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 …

Ahead of Samsung patent case, Apple engineer recalls the marathon to create the iPhone  —  Jobs gave the engineer an ultimatum: Lay out a vision for the iPhone fast or lose the job  —  In February 2005, Apple Inc. 's then chief executive, Steve Jobs, gave senior software engineer Greg Christie an ultimatum.

Google Slashes Cloud Prices: Google vs AWS Price Comparison  —  Today Google threw down the gauntlet to challenge AWS public cloud supremacy by announcing significant price reductions across its Google Cloud Platform.  The eye-opening price cuts covered compute (32-percent reduction), storage …

Bitcoin Is Property Not Currency in Tax System, IRS Says  —  The U.S. government will treat Bitcoin as property for tax purposes, applying rules it uses to govern stocks and barter transactions, the Internal Revenue Service said in its first substantive ruling on the issue.

Dorian Nakamoto's neighbor and second Bitcoin user Hal Finney denies helping to invent Bitcoin  —  Nakamoto's Neighbor: My Hunt For Bitcoin's Creator Led To A Paralyzed Crypto Genius  —  Hal Finney's light brown eyes are pointed down.  —  I've just asked him if he was involved in the creation of Bitcoin.

TechCrunch's Picks: The Top 8 Startups From Y Combinator W14 Demo Day  —  While today saw Paul Graham physically pass the reins to new Y Combinator president Sam Altman, the bigger buzz at Demo Day was about how most investors thought this was the best YC class yet.

Apple plans to add more diversity to Emoji character set  —  What Does Apple Think About The Lack Of Diversity In Emojis?  We Have Their Response.  —  When you browse through the emojis on your phone, there are very few non-Caucasian ones to choose from.  I mean, they have a water buffalo but no representation of people of color?

Google General Counsel to Arrington Allegation: We Don't Snoop on Gmail to Find Leakers  —  In an unusual move, Google is responding directly to former TechCrunch editor Michael Arrington's allegation that it accessed his Gmail account to root out his source for a major story.

‘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.”

Microsoft makes source code for MS-DOS and Word for Windows available to public  —  The following post is from Roy Levin, distinguished engineer and managing director, Microsoft Research.  —  On Tuesday, we dusted off the source code for early versions of MS-DOS and Word for Windows.

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.

Eight years later, 22% of the links at the Million Dollar Homepage point to dead pages  —  The Million Dollar Homepage still exists, but 22% of it has rotted away  —  Pixels closer to the top and left sold first milliondollarhomepage.com  —  Before Kickstarter and Indiegogo …

U.S. Withdraws from ICANN: Why It's No Big Deal  —  The misguided freakout over ICANN  —  On March 14, the U.S. government announced that it would seek to relinquish a privileged role in the management of Internet names and numbers.  An organization called ICANN—the non-profit Internet Corporation …