Techmeme: April Fools' 2014 roundup: selfie-taking drones, smartgloves and more (Mat Smith/Engadget)

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April 1, 2014, 2:35 PM

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Reiji Murai / Reuters:

Sources: Production of 4.7" iPhone 6 screen to begin in May, 5.5" starting months later — New iPhone 6 screens to enter production as early as May: sources — (Reuters) - Apple Inc suppliers will begin mass producing displays as early as May for the next iPhone, expected to be launched this autumn …

Harry McCracken / TIME:

How Gmail Happened: The Inside Story of Its Launch 10 Years Ago Today … It All Began With Search … Gmail's creator, Paul Buchheit, at his desk at Google in 1999 — Courtesy Paul Buchheit … What Does Google Email Look Like? … Going Public

More: Wired, The Verge, Wall Street Journal, Business Insider and Pocketables

Tweets: @mat and @hunterwalk

Thanks:@mariedomingo

Mat Smith / Engadget:

April Fools' 2014 roundup: selfie-taking drones, smartgloves and more — For the last 24 hours (and likely the next 12), excitable company execs have been barraging our inbox, YouTube and your social media networks with their best shenanigans. Love it or loathe it (and you're probably starting …

More: YouTube, Samsung Tomorrow, SwiftKey, The Official Google Blog, The Twitter Blog, Search Engine Land, 500 Startups, Fortune, Search Engine Land, The Next Web, Spout Blog, MacRumors, The Verge, TechCrunch, iMore, AppleInsider, Google Chrome Blog, reddit, Official LinkedIn Blog, Nest, TechCrunch, Digital Trends, TechNet Blogs, 9to5Google, NBC Bay Area, TechCrunch, Android Central, The Airbnb Blog, Wall Street Journal, Geek.com, The Next Web, The Next Web, Lifehacker, FierceWireless, Business Insider, Softpedia News, Android and Me, social media, Android Authority, The Register, SamMobile, SiliconANGLE, CNET, SiliconANGLE, ABC News, Digital Trends, GSMArena Blog, Android Beat, WMPoweruser, IntoMobile, Phandroid, ZDNet, Lastest ITProPortal news, Android Authority, SocialTimes, Pocket-lint, Phones Review, Ars Technica, Laughing Squid, TUAW, Joystiq, Android Central, Geek Beat and The Next Web

Alexia Tsotsis / TechCrunch:

Jawbone acquires personalized music service Playground.fm, deal said to be “over 8 figures” — Jawbone Snaps Up Playground.fm — Looks like instead of being acquired, wrist and speaker hardware company Jawbone is doing some acquiring, scooping up social and personalized music …

More: SlashGear and hypebot

Matt Brian / Engadget:

Google to focus on portrait shots and effects with improved camera app — We know that Google has been looking to bring more advanced photo features to Android for a while, but it may soon be ready to show off what it's been working on. Sources aware of Google's plans have confirmed to us …

More: 9to5Google, TechCrunch, Gotta Be Mobile, TechnoBuffalo, Pocketables, Pocketnow and Android Central

Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:

Pavel Durov Resigns As Head Of Russian Social Network VK.com, Ukraine Conflict Was The Tipping Point — Pavel Durov, the founder of VKontakte.com, has announced on his VK.com page that he has stepped down as the head of the social network — Russia's largest, with over 100 million users …

More: Gigaom, RT, Softpedia News, Bloomberg, Wall Street Journal, The Moscow Times and Global Voices

Reuters:

HP agrees to pay $57 million to settle shareholder lawsuit — (Reuters) - Hewlett-Packard Co agreed to pay $57 million to settle a lawsuit that accused the personal computer maker's former management of defrauding shareholders by abandoning a business model it had long touted.

More: ZDNet, The Verge, Inquirer, VentureBeat, DailyTech and SlashGear

Amy Schatz / Re/code:

Supreme Court Skeptical During Software Patent Arguments — Supreme Court justices jumped into the debate about how software patents are enforced Monday, but their questioning suggested a desire to avoid any massive changes to how courts should examine infringement cases.

More: New York Times, Reuters, Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Computerworld, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, EE Times and Ars Technica

Jonathan Stempel / Reuters:

Marvell patent verdict grows to $1.54 billion — (Reuters) - A federal judge ordered Marvell Technology Group Ltd to pay nearly $1.54 billion for infringing two hard disk drive patents held by Carnegie Mellon University, nearly one-third more than a jury had previously awarded.

More: Fudzilla, Wall Street Journal, Electronista and TechWeekEurope UK

Lisa Fleisher / Wall Street Journal:

Balderton Raises $305m for European Series A Tech Investments — Venture-capital firm Balderton Capital has opened a $305 million start-up fund, hoping to spread out lots of small investments and have a bigger chance of hitting it big. The company, one of the top venture funds in Europe …

More: TechCrunch, StrictlyVC, VentureBeat, PE Hub Blog, TechCrunch, London News and The Next Web. Tweets: @fredlardieg

Carolyn Said / San Francisco Chronicle:

Airbnb to collect hotel taxes for San Francisco rentals — Airbnb, the fast-growing website that lets people rent out their homes or rooms to travelers, took a giant step toward legalizing itself in San Francisco with an announcement Monday evening that it will begin paying the city's 14 percent hotel tax by this summer.

More: The Airbnb Public Policy Blog, Wall Street Journal, TechCrunch, Gigaom and Skift

Andy Greenberg / Forbes:

Alleged Silk Road Creator's Lawyer Denies Bitcoin Is ‘Monetary Instrument,’ Moves To Drop All Charges — The trial of Ross Ulbricht, the alleged creator of the Silk Road Bitcoin-based black market for drugs, hasn't yet begun, but it's already raising hairy legal questions. First on the docket: Is Bitcoin even money?

More: Wired. Tweets: @kashhill

Kara Swisher / Re/code:

Yahoo Mulling Plans to Ax Its Shine Women's Site, Opting for More Online Lifestyle “Magazines” — Yahoo's Marissa Mayer is poised to take an ax to its longtime and massive women-focused content site Shine, closing it down by the second quarter, according to numerous sources close to the situation.

More: Skift. Tweets: @joepompeo, @jayrosen_nyu and @jeffjarvis. See also Mediagazer

Emil Protalinski / The Next Web:

Microsoft's Bing expands Snapshot feature to surface doctors, dentists, lawyers, and real estate listings — Microsoft today updated its Bing search engine to show more information via the Snapshot feature, which pulls together connections between people, places, and the “things you care about” …

More: Search Blog, Search Engine Land, WinBeta, Computerworld, TechCrunch and Pulse 2.0

Colin Campbell / Polygon:

How ‘Game Jam,’ an indie game dev reality show, collapsed on its first day of filming — Game_Jam, a TV-style reality show focused on the efforts of indie game developers, has collapsed in the most publicly acrimoniously way imaginable, participants say. — Touted by its makers as a contest …

More: Indie Statik, Softpedia News, Rock, Paper, Shotgun, The Verge, Boing Boing and Kotaku

Tweets: @notquitefrodo and @colincampbellx

Chris Kanaracus / PC World:

Oracle overtakes IBM as second-largest software vendor, Gartner says — Oracle has overtaken rival IBM as the world's second-largest software vendor by pulling in US$29.6 billion in software revenue during 2013, according to analyst firm Gartner. — “Global trends around big data and analytics …

More: The Register and Gigaom. Tweets: @petercoffee

Chris Davies / SlashGear:

Samsung Galaxy Tab4 10.1, 8.0 and 7.0 flesh out midrange — Samsung has revealed its new Galaxy Tab4 range of Android tablets, spanning three screen sizes and due to hit stores in Q2 2014. The Galaxy Tab4 10.1, 8., and 7. each use a WXGA 1280 x 800 16:10 display and support Samsung's Multi Window system …

More: Samsung Mobile Press, Inquirer, Android Central, Engadget, The Next Web, Softpedia News, Pocketnow, Electronista, Phones Review, Android Community, Android Authority and SamMobile

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