Techmeme: Amazon's New Cloud Desktop Service, Amazon WorkSpaces, Arrives On iPad (Sarah Perez/TechCrunch)

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December 4, 2013, 9:00 PM

Top News

Rana Foroohar / TIME:

TIME Exclusive: Icahn Files Apple Shareholder Proposal — The richest man on Wall Street is opening a new front in his quest to persuade Apple to part with more of its massive cash stockpile. — Veteran investor Carl Icahn is opening a new front in his quest to persuade Apple to part with more of its massive cash stockpile.

More: The Register, The Verge, MacRumors, CNET, AppleInsider, TUAW, iDownloadBlog.com, Forbes, 9to5Mac, AllThingsD, Tech Trader Daily, Cult of Mac, iPhone Hacks, Business Insider and Electronista

Tweets: @carl_c_icahn, @davidfaber, @time, @danprimack and @qthrul

Alex Wilhelm / TechCrunch:

Carl Icahn Files $50B Apple Share Buyback Proposal

More: Forbes

Washington Post:

NSA tracking cellphone locations worldwide, Snowden documents show — The National Security Agency is gathering nearly 5 billion records a day on the whereabouts of cellphones around the world, according to top-secret documents and interviews with U.S. intelligence officials …

More: Washington Post, Ars Technica, The Register, Examiner, Engadget, Techdirt, Gigaom, IntoMobile, Digital Trends, Daily Dot, The Switch, Gotta Be Mobile, ZDNet, The Verge, SlashGear, TechCrunch, Hit & Run and Gizmodo

Tweets: @rj_gallagher, @jackshafer, @micahflee, @mattbuchanan, @kevinbankston, @csoghoian, @bradheath and @koxinga21

Nitasha Tiku / Valleywag:

Leaked: Uber's Internal Revenue and Ride Request Numbers — Valleywag has obtained detailed internal financial information indicating that Uber, the e-hailing app that has spawned a hundreds of half-baked pitches, is making a lot more money than its investors had anticipated.

More: AllThingsD, VentureBeat, Business Insider and IntoMobile

Tweets: @pkafka, @mikemadden, @conorsen, @nickconfessore, @stammy, @danprimack and @benpopper

Matthew Panzarino / TechCrunch:

Leaked Uber Numbers, Which We've Confirmed, Point To Over $1B Gross, $213M Revenue

Tweets: @fmanjoo

John Markoff / New York Times:

Andy Rubin leads Google's new manufacturing-focused robotics effort that acquired seven companies in the last six months — Google Puts Money on Robots, Using the Man Behind Android — PALO ALTO, Calif. — In an out-of-the-way Google office, two life-size humanoid robots hang suspended in a corner.

Sam Byford / The Verge:

Next USB plug will finally be reversible — Work has begun on a new generation of USB that will break compatibility with existing connectors in order to improve ease of use and allow for thinner devices. The new connector, called Type-C, is an addition to the existing USB 3.1 specification …

Darrell Etherington / TechCrunch:

iBeacons Used To Deliver Location-Based Access To iOS Newsstand Publications — iBeacon, Apple's hyperlocal trigger tech in iOS 7, is an innovation that holds a lot of promise, and that will probably continue to make waves in the retail industry for a long time to come.

More: Exact Editions, AppleInsider, iMore, iPhone Hacks, everythingiCafe, dailywireless.org, iPhone in Canada Blog and TUAW

Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:

Amazon's New Cloud Desktop Service, Amazon WorkSpaces, Arrives On iPad — Amazon WorkSpaces, the company's recently announced virtual desktops service and competitor with VMware, has now arrived on the iOS platform, or more specifically, on iPad. The new app will allow those who have access …

More: GeekWire, CITEworld and PadGadget

Kevin Poulsen / Wired:

This Is the MIT Surveillance Video That Undid Aaron Swartz — The door to the network closet pops open and a slender figure enters, a bicycle helmet hanging from one arm. He sheds his backpack and pulls out a cardboard box containing a small hard drive, then kneels out of frame.

More: Errata Security and Softpedia News

Emil Protalinski / The Next Web:

Google Search for Android gets app listings, surfacing results from inside apps on your device and Google Play — Google today announced a big update to Google Search for Android that will make it a lot easier to find information. In short, the company has added app listings …

More: Inside Search, BetaNews, Engadget, Search Engine Land, SlashGear, Android Beat, Android and Me, 9to5Google, pocketnow.com and Droid Life. Tweets: @ourielohayon

Matthew Panzarino / TechCrunch:

Beats Music Streaming Service Launches January 2014, Fires Up Username Reservations — The new Beats Music streaming music service will launch January 2014, according to CEO Ian Rogers. The service also launched a ‘name claiming’ site today that lets you snag a primo username early.

More: FISTFULAYEN, AllThingsD, The Verge, Android Community, Electronista, iPhone Hacks, New York Times, WebProNews and Droid Life

Tweets: @rob_sheridan, @trent_reznor, @caseynewton and @chartier

See also Mediagazer

Kwame Opam / The Verge:

Verizon wins approval for $130 billion takeover of Vodafone's share of its wireless network — Months after Verizon confirmed its $130 billion buyout of Vodafone's stake in Verizon Wireless, the FCC has given its approval. With the commission's blessing, Verizon will have complete control …

More: CNET, PR Newswire, PC World, Droid Life, Electronista, SlashGear, PhoneArena, AndroidHeadlines.com, PhoneDog.com and MobileBurn.com

AllThingsD:

Rhode Island School of Design President John Maeda Departs for Roles at Kleiner Perkins and eBay — John Maeda, the former MIT professor who is a director on the boards of Sonos and Quirky, is leaving his job as president at the prestigious Rhode Island School of Design to take a role at venture firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers.

More: Gigaom and TechCrunch. Tweets: @tednesi, @ebayinc, @kpcb and @johnmaeda

Janko Roettgers / Gigaom:

Plex for Chromecast: new clues hint at imminent launch — One of the most-requested features for Google's Chromecast streaming stick has been support for local file playback, and it looks like Chromecast users won't have to wait much longer: Media center app Plex could get support for Chromecast very soon …

More: 9to5Google, MacStories, iClarified and Phandroid

Kara Swisher / AllThingsD:

Intuit Buys Docstoc for a Price of Up to $50 Million to Round Out Small Business Services — Intuit has acquired Docstoc, the electronic document service aimed at the sale and storage of a wide variety of documents for businesses. — While the well-known Silicon Valley-based business software company …

More: Gigaom, VentureBeat, Docstoc, TechCrunch, PandoDaily, Forbes and Inc.com

Jon Brodkin / Ars Technica:

FCC chair: ISPs should be able to charge Netflix for Internet fast lane — Newly anointed Federal Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler said this week that it would be OK for Internet service providers to charge Netflix and other companies for a faster lane to consumers.

More: DSLreports, Policy Blog, Center for Democracy …, GamePolitics blogs, Seeking Alpha and Motherboard. See also Mediagazer

Violet Blue / ZDNet:

Two million stolen Facebook, Twitter, Yahoo, ADP passwords found on Pony Botnet server — Summary: Trustwave's SpiderLabs found a Pony Botnet Controller server holding over two million passwords and account credentials for ADP payroll, Facebook, Twitter, Yahoo and more belonging to victims around the world.

More: SpiderLabs Anterior, CNNMoney.com, ReadWrite, Ars Technica, NEWS.com.au, Reuters, BBC, The Verge, The Register, Examiner, Gizmodo, TechnoBuffalo, Engadget and Graham Cluley. Tweets: @virusbtn

James Temple / San Francisco Chronicle:

Tech's space appetite eclipses highs of dot-com boom — Technology companies have leased 40 percent more San Francisco office space since the start of 2010 than during the five-year dot-com boom. — That's just one eye-catching statistic in a comprehensive new report analyzing …

More: 9to5Mac. Tweets: @richard_florida, @timishungry, @fisherucb, @owashb, @aarieff, @jtemple and @nytimesbits. Thanks:@techchronicle

Omer Horvitz / Techmeme News:

Techmeme finally posts stories to its Facebook page — You may not know this, but Techmeme's had a Facebook page since 2007. And it has garnered many “likes”, including Mark Zuckerberg's. (You may have heard of him!) Unfortunately, and perversely, Techmeme never actually posted anything to this page during all those years.

Tweets: @eldon

Mary Jo Foley / ZDNet:

European Commission clears Microsoft's Nokia purchase — The European Commission has given Microsoft's planned acquisition of Nokia's mobile device business the green light. EUapprovesmsnokia In a press release dated December 4, the Commission said it had investigated potential compeition concerns and found none.

More: EU Press Room, InfoWorld, TechCrunch, GeekWire, FOSS Patents, WMPoweruser and pocketnow.com

Sharif Sakr / Engadget:

Hands-on with the YotaPhone: the e-ink Android phone that nobody expected — There was a moment, back in 2012, when we had some quiet doubts about the YotaPhone. The first prototype was desirable, useful, and far beyond any kind of gimmick — but it also seemed like it'd be hard to manufacture …

More: Pocket-lint, BBC, Reuters, CNET, CNET, pocketnow.com, The Verge, Gotta Be Mobile, Geek.com, T3 News, Light Reading, Gigaom, ITworld.com and PhoneArena

Jordan Crook / TechCrunch:

Publishing Platform Medium Keeps Iterating With New Photo, Layout Tools And Collection Controls — Medium, the blog publishing platform from Twitter co-founder Evan Williams, has today released new features and a few design changes. — Medium has sprouted from a seedling to a full-fledged media tool …

More: PandoDaily, The Verge and Medium

Tweets: @stevekovach, @baconmeteor, @evanatmedium and @anildash

Thanks:@mjburnsy. See also Mediagazer

Zach Walton / WebProNews:

Google May Have Lost NORAD, But It's Still Tracking Santa This Year — After years of collaboration with Google, NORAD decided to partner with Microsoft instead last year to release its Santa Tracker app exclusively on Windows 8. That's not going to change this year, but Google will be releasing …

More: Google LatLong, CNET, ABC News, 9to5Google, VentureBeat, Business Insider and Engadget

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