Techmeme: As Slack gets criticism from power users for its WYSIWYG editor and plans an option to revert, a look at the history of Markdown, used by Slack's old interface (Ernie Smith/VICE)

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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: Mashable, VentureBeat, and Seeking Alpha

Tweets: @robaeprice, @xeni, @robaeprice, @clarajeffery, @oknox, @pauldokas, @jkarsh, @tonyromm, @coreen_anne, @robaeprice, @brooklynmarie, and @dtunkelang

Monica Nickelsburg / GeekWire:

Amazon filed its formal protest over JEDI on Friday, citing a Fox News segment and a Trump rally as evidence of improper political pressure from the White House — Amazon filed its formal protest over Microsoft's victory in a $10 billion Pentagon cloud computing contract …

More: Washington Post and Axios

Tweets: @megawatts55 and @keithboykin. Thanks:@taylor_soper

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, @delrey, and @mhbergen

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

Tweets: @repjimbanks, @fcc, and @sentedcruz

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 Verge, Hollywood Reporter, and The Esports Observer

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

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

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

Ernie Smith / VICE:

As Slack gets criticism from power users for its WYSIWYG editor and plans an option to revert, a look at the history of Markdown, used by Slack's old interface — \u003Cp\u003ESlack just updated its longtime editor for its primary interface—and \u003Ca href="https:\u002F\u002Fslack.com …

More: Arthur O'Dwyer and MSPoweruser. Tweets: @wongmjane

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

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

Tweets: @campuscodi, @el33th4xor, and @grady_booch

Mark Bergen / Bloomberg:

About 200 Googlers protest placing of two of their colleagues on administrative leave over the actions they took opposing some of Google management's decisions — - Company denies wrongdoing with two employees placed on leave — Culture of openness battered by Google's staff rebellion

More: CNET, OneZero, Forbes, Vox, VentureBeat, Gizmodo, and The Next Web. Tweets: @josheidelson

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, iMore, MacRumors, AppleInsider, Patently Apple, Slashdot, and Seeking Alpha

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