Techmeme: Windows Phone voice assistant Cortana now available in France, Germany, Italy and Spain (Manish Singh/WinBeta)

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December 5, 2014, 9:15 PM

Top News

Brian X. Chen / New York Times:

One of two plaintiffs named in Apple iPod antitrust case withdrawn while Apple files motion asking for dismissal — iPod Lawsuit Down to One Plaintiff — OAKLAND, Calif. — A class-action lawsuit against Apple that has been nearly a decade in the making could hinge on a single iPod purchased by a New Jersey woman in 2008.

More: Associated Press, Digital Trends, The Verge, Tech Times, Electronista, Cult of Mac, SlashGear, AppleInsider, The Daily Dot, iMore and iPhone in Canada Blog

Josh Lowensohn / The Verge:

Steve Jobs's 2011 testimony in Apple DRM lawsuit points finger at music labels — Apple's late CEO says rival companies were “collateral damage” — Whether Apple's security measures for iTunes and iPods were designed to actively shut out competitors, or simply keep record labels happy …

More: CNET, New York Times, Ars Technica, iMore, MacRumors, AppleInsider, ABC News and Cult of Mac

Brian X. Chen / New York Times:

Apple antitrust lawsuit could be halted: Apple claims plaintiffs did not buy affected iPods

More: CNET, AppleInsider, Wall Street Journal, ABC News, Bloomberg, Macworld, Forbes, Washington Post, VentureBeat, Reuters, bizjournals, iPhone in Canada Blog, Mashable, MacRumors, The Mac Observer, 9to5Mac and USA Today. See also Mediagazer

Zac Bowden / WinBeta:

Video demonstrates pre-release version of Cortana running on Windows 10 — Exclusive: Here's Cortana running on the desktop in Windows 10 — It's been months since the Windows Technical Preview launched to the public, and we're still yet to see Cortana running on the desktop.

More: VentureBeat, TechCrunch, PC World, Engadget, Neowin, TechSpot, Laptop Mag, Windows Phone Central, Business Insider, TechnoBuffalo, The Tech Report and Gizmodo. Thanks:@refsrc

Jordan Crook / TechCrunch:

Instacart raising $100M+ in round valuing the company at $2B, 5X the previous valuation — Instacart Is Raising North Of $100 Million At A $2 Billion Valuation — Instacart, the home grocery delivery service that launched back in 2012, is close to raising a massive Series C round …

More: Wall Street Journal, GeekWire, Re/code, Business Insider and bizjournals

Jon Brodkin / Ars Technica:

AT&T still throttles “unlimited data”—even when network not congested — A while back, we reported that AT&T had stopped throttling unlimited data users except in cases when the network is congested. — We were wrong. AT&T did change its policy to stop the automatic throttling …

More: PC Magazine, Gizmodo, Engadget, Ubergizmo, iMore, Digital Trends, PhoneDog.com, SlashGear, SiliconBeat, Washington Post, AndroidHeadlines.com and BGR

Kurt Wagner / Re/code:

Former Product VP Daniel Graf Leaves Twitter After Demotion — Twitter's former head of product Dainel Graf is leaving the company just one month after he was demoted. — Graf announced his departure on Twitter Friday afternoon. He was hired to run Twitter's product team in April …

More: Gigaom, TechCrunch and Seeking Alpha. Tweets: @danielgraf

Klint Finley / Wired:

Joyent-led Node.js forked by top contributors into Io.js to shift project toward an open governance model — Future of Popular Coding Tool In Doubt After Public Split — Node.js, a popular and influential tool for building and running modern internet services, has split in two.

More: InfoWorld, Gigaom, ReadWrite and InfoWorld

Jordan Novet / VentureBeat:

Deep-learning startup MetaMind launches with $8M from Benioff & Khosla Ventures — PALO ALTO, Calif. — Richard Socher never set out to place himself on the bleeding edge of artificial intelligence. He merely wanted to blend language and math — two subjects he'd always liked.

More: Wired, Re/code, Businessweek, Gigaom, PE Hub Blog, General News, VatorNews, Headlines & Global News, Tech Times and VentureBeat

Ernesto / TorrentFreak:

Google Removes Pirate Bay Apps From Play Store — Facing harsh criticism from copyright holders, Google is gradually changing its attitudes towards sites and services that are often associated with piracy. — A few weeks ago the company implemented a major change to its search algorithm …

More: Digital Trends, Gizmodo, 9to5Google, SlashGear, Plagiarism Today, Android Central, GamePolitics blogs and TPB App

Nicole Perlroth / New York Times:

Judge rejects Target's bid to throw out banks' lawsuits; ruling makes clear that banks have right to go after retailers that were negligent in security — Banks' Lawsuits Against Target for Losses Related to Hacking Can Continue — A federal judge on Tuesday handed an early victory …

More: Ars Technica, Krebs on Security, Insurance News, Engadget, Law360, The National Law Review, PYMNTS.com, Electronista, PandoDaily, Out-Law News and Claims Journal

Tweets: @stevedekorte and @dangillmor

Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:

Torque, Microsoft's Alternative To “OK Google,” Now Works On Android Smartphones — Microsoft this morning has released an app for Android smartphone users called Torque that allows you to shake your phone in order to perform a voice search, similar to Google's “OK Google.”

More: BetaNews, Android Authority, Engadget, 9to5Google, SlashGear and Mobile Geeks

Emil Protalinski / VentureBeat:

Microsoft adds video calling between Lync and Skype for Windows, coming to Android and iOS next — Microsoft today announced new cross-app integration between Lync and Skype: video calling. The new feature works between Lync 2013 and the latest Skype for Windows desktop client, which you can download now from Skype.com.

More: Skype Blogs, Office Blogs, PC Magazine, TechCrunch, WinBeta and Microsoft News

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