Daily Tech Snippet: Tuesday, May 3rd

• This new apartment is like a college dorm for grown-ups: WeWork, a provider of co-working spaces in 28 cities, isn’t content to just offer you a place to do your job. This week it’s opening WeLive, which offers furnished living quarters and a range of extra amenities in a fresh take on what apartment life should be like. The apartments themselves are on the small side, and many lack a complete kitchen or a full-sized fridge. In some apartments the beds fold into the wall to create more space. But when residents step outside their own walls they have access to common areas including large kitchens stocked with appliances, game rooms, quiet areas and a community garden. WeLive is designed around flexibility — residents live month to month rather than signing a one-year lease. There’s no need to wait for the cable guy to hook up one’s TV or Internet service. And no one has to shop for a bed, couch or table. Residents need to arrive with little more than their clothes. A security deposit is required, but credit checks aren’t done. A private studio in Crystal City starts at $1,640 a month, and a studio with two beds starts at $1,880. There are also one-, two-, three- and four-bedroom apartments. A four-bedroom goes for $4,220 a month. Residents pay a $125 monthly fee that covers utilities, cable and Internet. The New York apartments are more expensive, with private units starting at $2,550. Stephanie Sutton, 31, moved into WeLive’s Crystal City location a month ago. WeLive has brought in some residents early as part of a test period. Sutton said her favorite aspect has been the sense of community. “It really does feel like home,” she said. “It’s a great way to develop friendships without any pressure. Here you passively make 10 friends instantly.”

• Mid-Career and Itching to Lead a Startup? This VC Firm Wants You: It’s easy to spot the silver hair among Jungle Ventures’ gallery of startup founders. Look closer and you’ll find many have called the shots at banks and Fortune 500 outfits.  That’s no accident. Jungle Ventures’ strategy involves betting on executive-suite veterans over starry-eyed twentysomethings who dream of changing the world, saidAmit Anand, co-founder and managing partner of the Singapore-based firm.  While peers crave youthful upstart vision, Jungle Ventures openly courts corporate bigwigs wondering where to take their careers. Singapore is an Asian base for global banking and technology firms such as Google Inc. and Microsoft Corp. -- and that’s its advantage, Anand said. Professionals more accustomed to navigating the corporate jungle than envisioning the next Facebook can become standout entrepreneurs with a little help, he said. And they know how to make a buck. Jungle’s unusual approach seems to have paid off: it’s cashed out of three startups in four years including ZipDial, bought last year by Twitter Inc. Its tactics have won investment from heavy-hitters like Singaporean state investor Temasek Holdings Pte, International Finance Corp. and the wealthy Thakral family. Anand said it’s close to raising a new $100 million fund to add consumer tech and Internet of Things to a portfolio spanning e-commerce, finance and software across Asia.Anand and co-founder Anurag Srivastava were professionals-turned-entrepreneurs themselves before they met through Sony Entertainment Television co-founder Jayesh Parekh and started Jungle in 2012. Over the next four years, the pair witnessed the Singaporean startup scene transform from young university dropouts into an arena dominated by mid-career professionals with serious banking and Internet chops.  They were “leaving their jobs, knowing their industries inside out, wanting to disrupt their own industry. More seasoned, more experienced, going after very large ideas,” Anand said. “That’s something we are going to double down on over the next years, to back more professionals turning into entrepreneurs in disruptive industries, trying to create new industries.”

• Oculus will sell its virtual reality headset in Best Buy stores beginning this week: Facebook-owned Oculus wants to take virtual reality mainstream, so it’s bringing its VR headset to the place mainstream shoppers can find it: Retail stores. Oculus announced Monday that it will begin selling “a small number” of Oculus Rift headsets in 48 Best Buy stores around the country later this week. It’s the first time the Rift has been available in-store, although Best Buy has already been selling the Rift online. Perhaps more important than actually selling the headset from a physical store is Oculus’ plan to set up demos for these devices at each Best Buy location. Virtual reality is still a very niche industry that appeals primarily to gamers. Simply getting the word out that Oculus exists and is available for purchase is still a challenge. Putting demo stations inside Best Buys could help educate shoppers who stumble upon the product for the first time. Oculus started selling the Rift in January and shipping them in March, but the process hasn’t been as smooth as expected. Lots of the orders have been delayed, so Oculus says that those waiting on a preorder can buy a Rift in-store and still get the rest of their preorder perks (like a game and first dibs on the Oculus controllers, which are alsodelayed). This backup was not-so-subtly hinted at in the company’s blog post Monday: “Quantities [in Best Buy] will be extremely limited while we catch up on Rift preorders.” So don’t hold your breath. In addition to selling in Best Buy starting May 7, Oculus will also sell online from Microsoft and Amazon beginning this week.

• Brazil orders cell phone carriers to block WhatsApp for 72 hours: WhatsApp, Facebook’s messaging service that recently rolled out end-to-end encryption to its users, will be blocked in Brazil for 72 hours, starting this afternoon. A judge from the small Brazilian state of Sergipe ordered telecom providers in the country to block WhatsApp today in a dispute over access to encrypted data. Judge Marcel Montalvao has ordered WhatsApp to turn over chat records related to a drug investigation, but WhatsApp has argued that it cannot access the chats in an unencrypted form and therefore cannot provide the required records to the court. Local newspaper Folha de S.Paulo reported that the ban would begin at 2 p.m. local time and that phone companies in the country would face fines if they did not comply. This isn’t Montalvao’s first clash with WhatsApp, which boasts more than 100 million Brazilian users. The judge ordered the arrest of Facebook’s vice president for Latin America, Diego Dzodan, in March. Facebook has said that WhatsApp operates with relative independence and that Dzodan has no control over WhatsApp data. Brazil also cut off access to WhatsApp in the country last December. Although the block was ordered to last for 48 hours, it was lifted after just 12 hours.