Techmeme
December 4, 2019, 2:25 PM

Top News

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.
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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.”
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 …
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
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.
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 …

Sponsor Posts

Meta:
Open Source AI: Available to all, not just the few  —  Meta's open source AI enables small businesses, start-ups, students, researchers and more to download and build with our models at no cost.
Zoho:
How remote support can make your Christmas stress-free  —  As Christmas approaches, the air fills with the anticipation of joy, family gatherings, and gift-giving.  While the season brings immense happiness …
Genesys:
Executive Insights: The Era of Contact Center AI Copilots  —  How AI copilots are transforming customer experience and agent performance.
Tribe AI:
Build AI products that matter  —  Tribe AI helps organizations rapidly deploy AI solutions that have real business impact.  We bring together world class AI talent and tooling to drive differentiated results.
Techmeme Ride Home:
(BNS) Calvin And Hobbes - With Daniel Kibblesmith
The day's tech news, every day at 5pm ET. Fifteen minutes and you're up to date.
Subscribe via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or RSS.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 2:25 PM ET, December 4, 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.

More News

Andrei Frumusanu / AnandTech:
Nick Brown / Reuters:

Earlier Picks

Salvador Rodriguez / CNBC:
Shara Tibken / CNET:
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch: