Andy Ihnatko joins to settle once and for all whether we will someday live in Facebook’s evil Ready Player One-like universe or Facebook’s evil Snow Crash-like universe. Because they bought Oculus.
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Show Notes
Today’s guest: Andy Ihnatko, technology columnist for the Chicago Sun-Times
Headlines
All of the Internet, but I saw it first on TechCrunch, reported yesterday that Facebook announced plans to buy Oculus Vr, the makers of the Rift virtual reality headset for $400 million in cash, 23.1 million Facebook stock shares and a $300 million earnout, for a grand total current valuation of around $2 billion also expressed as two Instagrams or 1/10 of a WhatsApp. The Internet is pleased, outraged, confused but mostly outraged. That is also known as being the Internet. As if speaking on behalf of the Internet, Markus Persson, aka Notch of Minecraft posted on Twitter that he had canceled his deal with Oculus because “Facebook creeps me out.” Also Facebook denies the New York Times report that it plans to redesign the Rift and brand it with a Facebook logo.
Hurriyet Daily News out of Turkey reports the Turkish government will abide by an Ankara court ruling staying the decision to block Twitter in the country. Deputy Prime Minister Bülent Arınç told reporters the government may not like the decision but they will carry it out, although they may take up to 30 days to do so. The court stated in its ruling that the ban of the entire website was contrary to the Turkish Constitution and the European Convention of Human Rights, as it restricted the freedom of expression and communication.
ZDNet reports Brazil’s Chamber of Deputies voted in favor of the Marco Civil da Internet which has provisions for net neutrality, privacy rights and protection for ISPs against liability for offensive content published by their customers. A controversial provision to require data on Brazilians to be stored in Brazil was dropped before passage. The bill will need to clear the Senate before it is sanctioned by president Dilma Rousseff.
Engadget reports ZTE just launched the Nubia X6 handset/tablet with 6.44-inch 1080p screen. It also carries a snapdrgon 7801 chip, 3GB of RAM, up to 128GB of storage and a 4,250 mAh battery. Both front and back cameras are 13-megapixels. It’s up for pre-order in China at $HK 5,010. (US$640).
News From You
LifeDownloaded submitted the TechCrunch story on CandyCrush maker King’s initial public offering of stock. King sold the shares at $22.50 each raising $326 million on a valuation of $7 billion. The stock began trading at $20.50 a share Wednesday morning dropped to $19.58 midafternoon and ended the day at [$19.25]
habichuelcondulce pointed us to the SB Nation Lookit story about the folks at the dogecoin subreddit raising $55,000 to sponsor Josh Wise’s N0.98 car in NASCAR races. Hopefuly the car will get wrapped in Shiba Inu meme-ness in time for the Aaron’s 499 at Talledega May 4. A design competition has begun to determine the look of the logo on the car.
MikePKennedy posted the story from Engadget that NASA has stitched together more than 2 million infrared pictures taken in the past decade by the Spitzer Space telescope to create the clearest infrared panorama of our galaxy ever made. The photos from the Galactic Legacy Mid-Plane Survey Extraordinaire (GLIMPSE360) show 3 percent of the sky but more than half of all stars in the Milky Way. You can pan through the photo online, or if you have loads of free hard drive space, download the full resolution raw images.
LifeDownloaded submitted the TechCrunch story on CandyCrush maker King’s initial public offering of stock. King sold the shares at $22.50 each raising $326 million on a valuation of $7 billion. The stock began trading at $20.50 a share Wednesday morning dropped to $19.58 midafternoon and ended the day at [$19.31]
Discussion Section Links: Pick of the Day: Fock-u-lus Rift?
http://www.cnet.com/news/zuckerberg-facebook-only-spends-big-on-rare-companies/#ftag=CAD590a51e
http://recode.net/2014/03/25/under-facebook-oculus-will-still-focus-on-games-for-now/
http://www.cnet.com/news/what-does-the-facebook-oculus-deal-mean-for-kickstarter/#ftag=CAD590a51e
http://www.theverge.com/2014/3/25/5547946/welcome-to-planet-facebook
Thursday’s Guest: Peter Wells