Microsoft releases Office for iPad, subscription required for editing docs  —  Rumors have been circulating for years that Microsoft was working on a version of Office for the iPad, with speculation getting so intense at one point that the company went out of its way to categorically deny it.

Amazon planning free ad-supported TV and music streaming service, no Prime subscription required  —  Amazon Plans Free Streaming Media Service  —  Website Said to Drop Strategy of Only Offering Video to Users of Its Prime Service  —  Amazon.com Inc. plans a free, advertising-supported streaming television …

Twitter and Billboard announce Real-Time Charts, lists of music that is being talked about and shared on Twitter in the US  —  ComingSoon: Billboard Twitter Real-Time Chart  —  Today Billboard is announcing a partnership with us to create the Billboard Twitter Real-Time Chart …

Spotify is planning an IPO for this fall  —  Spotify could take itself public some time in the fall of 2014.  —  The popular music-streaming company has participated in informal chats with some of the investment banks likely to fight for a role in a potential IPO, sources familiar with the process said.

Apps with millions of Google Play downloads covertly mine cryptocurrency  —  Researchers said they have uncovered two apps that were downloaded from the official Google Play market more than one million times that use Android devices to mine the Litecoin and Dogecoin cryptocurrencies without explicitly informing end users.

Facebook, Google, LinkedIn, and Twitter launch WebScaleSQL, a custom version of MySQL for massive databases  —  Facebook, Google, LinkedIn, and Twitter today announced WebScaleSQL, a collaborative project bringing the engineers from these companies together to solve challenges working with massive databases.

Japanese newspaper repeats persistent ‘iPhone 6’ rumors: 2 screen sizes, Sept. launch  —  Apple is readying two variants of the so-called iPhone 6 with significantly larger 4.7-inch and 5.5-inch displays for a September launch, according to a Thursday report from the Land of the Rising Sun.

The Inside Story of How Facebook Got Oculus VR  —  A 19-year-old hacker set out to invent a gaming headset.  He ended up reviving a dead technology and creating an idea worth $2 billion  —  To understand why Oculus Rift matters, it helps to know who John Carmack is.

Twitter pressuring companies highlighting tweets for TV not to work with Facebook, angering networks  —  Twitter Plays Hardball With Facebook Over TV — And TV Networks Gripe  —  TV networks love to work posts from Twitter, Facebook and other social networks into their programming.

Sources: Dropbox Acqui-Hiring Social Reading App Readmill For $8 Million  —  With fresh capital in its coffers, Dropbox appears to be on somewhat of an acquisition spree, albeit a quiet one.  Following the cloud storage company's recent purchase of workplace chat solution Zulip …

Turkey blocks access to YouTube after alleged leak of recordings of key security meeting  —  Turkey blocks access to YouTube after leak recordings of key security meeting  —  Less than a week after a notorious ban on Twitter went into effect, the Turkish government blocked access to YouTube on March 27.

Russian government officials switch from iPads to Samsung tablets over spying fears  —  Russian officials dump iPads over spy fears  —  Moscow — Russian government officials have swapped their iPads for Samsung tablets to ensure tighter security, the telecoms minister told news agencies on Wednesday.

Lithium Confirms That It Has Acquired Klout  —  At a press event today, Lithium Technologies confirmed reports that it has closed its acquisition of Klout.  —  Re/code first reported on the deal back in February, saying that it was “signed but not closed,” and then Fortune reported yesterday that the price was nearly $200 million.

VC giant Andreessen Horowitz raises $1.5B fourth fund — that's $4.15B in total  —  Updated 10:25 a.m. with comments from Kupor.  —  Andreessen Horowitz just announced it has closed its fourth fund at a sizable $1.5 billion.  In total over its lifetime, the firm has now raised $4.15 billion.

New images reveal an overhauled Store for Windows Phone 8.1, includes automatic app updates and more  —  The Windows Phone 8.1 core has been finished today, so it seems appropriate to take a look at an area that is need of some improvement: the Windows Phone Store.

Intel to ditch its Hadoop software and support Cloudera instead  —  Intel is set to cause a tremor in the big data market tomorrow.  —  The chip maker will announce tomorrow that it will stop pushing its own distribution of open-source Hadoop software for storing and processing lots …