Techmeme: Russia has passed a law banning devices not pre-installed with Russian software starting July 2020; govt to create a list of devices and Russian apps involved (BBC)

Top News

Queenie Wong / CNET:

Facebook built a now discontinued internal app, report says between 2015 and 2016, that let employees identify colleagues and friends via facial recognition — Facebook , which has been under fire because of privacy concerns, said Thursday it built an internal app that allowed employees …

Source: Business Insider. More: VentureBeat and Seeking Alpha

Tweets: @robaeprice, @dtunkelang, @coreen_anne, @brooklynmarie, @robaeprice, @clarajeffery, @oknox, and @robaeprice

BBC:

Russia has passed a law banning devices not pre-installed with Russian software starting July 2020; govt to create a list of devices and Russian apps involved — Russia has passed a law banning the sale of certain devices that are not pre-installed with Russian software.

More: Engadget, AppleInsider, CNET, iPhone Hacks, Android Central, Firstpost Tech, Gizchina, Patently Apple, Gizmodo, Decrypt, The Next Web, Telecoms.com, Xinhua News Agency, and CircleID

Tweets: @campuscodi, @el33th4xor, and @grady_booch

Jon Fingas / Engadget:

FCC bans carriers from using federal subsidies to buy equipment from Huawei and ZTE, considers ordering subsidy recipients to replace current Chinese equipment — The FCC is acting on its vow to keep Chinese technology out of American wireless networks. Commissioners have unanimously approved …

More: Federal Communications …, Washington Post, Reuters, Reuters, Axios, Android Authority, Ars Technica, The Verge, Light Reading, CNET, Light Reading, Telecompaper, Seeking Alpha, Politico, GeekWire, PCMag, CRN, and MacDailyNews

Tweets: @repjimbanks, @fcc, and @sentedcruz

Deirdre Bosa / CNBC:

Airbnb announces that COO Belinda Johnson will step down from her role in March 2020, but will join the company's board of directors as its ninth member — - Airbnb's Belinda Johnson announces she is stepping down as COO in March in an email to staff sent Friday that was viewed by CNBC.

More: Airbnb Newsroom, Observer, Yahoo Finance, and Seeking Alpha. Tweets: @dee_bosa

Shannon Liao / CNN:

Facebook says it has signed Jeremy Wang, aka Disguised Toast, a Twitch streamer with 1M+ followers, to Facebook Gaming, its live game streaming platform — New York (CNN)Facebook (FB) just nabbed a major player for its gaming platform as it continues to ramp up efforts to compete in the video game streaming wars.

More: Washington Post, Polygon, Engadget, The Esports Observer, Hollywood Reporter, and The Verge

Tweets: @dotesports, @disguisedtoast, @comicbook, @thr, @daniel_duan, @mattnavarra, and @dotodoya

Katie Williams / Sensor Tower Blog:

There were 29.6B app downloads from 792K publishers globally in Q3 across App Store and Google Play; 1% of top publishers accounted for 80% of all downloads — New data from Sensor Tower's Store Intelligence platform reveals that the top-performing 1 percent of publishers globally accounted …

More: TechCrunch and iPhone in Canada Blog. Tweets: @deaconlf

Matthew Boyle / Bloomberg:

Walmart's Jet.com is shutting its fresh-food delivery business just a year after introducing the service in NYC; source: Jet was losing about $20 on every order — - Retailer will close warehouse, eliminating more than 200 jobs — Jet's grocery service has struggled since its debut a year ago

More: CNBC, SlashGear, Business Insider, TechSpot, PYMNTS.com, and Engadget

Tweets: @philwahba, @markets, and @ekovarski

Nicolas Vega / New York Post:

Sources: at an AWS conference in July, Amazon banned participating companies from mentioning its cloud competitors and using phrases such as “multi-cloud” — Online retailing giant Amazon has a new strategy for dealing with threats to its cash-cow cloud business: Pretend they don't exist.

More: Business Insider. Tweets: @counternotions, @nickcald, and @delrey

Jan Wolfe / Reuters:

Appeals court says Apple infringed only two of four VirnetX patents, vacates $503M jury award, sends the case back to Texas court to recalculate damages — (Reuters) - A U.S. appeals court on Friday set aside a jury's calculation that Apple Inc should pay $503 million for infringing …

More: Bloomberg Law, MacRumors, iMore, AppleInsider, Patently Apple, and Seeking Alpha

Mary Ann Azevedo / Crunchbase News:

REX, a real estate broker that claims its AI allows it to price homes more accurately and charge lower commissions, raises $40M, bringing total raised to $115M — REX, an Austin-based licensed residential real estate brokerage using AI and big data, has raised another $40 million in what it describes as a “C1” round.

More: Built In Austin, FinSMEs, SiliconHills, and HousingWire

Tom Metcalf / Bloomberg:

Travis Kalanick has sold ~$1.5B worth of Uber stock since a post-IPO lockup expired on Nov. 6; a Nov. 11 filing suggests Kalanick could offload his entire stake — - Uber co-founder has sold more than half his stake in November — Stake in ride-hailing company is now a minority of his fortune

More: Coinspeaker and CNBC

Tweets: @ericnewcomer, @alistairmbarr, @lisaabramowicz1, and @darakerr

Debby Wu / Bloomberg:

Sources say Apple AirPods shipments are expected to double to 60M in 2019, driven by “much higher” than expected demand for the AirPods Pro model — - Demand for AirPods Pro ‘much higher’ than original estimate — Wearables drive Apple's growth as smartphone shipments plateau

Jane Lanhee Lee / Reuters:

Filing: outside the US and China, Airbnb had $2.42B in revenue in 2018, up 35%+ YoY, and $46.47M in profits, compared to a $97.22M loss in 2017 — (Reuters) - Airbnb's business excluding the United States and China turned a net profit of $46.47 million in 2018 compared with a loss …

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