Journal

Behind an FCC proposal to lower cable equipment fees is a fight for control of television involving Google, pay-TV services, and Hollywood.

Cable and satellite TV companies are not popular, consistently ranking near the bottom of customer satisfaction studies. One of the reasons is that Americans spend nearly $20 billion per year to rent set-top boxes from pay-TV providers, according to a recent Senate report. So when a proposal to open up competition against the oft-reviled set-top boxes was issued by FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler on January 27, the cable providers didn’t receive many sympathy notes.

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The e-commerce giant is seeking fashion industry types for its upcoming clothing line, according to job postings spotted by WWD.

Amazon, which carries upwards of 30 million items in its fashion division, may be on the verge of launching the private-label clothing brand we heard rumors of late last year. According to WWD, the e-commerce retailer has posted a series of job listings that point to a forthcoming clothing line.

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Google Ideas is transitioning into Jigsaw, a tech incubator that will use technology to solve geopolitical challenges.

Google Ideas, a think tank started by Google in 2010, is morphing into Jigsaw, a tech incubator that will take on geopolitical challenges. The new name appears to follow the same format as other Google offshoots under the Alphabet umbrella, like Verily (formerly Google Life Sciences) and X (previously known as Google X).

With the assistance of engineers, research scientists, and project managers, Jigsaw will build on the mission set forth by Google Ideas, which seeks to examine and solve “global issues at the intersection of technology and international security.” Jared Cohen, who has been at the helm of Google Ideas since its inception, will continue on as the president of Jigsaw.

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To understand what makes BuzzFeed tick, you need to know how Dao Nguyen thinks about data.

As the publisher in charge of BuzzFeed, which has annual revenue in the hundreds of millions of dollars, you might expect Dao Nguyen to be getting the best tables at fancy restaurants in order to land advertising deals with chief marketing officers. Instead, Nguyen meets me at a Le Pain Quotidien cafe wearing a grey fleece with the Dow Jones logo on it. She’s every bit the down-to-earth geek who you’d expect to be building BuzzFeed‘s technology and data infrastructure.

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