The Irish Independent has published correspondence between Facebook chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg and Irish prime minister Enda Kenny, obtained through a freedom of information law request. Facebook's European headquarters are in Dublin, Ireland. The document reveals that Sheryl Sandberg lobbied Irish Prime Minister to influence Ireland's choice of official who would regulate them. From a report: The documents provides a rare window into how one of the world's most powerful technology companies conducts its business. In one email, after a meeting between Sandberg and Kenny at the annual World Economic Forum conference in Davos in early 2014, the Facebook executive praises the Irish politician's position on a set of sweeping, new, Europe-wide data privacy laws. "You and your staff really internalized our concerns," she writes. "And were able to present them in a reasonable way, which has had a positive impact." After that compliment, Sandberg turns to the matter of global tax law reform at the OECD, which Kenny was also involved in. Here, she raises the prospect of Facebook shifting its investment strategy in Europe. After noting that the tax discussions would be "very complicated," Sandberg wrote: "We hope to be helpful to you identifying the implications with different options for future investment and growth in Europe." That suggestion came as Facebook was in the process of expanding its Dublin office and headcount.

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The Irish Independent has published correspondence between Facebook chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg and Irish prime minister Enda Kenny, obtained through a freedom of information law request. Facebook's European headquarters are in Dublin, Ireland. The document reveals that Sheryl Sandberg lobbied Irish Prime Minister to influence Ireland's choice of official who would regulate them. From a report: The documents provides a rare window into how one of the world's most powerful technology companies conducts its business. In one email, after a meeting between Sandberg and Kenny at the annual World Economic Forum conference in Davos in early 2014, the Facebook executive praises the Irish politician's position on a set of sweeping, new, Europe-wide data privacy laws. "You and your staff really internalized our concerns," she writes. "And were able to present them in a reasonable way, which has had a positive impact." After that compliment, Sandberg turns to the matter of global tax law reform at the OECD, which Kenny was also involved in. Here, she raises the prospect of Facebook shifting its investment strategy in Europe. After noting that the tax discussions would be "very complicated," Sandberg wrote: "We hope to be helpful to you identifying the implications with different options for future investment and growth in Europe." That suggestion came as Facebook was in the process of expanding its Dublin office and headcount.

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Renowned architect, builder of numerous iconic buildings and recipient of prestigious prizes.

Renowned architect, builder of numerous iconic buildings and recipient of prestigious prizes.

An anonymous reader writes: The Pentagon has confirmed that the U.S. interceptor missile it launched has successfully intercepted the test ICBM fired from the Marshall Islands. From an ABC News report detailing the intercept test: "The ground-based interceptor launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California shortly after 3:30 p.m. EST Tuesday. The U.S. will launch an ICBM-class target from the Ronald Reagan Ballistic Missile Defense Test Site on Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands, 4,200 miles away. If successful, the kill vehicle, or intercept, will collide with the ICBM test target midcourse over the Pacific Ocean later today. The ground-based interceptor system is mainly designed to counter a North Korean missile threat, but a U.S. official said Tuesday's test has been planned for years and is coincidental to North Korea's increased missile testing this year. This will be the 18th test of the ground-based interceptor. The last one, in June 2014, was the first success since 2008. The system is nine for 17 since 1999 with other types of target missiles. An ICBM target has never been tested before."

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In its bid to take on Apple, Google and Amazon, Essential has unveiled "Home," a new intelligent assistant that it hopes owners will be proud to show off. From a report: Essential Home is the new intelligent assistant with round "auto-display" just announced by Andy Rubin's new venture. It can be activated with a question, a tap, or even a "glance," according to Essential, and it's designed to never intrude upon the home. In that way Essential calls it "an entirely new type of product" but it mostly borrows ideas from existing products in an attempt to outdo them. Essential Home lets your control your music, ask general interest questions, set timers, and control your lights -- capabilities we've seen from Google and Amazon -- only Essential promises to do it better, somehow. It's like Google Home or Amazon's Echo series of assistants only without the "boxes, tubes, or strange lights." It's like Nest but it doesn't try to make your home smart by anticipating your needs -- it suggests certain behaviors instead. "In the end people decide," says Essential. Earlier today, the company also announced the Essential Phone. Unlike the Essential Phone, however, much about the Essential Home is not know. It is expected to ship in a few months.

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I pay some amount of money to the NYT every month, I think it's $20 per? Not sure. But these days I probably get as much value from the NYT as I would from the Washington Post. There are a couple of other pubs I'd subscribe to if the price were more reasonable, considering I only exceed their quota of free stories by about the middle of the month. The New Yorker is one for sure. And there are free-to-read pubs that deserve some of the money too, like TPM and New York Mag. It's not fair that I pay the NYT and not them.

But I'm not ready to create multiple pay-to-read accounts. I want a system.

So how about forming a trust of some kind, and I pay money to it and that creates a allocates a certain number of reads for me per week across all participating publications. And the money is distributed at the end of the month according to how many articles I read on each site.

Maybe they should even give me credits for any reads that come from links I distribute? I have about 70K followers on Twitter and am a daily linkblogger.

I, and probably a lot of other news readers, would like to have the money flow more smoothly and to get a chance to spread it out instead of giving it all to one publication.

Not how such a service would get started though.

If you have comments on the JSON version of Scripting News, please post an issue on the GitHub section for Scripting News.

According to The New York Times, Uber has fired Anthony Levandowski, the former head of its self-driving car project who is accused of stealing some 14,000 documents from Google's Waymo and using that information as the technological basis for Uber's self-driving cars. TechCrunch reports: During the court proceedings, Levandowski exercised his Fifth Amendment rights to avoid providing testimony or handing over evidence regarding his use of proprietary data from his time at Google. Uber had previously warned that Levandowski could face consequences for his lack of compliance with his employment requirements at the company. Uber confirmed via a spokesperson that Levandowski was terminated following months of the company attempting to have him comply with and assist its own internal investigation into the matter, and had set a clear deadline for him to do so. Uber also noted that Eric Meyhofer, who stepped in when Levandowski was removed from his role leading ATG in April, will continue to lead the team and take over Levandowski's direct reports.

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