Techmeme
January 21, 2021, 5:25 PM

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 …
Nick Clegg / About Facebook:
Facebook is referring its decision to indefinitely suspend Trump's accounts to the Oversight Board and says the accounts will remain suspended in the meantime  —  Today, Facebook is referring its decision to indefinitely suspend former US President Donald Trump's access to his Facebook …
Romain Dillet / TechCrunch:
Raspberry Pi Foundation launches $4 Pico, a tiny microcontroller for hardware projects that uses Raspberry Pi's own RP2040 chip  —  Meet the Raspberry Pi Pico, a tiny little microcontroller that lets you build hardware projects with some code running on the microcontroller.
Russell Brandom / The Verge:
Federal judge rejects Parler's demand to be reinstated on AWS  —  Ruling calls Parler's antitrust evidence ‘dwindlingly slight’  —  A Washington judge has denied social network Parler's demand to be reinstated on Amazon Web Services.  Following a hearing last week, Judge Barbara Rothstein declined …
April Glaser / NBC News:
Profile of Jessica Rosenworcel, the second woman to lead the FCC as acting chair and a big proponent of net neutrality and expanding broadband access  —  President Joe Biden has picked Jessica Rosenworcel to run the Federal Communications Commission in an interim position.
Margaret Harding McGill / Axios:
Biden designates Jessica Rosenworcel, currently a Democratic commissioner at the FCC, as acting chairwoman of the agency  —  President Biden has designated Jessica Rosenworcel as acting chairwoman of the Federal Communications Commission, according to an agency statement.
Josh Eidelson / Bloomberg:
Instacart cuts 1,877 jobs, including its only union roles, as it shifts to new models, like selling its tech to retailers to have their staff prepare orders  —  Instacart Inc. plans to terminate about 1,900 employees' jobs, including the only unionized positions in the U.S., representing a fulsome embrace of the gig economy.
Natasha Lomas / TechCrunch:
Google signs an agreement with French publishers to create a framework of payment for snippet reuse 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.
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 …
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.
Adi Robertson / The Verge:
Bluesky, Twitter's decentralized social networking project, releases a review of the existing decentralized web ecosystem, says it still seeks a project lead  —  Bluesky is still seeking a project lead  —  Bluesky, Twitter's decentralized social networking effort, has announced its first major update since 2019.
Joseph Cox / VICE:
Hackers and hobbyists have deployed facial recognition on Parler videos taken at the Capitol on Jan. 6, showing the democratization of facial recognition tech  —  It demonstrates the democratization of facial recognition, but comes littered with ethical issues.  —  Joseph Cox
Bloomberg:
Imperfect Foods, a service that distributes groceries that would otherwise go to waste, raises $95M Series D, with a source valuing it at $700M+  —  - Grocery delivery service raised $95 million from investors  — CEO says company has experienced triple-digit growth rates
Kif Leswing / CNBC:
Intel beats with Q4 revenue of $20B, down 1% YoY, vs $17.49B est., and Data Center Group revenue of $6.1B, down 16% YoY; stock up 6%+ after hours  —  - Intel's earnings report on Thursday is the last with Bob Swan in the CEO role.  — Former VMWare CEO Pat Gelsinger takes over as Intel CEO in February.
Mike Butcher / TechCrunch:
Omnipresent, which helps companies hire remote workers in 150 countries, raises $15.8M Series A, five months after raising a $2M seed round  —  Omnipresent, which helps companies employ remote-working local teams worldwide, has closed a $15.8 million Series A funding round.
Jordan Novet / CNBC:
IBM reports Q4 revenue of $20.37B, down 6% YoY, vs $20.67B est., Cloud and Cognitive Software revenue, which includes Red Hat, was $6.84B, down 5% YoY  —  - IBM's revenue fell more than analysts were expecting.  — The company's revenue has now declined for four consecutive quarters.
Catherine Shu / TechCrunch:
Singapore-based iSTOX, a digital securities service that lets users make private equity investments as small as $75.50, raises $50M Series A  —  ISTOX, a digital securities platform that wants to make private equity investment more accessible, has added new investors from Japan to its Series A round, bringing its total to $50 million.

Sponsor Posts

Google:
Try Gemini 3 Pro  —  Google's newest and most intelligent AI model that helps you bring any idea to life
Shopify:
Shopify's new AI commerce stack  —  Their VP of Product digs into just-launched products to help entrepreneurs and developers build with the latest AI and tech.
Zoho:
Enhancements to Zoho Writer's automation flow designer: New PDF operations, password protection, and more  —  Once we rolled out the automation flow designer in Zoho Writer's merge templates …
IDrive:
Protecting your Cloud Applications Data  —  Backing up Office 365, Google Workspace, Dropbox & Box data is critical to preventing data loss or corruption, complying with laws and avoiding critical downtime in case of a disaster.

Featured Podcasts

Big Technology Podcast:
2025 In Review, 2026 Predictions — With Reed Albergotti
The Big Technology Podcast takes you behind the scenes in the tech world featuring interviews with plugged-in insiders and outside agitators.
Subscribe to Big Technology Podcast.
Channels with Peter Kafka:
Podcast Pioneer PJ Vogt's Second Act: Less Budget, More Control
Media and tech aren't just intersecting - they're fully intertwined. To understand how those worlds work, Peter Kafka talks to industry leaders, upstarts and observers.
Subscribe to Channels with Peter Kafka.
BG2 Pod:
AI Enterprise - Databricks & Glean
Open-source podcast on all things tech, markets, investing, and capitalism, hosted by Brad Gerstner.
Subscribe to BG2 Pod.
Great Chat:
The stories we told ourselves in 2025
A podcast mostly about tech. Brought to you weekly by Angela Du, Sally Shin, Mac Bohannon, Helen Min, and Ashley Mayer.
Subscribe to Great Chat.
Grit:
How Brands Stay Visible When AI Decides | Profound CEO James Cadwallader
Grit explores what it takes to create, build and scale world-class organizations.
Subscribe to Grit.
Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith:
Ted Sarandos: Netflix and how tech changed storytelling
Microsoft Vice Chair and President Brad Smith speaks with leaders in government, business, and culture to explore the most critical challenges at the intersection of technology and society.
Subscribe to Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 5:25 PM ET, January 21, 2021.

The most current version of the site as always is available at our home page. To view an earlier snapshot click here and then modify the date indicated.

More News

The Information:

Earlier Picks

Mitchell Clark / The Verge:
Taylor Soper / GeekWire:
Jon Porter / The Verge:
Richard Lawler / Engadget:
Ina Fried / Axios: