In an interview, Mark Zuckerberg says he will stay on as Facebook's chairman, defends COO Sheryl Sandberg, reiterates Facebook's potential as a force for good  —  New York (CNN Business)After spending much of this year apologizing for Facebook's many missteps, CEO Mark Zuckerberg was defiant …

Leaked memo: Foxconn aims to cut $2.9B from expenses in 2019 and eliminate ~10% of non-technical staff, as it faces “a very difficult and competitive year”  —  Foxconn Technology Group, the biggest assembler of Apple Inc. iPhones, aims to cut 20 billion yuan ($2.9 billion) …

Amazon emails an unknown number of customers disclosing a “technical error” that exposed emails and names, but provides few other details  —  Amazon's renowned secrecy encompasses its response to a new security issue, withholding info that could help victims protect themselves.

Sources: Amazon is working to persuade brick-and-mortar merchants to accept its Amazon Pay digital wallet, starting with gas stations, restaurants, and others  —  Amazon is looking to start by working with gas stations, restaurants and other merchants that aren't its direct competitors

Sources detail meeting in India between Twitter's Jack Dorsey, Vijaya Gadde, and others, after photo of Dorsey holding sign criticizing caste system goes viral  —  At a round table discussion in New Delhi last week, Twitter's top executives seemed unaware of caste-based abuse taking place …

USPS patches API flaw that let anyone with a usps.com account view details of 60M users, over a year after a researcher says he disclosed the vulnerability  —  U.S. Postal Service just fixed a security weakness that allowed anyone who has an account at usps.com to view account details …

Instagram says it is testing new profile layouts that rearrange core elements, except the grid view, in an apparent attempt to reduce focus on follower counts  —  Instagram announced on its press site today that the company is testing out new user profile layouts.

Facebook poaches Kate Patchen, who led the DOJ's antitrust office in San Francisco, to be an associate general counsel of litigation, according to her LinkedIn  —  Facebook has poached the US Department of Justice's top antitrust enforcer in Silicon Valley as it faces tougher scrutiny …

Amazon is using “neural text-to-speech” (NTTS) tech to develop new speaking styles for Alexa, will launch a newscaster style to read articles in a few weeks  —  Amazon is using AI to develop new speaking styles for Alexa, including a newscaster voice for reading articles

How a group of East African Amazon warehouse workers in Minneapolis became the first known collective to get Amazon management to negotiate better terms  —  Labor organizers and researchers said they had not heard of Amazon previously coming to the table after worker pressure, even for private discussions.

GameStop says it will sell Spring Mobile, which owns and runs 1,289 AT&T wireless stores, to Prime Communications for $700M  —  GameStop announced Wednesday it agreed to sell its Spring Mobile business for $700 million.  The stock spiked 15 percent on the news.

Berlin-based e-scooter rental service Wind Mobility, which operates in various cities in Spain, France, and the US, raises $22M in seed funding  —  Wind Mobility, a Berlin-based mobility startup that offers “dockless” e-scooter (and electric bicycle) rentals, has raised $22 million in seed funding …

Parent of Silvergate Bank files for an IPO, seeking to raise $50M, and says it has 483 crypto clients, up from 114 in September 2017  —  The California-based parent of Silvergate Bank has detailed its relationships with the cryptocurrency industry as part of its IPO filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

WhatsApp hires Abhijit Bose as the first ever country head for India, its largest market in terms of users, starting in early 2019  —  WhatsApp announced on Wednesday that it has appointed Abhijit Bose as head of WhatsApp India.  Bose, who joins WhatsApp from Ezetap where he has served …