Techmeme
March 25, 2014, 9:30 PM

Top News

Facebook:
Facebook to acquire Oculus VR for approximately $2 billion  —  Facebook to Acquire Oculus  —  Acquisition positions Facebook to accelerate Oculus' growth in gaming, communications and new social experiences  —  Facebook today announced that it has reached a definitive agreement to acquire Oculus VR …
Mark Zuckerberg / Facebook:
Oculus will operate independently within Facebook, focusing first on gaming, and later becoming a new communication platform  —  I'm excited to announce that we've agreed to acquire Oculus VR, the leader in virtual reality technology.  —  Our mission is to make the world more open and connected.
Markus Persson / notch.net:
Mojang's talks with Oculus to bring Minecraft to its VR canceled, Notch doesn't trust Facebook  —  Virtual Reality is going to change the world  —  It's amazing.  You strap on some gear, and then you're inside whatever world you want.  It showed up in books, it showed up in movies, and everyone dreamed about it.
David Pierce / The Verge:
HTC One (M8) review: a gorgeous, fast, long-lasting phone with a weak, inconsistent camera  —  The new HTC One review  —  The best or nothing  —  My first car was a 1997 Saturn SL1, a tiny black box with headlights that were too close together and a 0-60 time in the neighborhood of three and a half hours.
Terrence O'Brien / Engadget:
Rob Wile / Business Insider:
The IRS Just Decided Bitcoin Is Property And Will Tax You For Mining It At Home  —  The IRS has ruled Bitcoin should be treated as property, not as currency, for tax purposes.  —  The agency says anyone who holds the currency will have to calculate its value from the date it was received …
Andy Greenberg / Forbes:
Dorian Nakamoto's neighbor and second Bitcoin user Hal Finney denies helping to invent Bitcoin  —  Satoshi Nakamoto's Neighbor: The Bitcoin Ghostwriter Who Wasn't  —  Hal Finney's light brown eyes are pointed down.  —  I've just asked him if he was involved in the creation of Bitcoin.
More: The Verge.  Tweets: @kashhill and @trevortimm.  Thanks:@thealexknapp
Matt Jarzemsky / Wall Street Journal:
‘Candy Crush’ Maker Prices IPO at $22.50  —  Unlike Facebook and Twitter, Videogame Maker Hasn't Raised IPO Size  —  With the shares of videogame maker King Digital Entertainment PLC set to begin trading Wednesday, the central question facing investors is whether the company can pull off another blockbuster like “Candy Crush Saga.”
Frederic Lardinois / TechCrunch:
Google Announces Massive Price Drops For Its Cloud Computing Services And Storage, Introduces Sustained-Use Discounts  —  At its Cloud Platform event in San Francisco today, Google announced a number of massive price drops for virtually all of its cloud-computing services.
Jeff John Roberts / Gigaom:
The absurd ebook case: Apple fights on as consumers spend settlement money at Amazon  —  The high-fives must have been flying at Amazon this morning: millions of the company's customers got notices to spend credits at its Kindle store, and Amazon didn't have to pay a cent.
Roger Cheng / CNET:
Sony won't use Android Wear, will stick with Smartwatch  —  The head of Sony Mobile's US arm also tells CNET that sales of its Xperia Z1s has exceeded expectations at T-Mobile.  —  Sony's SmartWatch 2.  —  Sarah Tew/CNET  —  ATLANTA—Sony will continue to strike its own path when it comes to its wearable products.
Dean Takahashi / VentureBeat:
Nvidia unveils next-generation graphics processor with 3D memory  —  Above: Nvidia CEO Jen-Hsun Huang with a Pascal chip  —  Nvidia chief executive Jen-Hsun Huang unveiled his company's latest graphics-processor architecture, code-named Pascal, that will put a “supercomputer in the space of two credit cards.”

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