujkan. Thanks:@fredericl

Emil Protalinski / The Next Web:

Microsoft and Facebook sponsor Internet Bug Bounty program, offer cash for hacking the Internet stack — Microsoft and Facebook today jointly launched a new initiative called the Internet Bug Bounty program. In short, the two companies are looking to secure the Internet stack by rewarding anyone …

More: Engadget, Digits, Ars Technica, The Register and ZDNet. Tweets: @csoghoian

David Ruddock / Android Police:

Verizon: Google, Asus Have Opted To Wait Until Nexus 7 Gets KitKat To Certify For Use On Network, “Systems Issue” With 4.3 To Blame — We've received an official statement from Verizon on the ongoing Nexus 7 LTE / Verizon saga, a story that has gone silent in the months since Verizon promised …

More: BuzzMachine, The Verge, Droid Life, pocketnow.com and IntoMobile

Emil Protalinski / The Next Web:

Skype tweaks Desktop API plans: Chat still going away, call recording and device compatibility to stay for now — Skype today announced a change to its plans regarding the retirement of the Desktop API used by third-party developers to extend Skype functionality.

More: Skype, Pocket-lint, Ars Technica, GeekWire and WinBeta

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