Techmeme: With free licensing and new device makers on board, it's too early to write off Windows Phone (Paul Thurrott/SuperSite for Windows)

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August 17, 2014, 11:40 AM

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Jeff Minich / Business Insider:

Ex-employee defends Yahoo: Mayer is ignoring legacy ad business to focus on potential growth — A Former Yahoo Employee Defends Marissa Mayer From Her Biggest Critic — Eric Jackson has had a lot to say about Marissa Mayer and Yahoo lately. He's a smart guy, I read his column and think he's generally an astute investor.

Tweets: @jaudrius, @kimbatronic, @aaronklein, @anildash and @karaswisher

Kara Swisher / Re/code:

Investor Eric Jackson pesters Yahoo and its CEO, hoping to attract activist investor or buyer — A Yahoo Fanboy Turns Critic: “I Am Committed to Remaining a Pest” — What exactly is investor and Forbes columnist Eric Jackson up to with his now month-old blog attack on Yahoo and, most pointedly, its CEO, Marissa Mayer?

Miguel Helft / Fortune:

Inside ATAP, Google's mobile development group led by former DARPA director Regina Dugan — Google goes DARPA — Regina Dugan loves to tell the story of how she got her current job. It was a little over two years ago, and Dugan, a mechanical engineer by training and an expert in counterterrorism …

More: Navy Times, Business Insider and Tech Times

Tweets: @rcalo, @malbonnington, @erictopol and @dbfarber

Ethan Zuckerman / The Atlantic Online:

Ad-supported web led to targeting and surveillance as a default; let's try again, with fees for service — The Internet's Original Sin — Ron Carlson's short story “What We Wanted To Do” takes the form of an apology from a villager who failed to protect his comrades from marauding Visigoths.

More: SlashGear, BuzzMachine, Forbes, The Verge, Digital Trends, CNET, BGR, Engadget, MacDailyNews, Gizmodo, NEWS.com.au, Gizmodo UK, RT, TechSpot, Tech Times, Business Insider, Joho the Blog, Yahoo Tech and The Register

Tweets: @theatlantic, @rianvdm, @adriennelaf, @csoghoian, @jayrosen_nyu, @anildash, @niemanlab, @sanatanamishra, @evgenymorozov, @zeynep, @ftrain, @pinboard, @ashk4n and @ashk4n

Thanks:@nethistorypod

Paul Thurrott / SuperSite for Windows:

With free licensing and new device makers on board, it's too early to write off Windows Phone — It's Too Early to Write Off the Third Smartphone Ecosystem — Thanks to a single smart phone quarterly market share report from IDC, many are suddenly writing off Windows Phone and declaring …

More: Gigaom and BGR. Tweets: @ihnatko

Emily Steel / New York Times:

After first original TV series fall flat, Amazon leans away from data-driven creative approach — For Its New Shows, Amazon Adds Art to Its Data — LOS ANGELES — Joe Lewis, a television executive at Amazon, lies on his stomach on a rumpled bed. Jill Soloway, the Emmy-nominated writer and director …

Tweets: @sriramk, @carr2n, @ronmwangaguhung, @karaswisher and @emilysteel

Peter Bright / Ars Technica:

Chrome drops Microsoft's “Pointer Events” touch input spec in favor of Apple's “Touch Events” — Google to drop Microsoft-designed touch Web spec, stick with Apple tech — Developers on the Blink browser engine, the core component that powers both Google's Chrome browser …

Paul Carr / PandoDaily:

Bezos-owned Washington Post now inserting gross Amazon affiliate links into news articles — There's something creepy in this Washington Post piece about Penguin's new “adult” cover for the 50th anniversary edition of “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.” Well, something else creepy, beyond the weirdly over-sexualized cover itself.

More: Washington Post and The Digital Reader. Tweets: @mathewi. See also Mediagazer

Mary Jo Foley / ZDNet:

Internet Explorer team AMA: no plans for iOS & Android release, rebranding has been considered — Internet Explorer on Android or iOS? Not in Microsoft's current plans — Summary: The cross-platform push may be on at ‘cloud first/mobile first’ Microsoft, but for now …

Dan Primack / Fortune:

We lack the data needed to show whether venture capital is performing as an asset class — VCs suck (but there's a way you could prove me wrong) — There has been a bunch of Twitter conversation this week about venture capital economics and performance, stemming from an HBR post titled Venture Capitalists …

More: HBR.org. Tweets: @trengriffin, @pmarca, @jimprosser, @felixsalmon, @trengriffin, @felixsalmon, @pmarca and @danprimack

Heise:

GCHQ's “HACIENDA” program completed full port scans targeting 27 countries — NSA/GCHQ: The HACIENDA Program for Internet Colonization — Translations of this article are available in German, French, Italian and Spanish. — Since the early days of TCP …

More: Gizmodo UK, The Hacker News, Engadget, IETF Datatracker, tum.de, Gigaom, PC World and The Register

Tweets: @matthew_d_green, @kashhill, @fredericjacobs, @ashk4n, @cyberwar and @ioerror

Cat Zakrzewski / TechCrunch:

Uber To Test Moving Services In Atlanta, Nashville — Earlier this summer, we saw Uber experiment with UberRUSH, a courier service in New York City. The car service seems to be testing the waters for another service, announcing it will move Atlanta college students and Nashville residents this weekend.

More: Uber Blog, Uber Blog, Nooga.com, Nashville Public Radio and TechRadar.com

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