Techmeme
January 6, 2021, 9:10 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.
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
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:
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.
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
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
Catherine Shu / TechCrunch:
Indonesian digital investment service Bibit raises $30M led by Sequoia Capital India, bringing its total funding to $45M  —  Bibit, a robo-advisor app that wants to make investing more accessible in Indonesia, has raised $30 million from Sequoia Capital India.
More: Tech in Asia and KrASIA

Sponsor Posts

Meta:
Open Source AI: Available to all, not just the few  —  Meta's open source AI enables small businesses, start-ups, students, researchers and more to download and build with our models at no cost.
Zoho:
The crossroads of AI and SaaS  —  Enabling businesses of all sizes to build products in-house and disqualifying SaaS tools that are not AI-powered.  In a span of just two years, AI has made a name for itself as the key driver for innovation.
Genesys:
Executive Insights: The Era of Contact Center AI Copilots  —  How AI copilots are transforming customer experience and agent performance.
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.
Techmeme Ride Home:
Fri. 12/20 - Gemini Flash Thinking
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 9:10 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

Nat Friedman / The GitHub Blog:

Earlier Picks

Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Sara Fischer / Axios:
Yang Jie / Wall Street Journal:
Aislinn Keely / The Block: