Techmeme: Meet the World's Cheapest Venture Capitalist (Ryan Tate/Wired)

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December 16, 2012, 12:20 AM

Top News

Elizabeth Wasserman / Politico:

Google to tweak practices to end search probe — Federal regulators may end a two-year antitrust probe of Google's search business by letting the company make voluntary changes, such as limiting use of restaurant and travel reviews from other websites and letting search ad campaigns …

More: CNET. Tweets: @mhelft

Tom Warren / The Verge:

Google drops a Gmail-shaped bomb on Windows Phone — The ecosystem battle continues — For Windows Phone users, the news out of Google today couldn't be much worse. — The company announced it's removing support for Microsoft's Exchange ActiveSync protocol for new devices from January 30th, 2013.

More: Engadget, ZDNet, PC Magazine, SuperSite for Windows, Softpedia News and The Next Web. Tweets: @tomwarren

Horace Dediu / asymco:

Below the Surface — Early data shows that the PC market has not experienced a “pop” from Windows 8. Market watchers have been anticipating this pop since every previous version of Windows has led to a surge in shipments. PC vendors have also been hoping for this to lift their volumes.

More: CNET and Guardian

KurzweilAI:

Kurzweil joins Google to work on new projects involving machine learning and language processing — Ray Kurzweil confirmed today that he will be joining Google to work on new projects involving machine learning and language processing. — “I'm excited to share that I'll be joining Google …

More: MIT Technology Review, VentureBeat, ZDNet, SlashGear, The Verge, Engadget, CNET, Techonomy, VatorNews, HotHardware.com News, Softpedia News, PC Magazine, NextBigWhat, Digits, SocialTimes, The Next Web, GigaOM, Ars Technica, PhoneArena, Computerworld, ReadWrite, AllThingsD and Electronista

Tweets: @benlillie and @counternotions

Colleen Taylor / TechCrunch:

Ray Kurzweil Joins Google In Full-Time Engineering Director Role; Will Focus On Machine Learning, Language Processing

More: Gizmodo. Thanks:@loyalelectron

Geoff Colvin / Fortune:

Comcast CEO: What we learned from Apple — Comcast CEO Brian Roberts applies the Apple model to his business empire: Keep it simple, and reinvent constantly. — FORTUNE — America's biggest media company isn't what you think. Comcast (CMCSA) takes in more revenue and commands …

More: The Verge, CNET, PandoDaily and Business Insider

New York Times:

Microsoft Battles Google by Hiring Political Brawler Mark Penn — SEATTLE — Mark Penn made a name for himself in Washington by bulldozing enemies of the Clintons. Now he spends his days trying to do the same to Google, on behalf of its archrival Microsoft.

More: The Verge and Neowin. Tweets: @akovacs, @fxshaw, @fxshaw, @fxshaw and @fxshaw

Julian Sanchez / Ars Technica:

Op-ed—A plea to Google: Protect our e-mail privacy — We recently learned that even the director of the CIA, David Petraeus, can't seem to secure his private e-mail conversations properly, and over the past month tech commentators have responded to that discovery with a familiar litany of depressing advice …

David J. Hill / Singularity Hub:

Patented Book Writing System Creates, Sells Hundreds Of Thousands Of Books On Amazon — Philip M. Parker, Professor of Marketing at INSEAD Business School, has had a side project for over 10 years. He's created a computer system that can write books about specific subjects in about 20 minutes.

More: ExtremeTech, Examiner, Good E-Reader, DVICE and broadstuff. Tweets: @joshuamcclure

Megan Garber / The Atlantic Online:

How the UN's ‘Game-Changing’ Internet Treaty Failed — German delegates on the fourth day of the 12-day-long World Conference on International Telecommunications (ITU/Flickr) — Did you know that, for the past two weeks, the future of the Internet has been at stake? — Yes, it has.

More: KurzweilAI, Guardian, TPM IdeaLab and Datamation.com

Susan Decker / Bloomberg:

Intel Wins First Round in Patent Fight That Threatens Chips — Intel Corp. (INTC) won the first round of a patent-infringement case that some lawmakers said may threaten jobs at the company's U.S. manufacturing plants. — The world's largest semiconductor maker didn't infringe the patents …

More: Electronista, Wall Street Journal and AppleInsider

Lauren Indvik / Mashable!:

Washington Post Moves Social Reader Off Facebook — The Washington Post Company has decided to move its Social Reader app — which displays stories from Washington Post Co. publications and 90 other news organizations, including this one, on Facebook — to a standalone site at socialreader.com, the co...

Tweets: @laureni. See also Mediagazer

Ryan Tate / Wired:

Meet the World's Cheapest Venture Capitalist — Maciej Cegłowski's new startup fund was the toast of Silicon Valley on Friday, lighting up Twitter, winning top billing on the elite Hacker News forum, and drawing dozens of applications from would-be portfolio companies. The fund's draw: Extreme stinginess.

More: Pinboard. Tweets: @pinboard, @panzer, @sriramk, @davidpetersimon and @pinboard

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