Techmeme
January 6, 2021, 1:35 AM

Top News

Will Douglas 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  —  OpenAI has extended GPT-3 with two new models that combine NLP with image recognition to give its AI a better understanding of everyday concepts.
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.
Corin Faife / The Markup:
Study of 58 Facebook users' feeds in Georgia found partisan content elbowed out traditional news sites after Facebook reversed its political ad ban  —  Ahead of crucial senate runoffs, Facebook reversed its political ad ban, and the impact was visible on users' feeds
Bloomberg:
Sources: after NYSE said it wouldn't delist China Mobile, China Telecom, and China Unicom, it now mulls reverting to original plan following Mnuchin criticism  —  - Possible reversal follows Mnuchin call to NYSE's Cunningham  — Exchange's surprise announcement caught White House off guard
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.
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
Matt Day / Bloomberg:
Amazon says it is buying 11 used Boeing 767-300 planes from Delta and WestJet, the first time the company has purchased aircraft for its air cargo operation  —  - Retailer will buy 11 767-300 planes from Delta, WestJet  — Amazon expects fleet to have more than 85 jets by end of 2022
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.”
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Source: Tile is aiming to launch a new tracker this year that includes ultra wideband technology and will add the ability to find items in AR in its app  —  Tile is preparing to introduce a new product this year that will serve as a rival to Apple's long-awaited AirTags and other lost-item trackers coming …
Sara Fischer / Axios:
Cameo hires new CTO, CFO, COO, CPO and says it sold 1.3M personalized videos in 2020, had ~$100M in video transactions, and 150 personalities earned $100K+/year  —  Cameo, the app that lets fans pay for personalized videos from celebrities, has hired a slew of new C-suite executives from media …
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.
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.
Kif Leswing / CNBC:
Qualcomm announces CEO Steve Mollenkopf is retiring and current president, Cristiano Amon, will take over on June 30  —  - Qualcomm CEO Steve Mollenkopf is retiring this year, the company just announced.  — The company has recently emerged from a thicket of challenges including business model scrutiny …

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