Techmeme: In a major real-estate expansion in New York City, Google says it will invest $1B+ in a new 1.7M square foot campus in Hudson Square in Manhattan (Douglas MacMillan/Wall Street Journal)

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Douglas MacMillan / Wall Street Journal:

In a major real-estate expansion in New York City, Google says it will invest $1B+ in a new 1.7M square foot campus in Hudson Square in Manhattan — Search giant joins Amazon, Apple in growing outside the West Coast; addition of 7,000 jobs a ‘conservative estimate’

Washington Post:

Report prepared for Senate analyzes Russian disinformation that supported Trump across millions of posts on YouTube, Instagram, Tumblr, Pinterest, more — The report, a draft of which was obtained by The Washington Post, is the first to study the millions of posts provided by major technology firms to the Senate Intelligence Committee

Bloomberg:

Senate report: Instagram dwarfs all social networks, including Facebook, in Russia's IRA posts and engagements, yet FB execs have not been upfront about this — - Document prepared for Senate Intelligence evaluates posts — Instagram tops Facebook in IRA posts and unique engagements

More: CNBC, CyberScoop, Washington Post, New York Times, Axios, CNN, and East Bay Times. Tweets: @sarahfrier

Ryan Gallagher / The Intercept:

Sources: Google's plan for a censored search engine for China “effectively ended” after infighting, with a data analysis operation key to Dragonfly shuttering — Google has been forced to shut down a data analysis system it was using to develop a censored search engine for China …

Tweets: @rj_gallagher and @caseynewton

Siobhan Roberts / New York Times:

Profile of Stanford computer scientist Donald Knuth, author of The Art of Computer Programming, a Bible of its field with more than one million copies in print — Donald Knuth, master of algorithms, reflects on 50 years of his opus-in-progress, “The Art of Computer Programming.”

Tweets: @nytscience

Jon Porter / The Verge:

Facebook Messenger adds native support for looping Boomerang videos, a Selfie mode with automatic background blur, and AR stickers for photos and videos — Stickers are also getting AR support — Facebook today announced a host of new camera features for its Messenger app.

More: 9to5Mac, Thurrott, VentureBeat, and iPhone Hacks

Hilary Potkewitz / Wall Street Journal:

How Calm has overtaken Headspace, which dominated the meditation app category, after winning the App Store's 2017 iPhone App of the Year award — A pair of apps preach relaxation to millions of customers—but still badly want to beat each other — The two smartphone apps taking meditation …

More: MacRumors

DW.COM:

French economy minister says the country will introduce its own digital tax, dubbed “GAFA tax”, on large internet and technology companies from January 1 — In early December, Economy Minister Bruno Le Maire said France would give the EU until March to come up with a deal on taxing US internet giants.

More: 9to5Mac, TechCrunch, BBC, and NDTV.com

Tweets: @owillis and @dwnews

Kurt Wagner / Recode:

Facebook promised in May it would let users clear their browsing history, but the company now says the privacy feature is still several months away — “It's taking longer than we initially had thought.” — Back in May, at the height of Facebook's Cambridge Analytica privacy scandal …

More: Gizmodo. Tweets: @waltmossberg and @caseynewton

Dieter Bohn / The Verge:

North, a NY-based company that makes $999 Focals AR glasses, acquires the IP and tech behind Intel's cancelled Vaunt AR glasses — The Focals AR glasses should ship ‘very shortly’ — North, the company behind the Focals AR glasses, has acquired the “technology portfolio” …

More: TechCrunch and SlashGear

Tweets: @backlon and @focalsbynorth

Jennifer Smith / Wall Street Journal:

RightHand Robotics raises $23M Series B for its warehouse automation tech that uses a combination of AI, cameras, and a robotic arm to pick up objects — Startup is among companies developing tools for gripping and lifting a variety of objects at distribution centers

More: VentureBeat and TechCrunch

Jon Porter / The Verge:

Apple hires another Tesla employee, Andrew Kim, the designer famous for re-imagining Microsoft's brand and who worked on Hololens and Windows 10 UI — The hire renews speculation of an Apple-designed car — Andrew Kim, the designer who first rose to prominence with a fan-made reimagining …

More: Engadget, 9to5Mac, iMore, MacRumors, Fortune, TechSpot, iPhone in Canada Blog, MacDailyNews, and The Mac Observer

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