Adobe is purchasing cloud-based video collaboration platform Frame.io for $1.275 billion in a deal expected to close in Q4 2021, which ends in late November. Frame.io co-founder and chief executive Emery Wells and co-founder John Traver will join Adobe, with Wells leading the Frame.io team and reporting to Adobe chief product officer Scott Belsky, who is also executive vice president of Adobe Creative Cloud. Adobe will integrate the company’s review-and-approval functionality with Premiere Pro, After Effects, Photoshop, Illustrator and “other Adobe Creative Cloud applications.” Read more

Deep learning requires a complicated neural network composed of computers wired together into clusters at data centers, with cross-chip communication using a lot of energy and slowing down the process. Cerebras has a different approach. Instead of making chips by printing dozens of them onto a large silicon wafer and then cutting them out and wiring them to each other, it is making the largest computer chip in the world, the size of a dinner plate. Texas Instruments tried this approach in the 1960s but ran into problems. Read more

China passed the Personal Information Protection Law (PIPL) for data privacy, to take effect November 1 of this year. The law is similar to the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and includes a requirement for organizations and individuals to minimize data collection of Chinese citizen’s personal data and obtain prior consent. Unlike the GDPR, however, the Chinese law is not expected to limit state surveillance or access to such data, though it could apply to lower-level government agencies. Read more

During the COVID-19 pandemic, IDC reported that Facebook sold more Oculus Quest 2 VR headsets than before. Now Facebook offers Quest 2 owners Horizon Workrooms, a free VR service that offers virtual meeting rooms. Users can participate with a customized cartoon avatar and the room offers virtual white boards for drawing and writing, a step towards what chief executive Mark Zuckerberg dubs the “mixed-reality future” for its 3.5 billion users. Zuckerberg introduced Workrooms in VR with employees and reporters in attendance. Read more

Amazon revealed its plans to open brick-and-mortar retail stores in the United States, with the first locations slated for California and Ohio. Amazon stores will be about 30,000 square feet smaller than most department stores, similar to smaller versions opened by Bloomingdale’s and Nordstrom. The stores will give Amazon another outlet to sell its electronics and private-label goods, but what other brands it might offer aren’t final. Amazon’s dominance in e-commerce contributed to the failure of malls and other physical stores. Read more