Oculus Opens Social Doors for Gear VR

Oculus VR this week launched Oculus Social for Samsung's Gear VR viewer. Gear VR users can create profiles on Oculus Social and search out friends via real names or handles. The company, which has yet to ship its own virtual reality headset, also released two social games to encourage more friending on Oculus Social: Herobound: Gladiators and Social Trivia. In Herobound: Gladiators, players team up to take arms in a clash between demons and goblins. Social Trivia sits friends down at a virtual table and pits their wits against each other.

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Apple Lassos Attention With 'Loop You In' Tease

Apple on Thursday sent out media invitations to a March 21 event at its Cupertino, California, headquarters, with the cryptic teaser, "Let us loop you in." Speculation is rife that the company will unveil a new 4-inch iPhone called the "iPhone SE." A 9.7-inch iPad Air also is expected, as well as some new Apple Watch bands and minor hardware and software updates. The event initially was set for March 15 but then pushed back to March 21. That puts the event one day before a court hearing in Apple's legal battle with the FBI.

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Opera Desktop Browser Comes With Ad Blocking Baked In

Opera on Thursday announced that new version of its desktop browser will have ad blocking built in. Users can block ads in other browsers, but only through add-on programs called "extensions." With ad blocking built in, Opera's Web engine can perform the task better than extensions. "People care about speed in a Web browser, so when you're developing a browser you always have to think about speed," said Krystian Kolondra, senior vice president for global engineering at Opera.

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Home Alone? Now Nest Can Tell

Nest on Thursday announced two new features, Family Accounts and Home/Away Assist. Family Accounts would let up to 10 people access the Nest products in a connected home from their Android or iOS devices. That means an end to sharing logins and passwords, the company said. Users can be added or removed seamlessly from the Family Account. Home/Away Assist was designed to track the patterns of household members, utilizing learning algorithms and activity sensors that are built into products such as the Nest Learning Thermostat.

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Microsoft Sees the Light and Joins Eclipse

Microsoft on Tuesday announced it was joining the Eclipse Foundation as a solutions member. Membership will enable the company to collaborate more closely with the Eclipse community, which has more than 240 members. It also provides an outlet for delivering tools and services for all development teams. Microsoft will be able to improve its cloud services, SDKs and tools. "It is clear that Microsoft is a changed company and is now willing to engage developers in their existing communities," said the Eclipse Foundation's Mike Milinkovich.

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Facebook Exec's Brazilian Misadventure Signals Bigger Problem

The jailing last week of Facebook Regional Vice President Diego Dzoda in Brazil may have been the tip of an iceberg. Frustrated police made the arrest after Facebook failed to produce WhatsApp messages connected to a drug trafficking case. The incident is one of a growing heap of examples that highlight the difficulties law enforcement agencies face when trying to collect evidence in a digital world without borders. In international cases involving digital data, it's not uncommon for national laws to be at loggerheads.

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FBI Sets Off Snowden's BS Detector

The buzz surrounding the FBI's lawsuit to compel Apple to help it unlock an iPhone used by one of the San Bernardino terrorists increased on Tuesday, when NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden dismissed the agency's stance as "bullsh*t." He made the remark during a video conversation with Malkia Cyril, executive director of the Center for Media Justice, and Dan Froomkin, Washington editor of The Intercept, at Common Cause's Blueprint for Democracy conference. The statement provoked some testy reactions.

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