Facebook has "temporarily paused" sales of its Oculus Quest headsets to customers in Germany. "Reports suggest the move is in response to concerns from German regulators about the recently announced requirement that all Oculus users will need to use a Facebook account by 2023 to log in to the device," reports Ars Technica. From the report: "We have temporarily paused selling Oculus devices to consumers in Germany," Facebook writes in a brief message on the Oculus support site. "We will continue supporting users who already own an Oculus device and we're looking forward to resuming sales in Germany soon." Facebook declined an opportunity to provide additional comment to Ars Technica. But in a statement to German News site Heise Online (machine translation), the company said the move was due to "outstanding talks with German supervisory authorities... We were not obliged to take this measure, but proactively interrupted the sale."

In a statement provided to Heise Online, the Hamburg Commissioner for Data Protection and Freedom of Information (HCDPFI) said, in part: "The obligation to create a Facebook account [to access an Oculus headset] is legally extremely questionable, at least for those who have already bought a headset. Whether this also applies to new customers is definitely open to discussion. That should largely depend on the design of the contract, which we do not have." The group goes on to cite the GDPR's so-called "coupling ban," which prohibits tying one side of a contract (say, the EULA needed to use an Oculus headset) to the sharing of specific personal data (say, the data included in a user's personal Facebook account).

Facebook's requirement that "the use of the headset should be linked to the establishment of a Facebook account" would seem to violate this coupling ban, HCDPFI said. "For those users who already have a headset and do not log in with a Facebook account after 2023, there is also no immediately suitable alternative to continuing to use the headset. The compulsion to use Facebook is therefore exerted on both old and new customers."

Today, Lenovo has released a ThinkPad with Red Hat's community Linux, Fedora. ZDNet reports: First in this new Linux-friendly lineup is the X1 Carbon Gen 8. It will be followed by forthcoming versions of the ThinkPad P1 Gen2 and ThinkPad P53. While ThinkPads are usually meant for business users, Lenovo will be happy to sell the Fedora-powered X1 Carbon to home users as well. The new X1 Carbon runs Fedora Workstation 32. This cutting-edge Linux distribution uses the Linux Kernel 5.6. It includes WireGuard virtual private network (VPN) support and USB4 support. This Fedora version uses the new GNOME 3.36 for its default desktop.

The system itself comes standard with a 10th Generation Intel Core 1.6Ghz i5-10210U CPU, with up to 4.20 GHz with Turbo Boost. This processor boasts 4 Cores, 8 Threads, and a 6 MB cache. It also comes with 8MBs of LPDDR3 RAM. Unfortunately, its memory is soldered in. While that reduces the manufacturing costs, Linux users tend to like to optimize their hardware and this restricts their ability to add RAM. You can upgrade it to 16MBs, of course, when you buy it for an additional $149. For storage, the X1 defaults to a 256GB SSD. You can push it up to a 1TB SSD. That upgrade will cost you $536.

The X1 Carbon Gen 8 has a 14.0" Full High Definition (FHD) (1920 x 1080) screen. For practical purposes, this is as high-a-resolution as you want on a laptop. I've used laptops with Ultra High Definition (UHD), aka 4K, with 3840x2160 resolution, and I've found the text to be painfully small. This display is powered by an integrated Intel HD Graphics chipset. For networking, the X1 uses an Intel Wi-Fi 6 AX201 802.11AX with vPro (2 x 2) & Bluetooth 5.0 chipset. I've used other laptops with this wireless networking hardware and it tends to work extremely well. The entire default package has a base price of $2,145. For now, it's available for $1,287. If you want to order one, be ready for a wait. You can expect to wait three weeks before Lenovo ships it to you.