Techmeme: Amazon leases 470,000 square-foot, 12-story space in midtown Manhattan for next 17 years (Greg Bensinger/Wall Street Journal)

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November 20, 2014, 8:55 PM

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Douglas MacMillan / Wall Street Journal:

Uber's Massive Fundraising Drive Forges Ahead Despite Scandal — A recent controversy ensnaring Uber doesn't appear to be lessening the company's appeal to investors as it moves forward with plans to raise one of the largest venture-capital funding rounds in history.

More: Business Insider and ReadWrite. Tweets: @scottthurm

Napier Lopez / The Next Web:

Uber hires former IBM Chief Privacy Officer to carry out internal review

More: Uber Blog, CNET, Computerworld, The Verge, The Hill, TIME, Skift, Fortune, ZDNet, Business Insider and Mashable

Al Franken:

Sen. Al Franken asks Uber CEO Travis Kalanick for answers on privacy, God view tool, discipline for Emil Michael, and tracking journalists

More: The Register, bizjournals, TechSpot, Street Fight, Re/code, StrictlyVC, Electronista, TechPresident, SiliconBeat and Haywire

Reuters:

Google, Rockstar agree to settle patent litigation: filing — (Reuters) - Google Inc has agreed to settle litigation with patent consortium Rockstar, though terms of the deal were not disclosed in a court filing made public this week. — Rockstar, which counts Apple Inc as an investor …

More: AppleInsider, Engadget, BGR, Wall Street Journal, Android Police, 9to5Google, Patently Apple, Ars Technica, GamePolitics blogs, BBC and iam-magazine.com

Tim Culpan / Bloomberg:

Foxconn will spend $2.6B to build dedicated Apple display plant in Taiwan — Foxconn to Build Dedicated Apple Display Plant in Taiwan — Foxconn Technology Group will spend NT$80 billion ($2.6 billion) over the next two years on a new factory in Taiwan to supply displays exclusively for a client.

More: BGR, Business Insider, TechSpot, AppleInsider, 9to5Mac, TechnoBuffalo, iPhone in Canada Blog, Cult of Mac, Patently Apple, TodaysiPhone.com, Bidness Etc, InvestorPlace, Pocketnow, iClarified, MacRumors, Electronista and iMore. Thanks:@srikardr

Peter Kafka / Re/code:

Former Fake Steve Jobs and HubSpot content marketer Dan Lyons to head up Valleywag in January — Dan Lyons Used to be Fake Steve Jobs. Now He's the Chief Valleywag. — Valleywag's chief editor Nitasha Tiku just left for the Verge. Here's her replacement: Dan Lyons …

Tweets: @mkapor, @a_greenberg, @fromedome, @glennf, @edbott, @jyarow, @jyarow and @nichcarlson. See also Mediagazer

Alyson Shontell / Business Insider:

Exodus of revived Valleywag's original team complete as Nitasha Tiku heads to The Verge to bolster Silicon Valley coverage

More: Poynter and FishbowlNY. Tweets: @nicknotned and @nitashatiku. See also Mediagazer

Dennis Schaal / Skift:

Sources: Amazon to launch hotel booking service in January 2015 — Exclusive: Amazon to Get Into Hotel Booking With Launch of Travel Site — Amazon.com is poised to launch its own travel service, featuring booking at independent hotels and resorts near major cities, Skift has learned.

More: Seeking Alpha. Tweets: @monkbent

Mathew Ingram / Gigaom:

Google launches Contributor, a subscription service that lets users contribute to participating sites and turn off Google ads — Google launches Contributor, a crowdfunding tool for publishers — Google is launching a new service for websites called Contributor, which allows users to sign …

More: VentureBeat, Computerworld, The Verge, GeekWire, Gizmodo, Business Insider, BetaNews, Marketing Land, 9to5Google, The Next Web and Engadget. Thanks:@mathewi. See also Mediagazer

Greg Bensinger / Wall Street Journal:

Amazon leases 470,000 square-foot, 12-story space in midtown Manhattan for next 17 years — Amazon to Lease Entire Manhattan Building, Hinting at Retail Ambitions — Amazon.com agreed to lease 470,000 square feet of space in midtown Manhattan from Vornado Realty Trust …

More: GeekWire and The Digital Reader

Andrew Cunningham / Ars Technica:

iOS 8.1.1, iPhone 4S, and iPad 2: A little faster, kind of, sometimes — It took a lot of work to find the promised performance and stability improvements in iOS 8.1.1 for Apple A5 devices like the iPhone 4S, the iPad 2, the iPad Mini, and the iPod Touch. — Andrew Cunningham

More: Ubergizmo, Lifehacker, iPhone in Canada Blog, Gotta Be Mobile, MacRumors and BGR

Ben Sisario / New York Times:

Billboard Top 200 album chart will incorporate streaming data starting Dec. 3 from services including Spotify, Beats Music, Google Play, Xbox Music — Billboard, Changing the Charts, Will Count Streaming Services — Streaming music services like Spotify have brought big changes to the music industry.

More: Billboard, Billboard, AppleInsider, Engadget, JonMaples.com, MacDailyNews, 9to5Google, Forbes, 9to5Mac, The Verge, SlashGear, Fortune, App Advice and VatorNews. Tweets: @mp3michael. See also Mediagazer

Chris Welch / The Verge:

Corning's Gorilla Glass 4 aims to protect your phone from deadly drops — It's unlikely we'll see a truly impervious smartphone screen anytime soon, but Corning says it's getting us closer. Today the company is announcing Gorilla Glass 4, the latest revision of its signature cover glass.

Jeff Barr / Amazon Web Services Blog:

Amazon's enterprise storage and sharing service Zocalo gets iOS, Android apps, 5TB file support — Amazon Zocalo Update - Mobile Apps + 5 TB Files — I have a couple of pieces of good news for current and potential users of Amazon Zocalo. Both items are available now and you can start using them today.

More: ZDNet and VentureBeat

Casey Newton / The Verge:

Dropbox's Carousel photo software comes to iPads and the web — In April, Dropbox launched Carousel, a standalone app for storing and managing photos and videos on your phone. Designed as a single place to view your life's memories, until now Carousel has only been available for the smallest screen in your life.

More: The Next Web, Engadget, MobileSyrup.com, 9to5Mac and iMore. Tweets: @mattlynley

Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:

Airbnb Rolls Out Million-Dollar Liability Insurance Program For Hosts — Airbnb today announced an additional liability insurance program that will provide U.S. hosts with up to $1 million worth of protection in the case a guest is accidentally injured anywhere in a host's building or on their property during their stay.

More: The Airbnb Blog, Wall Street Journal and Re/code. Tweets: @eddieacopeland

Josh Constine / TechCrunch:

Jaunt VR Releases Its First Content With App That Puts You On Stage With Paul McCartney — Jaunt wants to give you something to watch on makeshift virtual reality headsets like Google Cardboard, Dodocase, and Mirage. So today the 360-degree camera and VR production software maker launches …

More: The Next Web, Re/code, The Verge, Rolling Stone, Re/code, Jaunt, Hollywood Reporter, Gizmodo, HotHardware.com News, Ultimate Classic Rock, CNET, Billboard, Engadget, Variety, CNNMoney.com, Mashable, Forbes, PCMag Australia Feed and 9to5Google. Tweets: @bwerde

Jon Brodkin / Ars Technica:

Netflix takes up 9.5% of upstream traffic on the North American Internet — ACK packets make Netflix an upload monster during peak viewing hours. — We've written a lot about how Netflix takes up a gigantic share of Internet traffic. During peak viewing hours, Netflix accounts …

More: Sandvine, Re/code, ReadWrite, TorrentFreak, TIME, Variety, Tech Times, CNET, Light Reading, The Huffington Post, DSLreports and VideoNuze Analysis

Tweets: @kevinroose and @chairmanpowell

Thanks:@srikardr. See also Mediagazer

Husain Sumra / MacRumors:

Sony Drops Aaron Sorkin's Steve Jobs Movie, Universal May Take Over — Despite Aaron Sorkin's Steve Jobs movie being in the casting process and moving towards full fledged production, Sony Pictures has dropped the movie and put it “in turnaround”, which allows another large studio to purchase the movie and take over, reports Deadline.

More: Deadline, Hollywood Reporter, Variety, The Verge, 5by5 Master Audio Feed, Fortune, Wired.co.uk, BBC, MacDailyNews, USA Today, Fast Company, CBS News, O'Grady's PowerPage, PadGadget, Gawker, iPhone, The Next Web, Gizmodo and AppleInsider

Natasha Lomas / TechCrunch:

Human rights groups release open-source Detekt anti-surveillance software for activists, journalists; available for free, only on Windows for now — Amnesty, EFF, Privacy International Put Out Free Anti-Surveillance Tool — Resistance is digital. Human rights charity Amnesty International …

Hayley Tsukayama / Washington Post:

Comcast testing feature to track technicians in real-time; trials begin outside Boston this week, will be rolled out nationally 2015 — Comcast is testing a way to tell you exactly when the cable guy is coming — Comcast is trying out a way to let customers track technicians. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar, File)

More: Comcast Voices, PC Magazine, BGR, Fast Company, bizjournals, Multichannel News, Gizmodo, TechSpot, Computerworld, Consumerist, Mashable, The Boston Globe, DSLreports, GeekWire and Ars Technica

Peter Kafka / Re/code:

Web Video Channel Guide PlutoTV Raises $13 Million — Lots of people have tried to build TV guides for the Web-video era, and no one has succeeded so far. — But PlutoTV has convinced investors that it's onto something. The company, which presents “channels” of Web video in a format …

More: VentureBeat, PE Hub Blog, Tubefilter, Deadline, Variety and VideoInk. Thanks:@jenmartinez. See also Mediagazer

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