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December 15, 2012, 1:30 PM

Top News

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: VentureBeat, MIT Technology Review, SlashGear, The Verge, CNET, Engadget, Techonomy, ZDNet, HotHardware.com News, PC World, 9to5Google, PC Magazine, Softpedia News, NextBigWhat, Digits, SocialTimes, The Next Web, Ars Technica, PhoneArena, GigaOM, 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 — Famed inventor, entrepreneur, author, and futurist Ray Kurzweil announced this afternoon that he has been hired by search engine giant Google as a director of engineering focused …

More: Gizmodo. Thanks:@loyalelectron

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: @davidpetersimon, @sriramk, @pinboard and @pinboard

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: CNET, PandoDaily and Business Insider

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, DVICE, Good E-Reader 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: TPM IdeaLab and Datamation.com. See also Mediagazer

Barb Darrow / GigaOM:

Amazon gives customers more detailed billing of their cloud services — Updated: Amazon is still not carving out EC2 compute instances in smaller-than-an-hour increments as we speculated it might, and as Cloud Sigma and ProfitBricks already do. But now it is offering customers …

More: Amazon Web Services Blog, ProgrammableWeb, Web Host Industry Review, InfoWorld and VentureBeat

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. Tweets: @fxshaw, @fxshaw, @fxshaw and @fxshaw

Ben Kersey / The Verge:

Samsung rejects labor claims, says there are no underage workers at its supplier — Samsung has responded to allegations of HTNS Shenzhen hiring underage workers following complaints from China Labor Watch. In a blog post, the company reveals that it met with both HTNS Shenzhen …

More: SAMSUNG TOMORROW Global, china labor watch, CNET and CBS News

Margalit Fox / New York Times:

N. Joseph Woodland, 1921-2012: N. Joseph Woodland, Inventor of the Bar Code, Dies at 91 — It was born on a beach six decades ago, the product of a pressing need, an intellectual spark and the sweep of a young man's fingers through the sand. — The result adorns almost every product of contemporary life …

More: The Verge, BBC, Geek News Central, Laughing Squid, Engadget, The Register, Gawker, nbcnews.com, Reuters, Softpedia News and Guardian

Elyse Betters / 9to5Mac:

Walmart now offers iPhone 5 for $127, 4S for $47, and third-gen iPad for $399 — Walmart is continuing to slash price tags on Apple products this holiday season, as the global retailer just announced it is now offering the 16GB iPhone 5 for $127. Walmart also cut the iPhone 4S from $89.97 …

More: ZDNet, VentureBeat, Tech Shout!, CNET, Gadgetwise, GeekWire, Reuters, Examiner, The Verge, Pocketables, Business Insider, iDownloadBlog.com, Pocketnow, App Advice, Gizmodo, Mobile Magazine, iPhone Hacks and iClarified

Steve Kovach / Business Insider:

Every Apple-Made App On Your iPhone Can Be Replaced By A Better App — With yesterday's launch of Google Maps for iOS, I reached the point where I no longer use any of Apple's built-in apps on my iPhone. — Well, there are three very basic exceptions: Clock, Messages* (the texting app), and Phone.

Tweets: @reckless, @panzer, @reckless and @reckless

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