Techmeme: The battle for virtual reality: Google, Samsung, Sony and Oculus VR (Ben Gilbert/Engadget)

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July 28, 2014, 10:35 AM

Top News

Liz Gannes / Re/code:

Apple to Buy Radio App Swell for $30 Million — Apple is close to buying the Pandora-for-talk-radio app Swell, according to multiple sources. — The deal is worth about $30 million, these sources say. — Swell had raised $7.2 million from investors including DFJ, Google Ventures and InterWest Partners.

Michael J. de la Merced / New York Times:

Zillow to Acquire Trulia for $3.5 Billion — For much of the last nine years, Zillow and Trulia have competed in the online real estate listings market they helped create. — But after a speedy six-week courtship, the two are set to combine forces. — Zillow agreed on Monday to buy Trulia …

More: Zillow MediaRoom, VentureBeat, TechCrunch, Marketing Land, ScreenwerkScreenwerk, Gigaom, WebProNews, Mashable and Fortune. Tweets: @nytimesbusiness

Mark Gurman / 9to5Mac:

Amazon apparently set to launch Square-competitor in August as it develops biometric payment solutions — Amazon could be preparing to launch its own mobile credit card reading hardware in the coming weeks, according to internal Staples documents hinting at such a launch that we've obtained.

More: CNET, USA Today, The Verge, Digital Trends, Guardian, Techie News, Business Insider, VentureBeat, ITProPortal, The Next Web, WebProNews, PC Magazine, Gizmodo, Engadget, Mashable and Electronista

Mike Isaac / New York Times:

Reddit, still unprofitable, looks to grow ad revenues without alienating users — Can Reddit Grow Up? — Since its founding nine years ago, Reddit has stuck to its own weird guns. — The site, where users find, share and talk about web links and photos, has been faithful to an antiquated design …

More: Guardian, Wall Street Journal, Business Insider and ITProPortal

Tweets: @alexjamesfitz, @mims and @pinboard

Builtvisible:

A history of the undersea cables that carry much of the world's international internet traffic — Messages in the Deep - The Remarkable Story of the Underwater Internet — In October of 1971, in the midst of the Cold War, the nuclear-powered submarine USS Halibut entered heavily guarded Russian waters in the Sea of Okhotsk.

Mark Gurman / 9to5Mac:

Apple Stores to soon open up iPhone sales via AT&T Next, T-Mobile JUMP, & Verizon Edge — Apple is preparing a significant expansion of its iPhone sales capabilities in its official retail stores, according to sources. Late in August, many Apple Stores in the United States will kick off …

More: Gigaom, iPhone, iPhone Hacks, iMore, MacRumors, App Advice and Business Insider

Farhad Manjoo / New York Times:

Ultrapak external battery packs can grab a full charge for a standard smartphone in 15 minutes — How to Charge Your Phone in 15 Minutes — Say you've got 15 minutes in an airport between flights and your phone is nearly dead. What do you do? — In the past, you had two choices.

More: AndroidHeadlines.com. Tweets: @msquinn

Steve Dent / Engadget:

Europe approves Apple's $3 billion takeover of Beats — Apple is official a step closer to owning Beats, as the $3 billion merger has just been cleared by European regulators. The EU commission ruled that the merger “did not raise concerns because the combined (headphone) market share of Apple and Beats Electronics is low.”

More: EU Press Room, AppleInsider, ABC News, TechCrunch, CNET, MacRumors, ZDNet, Inquirer, The Next Web, 9to5Mac, iMore, MacDailyNews, Cult of Mac, App Advice and Electronista. See also Mediagazer

Ben Gilbert / Engadget:

The battle for virtual reality: Google, Samsung, Sony and Oculus VR — Back in June, Google revealed Cardboard: an open-source attempt at mobile virtual reality. Heck, even the “hardware” is open source —here are instructions to make your own, right now! — But the concept is more than a low-tech solution to mobile VR.

Will Oremus / Slate:

Facebook's privacy pivot: Mark Zuckerberg's plan to win back trust — Why Mark Zuckerberg is trying to win back users' trust. — Remember when Mark Zuckerberg didn't believe in privacy? When he argued that it was “no longer a social norm”? When Facebook employees wouldn't even use the word …

More: Gigaom and bizjournals. Tweets: @howardlindzon and @joshconstine

Kashmir Hill / Forbes:

How Your Security System Could Be Hacked To Spy On You — On a recent Friday evening, Logan Lamb and his girlfriend turned up at a co-worker's birthday party in Knoxville, Tennessee with a 12-pack of cheap beer, 4 craft beers for the birthday boy, and some hacking tools, namely a software-defined radio …

Ellen Nakashima / Washington Post:

Proliferation of new online communications services poses hurdles for law enforcement — Federal law enforcement and intelligence authorities say they are increasingly struggling to conduct court-ordered wiretaps on suspects because of a surge in chat services, instant messaging …

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