Techmeme
July 16, 2016, 12:05 PM

Top News

Mark Bergen / Recode:
Google recently shut down project to create high-end standalone VR headset with non-Android OS  —  Another sign that Google is putting its eggs into mobile VR.  —  Google recently shut down an internal project to create a high-end standalone virtual reality headset akin to devices …
Mary Jo Foley / ZDNet:
Microsoft concedes that it won't have Windows 10 installed on 1B devices by mid-2018, as previously projected  —  Microsoft isn't going to make its self-imposed deadline of having Windows 10 installed on 1 billion devices by mid-2018, company officials have conceded.
Devin Coldewey / TechCrunch:
Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube were temporarily blocked or slowed in Turkey during military coup attempt  —  The Turkish military has deployed in Istanbul and Ankara, and the government has apparently blocked social media in response to what is being reported as an attempted coup.
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Netflix launches Flixtape, a tool for making shareable mixtape-like short playlists for shows and movies  —  Just in time for the weekend, Netflix today announced the launch of a new service called Flixtape, which the company describes as a way to make short playlists of your favorite Netflix titles.
Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:
US pledges $400M over the next 7 years for 5G research led by National Science Foundation  —  As President Obama approaches the end of his tenure in the White House, his team is launching a wireless networking research project that it hopes could be part of his wider legacy in the world of tech.
Ben Sisario / New York Times:
In a non-public filing with the US Copyright Royalty Board, Apple proposes simplified flat rate of 9.1¢ per 100 streams in songwriting royalties  —  In the music industry's streaming battles, the fight extends to even the minutiae of copyright.  —  Apple, in a government filing on Friday …
Vlad Savov / The Verge:
Kantar: Samsung's Galaxy S7 outsold Apple's iPhone 6s in the US between March and May 2016  —  The iPhone showed its first decline in sales numbers earlier this year, which has today been reiterated by the latest US mobile market data from Kantar Worldpanel.
Jessi Hempel / Backchannel:
Profile of Airbnb's Chief Business Affairs and Legal Officer Belinda Johnson, second in command at the company  —  Belinda Johnson knew a decision needed to be made quickly.  She pulled her boss, Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky, into a small conference room in the company's highly designed downtown San Francisco headquarters.
Tweets: @jeffweiner and @slh
Emily Yoshida / The Verge:
Interview with users and creator of Ohlala, a Berlin based casual dating app, often referred to as “Uber for escorts”  —  Tara* had struck gold.  After spending a lazy Saturday afternoon browsing through the dating app she was currently experimenting with, she hit it off …
Tweets: @binarybits
Natasha Lomas / TechCrunch:
Encrypted comms company Silent Circle closes $50M Series C  —  Encrypted comms company Silent Circle, which also makes a security-focused Android smartphone called the Blackphone, has announced it's closed a $50 million Series C round of financing, led by Santander Bank.

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Earlier Picks

Aaron Pressman / Fortune:
Jonathan Stempel / Reuters: