This week’s tech news saw the latest from from Uber, Spotify and the tech IPO market. TechCrunch also covered the Sony Pictures hack, the girls who used code to light the White House Christmas trees and Tinder’s new competitor. Here are our best stories from this week (11/29-12/5).
1. Uber announced it raised another 1.2 billion in funding, at a $40 billion valuation.
2. Spotify showed us what we’ve listened to throughout the year with its individualized Year In Review application that grabs your 2014 data and highlights.
3. Alex Wilhelm analyzed more of the tech IPO market, posing the question of whether the public market will welcome a company with expanding losses or not.
4. At its annual shareholder’s meeting, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and Chairman John Thompson fielded a series of questions about diversity within the company. Nadella emphasized the importance of inclusiveness and stated that diversity was at the “core to everything” at the firm, not just something done on the side.
5. Josh Constine wrote a piece about citizen journalism and the impact it has had in recent events. He draws a parallel between citizen journalists and “Little Brother,” and advocates for body cameras to be worn by law enforcement during citizen encounters.
6. Five Sony Pictures films made their way onto torrent sites after the studio’s computer system was hacked. Four of the five movie screeners were unreleased titles.
7. Jordan Crook wrote about Bumble, a Tinder competitor launched by Whitney Wolfe and other ex-Tinder employees. She concludes that there is one significant difference between the two apps: with Bumble, the girls are in charge.
8. We outlined a few strategies for founders facing a tough hiring climate where everyone wants to found their own company.
9. Google got thousands of girls to program the White Houses Christmas tree lights using code, through the Made With Code program.
10. Dan Conlon pointed out the problem with the Internet of Things, and warns that if user experiences are not improved quickly, the smart home dream is at risk of going belly-up.
11. Remember Gangnam Style? Well, PSY’s video has been viewed so many times that it broke YouTube’s view counter, making it the very first video to break the reaches of a 32-bit integer.