Facebook exec says company is reducing spam despite clogging your feed with brands you don’t like

Recent changes to Facebook’s (FB) Edgerank, the algorithm that’s responsible for displaying items on a user’s Newsfeed, have angered privacy groups who say the new policy will actually produce more spam than reducing it. According to Forbes’ Jeff Bercovici, Facebook’s VP of global marketing solutions Carol Everson said on Tuesday that the social network is reducing spam...

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‘The Inbetweeners’ Canceled by MTV

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) – “The Inbetweeners” now falls solidly in the “canceled” camp.MTV has decided not to go forward with a second season of the scripted series, which premiered in August and was an adaptation of a British sitcom of the same name.“While we won’t be moving forward with another season of ‘The Inbetweeners,’ we enjoyed working with the show’s creators and such a talented, funny...

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Small sachets are big help for clean water in developing world

SINGAPORE (Reuters) – Greg Allgood tears open a small sachet and dumps the powder into a large plastic container filled with brown, murky water. After about five minutes of stirring, clumps of sludge form and sink to the bottom as the water starts to clear.“You let it settle, pour it through a cotton cloth and then you wait 20 minutes and it’s ready to drink,” said Allgood, the U.S.-based director...

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Is SAC Capital’s Steve Cohen Worth Catching?

Preet Bharara started work as the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York on Aug. 13, 2009, less than a year after the most harrowing days of the financial crisis. Bharara’s office is known for prosecuting crime on Wall Street; his predecessors include Elihu Root, Henry Stimson, and Rudy Giuliani. In three and a half years on the job, Bharara has won convictions against Times Square...

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Rugby-England add flyhalf Burns to squad for All Blacks’ test

LONDON, Nov 27 (Reuters) – England called up uncapped Gloucester flyhalf Freddie Burns on Tuesday to their squad for Saturday’s test against New Zealand in place of the injured Toby Flood.Flood sustained ligament damage to a big toe during the 16-15 loss to South Africa at Twickenham last Saturday.Owen Farrell, whose last start was in the first test in South Africa this year, is set to replace Flood...

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Nintendo: more than 400,000 Wii Us sold in US

NEW YORK (AP) — Nintendo says it has sold more than 400,000 of its new video game console, the Wii U, in its first week on sale in the U.S.The Wii U launched on Nov. 18 in the U.S. at a starting price of $ 300. Nintendo says the sales figure, based on internal estimates, is through Nov. 24.Six years ago, Nintendo Co. sold 475,000 of the original Wii in that console’s first seven days in stores. The...

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U.S. author sues filmmaker Tyler Perry over plot of 2012 film

NEW YORK (Reuters) – An American author sued the prolific filmmaker Tyler Perry in a federal court on Tuesday, accusing him of lifting the plot of his 2012 movie, “Good Deeds,” from her book.Terri Donald, who also writes under the pseudonym TLO Red’ness, says Perry based the film on her 2007 book, “Bad Apples Can Be Good Fruit.”The lawsuit, filed in Philadelphia, says Donald sent a copy of her book...

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Indian board rejects AstraZeneca’s patent plea on cancer drug

(Reuters) – India‘s patents appeal board has dismissed British drugmaker AstraZeneca‘s petition challenging an earlier ruling that refused patent protection for a cancer-fighting drug, in the latest blow for Big Pharma in the country.The Indian patents office in 2007 refused patent protection to AstraZeneca’s quinazoline molecule, citing lack of invention. The Intellectual Property Appellate Board...

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Dog days in Cuba: from shih tzus to schnauzers

HAVANA (AP) — The Cuban capital has played host to political summits and art festivals, ballet tributes and international baseball competitions. Now dog lovers are getting their chance to take center stage.Hundreds of people from all over Cuba and several other countries came to a scruffy field near Revolution Plaza this past week to preen and fuss over the shih tzus, beagles, schnauzers and cocker...

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Bin Laden movie “Zero Dark Thirty” based on first-hand accounts

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – The makers of a Hollywood movie about the U.S. operation to kill Osama bin Laden denied asking for classified material for their film, but say they did conduct interviews with a CIA officer and others at the heart of the decade-long hunt for the al Qaeda leader.“It was all based on first-hand accounts so it really felt very vivid and very vital and very, very immediate and...

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