Techmeme
May 19, 2016, 11:50 PM

Top News

Ina Fried / Recode:
Google will compete with its partners and sell its own Daydream virtual reality headsets  —  Think Nexus, but for VR.  —  While focusing yesterday on its new virtual reality headset as a design that will be licensed to partners, Google also plans to sell a version of Daydream itself.
Lucas Matney / TechCrunch:
Unreal Engine adds full Google Daydream VR support, native Unity support coming this summer  —  VR developers looking to get started on readying content for Google's new Daydream VR platform can get started today thanks to an Unreal Engine preview version (4.1.2) that adds support for the Google platform.
Tom Warren / The Verge:
IDC analyst says Chromebooks outsold Macs for the first time in the US in the latest quarter  —  Google's low-cost Chromebooks outsold Apple's range of Macs for the first time in the US recently.  While IDC doesn't typically break out Windows vs. Chromebook sales, IDC analyst Linn Huang confirmed the milestone to The Verge.
Emil Protalinski / VentureBeat:
Developers can test Android apps on select Chrome OS devices starting in June, wide release planned for September  —  Google is finally bringing the Google Play store, including its more than 1.5 million Android apps, to Chrome OS.  Google Play will first arrive with Chrome OS version 53 …
Aaron Aupperlee / Pittsburgh Tribune-Review:
Uber officially confirms testing self-driving Ford Fusion cars in Pittsburgh  —  Uber is testing its fleet of self-driving Ford Fusion cars on the streets, bridges and hills of Pittsburgh, the ride-sharing company confirmed for the first time Wednesday.  —  The San Francisco-based firm …
Kate Conger / TechCrunch:
Oracle co-CEO Safra Catz argues Google split the Java community in two, cost Oracle hundreds of millions of dollars  —  Oracle and Google are back in the courtroom again — the same court they started in back in 2010, when Oracle first sued Google over the company's use of 37 Java APIs in its Android operating system.
Bloomberg:
SoftBank Opens Pepper Robot to Android in Bid to Broaden Appeal  —  Pepper will run applications from Google's Android platform  —  Masayoshi Son sought to position Pepper as an app platform  —  SoftBank Group Corp. is opening its Pepper robot to Android apps.
Anthony Ha / TechCrunch:
Now you can embed Reddit posts on other websites  —  Reddit posts are going to get the chance to live beyond Reddit itself, thanks to new embedding capabilities.  —  If you're an online writer or publisher, that means you can start including live Reddit content in your stories.
Mary Jo Foley / ZDNet:
Microsoft has its own ‘Bing Assistant’ bot in the works  —  Microsoft is building a ‘Bing Concierge Bot’ that sounds a lot like the just-announced Google Assistant bot.  —  Microsoft is building an assistant bot that, at least on the surface, looks quite similar to the just-announced Google Assistant bot.

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Earlier Picks

Charles McLellan / ZDNet:
Alex Hern / Guardian:
Jacob Long / Android Police:
Apple: