Techmeme
May 23, 2016, 4:05 PM

Top News

ProPublica:
Analysis of 7K+ cases: strong bias against black defendants found in crime prediction software that's increasingly relied upon to guide sentencing in US courts  —  There's software used across the country to predict future criminals.  And it's biased against blacks.
Romain Dillet / TechCrunch:
Spotify family plan is now cheaper, $14.99 for up to 6 people  —  Spotify is catching up with the competition when it comes to family plans.  Like Apple Music and Google Play Music, families can now subscribe to Spotify Premium for $14.99 per month and get six different Spotify accounts and profiles.
Emanuel Maiberg / Motherboard:
Libre VR, creator of Revive tool used to play Oculus games on Vive headsets, circumvents Oculus' new DRM in under 24 hours, making it easier to pirate games  —  It's been a little bit over a day since Oculus started rolling out new DRM for its software, but it's already backfired, making pirating the company's games easier than ever.
Wall Street Journal:
Sources: China's Tencent seeks majority stake in Clash of Clans maker Supercell, in early stage talks with SoftBank  —  Chinese Internet firm's discussions with Japan's SoftBank are still at early stage  —  HONG KONG—Internet company Tencent Holdings Ltd. of China is in talks …
More: iMore and TechCrunch
Scott Cendrowski / Fortune:
Xiaomi revenue for 2015 reached 78B yuan, only a 5% rise from 2014's 74.3B yuan  —  Xiaomi, the Chinese smartphone maker and second highest-valued startup in the world at $45 billion, barely grew sales at all last year.  —  Revenue for 2015 reached 78 billion yuan ($12.5 billion) …
More: CNBC and CNET.  Tweets: @bryce and @mdudas
Joe Mullin / Ars Technica:
Oracle's closing argument implores jury to think in basic terms: “You don't take people's property”  —  “It takes strength and courage to stand up to Google.  That's what Oracle has done."  —  SAN FRANCISCO—Oracle's copyright lawsuit is all about one “very simple rule,” the company's attorney told a jury today.
Harrison Weber / VentureBeat:
Facebook buys VR audio company Two Big Ears and debuts “Facebook 360 Spatial Workstation”, a free software suite for designing spatial audio  —  Today Facebook announced it's acquired Two Big Ears, a spatial audio technology company, for an undisclosed sum.
Ari Levy / CNBC:
Kleiner Perkins raising close to $1.3 billion for two funds: Sources  —  Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, the venture capital firm that last year defended itself against an explosive sexual discrimination lawsuit, is raising two funds totaling close to $1.3 billion, according to sources familiar with the matter.
Jason Del Rey / Recode:
Amazon stops honoring partial refunds on items that drop in price after purchase, except TVs, amid entry of startups like Earny that track item prices  —  Except for TVs.  —  The company that prides itself on customer centricity may have just alienated some customers.
More: TechCrunch.  Tweets: @chrismessina

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