Techmeme: Inside Stanford's Virtual Human Interaction Lab; see what Zuck saw just weeks before Oculus buy (Farhad Manjoo/New York Times)

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April 3, 2014, 7:15 AM

Top News

Joe Belfiore / Windows Phone Blog:

Cortana (yes!) and Many, Many Other Great Features coming in Windows Phone 8.1 — Whew, what a day! What a week! I've just gotten off the stage at Build in front of 5,000 of our beloved developers talking about the future of the Windows platform. And now I'm here to tell YOU about the stuff we've …

Tom Warren / The Verge:

The story of Cortana, Microsoft's Siri killer — Technically, Cortana isn't supposed to exist for at least another 500 years, but that's not stopping Microsoft from bringing her to life this week. While Apple has Siri and Google has Google Now — both digital assistants that run on smartphones …

More: Softpedia News, WinBeta, I4U News and Polygon. Tweets: @davidbyttow

Josh Lowensohn / The Verge:

Microsoft making Windows free on devices with screens under nine inches

More: Wired, Guardian, BGR, Softpedia News, Geeky Gadgets, ReadWrite, I4U News, The Register, Computerworld, Re/code, The Next Web and GSMArena Blog. Tweets: @harrymccracken

Jordan Novet / VentureBeat:

Nokia introduces the Lumia 930, 630, & 635, designed for Windows Phone 8.1

More: Nokia Conversations, Nokia Conversations, Nokia Conversations, The Next Web, LAPTOP Magazine, Engadget, Gearburn, WMPoweruser, Engadget, Windows Phone Central, Electronista, ZDNet, GeekWire, Geek Beat, Re/code, Softpedia News and IntoMobile

Tweets: @maryjofoley and @benedictevans

Rich McCormick / The Verge:

Skype for Windows Phone 8.1 has FaceTime-like calling and Cortana control

More: Digital Trends, GSMArena Blog, Engadget, WMPoweruser, The Official Microsoft Blog and The Next Web

Emil Protalinski / The Next Web:

Microsoft announces universal Windows apps, which work across PCs, phones, tablets and Xbox One

More: BetaNews, The Windows Blog, CITEworld, The Verge, Softpedia News, Geeky Gadgets, TechSpot, Computerworld and Cult of Mac

Emil Protalinski / The Next Web:

Microsoft unveils Windows Phone 8.1 with personal assistant Cortana, Action Center, customizable lockscreens

More: PC World, Inquirer, Softpedia News, New York Times, TechCrunch, The Register, eWeek, Computerworld, Engadget, LAPTOP Magazine, The Verge, IntoMobile, AmongTech and GeekWire

Devindra Hardawar / VentureBeat:

Amazon Fire TV's voice search & kid-friendliness make it more than just another set-top box (video) — Above: Freetime is a safe space for kids on the Fire TV — Even though the Fire TV looks like yet another Roku and Apple TV competitor, Amazon packed in a few truly unique features.

More: Softpedia News, TidBITS, Tom's Guide, HotHardware.com News, Voice & Gesture and International Business Times. Tweets: @gregbensinger. See also Mediagazer

Darrell Etherington / TechCrunch:

How Amazon Fire TV Stacks Up To Apple TV, Chromecast And Roku — Amazon has just announced its streaming TV media device, the Fire TV, and that means it now faces off against other tech giants and incumbents in yet another category. So how does the Amazon TK compare to the likes of the Apple TV …

See also Mediagazer

Jason Schreier / Kotaku:

Amazon Hires Portal's Kim Swift, Far Cry 2's Clint Hocking — Amazon is bolstering up talent in their video game development studio, and they've got two new high-profile snags: Portal designer Kim Swift and Far Cry 2 designer Clint Hocking have both joined Amazon Game Studios, Kotaku has learned.

More: Fortune, Engadget, TechHive, Geeky Gadgets, VG247, SlashGear, Wall Street Journal, Computerworld, GamesIndustry International, WebProNews, GeekWire, Re/code, Polygon and The Verge

Tweets: @mattlynley, @mattlynley and @mattlynley

Thanks:@mattlynley

Amazon.com:

Amazon Fire TV ships today with Netflix, Prime Instant Video, Hulu Plus, YouTube, WatchESPN, and more — Introducing Amazon Fire TV: The Easiest Way to Watch Netflix, Prime Instant Video, Hulu Plus, WatchESPN, and More on Your Big-Screen TV — Powerful performance with 3x the processing power …

Brandon LeBlanc / Windows Experience Blog:

Windows 8.1 Update - important refinements to the Windows experience — As Joe mentioned here, today we're announcing two important updates to the Windows platform: Windows Phone 8.1 and Windows 8.1 Update. With these updates, we continue to refine and improve Windows based on feedback …

More: The Windows Blog, Softpedia News, Geeky Gadgets, I4U News, Re/code, SuperSite for Windows, BGR, Nokia Conversations, UMPCPortal, TIME and Wall Street Journal

Tweets: @joebelfiore, @harrymccracken, @drpizza and @joannastern

Tim Stevens / CNET:

Microsoft's Chaitanya Sareen gets candid on the evolution of Windows 8

Tweets: @tim_stevens

Frederic Lardinois / TechCrunch:

Later Windows 8.1 update will resurrect the Start menu, allow windowed “modern” apps on desktop

More: BetaNews. Tweets: @pogue

Frederic Lardinois / TechCrunch:

Microsoft Updates IE11 With Enterprise Mode On Desktop, Reading And Data-Saving Modes On Mobile

More: MSDN Blogs and Engadget

Alex Wilhelm / TechCrunch:

Microsoft Demos Its Touch-Focused Office Suite For Windows

Dana Wollman / Engadget:

Windows 8.1 update aims to win over mouse-and-keyboard users, arrives April 8th as an automatic download

More: Softpedia News, TechSpot, ZDNet, Ars Technica, Computerworld and Gotta Be Mobile

Farhad Manjoo / New York Times:

Inside Stanford's Virtual Human Interaction Lab; see what Zuck saw just weeks before Oculus buy — If You Like Immersion, You'll Love This Reality — The news that Facebook paid $2 billion for a virtual reality start-up, Oculus VR, might strike you as a bit zany.

Tweets: @charlesgoulduk, @fmanjoo, @mrlerner, @davidsackman and @nytimesbusiness

Eric Lam / Bloomberg:

Google stock split creates nonvoting class, lets founders retain control when new stock issued — New Google Shares Hit Market as Founders Cement Grip With Split — More than 330 million new shares of Google Inc. (GOOG) land in the U.S. equity market today, completing a two-year process through …

More: Businessweek, America's Markets, Associated Press, MarketWatch, Forbes and New York Times

Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:

Fantastical 2, The Best iPhone Calendar App, Is Now Available On iPad — There are only a few companies whose mobile apps are so well done or engaging that they actually earn one of the precious few spots on your iPhone's homescreen. Flexibits, the makers of Fantastical 2 …

More: 9to5Mac, ParisLemon, PC Magazine, Geeky Gadgets, Macworld, MacRumors, iDownloadBlog.com, Cult of Mac, The Mac Observer, iMore, The Next Web and MacStories

Farhad Manjoo / New York Times:

‘Silicon Valley,’ Mike Judge's New Series, Debuts on HBO — There is no epiphanic moment of invention in “Silicon Valley,” Mike Judge's new HBO comedy series about the socially awkward, emerging center of the world. Remember the lightbulb-flash scene in “The Social Network,” “A Beautiful Mind” …

More: Valleywag, Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, Salon, Co.Create, The Seattle Times, Wired and Business Insider. Tweets: @fmanjoo

Mike Beasley / 9to5Mac:

iOS 7 bug allows anyone to disable Find My iPhone and bypass Activation Lock without a password — Starting with iOS 7, deleting an iCloud account or restoring a device requires Find My iPhone to be disabled. Find My iPhone, in turn, requires the user to enter the password for the Apple ID attached to the iCloud account.

More: SlashGear and App Advice

Cade Metz / Wired:

Twitter details its “Manhattan” real-time distributed database that helps it scale — This Is What You Build to Juggle 6,000 Tweets a Second — When you open the Twitter app on your smartphone and all those tweets, links, icons, photos, and videos materialize in front of you, they're not coming from one place.

More: The Twitter Blog and Gigaom. Tweets: @kevinweil, @jeffsand, @andypiper, @scode, @andresplazar, @henrikjoreteg and @syrneus

Abhijeet M. / SamMobile:

Rumored Galaxy S5 mini specs: 4.5" 720p Super AMOLED, quad-core Snapdragon 400, 1.5GB RAM — EXCLUSIVE: Galaxy S5 mini (SM-G800) specs leaked — We exclusively confirmed that the Galaxy S5 mini would be launching after the Galaxy S5 (not that we needed that confirmation …

More: BGR, Droid Life, Fudzilla, Android Central, The Droid Guy, The Register, Ubergizmo, Phandroid, SlashGear, MobileSyrup.com, Geeky Gadgets, Pocketnow, Phones Review, Unwired View, Softpedia News and I4U News

Dana Wollman / Engadget:

Nokia announces MD-12, a Bluetooth speaker with 15 hours audio playback for $55 — Nokia shows off ‘MD-12’ Bluetooth speaker to match its new smartphones — It's not all fun phones and games at Nokia's Build shindig here in San Francisco. In addition to giving us a closer look at the new Lumia 930 …

More: Nokia Conversations, Gizmodo, Electronista, All About Symbian, Geeky Gadgets, Windows Phone Central, IntoMobile and WMPoweruser

Pankaj Mishra / TechCrunch:

India's Homeshop18 Files For $75M Nasdaq IPO, Ahead Of Bigger E-Commerce Rivals — Homeshop18, an Indian TV shopping and online retail company owned by media conglomerate Network18 Media, has filed for $75 million IPO on Nasdaq, ahead of much-awaited listings of bigger e-commerce rivals in the country such as Flipkart and Snapdeal.

More: Tech in Asia, NASDAQ.com, NextBigWhat, VCCircle, MediaNama and MediaNama

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