| 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.| Chance Miller / 9to5Mac: |
Apple says App Store users spent $1.8B on goods and services between December 24 and New Year's Eve and $540M on New Year's Day alone; Books has 90M MAUs — Apple has announced today that App Store customers spent a record amount throughout the holiday season.| Queenie Wong / CNET: |
Facebook updates Pages with a cleaner design, tools for hosting text-based Q&As, a dedicated News Feed, removes the total amount of “likes”, and more — The social network will also remove the total amount of “likes” a Page receives.| 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.| Lauren Feiner / CNBC: |
DOJ says SolarWinds hackers accessed about 3% of its email accounts, but there's no indication that the breach impacted classified systems — - Hackers who tapped into government networks through SolarWinds software potentially accessed about 3% of the Justice Department's email accounts, a spokesperson said Wednesday.| 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.| Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch: |
Atlanta-based SalesLoft, which provides AI-based tools to help salespeople run their sales process virtually, raises $100M at a $1.1B post-money valuation — The Covid-19 pandemic and specifically need for social distancing to slow the spread of the virus have continued to keep many of us away from the office.| 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.| Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols / ZDNet: |
Open source developer David Recordon named Biden's director of technology, returning to the White House after serving as its first director of IT under Obama — With a background in open source, open standards, and security, Recordon may be ideal for President Joe Biden's White House.| 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.| 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.| Andrew Brust / ZDNet: |
Starburst, a startup based around an open-source data analytics project from Facebook called Presto, raises $100M Series C led by a16z, valuing it at $1.2B — The second data lake funding announcement of the day brings Starburst's valuation to $1.2B — Data virtualization … | 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.| Reuters: |
Sources: Alibaba is planning to raise $5B to $8B in a USD-denominated bond sale this month, as China increases scrutiny of Jack Ma's empire — HONG KONG (Reuters) - China's Alibaba Group Holding Ltd plans to raise at least $5 billion through the sale of a U.S. dollar-denominated bond this month … | 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.| 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 …
World models need real-world data — Scaniverse is the gateway to spatial services — self-serve and built for AI and robotics. Large-area 3D reconstruction from 360° cameras and precise localization, anywhere machines operate.
ETL tool evaluation checklist: 6 things to look for before you choose — Your data is only as valuable as your ability to move, prepare, and access it efficiently. Choosing the wrong ETL tool can lead to months of rework …
Protecting your Cloud Applications Data — Backing up Office 365, Google Workspace, Dropbox & Salesforce data is critical to preventing data loss or corruption, complying with laws and avoiding critical downtime in case of a disaster.
The Private AI That Remembers — Anuma is the all-in-one AI platform with private, portable memory. Chat, text, create, build, and solve across every model.
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