Techmeme: Facebook built a now discontinued internal app, report says between 2015 and 2016, that let employees identify colleagues and friends via facial recognition (Queenie Wong/CNET)

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November 23, 2019, 12:00 AM

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: Mashable, VentureBeat, and Seeking Alpha

Tweets: @robaeprice, @zackwhittaker, @tonyromm, @xeni, @robaeprice, @clarajeffery, @oknox, @pauldokas, @jkarsh, @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, MSPoweruser, The Verge, Light Reading, Android Authority, TechCrunch, Light Reading, Telecompaper, Seeking Alpha, Politico, Ars Technica, PCMag, CRN, 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

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

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, TechSpot, SlashGear, PYMNTS.com, Business Insider, and Engadget

Tweets: @philwahba, @markets, and @ekovarski

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, Slashdot, and Seeking Alpha

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About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 12:00 AM ET, November 23, 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.

From Mediagazer

David Folkenflik / NPR:

NPR and three Colorado public radio stations sue Trump, saying his executive order to cut federal funding violated the US Constitution and the First Amendment

Charlotte Tobitt / Press Gazette:

Tamar Riley, global managing director at Refinery29 since July 2022, is set to join The Standard, formerly The Evening Standard, as CEO on July 14

Bloomberg:

Filing: Tencent is buying a ~10% stake in SM Entertainment for ~$180M from BTS agency Hybe, as China is expected to lift its unofficial ban on K-pop concerts

More News

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

Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:

VTEX, end-to-end e-commerce platform used by clients like Walmart and Sony as they expand to Latin America, raises $140M led by SoftBank's Latin American fund

More: Reuters, PYMNTS.com, and Seeking Alpha

Kyle Wiggers / VentureBeat:

ZecOps, which automates detection, analysis, and response to cyberattacks on endpoints and servers, raises $10.2M seed round

More: PR Newswire and Pulse 2.0

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

More: Coinspeaker and CNBC

Tweets: @ericnewcomer, @alistairmbarr, @lisaabramowicz1, @darakerr, and @scheplick

Adi Pick / CTech:

BigPanda, an IT management company with a machine learning-based alert service to detect and resolve IT outages, raises $50M Series C led by Insight Partners

Jacob Kastrenakes / The Verge:

A look at Syniverse, the company behind the delayed Valentine's Day texts, and the hardball tactics which have given it power over routing SMS between carriers

Tweets: @waltmossberg, @jake_k, and @reckless

Catalin Cimpanu / ZDNet:

Twitter says users can now enroll in 2FA without a phone number and disable SMS-based 2FA as default, allows other methods such as mobile authenticator apps

Devin Coldewey / TechCrunch:

Y Combinator ends plans to establish YC China, cites changing leadership and strategy, says YC China CEO Qi Lu is leaving to set up his own fund, MiraclePlus

More: Y Combinator, KrASIA, Nikkei Asian Review, Wall Street Journal, and China Money Network

Tweets: @pinboard, @jorgezaccaro, and @ruima

Earlier Picks

Mehedi Hassan / Thurrott:

Google brings Smart Compose to Google Docs as a beta, initially available in English for G Suite users on the web

More: ExtremeTech, MSPoweruser, G Suite Updates Blog, Digital Trends, Firstpost Tech, BrianMadden.com, Android Authority, Liliputing, Engadget, Android Central, and Neowin

Tweets: @jamestitcomb and @tech_missc

Daniel Rubino / Windows Central:

Microsoft delays the release of Surface Earbuds, which it said earlier were coming in the fall, until Spring 2020

More: VentureBeat, TechSpot, Coinspeaker, International Business Times, WinBuzzer, Softpedia News, Digital Trends, and Android Police

Tweets: @panos_panay, @raywongy, @markgurman, and @daniel_rubino

Kyle Wiggers / VentureBeat:

Gmail on Android and iOS to gain support for dynamic email starting on Nov. 21, letting users take actions, like purchasing products, directly within a message

More: The Verge, G Suite Updates Blog, iDownloadBlog.com, Marketing Land, 9to5Google, Android Police, and CNET

Dan Goodin / Ars Technica:

Google increases rewards for Titan M secure element exploits on Pixels to $1.5M and to $750K for other exploits; Android hack rewards used to top out at $200K

Julia Alexander / The Verge:

Susan Wojcicki says YouTube is working to bring ads to edgier content and updating its policy to differentiate between real world violence and gaming violence

More: YouTube Creator Blog, The Startup, Adweek, Marketing Land, International Business Times, TechSpot, Social Media Today, Tubefilter, Gizmodo, Mashable, SlashGear, Engadget, CNBC, Hollywood Reporter, Seeking Alpha, and TechCrunch

Tweets: @teamyoutube and @swodinsky

Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:

Twitter rolls out its “Hide Replies” feature to all users globally

More: Twitter Blog, Marketing Land, Reclaim The Net, KnowTechie, Gizchina, Geek.com, The Next Web, Memeburn, Android Police, CNN, NPR, Social Media Today, SiliconANGLE, iMore, Digital Trends, SlashGear, CNET, Seeking Alpha, help.twitter.com, Neowin, MSPoweruser, Silicon Republic, Axios, and Engadget

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