Techmeme
May 6, 2015, 8:25 PM

Top News

Stuart Dredge / Guardian:
First consumer version of Facebook's Oculus Rift VR headset to ship Q1 2016, pre-orders to start later in 2015  —  Facebook's Oculus Rift virtual reality headset will ship in early 2016  —  After months of rumours that the first commercial model of VR headset would slip beyond 2015, company confirms the news
Nathan Donato-Weinstein / bizjournals:
Mountain View city council allocates LinkedIn 1.4M of 2.2M square feet in North Bayshore, threatening Google's campus expansion plans  —  In stinging defeat for Google, LinkedIn scores lion's share of real estate capacity in Mountain View's North Bayshore  —  LinkedIn Corp. came away …
Greg Bensinger / Wall Street Journal:
Ex-Apple retail boss Ron Johnson launches Enjoy e-commerce site, with personal delivery and in-home setup service at no cost  —  Former Apple Retail Boss Ron Johnson Unwraps New Web Startup ‘Enjoy’  —  Ron Johnson, the former Apple retail chief who was ousted as J.C. Penney's boss two years ago …
Ben Popper / The Verge:
Reddit launches a video division to create original content  —  The social news service Reddit has grown to a truly massive size, garnering 170 million monthly visitors and 6.7 billion pages view this January, while maintaining a fairly bare-bones service.  It helps elevate obscure material …
Eric Johnson / Re/code:
Zynga Narrows Focus, Will Cut 18 Percent of Staff  —  With Don Mattrick out and founder Mark Pincus reinstalled as CEO, what will Zynga's future look like?  —  For one, think a bit smaller: The company said today that as part of a $100 million cost reduction program, it would lay off 364 people …
Tom Fairless / Wall Street Journal:
EU unveils plan to unite fragmented online markets, crack down on possible abuses by US Internet firms  —  EU Announces Plans to Create a Single Digital Market  —  Plans include inquiries into the role of online platforms and possible abuses by U.S.-based companies
POLITICO:
Douglas MacMillan / Wall Street Journal:
Zenefits raises $500M round led by Fidelity Management and TPG, attains $4.5B valuation after just two years  —  Zenefits Tagged With $4.5 Billion Valuation After Just Two Years  —  The latest software company valued at over $1 billion doesn't make a dime selling software.
Paul Thurrott / Thurrott.com:
Sources: Xbox One will get DVR functionality as Windows Media Center is removed from Windows  —  Confirmed: Media Center is Dead  —  You may have seen recent rumors that Microsoft has killed off Windows Media Center, the ten-foot digital media interface that it first developed for a special version of Windows over 10 years.
Douglas MacMillan / Wall Street Journal:
Banjo raises $100M from SoftBank to build out software that detects world events in real time, using photos and videos uploaded to social media sites  —  Banjo Raises $100 Million to Detect World Events in Real Time  —  Banjo started four years ago as a simple app for viewing social media posts tagged …
Steve Lohr / New York Times:
Paypal co-founder Max Levchin's lending startup Affirm raises $275M  —  Lending Start-Up Affirm Raises $275 Million  —  Affirm, a San Francisco-based consumer lending start-up, is adding $275 million in debt and equity to accelerate its growth plans.  —  The big Series B funding round …
Josh Constine / TechCrunch:
Meerkat Launches Developer Platform To Differentiate From Periscope  —  How did it feel getting cut off by Twitter with just 2 hours notice?  “It sucked” says Meerkat founder Ben Rubin.  That's why it's determined to treat developers with more respect.  In the nine weeks since Meerkat launched …
Shara Tibken / CNET:
Sources: Samsung to introduce Artik, new chip platforms to power IoT devices, next week  —  Samsung readies new processors to power the Internet of Things  —  The hardware platform, which Samsung will reveal next week during a San Francisco event, will be called Artik, CNET has learned.
Shalini Ramachandran / Wall Street Journal:
As part of a $300M multi-year plan, Comcast will hire 5,500 new customer service employees, credit customers $20 if technicians are late for appointments  —  Comcast to Pay Customers $20 If Technicians Are Late as Part of Customer Service Revamp  —  Comcast is going to pay you $20 …

Sponsor Posts

Subquadratic:
Subquadratic: the LLM built for 12M-token reasoning  —  SubQ can reason across entire codebases and document sets in one pass with no RAG workarounds.  Read how SubQ 1.1 Small holds near-perfect retrieval out to 12M tokens.
Cape:
Most carriers track everything.  Cape doesn't.  —  Unlimited talk, text & data, 24-hr metadata deletion, network ID rotation, SIM-attack defense, and more.  Switch today and get 29% off for life.
Zoho:
Introducing Zoho Expense MCP: Turn conversations into expense workflows  —  Artificial intelligence (AI) has already changed how we search for information, summarize documents, and analyze data.
IDrive:
Protecting your Cloud Applications Data  —  Backing up Office 365, Google Workspace, Dropbox & Salesforce data is critical to preventing data loss or corruption, complying with laws and avoiding critical downtime in case of a disaster.

Featured Podcasts

Grit:
Booking.com CEO on AI and the Future of Travel
Grit explores what it takes to create, build and scale world-class organizations.
Subscribe to Grit.
Acquired:
Disney: The Renaissance and the Empire
Learn the playbooks that built the world's greatest companies - and how you can apply them as a founder, operator, or investor.
Subscribe to Acquired.
Lenny's Podcast:
The playbook for building high talent density teams | Adam Ward, Head of Talent at Cursor
Interviews with world-class product leaders and growth experts to uncover actionable advice to help you build, launch, and grow your own product.
Subscribe to Lenny's Podcast.
Big Technology Podcast:
Demis Steps Down, Apple's Memory Problem, Microsoft's Clever Trick
The Big Technology Podcast takes you behind the scenes in the tech world featuring interviews with plugged-in insiders and outside agitators.
Subscribe to Big Technology Podcast.
Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith:
Connecting the Unconnected: Doreen Bogdan-Martin
Microsoft Vice Chair and President Brad Smith speaks with leaders in government, business, and culture to explore the most critical challenges at the intersection of technology and society.
Subscribe to Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 8:25 PM ET, May 6, 2015.

The most current version of the site as always is available at our home page. To view an earlier snapshot click here and then modify the date indicated.

More News

Tim Ring / SC Magazine UK:
AppleInsider:

Earlier Picks

Ina Fried / Re/code:
Frederic Lardinois / TechCrunch:
Antonio Regalado / MIT Technology Review: