Techmeme: A look at Syniverse, the company behind the delayed Valentine's Day texts, and the hardball tactics which have given it power over routing SMS between carriers (Jacob Kastrenakes/The Verge)

Top News

Russia to ban sale of gadgets including smartphones, computers, and smart TVs that are not pre-installed with Russian software starting July 2020 — Russia has passed a law banning the sale of certain devices that are not pre-installed with Russian software.

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

Tweets: @campuscodi, @el33th4xor, and @grady_booch

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

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

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

Tweets: @repjimbanks, @sentedcruz, and @fcc

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

Shannon Liao / CNN:

Facebook says it has signed Jeremy Wang, better known as Disguised Toast, with 1M+ followers on Twitch, onto Facebook Gaming, its game live 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: Engadget, Washington Post, Polygon, The Esports Observer, Hollywood Reporter, and The Verge

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

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, Engadget, Business Insider, TechSpot, and PYMNTS.com

Tweets: @markets and @ekovarski

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

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

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.

Tweets: @counternotions, @nickcald, and @delrey

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 …

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, SiliconHills, HousingWire, and FinSMEs

Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:

Twitter rolls out its “Hide Replies” feature to all users globally — Twitter's radical “Hide Replies” feature, one of the biggest changes to how Twitter works since the invention of the Retweet, is now available to Twitter's global user base. The company says the feature …

More: Twitter Blog, Marketing Land, Reclaim The Net, KnowTechie, Gizchina, Geek.com, The Next Web, Memeburn, Android Police, NPR, CNN, Social Media Today, SiliconANGLE, iMore, Digital Trends, SlashGear, help.twitter.com, Neowin, and Seeking Alpha

Tweets: @twitter, @maltiq, @ryansatin, @__gershom, @twittersupport, and @_dml

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