Techmeme
October 6, 2016, 7:05 PM

Top News

Ashley Carman / The Verge:
Oculus Touch controller bundle for Oculus Rift will be available on December 6th for $199; pre-orders open on October 10  —  The Oculus Touch will be available for the Rift on December 6th for $199, the company announced today.  Oculus's Input API works with three different devices …
Josh Constine / TechCrunch:
Oculus demos augmented social VR with facial expressions, immersion in real-world scenes, chess and card playing, taking a phone call and taking a selfie  —  Today on stage at Oculus' Connect conference, Mark Zuckerberg demonstrated a new facial tracking social VR experience that overlays VR avatars …
Matthew Lynley / TechCrunch:
Report: Snap Inc., formerly Snapchat, is planning an IPO for March 2017 that could value the company at $25B+  —  The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Snap — the now-parent company of Snapchat — is working on an initial public offering for as early as March that could value the company at $25 billion or higher.
Brian Fung / Washington Post:
Sources: Facebook in talks with US government and wireless carriers to launch Free Basics-like service in the US, for low-income and rural Americans  —  Facebook has been in talks for months with U.S. government officials and wireless carriers with an eye toward unveiling an American version …
Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:
LinkedIn now lets users privately signal to recruiters when they are looking for a new job; feature initially available in US, Canada, UK, and Australia  —  One of the hallmarks of any social network is how it pushes people to share their experiences with others, but increasingly we've seen …
Jordan Golson / The Verge:
US Consumer Product Safety Commission opens investigation into Galaxy Note7 that forced evacuation of flight  —  Federal regulators are moving quickly to investigate the replacement Samsung Galaxy Note 7 that caught fire on a Southwest Airlines flight today, with the US Consumer Product Safety Commission …
Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:
Sources: Apple to move services teams, including Maps, Siri and iCloud, from separate campuses to One Infinite Loop in attempt to improve services  —  Cue to move cloud service engineering teams to single campus  —  Company continues shifting services to its own infrastructure
Janko Roettgers / Variety:
Sources: BitTorrent fires its co-CEOs and an unknown number of staffers, is closing its Los Angeles production studio and Now streaming service  —  BitTorrent has fired its two co-CEOs Robert Delamar and Jeremy Johnson and laid of an unknown number of staffers, Variety has learned from multiple sources.
Timothy B. Lee / Vox:
Marc Andreessen on why AI can spawn a new generation of big, important technology companies  —  Recent breakthroughs in artificial intelligence and machine learning are enabling computers to understand the world and respond intelligently to it.  Google is already embracing these technologies for Android …
Lizzie Plaugic / The Verge:
Netflix signs deal with theater chain iPic Entertainment to screen its original movies, which will debut on the streaming service simultaneously  —  Next year, some of Netflix's original movies will have a debut home on the big screen.  The streaming service just signed a deal …
Peter Kafka / Recode:
Sources: Disney will not bid for Twitter, leaving Salesforce as the last potential bidder  —  Which leaves Salesforce, for now.  —  Cross another potential Twitter buyer off the list: Disney isn't pursuing a bid for the social platform, either.  —  Sources familiar with Disney …
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Sarah Perez / TechCrunch: