Techmeme
March 26, 2014, 9:25 AM

Top News

Facebook:
Facebook to acquire Oculus VR for approximately $2 billion  —  Facebook to Acquire Oculus  —  Acquisition positions Facebook to accelerate Oculus' growth in gaming, communications and new social experiences  —  Facebook today announced that it has reached a definitive agreement to acquire Oculus VR …
Mark Zuckerberg / Facebook:
Oculus will operate independently within Facebook, focusing first on gaming, and later becoming a new communication platform  —  I'm excited to announce that we've agreed to acquire Oculus VR, the leader in virtual reality technology.  —  Our mission is to make the world more open and connected.
Markus Persson / notch.net:
Mojang's talks with Oculus to bring Minecraft to its VR canceled, Notch doesn't trust Facebook  —  Virtual Reality is going to change the world  —  It's amazing.  You strap on some gear, and then you're inside whatever world you want.  It showed up in books, it showed up in movies, and everyone dreamed about it.
Todd Bishop / GeekWire:
Zuckerberg: Microsoft and Sony are no match for Facebook and Oculus  —  Mark Zuckerberg.  (Photo by Robert Scoble via Flickr.)  —  The jaw-dropper of the day in the tech industry, you've probably heard, was Facebook's announcement that it will spend $2 billion to acquire Oculus, the maker of the virtual-reality headset Oculus Rift.
Wall Street Journal:
Kickstarter provided Oculus with a smart option for funding: $2.4M raised for 0% equity  —  Aug. 1, 2012: When Oculus Asked for Donations  —  On Aug. 1, 2012, a fledgling company called Oculus took to crowdfunding site Kickstarter to raise money to get its virtual reality headset off the ground.
Kim-Mai Cutler / TechCrunch:
Facebook's $2B Oculus Deal Happened Over The Last Five Days  —  Facebook's deal to buy Oculus VR for $2 billion happened relatively quickly and the negotiations were hammered out over the last five days during the industry's Game Developer Conference in San Francisco, according to sources familiar with the deal.
Daisuke Wakabayashi / Wall Street Journal:
Ahead of Samsung patent case, Apple engineer recalls the marathon to create the iPhone  —  Jobs gave the engineer an ultimatum: Lay out a vision for the iPhone fast or lose the job  —  In February 2005, Apple Inc. 's then chief executive, Steve Jobs, gave senior software engineer Greg Christie an ultimatum.
Hassan Hosseini / RightScale Blog:
Google Slashes Cloud Prices: Google vs AWS Price Comparison  —  Today Google threw down the gauntlet to challenge AWS public cloud supremacy by announcing significant price reductions across its Google Cloud Platform.  The eye-opening price cuts covered compute (32-percent reduction), storage …
More: The Register and Gigaom
Josh Constine / TechCrunch:
TechCrunch's Picks: The Top 8 Startups From Y Combinator W14 Demo Day  —  While today saw Paul Graham physically pass the reins to new Y Combinator president Sam Altman, the bigger buzz at Demo Day was about how most investors thought this was the best YC class yet.
Liz Gannes / Re/code:
Google General Counsel to Arrington Allegation: We Don't Snoop on Gmail to Find Leakers  —  In an unusual move, Google is responding directly to former TechCrunch editor Michael Arrington's allegation that it accessed his Gmail account to root out his source for a major story.
Tweets: @dangillmor
Andy Greenberg / Forbes:
Dorian Nakamoto's neighbor and second Bitcoin user Hal Finney denies helping to invent Bitcoin  —  Nakamoto's Neighbor: My Hunt For Bitcoin's Creator Led To A Paralyzed Crypto Genius  —  Hal Finney's light brown eyes are pointed down.  —  I've just asked him if he was involved in the creation of Bitcoin.
Tweets: @gadyepstein and @kashhillThanks:@thealexknapp
Joey Parker / MTV Act:
Apple plans to add more diversity to Emoji character set  —  What Does Apple Think About The Lack Of Diversity In Emojis?  We Have Their Response.  —  When you browse through the emojis on your phone, there are very few non-Caucasian ones to choose from.  I mean, they have a water buffalo but no representation of people of color?
Matt Jarzemsky / Wall Street Journal:
‘Candy Crush’ Maker Prices IPO at $22.50  —  Unlike Facebook and Twitter, Videogame Maker Hasn't Raised IPO Size  —  With the shares of videogame maker King Digital Entertainment PLC set to begin trading Wednesday, the central question facing investors is whether the company can pull off another blockbuster like “Candy Crush Saga.”
Instagram Blog:
Instagram now has 200M active monthly users, 20B total photos shared  —  Instagram Today: 200 Million Strong  —  Today, we're excited to share that the Instagram community has grown to more than 200 million Instagrammers capturing and sharing their lives every month.
Peter Sayer / PC World:
French consumer group: Google, Facebook privacy policies are too hard to read  —  French consumer protection group UFC-Que Choisir has issued Facebook, Twitter and Google with a summons to appear before the Paris High Court, which it has asked to strike out what it says are unfair or illegal clauses in the companies' user agreements.

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