Techmeme: First 10K units of Oculus Rift DK2 should be arriving week of July 14 (Greg Kumparak/TechCrunch)

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July 2, 2014, 3:35 PM

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R. Jai Krishna / Wall Street Journal:

Facebook's Sheryl Sandberg apologizes for poorly communicating controversial News Feed study: “We never meant to upset you” — Sandberg: Facebook Study Was ‘Poorly Communicated’ — Facebook 's psychological experiment on nearly 700,000 unwitting users was communicated “poorly …

Ron Amadeo / Ars Technica:

Developer preview test for Android L's Project Volta shows promise, 2 hours or 35% more battery life on Nexus 5 — Examining Project Volta: We put Android L through our battery test — For each Android release, Google likes to have a “Project” that picks an area of weakness and focuses on tuning the whole OS to fix it.

More: BGR, Geek.com, ExtremeTech, Gigaom, Android Beat, Redmond Pie, Geeky Gadgets, TechnoBuffalo, SlashGear, Business Insider and Android Police

James Ball / Guardian:

EU's right to be forgotten: Guardian articles have been hidden by Google — Publishers must fight back against this indirect challenge to press freedom, which allows articles to be ‘disappeared’. Editorial decisions belong with them, not Google — When you Google someone from within the EU …

More: Poynter. Tweets: @alexstamos, @freedomofpress, @jeffjohnroberts and @marklittlenews. See also Mediagazer

Josh Constine / TechCrunch:

Facebook Acquires LiveRail To Serve Video Ads Everywhere, Improve Its Own — Facebook has just bought video ad tech startup LiveRail, which connects marketers to publishers on web and mobile to target 7 billion video ads to visitors per month. A source tells us Facebook paid between $400 million …

More: Facebook, LiveRail, AllFacebook, Marketing Land, VentureBeat, ZDNet, Inside Facebook, Gigaom, AdExchanger and Re/code

Tweets: @joshconstine, @mikeisaac and @joshconstine

Soma Somasegar / MSDN Blogs:

Microsoft acquires SyntaxTree, creator of UnityVS plugin for Visual Studio — Game developers build the apps that hundreds of millions of users play every day across a wide variety of devices, from Xbox and Windows to iOS, Android and the Web. Games are the most popular application type …

More: PC World, eWeek, TechCrunch, GeekWire, The Next Web, ZDNet, WinBeta and Neowin. Tweets: @lordned

Cyrus Farivar / Ars Technica:

Investor Tim Draper wins auction for 29,655 bitcoins seized from Silk Road, partners with Vaurum to leverage the pool as a liquidity source in emerging markets — Famed investor Tim Draper wins auction of Silk Road's 29,655 bitcoins — Draper to partner with Vaurum, which offers “secure storage solutions” to banks.

More: CNET, Medium, New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Gigaom, Re/code, CoinDesk, PandoDaily, Fortune, Wall Street Journal, TechCrunch, Reuters, Wired, On Bitcoin, NEWSBTC and TIME

Tweets: @adamdraper and @boostvc

Mariella Moon / Engadget:

Chumby's smart alarm clock relaunches with 1,000 apps — Remember Chumby? You probably haven't heard much about the snuggly tiny computer/smart alarm clock since its makers' company disbanded, but now it's back from its semi-retired state. Its current owner, Blue Octy LLC …

More: The Verge, Geeky Gadgets, Liliputing and Connectedly. Tweets: @chumby

Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:

An Upper Limit For Apps? New Data Suggests Consumers Only Use Around Two Dozen Apps Per Month — There are now well over a million mobile applications in both Google Play and the iTunes App Store alike, and growth of those app marketplaces shows no sign of slowing down.

More: asymco.com, ZDNet, 9to5Mac, MacDailyNews and TIME

Julian Hattem / The Hill:

Federal privacy watchdog finds NSA programs targeting foreigners are effective, legal and show “no trace” of “illegitimate activity” — Privacy board backs NSA's foreign spying — A federal privacy watchdog is largely putting its support behind a major pillar …

More: Ars Technica, SiliconBeat, Forbes, Bloomberg, Associated Press and Wired.co.uk

Tweets: @the_intercept and @granick

Cindy Cohn / Electronic Frontier Foundation:

Flawed Oversight Board Report Endorses General Warrants

More: Computerworld, The Verge, Techdirt, Alexander B. Howard, Softpedia News, Reuters, Re/code, TechCrunch, PC World, Guardian, Nextgov, Mashable and Inquirer. Tweets: @matt_cagle

David Katzmaier / CNET:

Samsung to end plasma TV production this year — Following in the footsteps of Panasonic, Samsung says it will end production of plasma display panels by the end of this year. — The Samsung PNF8500 is the last great plasma TV. — Sarah Tew/CNET — Samsung SDI has announced …

More: Reuters, The Verge, Tech Times, SlashGear, Digital Trends and Forbes. Tweets: @dkatzmaier

Tom Warren / The Verge:

Microsoft seeks Office for Android testers as it readies tablet version — Touch-friendly Office Android apps coming before Windows version — Microsoft may have released a basic Office app for Android phones almost a year ago, but the company is now building a suite designed specifically for Android tablets.

More: PC Magazine, Engadget, Electronista, PC World, 9to5Google, Phandroid, Ubergizmo, Pocketnow, Gigaom and Droid Life

Greg Bensinger / Wall Street Journal:

Amazon resists FTC request to tighten in-app purchase policy for children — Amazon Resisting FTC on Policy Change for In-App Purchases — Amazon-FTC Dispute Is Over Limiting Children's Purchases — Amazon.com Inc. is bucking a request from the Federal Trade Commission that it tighten …

More: The Next Web, USA Today, The Verge and GeekWire

Hitesh Arora / NDTV Gadgets:

Google Discontinues SMS for Hangouts; Might Integrate Google Voice Soon — Google on Monday has updated that it is discontinuing SMS for Google Hangouts feature for Web from July 2. Up till now the feature was available for India, Pakistan, Israel, Turkey, Ukraine, Congo and many other countries from Africa and Asia.

More: Google Operating System, Gizmodo, The Next Web, Gigaom, Google Operating System, Droid Life and AndroidGuys

TechCrunch:

Russia Moves To Ban Online Services That Don't Store Personal Data In Russia — The Russian government has moved one step closer towards a “China-like” approach towards Internet services. — Last night, the Russian State Duma (parliament) passed the first bill requiring that the personal data …

More: Gigaom, Neowin, The Voice of Russia, News, Geek.com, theWHIR.com, Geeky Gadgets, VentureBeat and Ubergizmo

Dan Primack / Fortune:

Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers raises $1.2B: $450M for flagship early-stage fund, $750M for digital growth fund — Exclusive: Kleiner Perkins raises $1.2 billion — Kleiner Perkins has no trouble raising a pair of new venture capital funds. Venerable venture capital firm Kleiner …

More: bizjournals, VentureBeat and SiliconBeat

Greg Kumparak / TechCrunch:

First 10K units of Oculus Rift DK2 should be arriving week of July 14 — With 45,000 Pre-Orders, The New Oculus Rift Will Start Arriving Around July 14th — Back in March, the second generation of Oculus' work-in-progress virtual reality headset went up for pre-order for $350.

More: PC World, Electronista, SlashGear, Engadget and The Verge

Stacey Higginbotham / Gigaom:

Microsoft joins the AllSeen Alliance as it ramps up connected device efforts — The AllSeen Alliance, the organization pushing for the AllJoyn open standard for connected devices, has netted Microsoft as a member. Microsoft joins members such as Haier, Sears, LG, Panasonic …

More: Reuters, ZDNet, eWeek, Computerworld, PC World, ReadWrite, Inquirer, DailyFinance.com, Windows Phone Central and Re/code

Vlad Savov / The Verge:

Nvidia preparing a Shield Tablet successor to its Android game console — The Shield Tablet looks set to be a hybrid 2-in-1 device that will show off the power of the Tegra K1 chip — Best known for designing graphics chips and mobile processors, Nvidia set out on a bold new course …

More: Ars Technica, 9to5Google, Engadget, Phandroid, CNET, TechSpot, Pocket-lint, Droid Life, Electronista and AndroidGuys

Charlie Osborne / ZDNet:

Microsoft, Google form Ethernet consortium for datacenter networks — Summary: Microsoft, Google and other firms have come together to form the 25 Gigabit Ethernet Consortium with the aim of improving cloud datacenter networks. — Charlie Osborne — Five tech giants, including Google and Microsoft …

More: Data Center Knowledge, FierceCIO News, Inquirer, TechSpot, The Register and eWeek

Romain Dillet / TechCrunch:

BlaBlaCar Raises A Massive $100 Million Round To Create A Global Long Distance Ride-Sharing Network — In what is the largest VC round in a French startup of all time, BlaBlaCar just raised a $100 million round led by Index Ventures, with existing investors Accel Partners, ISAI and Lead Edge Capital also participating in the round.

More: VatorNews, PE Hub Blog, Gigaom, Martin Mignot, Wall Street Journal, Skift, Re/code, VentureBeat, New York Times, Guardian, Business Insider, CNET, Rude Baguette, Tnooz, Webrazzi, PandoDaily and Engadget

Tweets: @scottmaustin and @robinklein

Ben Sisario / New York Times:

Source: Google paid more than $39M for Songza — Google Buys Songza, a Playlist Service for Any Occasion — In a sign of growing consolidation in the digital music business, Google announced on Tuesday that it had bought Songza, a three-year-old app that competes with Pandora and others …

Nicholas Stango / Gizmodo:

Inside the Secret Building That's Bringing Cell Service To NYC's Subway — As Hurricane Sandy revealed almost two years ago, New York's 100-year-old subway is not a modern and robust system. In fact, compared to other cities, it's downright dirty, unpredictable and technologically behind.

More: ANIMAL

Husain Sumra / MacRumors:

Apple Launches $49 Mac Pro Security Lock Adapter in Online Store — Apple today launched a new $49 Mac Pro Security Lock Adapter in its online store, offering users of the new Mac Pro a way to easily secure their machines using existing Kensington locks. Previously, users had to resort …

More: SlashGear, Softpedia News, iMore, AppleInsider, iPhone in Canada Blog, 9to5Mac and App Advice

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