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January 23, 2021, 7:10 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:
HotHardware.com News, BetaNews, GamesIndustry.biz, Forbes, Gizchina, Pocketnow, Neowin, OnMSFT.com, Press Start, Gamasutra, Kotaku, USA Today, MSPoweruser, Windows Central, VentureBeat, Game Rant, Engadget, Polygon, GeekWire, 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.
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Wall Street Journal, Ars Technica, The Verge, CyberScoop, CNET, and The Hill
Tweets: @charlie_savage, @eff, @jesselynradack, @markszaidesq, and @zackwhittaker
| 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 …
More:
U.S. Department of Justice, Slashdot, Threatpost, CyberScoop, PCMag, Mashable, and infosecurity-magazine.com
Tweets: @yashar, @erindooley, @hauntedsunshine, 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, Gizmodo, Input, TechSpot, and PCMag
Tweets: @ftc and @rkslaughterftc
| 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 … | 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.
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Patently Apple, MacDailyNews, AppleInsider, iMore, 9to5Mac, and iDownloadBlog.com
Tweets: @ballmatthew, @agoyal00, @lanceulanoff, @jnavok, @lanceulanoff, @tvgrimreaper, @tealambition, @ballmatthew, and @colettelala
| 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
| 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.| 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 … | 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.| 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 …
More:
Platformer, New York Times, Wired, and Politico
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