Techmeme: A study by Avaaz may have overstated the problem of false stories on Facebook, but it also revealed cracks, loopholes, and limitations in Facebook's systems (Will Oremus/OneZero)

Top News

Paresh Dave / Reuters:

Instagram says it will now require birthdates from new users, in order to improve safety features for minors and better target ads for age-restricted products — SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Facebook Inc's Instagram said it will require birthdates from all new users starting on Wednesday …

More: Instagram, Digital Trends, TechCrunch, TechCrunch, The Hill, TechCrunch, CNET, CNET, Engadget, The Verge, KnowTechie, MSPoweruser, BBC, and Neowin

Tweets: @karissabe, @tomgara, @wongmjane, @sarahfrier, and @wongmjane

Jason Schreier / Kotaku:

Sources: Microsoft is planning a cheaper, disc-free Xbox, codenamed Lockhart, to go alongside its high-end Project Scarlett console — In June, Microsoft announced Project Scarlett, a new iteration of the Xbox that the company said would “set a new bar for console power, speed and performance.”

More: Thurrott, The Verge, Digital Trends, Windows Central, BGR, Geek.com, IGN, Neowin, SlashGear, Wccftech, MSPoweruser, GamesIndustry.biz, OnMSFT.com, VG247, TweakTown News, USgamer.net, and Gematsu

Tweets: @tomwarren, @balroggameroom, @jasonschreier, and @benjisales

Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:

Plex launches a free, ad-supported streaming service featuring thousands of movies and shows from studios like MGM, available in ~220 countries — Plex today is launching its own ad-supported streaming service, a rival to The Roku Channel, Tubi, Crackle, Vudu's Movies on Us …

More: Plex, 9to5Mac, Digital Trends, TechSpot, Windows Central, The Streamable, Android Police, Android Authority, Gizmodo, and The Verge

See also Mediagazer

Paul Sawers / VentureBeat:

Language learning app Duolingo raises $30M Series F from Alphabet's CapitalG at a $1.5B valuation, more than double the valuation from its 2017 Series E — Popular language learning app Duolingo has raised $30 million in a series F round of funding from Alphabet's investment arm CapitalG.

More: CNBC, EdSurge, Axios, and Pittsburgh Business Journal. Tweets: @stevecase

Abner Li / 9to5Google:

Google says Focus mode, a Digital Wellbeing feature for Android that mutes notifications, is rolling out to Android 9 and 10 users — At I/O 2019 in May, Google announced the latest Digital Wellbeing features to build on last year's initial launch. In testing for the past several months …

More: The Keyword, Digital Trends, TechCrunch, Engadget, Thurrott, CNET, Business Insider, The Verge, XDA Developers, Android Police, and MSPoweruser

Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:

Reddit publishes its 2019 retrospective: 430M MAUs, up 30% YoY, with 199M posts, 1.7B comments, and 32B upvotes; Bill Gates AMA had the most upvotes with 110K — In a year-end retrospective released this morning, Reddit says its user base grew 30% this year to reach 430 million monthly active users, as of the end of October.

More: Upvoted, CNET, Digital Trends, and Business Insider

Tweets: @davidspinks, @reddit, and @brianmanzullo

Caroline Haskins / VICE:

Internal and public documents portray efforts by Amazon's Ring to entice police with parties and batches of 40+ free Ring doorbells for promoting the service — This is the second of a three-part series exploring how Ring transformed from start-up pitch to the technology powering Amazon's …

More: New York Post, The Verge, and Pocket-lint

Tweets: @jason_koebler, @jason_koebler, @josephfcox, @jason_koebler, @carolineha_, @katiedrumm, and @acluofil

Manish Singh / TechCrunch:

Amazon launches a battery-powered portable Echo speaker in India with an enclosed 4,800mAh battery, claims up to 10 hours of continuous music playback — After launching nearly a dozen Echo speaker models in India in two years, Amazon said on Wednesday it is adding a new variant to the mix …

More: GeekWire, Engadget, Gizchina, TechHive, TechSpot, International Business Times, Pocket-lint, BetaNews, Thurrott, XDA Developers, Android Central, Android Police, Tom's Guide, iPhone Hacks, Cult of Mac, Mashable, PhoneArena, Digital Trends, and The Verge

Tweets: @davezatz and @tech2eets

Newley Purnell / Wall Street Journal:

India, which is increasingly trying to shelter local companies, has erected regulatory hurdles over the past year for how US tech firms operate in the country — New barriers make world's biggest untapped digital market a slog for Walmart, Facebook; taking cues from China's protectionism

More: Politico. Tweets: @ericbellmanwsj, @wsj, @viditb, @arifcrafiq, @dericsayers, @matthausk, @hoofnagle, and @parmy. Thanks:@newley

Annie Palmer / CNBC:

Expedia CEO Mark Okerstrom and CFO Alan Pickerill are stepping down, with day-to-day work taken up by Chairman Barry Diller, after a disagreement over strategy — KEY POINTS — Expedia announced Wednesday that CEO Mark Okerstrom and CFO Alan Pickerill are stepping down from their roles at the company.

More: Expedia Inc. MediaRoom, Bloomberg, Reuters, GeekWire, Business Insider, and PYMNTS.com

Victoria Song / Gizmodo:

Craigslist, which launched in 1995, finally gets an official app, available now on iOS and in beta on Android — Craigslist has long been a staple of the internet since it first launched in 1995—but surprisingly, it hasn't had an official app in the decade or so since the smartphone era began.

More: GeekWire, iMore, TechCrunch, Droid Life, and Mashable. Tweets: @caseynewton

Li Yuan / New York Times:

Huawei's reputation in China, once unimpeachable, has been dented by a labor dispute over severance pay with an employee, who was recently freed from jail — When an executive wrote about her house arrest in Canada, an outcry about a former employee's treatment arose on social media.

More: Foreign Policy. Tweets: @liyuan6, @kenroth, @liyuan6, @maryhui, and @nytimes

Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:

Kustomer, an omnichannel CRM platform for enterprise customer service, raises $60M Series E led by Coatue, bringing its total raised to ~$173M — Kustomer, a CRM startup that's taking on the likes of Zendesk, Salesforce, and many other bigger and older providers, has closed yet another round of funding …

More: SiliconANGLE, FinSMEs, and VentureBeat

Andrei Frumusanu / AnandTech:

An in-depth look at Qualcomm's upcoming Snapdragon 865 SoC, which gets a major speed boost over the 855, big improvements with new camera tech, and 5G for 2020 — We're here in Maui for the second day of Qualcomm's fourth annual Snapdragon summit, for what is probably the most exciting part of the event …

More: Android Police, The Verge, Digital Trends, Android Police, VentureBeat, The Verge, Engadget, Gizmodo, ZDNet, and Wired

Tweets: @rdrv3, @markhachman, @horwitz, and @horwitz. Thanks:@iancutress

TechCrunch:

SEC filing: Sequoia Capital has raised nearly $1B for later-stage US investments and ~$2.4B for venture and growth deals in China — Noted Silicon Valley venture capital fund Sequoia Capital has raised nearly $1 billion for later-stage U.S. investments and roughly $2.4 billion for venture …

Fair Tax Mark:

Fair Tax Mark report on Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, and Netflix over the past decade finds they have collectively avoided $100B+ in taxes — The Fair Tax Mark will later this week release a new report, The Silicon Six and their $100 billion global tax gap …

More: CNBC, Cult of Mac, Wccftech, and The Mac Observer. Tweets: @fairtaxmark

Catalin Cimpanu / ZDNet:

Mozilla removes four Firefox extensions made by Avast and AVG after reports that they were harvesting user data and browsing histories — The four extensions, two from Avast and two from AVG, are still available on the Chrome Web Store. — Mozilla removed today four Firefox extensions …

More: Extensions, security …, Engadget, Lifehacker, Boing Boing, KnowTechie, Inquirer, and Security Affairs

Tweets: @paul__walsh, @wolfiechristl, @campuscodi, and @campuscodi

Juli Clover / MacRumors:

BMW reverses its decision to charge $80/year for Apple's CarPlay, saying it will offer it free in some models and for a one-off $300 fee in others — BMW in early 2018 decided to begin offering BMW customers CarPlay access for a subscription fee rather than a one-time fee …

More: The Verge, Engadget, and AppleInsider

Mike Isaac / New York Times:

Sources: Facebook's NPE team is exploring the creation of apps for podcasts, travel, workplace services, and newsletters, although these may never be released — The social network is exploring new product areas through a team dedicated to building the company's future.

Tweets: @ceciliakang, @puiwingtam, and @caseynewton

Anna Wiener / New Yorker:

A profile of Hipcamp, a platform for campsite booking where listings include off-grid plots, RV hookups, ski huts, farmhouses, tepees, tree houses, and cabins — Can a startup save the wilderness by disrupting it? — In Northern California, booking a public campsite is a blood sport.

Tweets: @annawiener, @erikbl, @lennysan, @gpaddymanning, @daveleebbc, and @newyorker

Will Oremus / OneZero:

A study by Avaaz may have overstated the problem of false stories on Facebook, but it also revealed cracks, loopholes, and limitations in Facebook's systems — And in 2021. And 2022. — hree and a half years after the pope endorsed President Donald Trump (or didn't), Facebook has put in a lot of work to clean up its News Feed.

Tweets: @jake_hanrahan, @profgalloway, @willoremus, @willoremus, @willoremus, @willoremus, and @willoremus

Anthony Ha / TechCrunch:

Flow, which helps companies build a cross-border e-commerce business, raises $37M Series B led by New Enterprise Associates — Flow, a startup that helps brands and retailers build a cross-border e-commerce business, has raised $37 million in Series B funding.

More: FinSMEs, Benzinga, and Flow. Tweets: @etherington

Emil Protalinski / VentureBeat:

Firefox 71 arrives with Picture-in-Picture support on Windows for all video sites, Enhanced Tracking Protection and Lockwise password manager improvements, more — Mozilla today launched Firefox 71 for Windows, Mac, Linux, Android, and iOS. Firefox 71 includes Lockwise password manager improvements …

More: The Mozilla Blog, ExtremeTech, TechSpot, Softpedia News, SlashGear, and BleepingComputer

Tweets: @mohammadfarooq_, @firefox, @firefox, and @epro

Nick Brown / Reuters:

Interviews show how the Census Bureau's decision to outsource the tech behind the 2020 census has led to costly problems and made it vulnerable to hacking — The bureau chose Pegasystems Inc, reasoning that outsourcing would be cheaper and more effective. — Three years later …

More: Axios. Tweets: @nickpbrown, @nickpbrown, @equalcitizensus, @srl, @nickpbrown, and @nickpbrown

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