Techmeme: Sources: at an AWS conference in July, Amazon banned participating companies from mentioning its cloud competitors and using phrases such as “multi-cloud” (Nicolas Vega/New York Post)

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 — The discontinued app could identify employees and their friends who had enabled facial recognition, Facebook said.

Source: Business Insider. More: VentureBeat and Seeking Alpha

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

BBC:

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, iPhone Hacks, Decrypt, Android Central, Firstpost Tech, Gizchina, Patently Apple, Gizmodo, 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, @comicbook, @thr, @daniel_duan, @dotodoya, @disguisedtoast, and @mattnavarra

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 …

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, CNET, help.twitter.com, Neowin, Seeking Alpha, MSPoweruser, Silicon Republic, Engadget, and Axios

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

Sponsor Posts

Soxton:

Fast, affordable law for startups — Soxton automates startup legal so founders can move faster and sleep better. We handle incorporation, advisor, employment and commercial contracts. Join the waitlist for early access!

Equals:

Stop vibe coding analytics — Equals AI turns questions about your business into auditable spreadsheet models and dashboards. Build once, iterate for years.

Zoho:

Zoho Mail MCP: Make your inbox work for you — Maya is the head of operations at a 500-person B2B software company. She's sharp, she's busy, and she starts every morning the same way-with her coffee, laptop, inbox.Not to work.

IDrive:

Protecting your Cloud Applications Data — Backing up Office 365, Google Workspace, Dropbox & Salesforce data is critical to preventing data loss or corruption, complying with laws and avoiding critical downtime in case of a disaster.

Sponsor Techmeme

Featured Podcasts

Big Technology Podcast:

Anthropic's Mythos is Back, OpenAI Releases GPT 5.6, Apple's Price Increases

The Big Technology Podcast takes you behind the scenes in the tech world featuring interviews with plugged-in insiders and outside agitators.

Subscribe to Big Technology Podcast.

Hard Fork:

'The Daily' and 'The Opinions': How A.I. Is Changing Loneliness and Taste

The future is already here. Each week, journalists Kevin Roose and Casey Newton explore and make sense of the latest in the rapidly changing world of tech.

Subscribe to Hard Fork.

The Upstarts Podcast:

Writer's May Habib: Building AI Tools For Corporate 'Normal People' The Labs Leave Behind

Veteran tech reporter Alex Konrad sits down with breakout entrepreneurs taking on the status quo to shake up their fields in AI, design, nuclear energy, space, and more.

Subscribe to The Upstarts Podcast.

The Nick, Dick and Paul Show:

A Nick, Dick, and Paul Buffet!

Nick Bilton, Dick Costolo, and Paul Kedrosky pull back the curtain on AI, startups, and the future rushing toward us, all with healthy dose of irreverence.

Subscribe to The Nick, Dick and Paul Show.

Great Chat:

How much data do we actually want about our bodies?

A podcast mostly about tech. Brought to you weekly by Angela Du, Sally Shin, Mac Bohannon, Helen Min, and Ashley Mayer.

Subscribe to Great Chat.

Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith:

AI's Mythos Moment: Rishi Sunak on preparing governments for AI

Microsoft Vice Chair and President Brad Smith speaks with leaders in government, business, and culture to explore the most critical challenges at the intersection of technology and society.

Subscribe to Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith.

Add your podcast here

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 8:10 PM ET, November 22, 2019.

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.