Techmeme
January 6, 2021, 9:35 AM

Top News

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.
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.
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.
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.
Catalin Cimpanu / ZDNet:
FBI, CISA, and ODNI, with support from NSA, say an APT “likely Russian in origin” is responsible for all or most of the recently discovered hacks of US agencies  —  Joint statement from the FBI, CISA, ODNI, and NSA says SolarWinds hack was “likely Russian in origin.”
Mike Dano / Light Reading:
Verizon says that it will indefinitely delay the shutdown of its 3G network, after pushing the shutdown from the end of 2019 to the end of 2020  —  Verizon has backtracked on its plan to turn off its 3G network by the end of 2020.  —  In response to questions from Light Reading …
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 …
Lingling Wei / Wall Street Journal:
Sources: China's regulators aim to force Ant Group, which owns Alipay, to share its consumer-credit data with China's central bank or an entity controlled by it  —  Request is part of Beijing's crackdown on what it believes is Ant's unfair advantage over other lenders
Corin Faife / The Markup:
Ryan Browne / CNBC:
Kahoot, a game-based online learning service, says it had revenues of $45.2M in 2020, up 247% YoY, and plans to list on the main Norwegian stock market  —  - Kahoot is a game-based online learning service that lets players create and engage in multiple-choice quizzes.
Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:
Veo Technologies, which makes cameras that use AI to record and analyze football and other team sports, raises €20M Series B, source says at a $100M+ valuation  —  Sports have been among some of the most popular and lucrative media plays in the world, luring broadcasters …
Gabriel Geiger / VICE:
Italian court rules a “reliability index” algorithm used by food delivery app Deliveroo to rank riders was discriminatory, ordering €50K paid to suing parties  —  An Italian court determined that companies can be held liable even if an algorithm unintentionally discriminates against a protected group.
Kyle Wiggers / VentureBeat:
Dremio, which offers tools for companies to help streamline and curate data, raises $135M Series D led by Sapphire Ventures at a $1B post-money valuation  —  Dremio, a startup offering tools to help streamline and curate data, today announced that it raised $135 million in series D funding at a post-money valuation of $1 billion.
Eugene Kim / Business Insider:
Sources: Amazon is working on a contactless Alexa-enabled device that can track and monitor sleep apnea, primarily using millimeter-wave radar  —  - Amazon is working on a new Alexa-enabled device that can track and monitor sleep apnea, Business Insider has learned.
More: The Verge

Sponsor Posts

OVHcloud:
Escape Ingress/Egress Fees  —  Experience seamless multi-cloud solutions without ingress/egress constraints.  Optimize costs and pave the way for a sustainable digital future.
Standard Metrics:
Nail Portfolio Reviews, Board Meetings and LP Reporting  —  You didn't hire that Stanford grad to manage spreadsheets.  Automate VC portfolio reporting and free your talented team up to deliver portfolio insights.
Tribe AI:
Build AI products that matter  —  Tribe AI helps organizations rapidly deploy AI solutions that have real business impact.  We bring together world class AI talent and tooling to drive differentiated results.
Zoho:
Introducing Apple's Journaling Suggestions in Zoho Notebook  —  Are you ready to take your journaling to the next level?  At Zoho Notebook, we are excited to announce a captivating new feature in our iOS app: Apple's Journaling Suggestions!
The Logan Bartlett Show:
EP 111: How Josh Reeves (CEO, Gusto) Built a $10B Company Serving Small Businesses
A podcast hosted by Logan Bartlett, an investor at Redpoint Ventures, covering tech with industry insiders.
Subscribe to The Logan Bartlett Show!
Techmeme Ride Home:
Fri. 07/26 - SearchGPT
The day's tech news, every day at 5pm ET. Fifteen minutes and you're up to date.
Subscribe via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or RSS.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 9:35 AM ET, January 6, 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

Earlier Picks

Nat Friedman / The GitHub Blog:
Matt Day / Bloomberg:
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Sara Fischer / Axios:
Aislinn Keely / The Block: