Techmeme: Jaunt Raises $6.8 Million for Virtual Reality Movies (Eric Johnson/Re/code)

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April 3, 2014, 6:40 PM

Top News

Associated Press:

US govt secretly created “Cuban Twitter” to stir unrest, sought funding from Jack Dorsey — US secretly created “Cuban Twitter” to stir unrest — WASHINGTON (AP) — In July 2010, Joe McSpedon, a U.S. government official, flew to Barcelona to put the final touches on a secret plan …

More: Computerworld, The Verge, PandoDaily, Forbes, Telegraph, Engadget, Wall Street Journal, The Next Web, DailyTech, Mashable and VentureBeat

Tweets: @paullewis, @oireachtas_rx, @katrinanation and @tbridis

See also Mediagazer

Kara Swisher / Re/code:

Mozilla Co-Founder Brendan Eich Resigns as CEO, Leaves Foundation Board — Brendan Eich, the well-known techie who has gotten swept up in a controversy about his support of California's anti-gay marriage law Proposition 8, is resigning as CEO of for-profit Mozilla Corporation and also from the board …

Amir Efrati / The Information:

Google mulls offering wireless voice and data services in Fiber markets, talked with Sprint, Verizon about buying, reselling network access — Google Weighs a Plunge into Mobile Phone Services — After thrusting itself into competition with U.S. cable operators, Google is inching closer to competing with wireless carriers, too.

More: The Verge, Ars Technica, Android Central, BGR, Gigaom, LAPTOP Magazine, 9to5Google, TechSpot, Gigaom Research, Engadget, Gotta Be Mobile, CITEworld, Pocketnow, Gizmodo UK, Phandroid, AndroidGuys, Gizmodo, The Droid Guy and TechCrunch

Tweets: @amir and @daiwaka

Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:

Speech Recognition Pioneer Novauris Bought By Apple, Team Now Works On Siri — Apple quietly acquired an automatic speech recognition (ASR) technology company called Novauris Technologies, which grew out of Dragon Systems R&D U.K. Ltd., the British research subsidiary of Dragon Systems, a well-known voice dictation pioneer.

More: Bloomberg, LAPTOP Magazine, AppleInsider, Re/code, MacRumors, 9to5Mac, iDownloadBlog.com, The Next Web and iPhone Hacks

Apple:

Apple Worldwide Developers Conference Kicks Off June 2 at Moscone West in San Francisco — Developers Can Apply for WWDC Tickets Starting Today — Apple® today announced that it will hold its annual Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) June 2 through June 6 at San Francisco's Moscone West.

Mary Jo Foley / ZDNet:

Microsoft open sourcing more developer tech: .NET Compiler Platform, C#, Visual Basic, more — Microsoft open sources more of its .Net technologies — Summary: From the truth-is- stranger-than-fiction files, Microsoft — along with its mobile-dev tool partner Xamarin …

More: InfoWorld, The Next Web, GeekWire, ReadWrite, eWeek, The Official Microsoft Blog, TechCrunch, MSDN Blogs and GitHub. Tweets: @ldignan

Seth Weintraub / 9to5Google:

Google plans significant overhaul of many of its native and web apps in 'Google 2.0′/wearable push — Yesterday we got a look at a beta version of the upcoming Gmail app for Android which includes new Travel, Purchases, and Finance categories in addition to the Social, Promotions …

More: PC World. Tweets: @stevesi and @pkedrosky. Thanks:@justinkahnmusic

Russell Holly / Geek.com:

Google is testing new inbox tabs, snooze and pinning features for messages in Gmail for Android — Google is testing an army of new features for Gmail — There's a whole new wave of features being considered for Google's popular email client, and on the list is more tabs, a new pin system …

More: BGR, TechCrunch, The Verge, Android Police, Android Central, Business Insider, TechSpot, Marketing Land, techshout.com, Engadget and AndroidGuys

Carol E. Lee / Wall Street Journal:

White House calls Samsung out on Ortiz's Selfie With Obama — Samsung Called Out on Ortiz's Selfie With Obama — The White House is pushing back against Samsung Electronics Co. for its promotion of a selfie that Red Sox slugger David Ortiz took with President Barack Obama earlier this week.

More: CBS Boston, Ars Technica, The Next Web, PC Magazine, AppleInsider, The Droid Guy, The Hill, Washington Examiner, Washington Times, Mashable, The Boston Globe, The Inquisitr News, GlobalPost, EURweb, Ubergizmo and 1250 AM WTMA. Tweets: @anildash

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: Gotta Be Mobile, Gizmodo UK, Examiner, Pocketnow, TechSpot, BGR and Softpedia News

Matthew Panzarino / TechCrunch:

Nest Halts Sales Of Protect Smoke Alarm Over Safety Concerns About ‘Wave To Dismiss’ Feature — Nest CEO Tony Fadell has just issued a notice recommending users disable the Protect smoke alarm's ‘wave to dismiss’ feature. In testing, it was discovered that people could accidentally trigger the dismiss feature, delaying a smoke alarm.

More: Nest Labs, Support, Forbes, 9to5Google, Gizmodo, Engadget, MacRumors, GeekWire, iMore, Gigaom, The Verge, The Next Web, Business Insider, Mashable, Re/code, Android Central, Phandroid and SlashGear

Jenna Wortham / New York Times:

Imgur, the Image-Sharing Site, Raises $40 Million From Andreessen Horowitz — If you spend any measurable amount of time on the Internet, you've likely visited — or at least looked at — an image hosted on Imgur (pronounced “image-er"). — The photo-sharing service is extremely popular …

More: TechCrunch, Guardian, Gigaom, Wall Street Journal, Re/code, VentureBeat, The Technology Chronicles, Forbes, SiliconBeat, Los Angeles Times, Geeky Gadgets and PandoDaily. See also Mediagazer

Jordan Kahn / 9to5Mac:

Microsoft says Office iPad apps hit 12 million downloads a week after release — After announcing the release of the Office for iPad apps late last month, Microsoft announced today that the separate Word, Excel and PowerPoint apps for iPad have collectively reached 12 million downloads a week after release.

More: AppleInsider, Cult of Mac, VentureBeat, BGR, TechnoBuffalo, Seattle Times blogs and iDownloadBlog.com. Tweets: @office

David Ruddock / Android Police:

[Rumor] “Android Silver” May Be Google's Attempt To Finally Provide A Premium Android Sale And Support Experience — If there's one thing we hear time and again about Android, it's the F word: fragmentation. While it's largely just an annoying word used to get under the skin of Android fans …

More: TechnoBuffalo, BGR, Gizmodo, Gizmodo UK and Business Insider. Tweets: @benedictevans

Matthew Panzarino / TechCrunch:

Twitter's Vine Introduces Direct Video Messaging — Twitter's Vine has introduced a feature that allows you to message other users directly via video. This adds both a direct messaging channel and video clips to its messages, a big addition to Twitter's video app.

More: Vine, Marketing Land, VentureBeat, Re/code, Gizmodo, The Next Web, The Verge, Wired, MobileSyrup.com and WebProNews. Tweets: @joshconstine

David Meyer / Gigaom:

European Parliament passes strong net neutrality law, along with major roaming reforms — European fans of the open internet can breathe a sigh of relief: the European parliament has passed a major package of telecoms law reform, complete with amendments that properly define and protect net neutrality.

Eric Johnson / Re/code:

Jaunt Raises $6.8 Million for Virtual Reality Movies — Facebook and Sony are betting that games will be the first wave of virtual reality content, but that the uses for the technology will eventually broaden. Even before the Oculus Rift or Project Morpheus has had a chance with consumers …

More: Engadget, Gizmodo, PC World, Computerworld, TechCrunch and VentureBeat

Brooke Crothers / CNET:

Intel outs 64-bit KitKat Android, ‘Braswell’ chip for Chromebooks — Intel is touting a future system-on-a-chip for low-cost PCs and tablets and a 64-bit version of Android 4.4. — Toshiba's Chromebook uses a low-cost Intel Celeron processor. Intel's upcoming Braswell chip could find its way into future Chromebooks.

More: PC World and Geeky Gadgets

Blair Hanley Frank / GeekWire:

Azure updates: 99.95% DB uptime, SQL DBs up to 500GBs, load management on sites, more — Microsoft announces broad swath of new features for Azure — SAN FRANCISCO - There are some big new features afoot for Microsoft Azure. As a part of the company's Build developer conference …

More: PC World, Ars Technica and ReadWrite

Martin Bryant / The Next Web:

IFTTT now works with iOS push notifications and looks great on the iPad — If you're a user of popular personal productivity service IFTTT (If This Then That) who also has an iPhone, iPad or iPod touch, maybe you've wished that you could use iOS push notifications in your recipes.

More: Macworld, AppleInsider, 9to5Mac, iMore, Engadget, Lifehacker, TechCrunch and MacStories

Eric Johnson / Re/code:

Messaging App Tango Hooks Up With Words With Friends — In Asia, mobile messaging apps are a dominant means of game and app distribution. Now, one of their many American peers, Tango, is positioning itself to be a bit more like Facebook, at least within the Zynga game Words With Friends.

More: VentureBeat and The Next Web

Reuters:

Turkey lifts Twitter ban: official — A Turkish national flag with the word ‘offline’ projected on it, is seen through a Twitter logo in this photo illustration taken in Zenica, March 21, 2014. — (Reuters) - Turkey's telecoms authority lifted a two-week-old ban on Twitter on Thursday …

More: Webrazzi, VentureBeat, Gigaom, The Verge, Wall Street Journal and The Next Web

Tweets: @policy and @accessnow

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