Techmeme: Pirate Bay admin talks about the raid, copycats, says he's not sure site will be relaunched (Ernesto/TorrentFreak)

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December 15, 2014, 9:10 PM

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Gurdeep Pall / Skype Blogs:

Skype Translator preview goes live on Windows 8.1 with support for real-time translation of English and Spanish — Skype Translator Preview - An Exciting Journey to a New Chapter in Communication — For more than a decade, Skype has been breaking down geographical barriers to make every day audio and video communications possible.

Amazon:

HBO GO is now available on Amazon Fire TV, support for Fire TV Stick coming in spring — HBO GO Now Available on Amazon Fire TV — HBO GO joins a growing list of services that support Amazon Fire TV voice search — customers simply say the name of a movie or TV show to find it on Amazon …

More: Android Police, 9to5Google, Engadget, GeekWire, CNET, The Verge, The Next Web, VentureBeat, Gigaom, TechCrunch and Ubergizmo. See also Mediagazer

Nathan Olivarez-Giles / Wall Street Journal:

HBO Go not available on Fire TV for Comcast and Charter customers

More: Gizmodo and TIME

Kia Kokalitcheva / VentureBeat:

Google integrates Nest with its iOS and Android apps, enables voice commands, Now cards — Google for Android and iOS updated with Nest integration — The “Works with Nest” program has a new addition: the Google app. — Starting now, Nest thermostat owners can use Google's self-titled iOS …

More: MacRumors, 9to5Google, iPhone in Canada Blog, TechSpot, PhoneDog.com, SlashGear and O'Grady's PowerPage

The Foursquare Blog:

Foursquare launches on iPad with emphasis on trip planning — Introducing Foursquare for the iPad, the best way to plan your holiday travels. — Since the new Foursquare came out a few months ago, people have been telling us that they do a lot of their planning on their iPad …

More: iPhone in Canada Blog, TUAW, Mashable, App Advice, The Next Web, 9to5Mac, SlashGear, The Verge, VentureBeat, Ubergizmo, iMore and MacNN

Tweets: @dens and @theromit

Ernesto / TorrentFreak:

Pirate Bay admin talks about the raid, copycats, says he's not sure site will be relaunched — Pirate Bay Responds to The Raid, Copies and The Future — For more than a decade The Pirate Bay's been the bastion of uncensored information. Until the raid on some of its critical infrastructure last week …

More: Gizmodo, The Register, The Age, Ubergizmo, VentureBeat, Plagiarism Today, ExtremeTech, Business Insider, PC Magazine and The Next Web

Brad Smith / The Official Microsoft Blog:

Apple, Amazon, other tech giants, trade groups, and academics support Microsoft in its case against US Government on overseas search warrants — Business, Media and Civil Society Speak Up in Key Privacy Case — Today represents an important milestone in our litigation concerning …

Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:

Gartner: 301M Smartphones Sold In Q3 As Xiaomi Muscles Into The Top 5 At Samsung's Expense — Smartphones now account for 66% of all mobile phones worldwide and are on track to see 2014 sales of 1.2 billion units in 2014. But while Android appears to have “won” the so-called platform war …

More: Gartner, New York Times, AppleInsider, Ars Technica, Engadget, CNET, Quartz, Ubergizmo, 9to5Mac, App Advice, RCR Wireless News, Gigaom, WMPoweruser, SlashGear, Macworld, The Tech Portal and Inquirer. Tweets: @jafurtado

Charlie Warzel / BuzzFeed:

Survey reveals most technology companies' privacy policies do not cover employee access to user data — We Asked 29 Tech Companies If Their Employees Can Access Your Personal Data — Privacy policies rarely mention the weakest point in any company's security infrastructure: its employees.

Tweets: @cwarzel and @parmy

Jacob Fischler / BuzzFeed:

Uber responds to Sen. Al Franken, says it accessed reporters' account because she was late, scales back access to God View; senator still dissatisfied

More: VentureBeat, The Next Web, CNET, Politico and PC World. Tweets: @dnvolz. See also Mediagazer

Ginny Marvin / Marketing Land:

Google is talking to retailers about 1-click “Buy Now” button and an Amazon Prime-like free 2 day shipping program — Google Shopping May Go Deeper Into Ecommerce With “Buy Now” Button To Challenge Amazon — Google is reportedly floating the idea of a “Buy Now” button and two-day shipping program.

More: Wall Street Journal, GeekWire, The Verge, Pocket-lint, Pocketnow, Seeking Alpha, Android Central and TechnoBuffalo

Napier Lopez / The Next Web:

SoundCloud introduces ‘Collection,’ a dashboard for following artists and listening to your playlists — SoundCloud is great for discovering unique content and mixes you'll scarcely find anywhere else, but sometimes keeping track of all that audio goodness gets a bit cumbersome.

More: SoundCloud, TechCrunch, Gizmodo, SlashGear, The Verge, VentureVillage and Engadget

Laura Lorenzetti / Fortune:

SurveyMonkey is worth $2 billion after new $250 million fundraising round — SurveyMonkey, the online survey platform, raised $250 million in equity financing, making the company worth close to $2 billion. — The funding will help the company pursue future acquisition purchases …

More: bizjournals, PE Hub Blog and TechCrunch

Eugene Volokh / Washington Post:

Sony unlikely to prevail in court if it sues media organizations for publishing stolen data — Can Sony sue media outlets who publish the stolen Sony documents? — David Boies, representing Sony, has written a letter to various media outlets, demanding that they not publish or otherwise use …

More: New York Times, New York Times, Uncrunched, Krebs on Security, CNET, The Verge, CNNMoney.com, Holtz Communications …, Los Angeles Times, USA Today, SlashGear, Poynter, Gigaom, Mashable and The Next Web. Tweets: @awallenstein. See also Mediagazer

Zac Hall / 9to5Mac:

Amazon's Kindle for iOS app updated w/ Goodreads integration, Audible progressive play, more — Amazon pushed out an updated version of its Kindle for iOS app today bringing a list of new features to the reading app. — Kindle for iOS now includes integration with Goodreads …

More: VentureBeat, The Verge, GeekWire, Digital Trends, iMore, Talking New Media, Ubergizmo, The Digital Reader, TechCrunch, Engadget and MacNN

Brian Ries / Mashable:

Uber introduces surge pricing during Sydney hostage siege, then backtracks, offers free rides, refunds — Uber intros surge pricing during Sydney hostage siege, then backtracks after user outcry — This post was updated at 10:45 p.m. ET to include an updated statement from Uber

More: Uber Blog, Washington Post, BBC, Gawker, Hit & Run, SiliconANGLE, The Huffington Post, Fortune, New York Times, TechCrunch, The Verge, SFist, Wired, USA Today, SiliconBeat, The Daily Dot, TechPresident, Tech Times, Sydney Morning Herald, bizjournals, NPR and Joho the Blog

Tweets: @laurenonizzle, @lauradinneen and @rmac18

Jeremy C. Owens / Mercury News:

Networking company Riverbed Technology to be acquired by private equity firm Thoma Bravo for $3.6B after activist investor struggle — Riverbed Technology to sell for $3.6 billion after activist investor struggle — SAN FRANCISCO — Networking company Riverbed Technology has agreed …

More: ZDNet, Investor's Business Daily, Business Wire, Reuters, Reuters, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, CBC News, CNBC, Bloomberg, bizjournals, Forbes, Benzinga, Financial Post and NASDAQ.com. Tweets: @recode

Nate Raymond / Reuters:

Apple e-book case enters appeals court; some judges seem sympathetic, citing Amazon dominance — U.S. faces tough questions in Apple e-books antitrust appeal — (Reuters) - A U.S. government lawyer faced tough questioning in an appeals court on Monday as he sought to defend a judge's ruling …

More: Fortune, Fortune, Yahoo! Finance, App Advice, Associated Press, MacRumors, Re/code, Gigaom and Cult of Mac. See also Mediagazer

Lara O'Reilly / Business Insider:

Facebook now has an empathy team, calls users “people” to consider them in more human way — Facebook: We Don't Call Them ‘Users’ Any More, We Call Them ‘People’ — Facebook has overhauled the way it talks about its userbase and advertising customers in order to consider them in a more “human” way.

More: GeekWire and SiliconANGLE. Tweets: @cgerrish, @jayrosen_nyu and @beastoftraal

Loek Essers / PC World:

Google faces up to €15M fine over privacy violations in Holland — Dutch authority to Google: change privacy policy or else — If Google doesn't change how it handles users' private data by the end of February, it may face fines of €15 million (about US$18.6 million), the Dutch Privacy Authority said Monday.

More: Dutch DPA, Ars Technica, iTnews, Bloomberg, Quartz, Associated Press, The Hill, The Register and MediaPost

Alex Heath / Cult of Mac:

Workflow lets you easily chain together and automate hundreds of actions across iOS apps — Workflow pushes the limits of how powerful iOS can be — A new app called Workflow aims to close the divide between the power of OS X and the convenience of iOS.

Emil Protalinski / VentureBeat:

Microsoft removes waitlist for its Office presentation app Sway, adds slew of new features to the preview — Microsoft today expanded the preview for its content aggregation and presentation application Sway. The waitlist has been axed, meaning anyone with a Microsoft Account can sign up to start creating Sways.

More: Office Blogs, TechCrunch, Patently Apple, Business Insider, SuperSite for Windows, The Next Web, The Fire Hose and WinBeta

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