Techmeme
January 21, 2021, 11:12 AM

Top News

Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:
Sources: Apple's first VR headset, planned for 2022 with a focus on gaming, video, and communication but with limited AR features, faces development hurdles  —  Apple Inc.'s first crack at a headset is designed to be a pricey, niche precursor to a more ambitious augmented reality product …
Natasha Lomas / TechCrunch:
Google signs an agreement with French media to create a framework for payment for publisher content and has reached agreements with three major newspapers  —  Google has reached an agreement with an association of French publishers over how it will be pay for reuse of snippets of their content.
Taylor Soper / GeekWire:
Amazon says it wants to help the Biden administration's vaccination efforts, says non-WFH Amazon staff should be vaccinated “at the earliest appropriate time”  —  Amazon says it is ready to turn its facilities into COVID-19 vaccination sites and is offering other resources to the U.S. government.
Jon Porter / The Verge:
Pebble founder launches Beeper, a $10/month universal chat app, promising to bring 15 chat service into a single UI, including iMessage on Android and Windows  —  Beeper brings 15 chat apps together into one interface  —  Beeper is a new universal chat app that's an attempt …
Monica Chin / The Verge:
A large number of laptop flagships in H1 2021 will ship with 16:10 or 3:2 displays, signalling an industry-wide shift toward laptops with taller aspect ratios  —  For lovers of tall screens, it's a great time to be alive  —  One of the biggest trends coming out of this year's CES …
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Curtsy, which makes an app allowing women to list their clothes, shoes, and accessories for resale, raises $11M Series A led by Index Ventures  —  Curtsy, a clothing resale app and competitor to recently IPO'd Poshmark, announced today it has raised $11 million in Series A funding for its startup focused on the Gen Z market.
Mitchell Clark / The Verge:
The Biden administration updates WhiteHouse.gov with several new accessibility features, including dark mode, a large text mode, and more  —  From dark times to dark mode  —  The official website of the White House, WhiteHouse.gov, has been completely replaced with a new version …
Dieter Bohn / The Verge:
Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra review: beautiful screen with high refresh rate and a great camera system but let down by software with ads and subpar Bixby  —  Samsung's “Ultra” phones are meant to be the absolute pinnacle of the company's (non-folding) mobile technology.
More: CNET, Engadget, Wired, and Input
Catherine Stupp / Wall Street Journal:
EU regulators are scrutinizing how employers monitor workers, including via video surveillance or key logger tech, and whether such actions violate GDPR  —  Remote work adds surveillance risks, privacy experts say  —  European privacy regulators are scrutinizing how employers collect workers' personal data …
Richard Lawler / Engadget:
Donald Trump pardons ex-Waymo and Uber engineer Anthony Levandowski; Peter Thiel and Palmer Luckey were among those supporting a pardon for Levandowski  —  Last year Anthony Levandowski pleaded guilty to one count of stealing materials from Google, where he was an engineer for its self-driving car efforts …
Jon Porter / The Verge:
Valve and five PC video game publishers have been fined a total of €7.8M for restricting cross-border game sales in EU's Digital Single Market  —  ZeniMax, Capcom, and Bandai Namco were among the publishers fined  —  Valve and five PC video game publishers have been fined a total of €7.8 million …

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Earlier Picks

Drew FitzGerald / Wall Street Journal:
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Bloomberg:
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Alexandra Alper / Reuters:
Zoë Bernard / The Information:
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch: