Techmeme: How Zuck met Oculus: The story behind Facebook's big bet on virtual reality (Erin Griffith/Fortune)

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April 14, 2014, 1:40 PM

Top News

Peter Bright / Ars Technica:

Windows Phone 8.1 review: a magnificent smartphone platform — It's a 0.1 update that feels like a 2.0 update. — For the growing number of Windows Phone users, Windows Phone 8 was a frustrating release. The major difference between Windows Phone 7.5 and Windows Phone 8 was invisible to end users …

More: iMore, The Verge, Windows Phone Central, GeekWire, TechCrunch, ZDNet, Engadget, Gigaom, Neowin, FierceWireless, Pocketnow, Gizmodo, ZDNet, CNET, Re/code, MobileBurn.com, ReadWrite, TechCrunch, TIME, SuperSite for Windows, WMPoweruser, Mashable, SlashGear and Liliputing

Tweets: @tomwarren and @arstechnica

Tom Warren / The Verge:

Windows Phone 8.1 Developer Preview now available to download — Windows Phone 8.1 now available to download — After 18 months since the last major Windows Phone update, Microsoft is finally releasing Windows Phone 8.1 to developers today. The software maker detailed the update …

Jessica Dolcourt / CNET:

Cortana vs. Siri vs. Google Now: An early look at how Cortana stacks up (hands-on) — Can Windows Phone's new voice-activated assistant stand up to Siri and Google Now? We put an early version to the test. — The iPhone has Siri. Android has Google Now. And Windows Phone now has Cortana.

More: Search Engine Land, Gizmodo, Windows Phone Central and ZDNet

Ina Fried / Re/code:

Early internal document reveals Android was initially designed without touchscreen support — Here's What Android Looked Like Before the iPhone — One of the more interesting documents that came to light during the Apple-Samsung document last week was an early internal Google document …

More: AppleInsider, Business Insider, The Register, Phandroid, Computerworld, BGR, Engadget, blog.chron.com, Guardian and Gizmodo

Tweets: @stroughtonsmith and @stroughtonsmith

Rolfe Winkler / Wall Street Journal:

Google considering giving a boost in its search-engine results to websites that use encryption — Google May Push Sites to Use Encryption — A powerful voice at Google wants websites to be more secure. — In a move that experts say could make it harder to spy on Web users …

More: Search Engine Land, The Verge, ZDNet, BetaNews, Gigaom, Geeky Gadgets, SlashGear and VentureBreak. Tweets: @dannysullivan. Thanks:@bryfitz

Erin Griffith / Fortune:

How Zuck met Oculus: The story behind Facebook's big bet on virtual reality — CEO Brendan Iribe recounts the steps leading up to the $2 billion deal. — FORTUNE - Mark Zuckerberg's acquisitions have a formula: They never, ever leak because they come together quickly.

More: Business Insider. Tweets: @eringriffith and @cdixon

New York Times:

How and why startups like Lyft and Quora are increasingly taking big late-stage investments — Rich Start-Ups Go Back for Another Helping — Quora, a question-and-answer website, didn't need to raise money. It had barely touched $60 million in venture capital that it accepted just two years ago.

Tweets: @bijans, @mikeyang and @dgelles

Kaylene Hong / The Next Web:

Facebook is reportedly prepping an e-money service, and is close to getting approval in Ireland — Facebook wants to be more than a social network — it is planning to facilitate financial services in the form of electronic money and remittances, the Financial Times reports (as spotted first by Benedict Evans).

More: Financial Times, The Irish Times, PandoDaily, TechCrunch, Computerworld, The Technology Chronicles, VentureBeat, Quartz, The Verge, Engadget, Wall Street Journal, Business Insider, CoinDesk, SlashGear, WebProNews, Yahoo Tech, Softpedia News and bizjournals. Tweets: @jeffjohnroberts. Thanks:@hanskainz

Todd Spangler / Variety:

UPDATED: Relativity Offers Up to $1.1 Billion for Maker Studios, In Move to Outflank Disney — Maker Studios is in the center of a bidding war: Ryan Kavanaugh's Relativity Media has staged a surprise late-hour plan to acquire the YouTube multichannel network operator for up to $1.1 billion in stock …

More: Wall Street Journal, Tubefilter, Hollywood Reporter, Boston Herald, TheStreet.com, Business 2 Community, SeekingAlpha.com and Mashable. Tweets: @pkafka. See also Mediagazer

Kwame Opam / The Verge:

Heartbleed bug responsible for theft of 900 Canadian tax ID numbers — Canada's taxpayers may be the first victims of the Heartbleed bug that put the web on high alert last week. According to the Canada Revenue Agency, 900 social insurance numbers (SINs) were stolen by hackers exploiting the security vulnerability.

More: cra-arc.gc.ca, CBC News, The Register, Help Net Security, BetaKit, The Next Web, Ars Technica, Wall Street Journal, CSO Online, Associated Press, Bloomberg, Globe and Mail and Financial Post

Alistair MacDonald / Wall Street Journal:

Canadian Government Says Public Websites up and Running

More: Reuters

Leena Rao / TechCrunch:

Beauty And E-Commerce Brand Julep Raises $30M To Disrupt The $160B Cosmetics Industry — Julep, a cosmetics and beauty brand and e-commerce platform, has raised $30 million in Series C financing; Azure Capital, Madrona Venture Group, Altimeter Capital, Andreessen Horowitz and Maveron all participated in the round.

More: VentureBeat, Business Insider, PE Hub Blog, GeekWire and Wall Street Journal

Nick Wingfield / New York Times:

A profile of Benchmark venture capitalist Richard Barton — The Art of ‘Something From Nothing’ — SEATTLE — Entrepreneurs are lucky to have one big score. Richard Barton has had a string of them, by repeatedly asking the same simple question: What piece of marketplace information do people crave and don't have?

Tweets: @nickwingfield, @jeffjarvis and @trengriffin

Mike Isaac / Re/code:

As Lockup Date Looms, Twitter Says Its Big Shareholders Aren't Selling Anytime Soon — As an important date for Twitter shareholders looms, the company's top brass wants Wall Street to know one thing: They're in it for the long haul. — Dick Costolo, Evan Williams, Jack Dorsey …

More: New York Times, VatorNews, TechCrunch, Business 2 Community and Softpedia News

Jeremy Kirk / PC World:

Akamai admits its OpenSSL patch was faulty, reissues keys — Akamai Technologies, whose network handles up to 30 percent of all Internet traffic, said Sunday a researcher found a fault in custom code that the company thought shielded most of its customers from the Heartbleed bug.

More: The Akamai Blog, SiliconANGLE, SecurityWeek and InfoWorld

Michael Riley / Bloomberg:

Obama plan to limit software vulnerability use could mean disclosure of thousands of exploits — Trove of Software Flaws Used by U.S. Spies at Risk — The White House's directive to limit the use of software flaws by U.S. intelligence agencies could require the disclosure of thousands …

Tweets: @astepanovich, @csoghoian and @csoghoian

Steve Marquess / Speeds and Feeds:

OpenSSL Software Foundation president: we need support from companies and governments for a team of 6+ full-time workers

More: PandoDaily, Softpedia News and Rev2.org

Tweets: @dblevins, @thegrugq, @matthew_d_green and @dangillmor

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