Techmeme
October 6, 2016, 7:10 PM

Top News

Ashley Carman / The Verge:
Oculus Touch controller bundle for Oculus Rift will be available on December 6th for $199; pre-orders open on October 10  —  The Oculus Touch will be available for the Rift on December 6th for $199, the company announced today.  Oculus's Input API works with three different devices …
Josh Constine / TechCrunch:
Oculus demos augmented social VR with facial expressions, immersion in real-world scenes, chess and card playing, taking a phone call and taking a selfie  —  Today on stage at Oculus' Connect conference, Mark Zuckerberg demonstrated a new facial tracking social VR experience that overlays VR avatars …
Matthew Lynley / TechCrunch:
Report: Snap Inc., formerly Snapchat, is planning an IPO for March 2017 that could value the company at $25B+  —  The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Snap — the now-parent company of Snapchat — is working on an initial public offering for as early as March that could value the company at $25 billion or higher.
Brian Fung / Washington Post:
Sources: Facebook in talks with US government and wireless carriers to launch Free Basics-like service in the US, for low-income and rural Americans  —  Facebook has been in talks for months with U.S. government officials and wireless carriers with an eye toward unveiling an American version …
Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:
LinkedIn now lets users privately signal to recruiters when they are looking for a new job; feature initially available in US, Canada, UK, and Australia  —  One of the hallmarks of any social network is how it pushes people to share their experiences with others, but increasingly we've seen …
Jordan Golson / The Verge:
US Consumer Product Safety Commission opens investigation into Galaxy Note7 that forced evacuation of flight  —  Federal regulators are moving quickly to investigate the replacement Samsung Galaxy Note 7 that caught fire on a Southwest Airlines flight today, with the US Consumer Product Safety Commission …
Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:
Sources: Apple to move services teams, including Maps, Siri and iCloud, from separate campuses to One Infinite Loop in attempt to improve services  —  Cue to move cloud service engineering teams to single campus  —  Company continues shifting services to its own infrastructure
Janko Roettgers / Variety:
Sources: BitTorrent fires its co-CEOs and an unknown number of staffers, is closing its Los Angeles production studio and Now streaming service  —  BitTorrent has fired its two co-CEOs Robert Delamar and Jeremy Johnson and laid of an unknown number of staffers, Variety has learned from multiple sources.
Timothy B. Lee / Vox:
Marc Andreessen on why AI can spawn a new generation of big, important technology companies  —  Recent breakthroughs in artificial intelligence and machine learning are enabling computers to understand the world and respond intelligently to it.  Google is already embracing these technologies for Android …
Lizzie Plaugic / The Verge:
Netflix signs deal with theater chain iPic Entertainment to screen its original movies, which will debut on the streaming service simultaneously  —  Next year, some of Netflix's original movies will have a debut home on the big screen.  The streaming service just signed a deal …
Peter Kafka / Recode:
Sources: Disney will not bid for Twitter, leaving Salesforce as the last potential bidder  —  Which leaves Salesforce, for now.  —  Cross another potential Twitter buyer off the list: Disney isn't pursuing a bid for the social platform, either.  —  Sources familiar with Disney …
Recode:

Sponsor Posts

Subquadratic:
SubQ Snap 1.1: the first long-context decision model for real enterprise work  —  Tied for #1 on the AA Decision Index, Snap is a multimodal model with a 384k-token context window for fast reasoning and agentic decisions.
Zoho:
How EWS deprecation affects Zoho Calendar Interoperability  —  Understanding the impactMicrosoft began blocking Exchange Web Services (EWS) requests in Exchange Online (Microsoft 365) as of October 1, 2026.
IDrive:
Protecting your Cloud Applications Data  —  Backing up Office 365, Google Workspace, Dropbox & Salesforce data is critical to preventing data loss or corruption, complying with laws and avoiding critical downtime in case of a disaster.
WebBrain:
WebBrain: an open-source AI agent for your browser  —  Read pages, fill forms and automate tasks in Chrome or Firefox.  Use local models or your preferred AI provider.  Get started free.

Featured Podcasts

Lenny's Podcast:
Why PMs are suddenly valuable again | Tulsee Doshi (Head of Product, Gemini)
Interviews with world-class product leaders and growth experts to uncover actionable advice to help you build, launch, and grow your own product.
Subscribe to Lenny's Podcast.
Big Technology Podcast:
AI Stockpocalypse, Anthropic Nears RSI?, Prediction Markets vs. Pollsters
The Big Technology Podcast takes you behind the scenes in the tech world featuring interviews with plugged-in insiders and outside agitators.
Subscribe to Big Technology Podcast.
Machine Gods:
The Purple Tsunami Against Data Centers
The official podcast of the singularity, from Casey Newton and Kevin Roose. Twice-weekly news, analysis, and interviews with the people who are building the future.
Subscribe to Machine Gods.
Invest Like the Best:
Ramtin Naimi - The State of Venture
The leading destination to learn about business and investing. We do this by showcasing exceptional talent and ideas.
Subscribe to Invest Like the Best.
The Upstarts Podcast:
How Ramp Built A $60B AI Product Factory Off A Corporate Card | Co-CEO Eric Glyman
Veteran tech reporter Alex Konrad sits down with breakout entrepreneurs taking on the status quo to shake up their fields in AI, design, nuclear energy, space, and more.
Subscribe to The Upstarts Podcast.
Great Chat:
Would you let a robot do it?
A podcast mostly about tech. Brought to you weekly by Angela Du, Sally Shin, Mac Bohannon, Helen Min, and Ashley Mayer.
Subscribe to Great Chat.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 7:10 PM ET, October 6, 2016.

The most current version of the site as always is available at our home page. To view an earlier snapshot click here and then modify the date indicated.

More News

Earlier Picks

Sarah Perez / TechCrunch: