Techmeme
January 23, 2021, 6:55 PM

Top News

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.
Crispian Balmer / Reuters:
Italy tells TikTok to block all unverified user accounts after a 10-year-old girl dies while allegedly participating in the “blackout challenge” on the app  —  ROME (Reuters) - The Italian data privacy watchdog ordered video app TikTok on Friday to block the accounts of any users …
Will Oremus / OneZero :
Despite the influx of tech veterans into Biden's administration, the latest appointments and developments show Biden will be tougher on tech than predecessors  —  Two schools of thought on the new administration  —  For all of Donald Trump's railing against Amazon's “monopoly,” social media …
The Information:
Sources: VCs have approached Clubhouse about investing in its next round at ~$1B valuation, a 10X increase from the previous round; a16z is expected to lead  —  The race to invest in social audio app Clubhouse is on again.  Venture capital firms have approached the startup's founders …
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 …
USA Today:
Facebook said a “configuration change” caused some users to be logged out of their apps in Saturday morning; issue is now fixed  —  “Why am I logged out of Facebook?”  The question ricocheted around the internet as an untold number of people across the nation found themselves logged out of their apps Friday night.
William Boston / Wall Street Journal:
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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More News

Todd Spangler / Variety:
Brendan Sinclair / GamesIndustry.biz:

Earlier Picks

Dan Goodin / Ars Technica:
Dara Kerr / CNET:
Mark Gurman / Bloomberg: