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November 19, 2013, 8:15 PM

Top News

Todd Bishop / GeekWire:

In final shareholder speech, Ballmer defends Bing and Xbox as key parts of Microsoft — Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer just finished speaking at the company's annual shareholder meeting — his final one as the company's leader — and while he didn't directly address calls for the company …

More: Search Blog, The Verge, GeekWire, Search Engine Land, NYT Bits, Digits, VentureBeat, Forbes, Computerworld, BetaNews, WebProNews, The Next Web, BGR and WinBeta. Thanks:@johnhcook

Kara Swisher / AllThingsD:

“Caretaker” Mulally as CEO Remains Inside Bet at Microsoft, but Will a Dark Horse Emerge? — If you talk to any high-ranking person inside Microsoft these days, a pretty strong scenario is trumping all others for who will take over from outgoing CEO Steve Ballmer.

More: BGR, CITEworld, GeekWire, CNET, Gigaom and Forbes

Tom Warren / The Verge:

Nokia shareholders approve Microsoft deal — Nokia shareholders have approved a deal allowing Microsoft to purchase the Finnish smartphone maker's Devices and Services unit. 99.7 percent of shareholders who participated in the vote agreed with the Microsoft sale, representing around four-fifths …

John Herrman / BuzzFeed:

The Great Snapchat Mirage — We don't know a single useful number about the hottest company in tech . Why Snapchat may be much smaller than it sounds. — Bloomberg/Bloomberg via Getty Images — Every few months, since late 2012, Snapchat has released a new number to the public.

Tweets: @amir, @jwherrman, @joshconstine, @clairecm, @kashhill, @percival, @jennydeluxe, @antderosa, @cwarzel and @besvinick. Thanks:@mattlynley

Lance Whitney / CNET:

Snapchat says it's delivering over 400M snaps daily while Facebook sees 350M photo uploads daily — Snapchat surpasses Facebook in photo uploads — Snapchat users are snapping past their Facebook counterparts when it comes to uploading photos. — A Snapchat represenative told CNET …

More: TechCrunch, BGR, Digital Trends, Digits, Forbes, TechSpot and Mashable

Tweets: @panzer, @evelynrusli, @fmanjoo, @fmanjoo and @drew

Brian X. Chen / NYT Bits:

Carriers Reject a ‘Kill Switch’ For Preventing Cellphone Theft — Lawmakers in San Francisco and New York are pushing cellphone makers to adopt a so-called kill switch that would allow users to deactivate their phone remotely, discouraging criminals from stealing phones. But the cellphone carriers are not on board.

More: TechCrunch, Gizmodo, PC Magazine, Computerworld, AppleInsider, Business Insider, Global Nerdy, The Verge, Engadget, Ubergizmo, StrictlyVC and Electronista. Tweets: @rachaelmyrow

Dan Primack / Fortune:

Exclusive: Tim Draper leaving DFJ — Venture capitalist Tim Draper is moving on from the Silicon Valley firm he created 28 years ago. — FORTUNE — Tim Draper is leaving Draper Fisher Jurvetson, the Silicon Valley venture capital firm he founded in 1985.

More: Mercury News, Digits, AllThingsD and bizjournals. Tweets: @megan

Arik Hesseldahl / AllThingsD:

Sony's PlayStation 4 Costs $381 to Build — Only $18 Under Retail Price — In Teardown — When PlayStation 3 was first released by electronics giant Sony in 2006, it was sold at a loss with the hope of making money back on individual games. — That's pretty close to what Sony is doing again with the PS4 …

More: Co.Design, Ars Technica, Examiner, Playstation 4, Geek.com, TechSpot, The Register, GamePolitics blogs, Gotta Be Mobile and CNET

Kaylene Hong / The Next Web:

Twitter backtracks and removes option to let users receive direct messages from any follower — Last month, Twitter quietly rolled out a new feature to give users the choice to receive private messages from any of their followers, but that option has now been removed.

More: AllTwitter, TechnoBuffalo, Engadget, Electronista, Gigaom, iDownloadBlog.com, TechHive, iPhone, Mashable, Cult of Mac and Softpedia News. Tweets: @mathewi. See also Mediagazer

Mike Isaac / AllThingsD:

Twitter Gets Experimental — And Not Everyone Loves It

See also Mediagazer

Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:

Music Streaming Startup Rdio Lays Off Staff To 'Improve Cost Structure And Ensure A Scalable Business" — The music streaming business can be tough, with market leaders like Spotify growing like weeds but still loss-making. Today, some bad news from competitor Rdio, the music streaming service startup …

More: Gigaom and The Verge. See also Mediagazer

DoctorBeet:

LG Smart TVs logging USB filenames and viewing info to LG servers — Earlier this month I discovered that my new LG Smart TV was displaying ads on the Smart landing screen. — After some investigation, I found a rather creepy corporate video advertising their data collection practices to potential advertisers.

More: Ars Technica, HotHardware.com News, Geek.com and Network World

Tweets: @troyhunt and @tomscott

Colleen Taylor / TechCrunch:

Hightail, The File-Sharing Service Formerly Called YouSendIt, Lands $34 Million In New Funding — Hightail, the file-sharing service formerly known as YouSendIt, is announcing today that it has raised $34 million in new funding. The round, which serves as Hightail's Series E, was led by hard drive maker Western Digital.

More: Fortune, AllThingsD, VentureBeat and VatorNews. Thanks:@sidharthdassani

Nathan Ingraham / The Verge:

Google releases ‘sneak peek’ of Glass app development kit — Back at SXSW, Google announced the Glass Mirror API — the first step in allowing developers to build apps, or “Glassware” for its wearable computing device. Now, developers will have a whole new set of tools at their disposal: the long-awaited Glass Development Kit (GDK).

More: VatorNews, Ars Technica, The Register, VentureBeat, Glass Almanac, Engadget, 9to5Google, Marketing Land, TechCrunch, Wired, AllThingsD and IFTTT

Emil Protalinski / The Next Web:

Twitter for Android and iOS get search filters, toggle between top and all tweets, trends and events timeline — Twitter today updated its apps for Android and iOS with a slew of new features, focusing in particular on search and discovery. You can download the new version now directly from Google Play and Apple's App Store.

More: Twitter, iMore, The Verge, Search Engine Land, 9to5Google, MacRumors, 9to5Mac, TechHive, Engadget and Android Beat. Tweets: @benedictevans. See also Mediagazer

Leena Rao / TechCrunch:

Google Wallet Creators Raise $7M From Eric Schmidt, Khosla To Bring Personalization And Analytics To In-Store Commerce — While Amazon has been at the forefront of providing a personalized experience in online commerce, in-store retailers are still behind in using data in compelling ways …

More: Digits and InvestorPlace

Anthony Ha / TechCrunch:

LinkedIn's New Showcase Pages Allow Companies To Highlight Specific Products And Projects — LinkedIn is announcing a new feature called a Showcase Page that will allow businesses on the professional networking site to target the fans of a specific product or brand.

More: Official LinkedIn Blog, AdExchanger, The Next Web, VatorNews, ZDNet, Search Engine Watch, Talent Blog, Computerworld and WebProNews

Aaron Souppouris / The Verge:

Samsung ships 800,000 Galaxy Gear smartwatches to retailers in two months — Samsung defies critics, sells 800,000 Galaxy Gear smartwatches in two months — Despite very negative reviews from almost everyone that cared to touch one, Samsung has sold 800,000 Galaxy Gear smartwatches in two months.

Kevin C. Tofel / Gigaom:

Kindle Paperwhite gets Goodreads integration and kid-friendly reading goals — Not to be outdone by yesterday's software update for the Kindle Fire tablets, Amazon on Tuesday announced an available upgrade for the Kindle Paperwhite on Tuesday. The free software enhancements include …

More: Amazon.com, The Next Web, The Verge, SlashGear, WebProNews, TechCrunch, PC Magazine, CITEworld and ZDNet

Ryan Lawler / TechCrunch:

FiftyThree, Maker Of Creativity App Paper, Gets Into Hardware With Launch Of Its ‘Pencil’ Stylus — FiftyThree, the company behind the wildly popular iPad creativity app Paper, is making its first foray into hardware with the launch of a new stylus it's creatively named “Pencil.”

More: The Verge, ParisLemon, Digits, FiftyThree, SlashGear, Gizmodo, Engadget, App Advice, MacRumors, Co.Design, PC Magazine, iMore, 9to5Mac, MacStories and Guardian

Alex Wagner / Android and Me:

Nexus Wireless Charger now available from Google Play Store for $49.99 — Looking to accessorize that shiny new Nexus 5? Google is happy to oblige. The company just added its official Nexus Wireless Charger to the virtual shelves of the Google Play Store.

More: The Next Web, Nexus - Google+, The Verge, 9to5Google, Engadget, Ubergizmo, Softpedia News, Gotta Be Mobile, Pocket-lint and Phandroid

Daniel Cooper / Engadget:

BlackBerry's Porsche-designed Z10 is a phone that even it can't afford — If your company produced a device that, while technically accomplished, managed to lose you $1 billion a few months later, you'd probably try and pretend that it never existed. That's not the approach that BlackBerry is taking with the Z10, however.

More: Digits, The Next Web, MarketWatch, The Verge, ABC News, SlashGear, Digital Trends, Inquirer, TechnoBuffalo and Softpedia News

Tom Warren / The Verge:

Xbox One SmartGlass lets you snap apps from your phone or tablet — Microsoft has started rolling out an Xbox One version of its SmartGlass app for Windows Phone. While many of the features, including remote control and SmartGlass companions, are the same as the separate and existing SmartGlass …

More: The Verge, MacRumors, TechHive, Softpedia News, TechNet Blogs, Engadget, Polygon and Windows Phone Central

Liz Gannes / AllThingsD:

Quora Will Push Its Most Link-Baity Content to BuzzFeed (Though It Would Never Call It That) — On Quora, answers to the question “What are the most surreal places one can ever visit?” are a fantastical mix of caves and mountains and formations and reefs. The page has more than half a million views.

More: The Quora Blog

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