Techmeme
January 6, 2021, 2:10 PM

Top News

Pranob Mehrotra / XDA Developers:
WhatsApp updates its Terms and Privacy Policy to mandate data sharing with Facebook, including transaction data, mobile device information, IP address, and more  —  WhatsApp users are receiving an in-app notice today regarding the service's new terms and privacy policy.
Queenie Wong / CNET:
Dina Bass / Bloomberg:
An oral history from 24 people describing how Microsoft developed the original Xbox, initially an over-budget ungainly product, and reshaped the gaming industry  —  The original product was ungainly, over-budget and nearly canceled.  Here's how it became a hit and reshaped an industry.
Alexandra Alper / Reuters:
Trump signs an executive order banning transactions with Ant Group's Alipay, Tencent's WeChat Pay and QQ, and five other Chinese payment apps  —  WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday signed an executive order banning transactions with eight Chinese software applications, including Ant Group's Alipay.
Jesse Pound / CNBC:
Emily Birnbaum / Protocol:
As Democrats are poised to win Georgia's Senate seats, a look at potential tech legislation under a unified government, including a federal privacy bill  —  As of Wednesday morning, Democrats looked poised to win both Georgia Senate seats, taking back control of the Senate after five years of Republican leadership.
Will Heaven / MIT Technology Review:
OpenAI introduces two new GPT-3 models: CLIP, which classifies images into categories from arbitrary text, and DALL·E, which can generate images from text  —  With GPT-3, OpenAI showed that a single deep-learning model could be trained to use language in a variety of ways simply by throwing it vast amounts of text.
Bloomberg:
Facebook's Andrew Bosworth says its smart glasses, built in partnership with Ray-Ban, will arrive “sooner than later” in 2021 without AR features  —  - Company has more than 6,000 staff on AR, VR and hardware tasks  — Zuckerberg seeking the next computer platform after smartphone
Nicole Friedman / Wall Street Journal:
Amazon commits $2B+ over five years to create and preserve affordable housing in three of its employment hubs: Seattle, WA; Arlington, VA; and Nashville, TN  —  Tech giant to make investments over next five years in and around Seattle, Arlington, Va., and Nashville, Tenn.
Catalin Cimpanu / ZDNet:
Tom Warren / The Verge:
Microsoft says it will shut down Minecraft Earth, which let users play Minecraft in real life through AR, on June 30, due to the pandemic  —  The ambitious project to cover the world in blocks is over  —  Microsoft is closing down its Minecraft Earth mobile game in June, due to the ongoing pandemic.
Kyle Wiggers / VentureBeat:
Intel launches RealSense ID, an on-device facial authentication tool, launching in Q1 2021 for $99 and aimed at smart locks, ATMs, and kiosks  —  Intel today launched the newest addition to RealSense, its product range of depth and tracking technologies designed to give machines depth perception capabilities.
More: MacRumors and Gizmodo
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Google plans to add privacy labels across its iOS app catalog this week or next, after a report claimed none of Google's iOS apps have been updated since Dec. 7  —  Contrary to reports, Google is not delaying updates to its iOS apps because it doesn't want to comply with Apple's recently announced App Store Privacy Labels policy.
Hunter Walk / Medium:
To help creators avoid burnout, platforms like Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok need to explore new ideas like rate limiting of posts and paid time-offs  —  Creator Wellness Will Be A Key Goal of New Products  —  Being a modern creator is, for many, exhausting.
Chance Miller / 9to5Mac:
CIRP: iPhone 12 mini made up 6% of total iPhone sales in US during Oct. and Nov., while the 6.1" iPhone 12 garnered 27% and 12 Pro and 12 Pro Max each took ~20%  —  A new report from Consumer Intelligence Research Partners (CIRP) today seen by 9to5Mac highlights the continued success of the iPhone 12 lineup.
Matt Grossman / Wall Street Journal:
IBM names Gary Cohn, former Goldman Sachs executive and economic adviser to Trump, as its vice chairman and member of its executive leadership team  —  Past Goldman Sachs president named vice chairman as tech icon develops stronger growth strategy  —  International Business Machines Corp …

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Corin Faife / The Markup: