Techmeme
December 4, 2019, 1:24 PM

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The Keyword:
Larry Page steps down as Alphabet CEO; Sundar Pichai to lead both Alphabet and Google  —  Our very first founders' letter in our 2004 S-1 began: … We believe those central tenets are still true today.  The company is not conventional and continues to make ambitious bets on new technology, especially with our Alphabet structure.
More: Alphabet, New York Times, NBC News, CNN, Bloomberg, bit-tech.net, Financial Times, The Verge, The Verge, Business Insider, Firstpost Tech, CNBC, CNBC, Axios, TechCrunch, Bloomberg, Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, Patently Apple, Digital Trends, Redmond Pie, Yahoo Finance, CNET, Android Central, Forbes, Variety, Coinspeaker, TechSpot, Inc42 Media, cloudpro.co.uk, Geek.com, Gizchina, MediaNama, XDA Developers, Techaeris, New York Post, CBS News, BBC, Search Engine Journal, MSPoweruser, news.com.au, Associated Press, Quartz, International Business Times, SiliconANGLE, Fortune, PC Gamer, Slate, Wired, Startups News, Android Police, Newser, The Information, Search Engine Land, ABC News, NPR, The Register, Politico, AppleInsider, Ars Technica, Deadline, Silicon Valley Business …, SlashGear, The Next Web, Associated Press, Mashable, Gizmodo, Android Authority, The Guardian, Wccftech, Pocket-lint, Android Headlines, Hollywood Reporter, KnowTechie, Neowin, The Hill, PhoneArena, Telegraph, VentureBeat, Thurrott, 9to5Google, GeekWire, Washington Post, BuzzFeed News, Business Insider, Los Angeles Times, Droid Life, CNET, PYMNTS.com, and GamesIndustry.biz
Peter Kafka / Vox:
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 …
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 …
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 …
Tom Krazit / Mostly Cloudy:
Amazon unveils Local Zones, small data centers far from main AWS regions, general availability of Outposts, and a Verizon partnership for low latency 5G gear  —  THE AWS TAKE ON EDGE COMPUTING  —  AWS CEO Andy Jassy (left) and Verizon CEO Hans Vestberg (right) introduce AWS Wavelength Tuesday at re:Invent 2019.
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
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 …
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: FinSMEs and VentureBeat
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 …
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.
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 …
Faiz Siddiqui / Washington Post:
A further 21 women are suing Lyft, alleging they were raped or sexually assaulted by drivers, following 14 women who filed a similar complaint in September  —  SAN FRANCISCO — Twenty-one more women have come forward alleging they were raped or sexually assaulted while using Lyft …

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