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January 23, 2021, 10:05 AM
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| Sam Byford / The Verge: |
Microsoft backtracks on price hike for Xbox Live Gold subscriptions announced Friday and says free-to-play games will also no longer require a Gold subscription — Free-to-play games will also no longer require a Gold subscription — Microsoft has reversed its controversial Xbox Live price increase.
Source:
Xbox Wire. More:
Engadget, Thurrott, HotHardware.com News, BetaNews, GamesIndustry.biz, Windows Central, Pocketnow, Neowin, Gizchina, OnMSFT.com, Press Start, Gamasutra, Kotaku, USA Today, MSPoweruser, VentureBeat, Game Rant, Forbes, Engadget, Polygon, TechSpot, PCMag, and SlashGear
Tweets: @xbox, @wario64, @polygon, @vicious696, @samsheffer, @legacykillahd, @slasher, @swiftonsecurity, @rand_al_thor_19, and @shanselman
| Jordan Novet / CNBC: |
Microsoft president Brad Smith defended the company's political contributions in a meeting with employees after some questioned donations from its PAC — - Brad Smith, Microsoft's president, said the company needs the Microsoft Political Action Committee. — The company is looking … | Charlie Savage / New York Times: |
Unclassified memo: Defense Intelligence Agency analysts have used commercial databases of location data from smartphone apps to track Americans without warrants — The disclosure comes amid growing legislative scrutiny of how the government uses commercially available location records.
More:
The Verge, Wall Street Journal, Ars Technica, CyberScoop, CNET, and The Hill
Tweets: @charlie_savage, @jesselynradack, @eff, @markszaidesq, and @zackwhittaker
| USA Today: |
Facebook says a configuration change has caused some users to be logged out of their apps and is working to get things back to normal as quickly as possible — “Why am I logged out of Facebook?” The question ricocheted around the internet as an untold number of people across … | Dan Goodin / Ars Technica: |
Ex-ADT technician pled guilty to computer fraud and invasive visual recording for viewing home security camera feeds he installed in ~200 homes over 9,000 times — Employee for ADT accessed ~200 customer cams on more than 9,600 occasions. — A home security technician has admitted …
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U.S. Department of Justice, Slashdot, Threatpost, PCMag, CyberScoop, Mashable, and infosecurity-magazine.com
Tweets: @yashar, @hauntedsunshine, @erindooley, and @fbidallas
| Adi Robertson / The Verge: |
FTC fines three bot-powered ticket scalping operations a total of $3.7M, the first time the agency applied a 2016 anti-bot law called the BOTS Act — The three will pay a total of $3.7 million — The Federal Trade Commission issued multimillion-dollar fines against three bot-powered ticket scalping operations.
More:
Federal Trade Commission, Wired, Gizmodo, Input, and TechSpot
Tweets: @ftc and @rkslaughterftc
| Mary Ann Azevedo / FinLedger: |
Interview with Chase CIO Rohan Amin on managing Chase's $4B tech budget, API integrations, and this year's rise in digital mortgage applications and banking — Chase CIO shares what the firm learned through the pandemic as well as his views on APIs, working with startups & the future of retail banking| William Boston / Wall Street Journal: |
How Volkswagen's ID.3, the automaker's long-awaited answer to Tesla, was beset by faulty in-car software, prompting a reboot of the company's software business — Faulty software set back a bid by the world's largest car maker for electric-vehicle dominance
Tweets: @adamnash, @wsj, @teslany, @jackkramer, @rachelkonrad, @nalanpog, @wsj, @patrickmcgee_, @davidmwessel, @tomgara, @voltequity, @ue, and @patrickc
| Todd Spangler / Variety: |
MoffettNathanson survey: 62% of Apple TV+ subscribers were on free offers in Q4 2020, only 30% said they plan to renew at the regular $4.99/month price — Apple has said it wants to bulk up revenue from services — including Apple TV Plus, which is just over one year old.
More:
Patently Apple, MacDailyNews, AppleInsider, iMore, 9to5Mac, and iDownloadBlog.com
Tweets: @ballmatthew, @agoyal00, @jnavok, @lanceulanoff, @tvgrimreaper, @ballmatthew, @colettelala, @lanceulanoff, and @tealambition
| Reuters: |
Sources: Biden is looking to hire cybersecurity veterans for top roles, but some observers worry too much value is being placed on public sector experience — WASHINGTON/SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - President Joe Biden is hiring a group of national security veterans with deep cyber expertise …
More:
Engadget, Politico, CyberScoop, and CNET
| Steven Levy / Wired: |
Alphabet says that it is shutting down Loon, its internet balloon project, calling it “a successful experiment” but not a viable one — Plus: The moonshot's launch, health care for the mask-less, and a new era's inaugural meme. — DO you detect something missing?
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Forbes, Loon Blog, X, the moonshot factory, WeeTracker, TechCrunch, New York Times, The Verge, Observer, BGR, TechCrunch, Mashable, Input, Light Reading, iPhone in Canada Blog, TechSpot, Associated Press, FierceWireless, Ars Technica, PYMNTS.com, USA Today, Fortune, coinspeaker.com, Android Central, PCMag, and Digital Trends
Tweets: @bengoertzel, @ajitpai, @karlbode, @emilygorcenski, @polotek, @daiwaka, @bigmeaninternet, @derektmead, @mucheru, @bznotes, @grinich, @benedictevans, @sub8u, @pt, @jason, @bgurley, @airlineflyer, @edbott, @bradstone, @lutherlowe, @theteamatx, @jason_pontin, @lauramandaro, @ianjohnbuckley, @killedbygoogle, @rdrv3, @t1merickson, and @martinsfp
| Dara Kerr / CNET: |
Lyft is testing a “priority mode” offering drivers more rides in exchange for a 10% pay cut; some drivers call it “poverty mode”, saying their earnings dropped — In late September, Earla Phillips got what she described as an irritating email from Lyft.| Will Knight / Wired: |
A look at the Beijing Academy of Artificial Intelligence, a government-sponsored research lab, and its work on a new language model similar to GPT-3 — China produces as many artificial intelligence researchers as the US, but it lags in key fields like machine learning. The government hopes to make up ground.| Eric Newcomer / Newcomer: |
Sources: data analytics service Databricks is in talks to raise a private funding round, potentially valuing it at ~$27B; Databricks was valued at $6.2B in 2019 — The Andreessen Horowitz and NEA-backed company is raising a private round. — Databricks — a data and AI platform … Sponsor Posts
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Zoho:
Connecting, collaborating, and growing: Zoho Mail 2025 wrap-up — Your inbox has been home to a lot this year—quick updates, long threads, approvals, reminders, and the occasional late-night draft you weren't sure about.
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