Techmeme: The second coming of Facebook (Jessi Hempel/Fortune)

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April 14, 2013, 9:45 PM

Top News

Farhad Manjoo / Slate:

Google has a single towering obsession: It wants to build the Star Trek computer — I first came across Google's interest in Star Trek back in the summer of 2010. A company spokesman wanted to show me the firm's rapidly improving visual search and speech-recognition technology.

More: iMore, FM Signal and The Verge. Tweets: @jenny8lee

Jessi Hempel / Fortune:

The second coming of Facebook — Back in 2010 Mark Zuckerberg made a very bad decision. Instead of building separate apps for iPhones, Androids, BlackBerrys, Nokia devices, and, yes, even Microsoft phones, he put his engineers to work designing a version of Facebook that could operate on any smartphone.

Tweets: @counternotions, @bowmanbrian and @wpsands. Thanks:@eghosao

Chris Velazco / TechCrunch:

Here's How To Get Facebook Home Running On Nearly Any Android Device — In case you happened to miss the furor earlier today (or yesterday, depending on your timezone), Facebook officially pushed its Facebook Home launcher into the Google Play Store for owners of a select few devices to muck around with.

More: The Next Web, MoDaCo Topics, Business Insider, VentureBeat, PhoneArena, Gizmodo, Tech Shout!, Engadget and TechCrunch

Arik Hesseldahl / AllThingsD:

Computer Security Legend Mudge Leaves DARPA for Google Job — Peter Zatko, the computer hacking expert better known by the handle Mudge, says he's leaving his job as a program manager at DARPA to join Google. He announced the change overnight on Twitter. — Zatko joined DARPA …

Tweets: @dotmudge. Thanks:@ahess247

Ryan Lawler / TechCrunch:

Bitcoin Miners Are Racking Up $150,000 A Day In Power Consumption Alone — There's a gold rush going on these days, or a Bitcoin rush, at least. Driven by the recent swings in the value of a Bitcoin, more and more people are learning about and becoming interested in the currency.

More: Bloomberg, Ars Technica, Gizmodo, Gawker and Forbes

Economist:

Start-ups founded by immigrants are creating jobs all over America — ON APRIL 19th Jack Markell, the governor of Delaware, is due to visit a new factory being built in his state by Bloom Energy, a start-up based in Silicon Valley. Bloom makes clean power-generation systems using a novel fuel-cell technology.

Tweets: @edithyeung

Semil Shah / TechCrunch:

Iterations: How Five Real Economists Think About Bitcoin's Future — There isn't just a bubble in the Bitcoin economy, there's a bubble in the number of posts about Bitcoin. I'll pile on, even after this week's mini-crash, but with a twist. A few weeks ago, I wrote some brief notes …

More: Paul Krugman. Tweets: @semil and @garrytan

Om Malik / GigaOM:

Why a Warby Parker flagship retail store is a big moment for online brands (video) — A few years ago when I floated the idea that Amazon would one day experiment with the idea of a retail store in order to project the Amazon experience, it was universally ridiculed.

More: TechCrunch and Warby Parker. Tweets: @cdixon

Claire Cain Miller / New York Times:

Europeans Reach Deal With Google on Search Results — Google has for the first time agreed to legally binding changes to its search results after an antitrust investigation by European regulators into whether it abuses its dominance of online search. — After a two-year inquiry …

More: CNET, TechCrunch, Bloomberg, Wall Street Journal and GigaOM. Tweets: @amir_efrati

Daniela Hernandez / Wired:

‘Chinese Google’ Opens Artificial-Intelligence Lab in Silicon Valley — It doesn't look like much. The brick office building sits next to a strip mall in Cupertino, California, about an hour south of San Francisco, and if you walk inside, you'll find a California state flag and a cardboard cutout …

More: Business Insider

Rima Abdelkader / Rock Center with Brian Williams:

Laurene Powell Jobs on immigration reform & Steve Jobs' ‘private legacy’ — Laurene Powell Jobs is speaking publicly for the first time since her husband Steve Jobs' death to advocate for immigration reform. — “I started getting more and more active around immigration reform …

More: Rock Center …, Fast Company, NY Daily News, Bloomberg, TechCrunch, Fortune, AllThingsD, MacNN, Mercury News, Forbes, NBC Bay Area and Cult of Mac

Terril Yue Jones / Reuters:

U.S., China agree to work together on cyber security — (Reuters) - China and the United States will set up a working group on cyber-security, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said on Saturday, as the two sides moved to ease months of tensions and mutual accusations of hacking and Internet theft.

More: The Next Web, BBC, GlobalPost, The Verge and CNET

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