Weekly Highlights: Amazon's First Smartphone, Google's Latest Acquisition And More

This week was an unusual one. Instead of being dominated by headlines from Apple, the week proved to be ruled by Google GOOG. The search engine giant made a key acquisition, filed a promising patent, and received investor hype from Jim Cramer. Amazon AMZN, whose newly released Fire TV received high marks from a number of publications, might be ready to release its first smartphone. IKEA will use wind power to generate electricity for numerous stores and facilities. Tru Optik revealed the grim truth behind Game of Thrones piracy. Twitter TWTR acquired Gnip. Last but not least, MovieLaLa teased its upcoming launch. Disclosure: At the time of this writing, Louis Bedigian had no position in the equities mentioned in this slideshow.