Mediagazer: Playboy launches nudity-free magazine on Apple iTunes, Google Play stores, available for $5.99 per issue or $17.99 per year (Todd Spangler/Variety)

2:55 PM ET, October 12, 2016

Top News:

Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:

Amazon launches Music Unlimited, a subscription streaming service that costs $4/month for Echo owners, $8/month for Prime members, and $10/month for all others — Rumors have been swirling around Amazon's plans to launch its own, standalone music streaming service, and now those reports …

Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:

Pandora launches Pandora Plus, its $5/month ad-free service that also gives users offline playback, more song skips and replays — Pandora is not taking today's debut of Amazon's new, on-demand music streaming service lying down. The company has conveniently timed the launch of its own new paid tier …

Discussion: Pandora Blog, RAIN News, VentureBeat and Variety

Brian Stelter / CNNMoney:

Sources: Billy Bush to be dropped from NBC's Today show; one source says announcement will happen “in the coming days” — On Saturday night NBC was going to throw a surprise party for Billy Bush in Greenwich Village. Now it has been cancelled. — “Surprise,” indeed.

David Bixenspan / LawNewz:

Gawker Media files new motion as part of bankruptcy proceedings, asking court to authorize investigation into Peter Thiel's financing of lawsuits against it — On Tuesday, Gawker Media, the largely defunct media company that recently sold most of its assets to Univision at auction …

Discussion: Wall Street Journal and Hollywood Reporter

Benjamin Mullin / Poynter:

Wall Street Journal Editor-in-Chief Gerard Baker tells reporters writing must be sharper, shorter, and more creative as newsroom turns focus to digital — The Wall Street Journal is in the middle of a newsroom overhaul. And, according to its top editor, that transformation will include a sharper focus on cutting out editorial flab.

Discussion: @charliebeckett, @itsren, @jonathanhaynes, @brizzyc, @jdye, @bristei and @lydiadepillis

Benjamin Mullin / Poynter:

Newsroom memo: Huffington Post's Executive Editor Liz Heron is departing the site — Liz Heron, managing editor of The Huffington Post, is leaving that organization about a year after being appointed the newsroom's second-in-command. — Heron was hired on in September 2015 after serving …

Discussion: Liz Heron, FishbowlNY, The Wrap, Editor & Publisher, @mlcalderone and Politico

Benjamin Mullin / Poynter:

BuzzFeed aims to grow commerce revenue with Shop BuzzFeed, its online shop which sells merchandise created by the site's illustrators and designers — If you like your socks with milkshakes and French fries, good news: BuzzFeed has a store for you. — This summer, the online news …

Discussion: Business Insider

Ricardo Bilton / Nieman Lab:

California news site Berkeleyside launches a direct public offering, giving readers a chance to invest, with up to $800K in preferred stock available — Based solely on the numbers, the Green Bay Packers shouldn't exist. Its stadium, Lambeau Field, has a max capacity of 81,435 people …

Philip Bump / Washington Post:

How Newsweek journalist Kurt Eichenwald implied connections among Trump, WikiLeaks, and Russia that don't hold up under scrutiny — This tweet, retweeted thousands of times, is at best misleading. … Kurt Eichenwald is a reporter and writer who has been dogged in looking at Donald Trump over the course of the campaign.

Caitlin Dewey / Washington Post:

The Washington Post tracked Facebook's Trending Topics section over three weeks, uncovering five fake stories and three profoundly inaccurate ones — The Intersect ran a little experiment a few weeks ago: During the work day, we'd check in with Facebook each hour, on the hour …

Discussion: Gizmodo, @mlcalderone, @vijayshekhar, @laurahelmuth, @caitlindewey, @brendannyhan, @mantzarlis and Mother Jones

Ken Yeung / VentureBeat:

Google acquires FameBit to better connect YouTube creators with brands — Google announced on Tuesday that it has acquired FameBit, with plans to leverage its technology platform to help YouTube creators better connect with brands. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Discussion: YouTube Blog, Variety, ClickZ, Wall Street Journal, @pakman, Michael Jones, The Blog for the #1 …, ZDNet, Recode, The Wrap, Business Insider, 9to5Google, @famebit, @nealmohan, @seajayinla, @dipson, @peterpham, Engadget, Hollywood Reporter, The Verge and TechCrunch

Todd Spangler / Variety:

Playboy launches nudity-free magazine on Apple iTunes, Google Play stores, available for $5.99 per issue or $17.99 per year — Playboy's 63-year-old magazine — recently stripped of nude pictorials — is now an app. — Playboy Enterprises is selling digital copies of the Hugh Hefner's …

Discussion: FishbowlNY and Fortune

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More News:

Joshua Benton / Nieman Lab:
NYT renames global edition “New York Times International Edition”, with focus on deeper coverage; homepage will deliver geotargeted content to non-US readers

Discussion: Guardian

Lexology:
France adopts Digital Republic Act, which includes changes to laws surrounding net neutrality, data portability, video games, and copyright

Washington Post:
Dozens of suspicious court cases, with missing defendants, aim at getting web pages deindexed or taken down outright by abusing firms' policies on defamation

Discussion: @orinkerr, @cstross, @xor, Beyond Search, Techdirt, CL& and Softpedia News

Scott Dadich / Wired:
Wired's Editor-in-Chief Scott Dadich on how the magazine collaborated with President Obama as he guest-edited the magazine's November issue

Discussion: @markbao, @wired and @sdadich

John Cook / Gizmodo:
Facebook policies force publishers to tag underwritten content as if it were produced “with” a sponsor, even when that isn't the case

Discussion: @weareyourfek, @backlon, @s_m_i, @baekdal, @jwherrman and @johnjcook

Earlier Picks:

Eriq Gardner / Hollywood Reporter:
Rolling Stone asks that UVA case, due to start Monday, be postponed as ABC's 20/20 to air deposition footage on Friday, saying it will prejudice jury

Discussion: @robbysoave and @eriqgardner

Sam Machkovech / Ars Technica:
FCC fines Comcast $2.3M for charging customers for services they didn't ask for, including premium channels, DVRs, more, in largest FCC fine of a cable operator

Discussion: Radio & Television …, CBS Philly, BGR and Variety

Al Jazeera English:
Pakistan journalist Cyril Almeida barred from leaving the country, after Dawn published his report on rift between civilian and military leaderships

Discussion: NPR, Global Voices, New York Times, The Daily Caller, Committee to Protect … and The Nation News

Matt Burgess / WIRED UK:
IMAX to launch first European VR Center at Odeon cinema in Manchester, installing a series of pods which will allow moviegoers to view VR content

Discussion: @wireduk

From Techmeme:

Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:
Sources: Apple is working on a smart doorbell system with advanced facial recognition that can wirelessly connect and unlock third-party smart locks

Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch:
Donald Trump announces that Sriram Krishnan, until recently a general partner at a16z, will serve as senior policy advisor for AI at the White House OSTP

Financial Times:
Sources: Palantir and Anduril are in talks with OpenAI, SpaceX, and more to form a consortium to bid for US defense contracts and plan to announce it in January

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