10 things in tech you need to know today, November 23

Amazon workers across Europe will protest
today.
Sean
Gallup/Getty

Good morning! This is the tech news you need to know this Friday.

1. 
   Amazon workers across Europe will protest “inhuman” warehouse
   working conditions on Black Friday. Protests will
   take the form of demonstrations in the UK, while workers in
   Spain and Italy are planning a 24-hour strike.
2. 
   Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg admitted that she received emails
   about the PR firm Facebook hired to disparage its
   critics. Previously Sandberg said she did
   not know Facebook had hired Definers Public Affairs.
3. 
   Alexa’s getting a news anchor speaking voice so it can read
   headlines to you. Amazon trained Alexa’s new voice
   by using text-to-speech technology on audio recordings of real
   newsreaders to pick up on their inflections and nuances.
4. 
   Apple has reportedly slashed the price of its iPhone XR in
   Japan. Apple is granting subsidies to carriers in
   an attempt to get more people buying the phone, The Wall Street
   Journal reports.
5. 
   A group of price comparison websites have written an open
   letter accusing Google of flouting an EU ruling from June
   2017. The EU fined Google €2.14 billion for
   abusing the dominance of its shopping platform. Google said it
   has complied with the order.
6. 
   The US government is trying to convince its allies to stop
   using Huawei phones. US officials briefed their
   counterparts in countries where Huawei is commonly used to
   inform them of what they view as a cybersecurity risk, The Wall
   Street Journal reports.
7. 
   Google is tightening up its political ad application procedure
   ahead of EU elections in May 2019. Google will
   require advertisers to submit an application and wait for
   verification before they can place a political ad.
8. 
   Tesla is cutting Model X and Model S prices by up to 26% in
   China to compensate for trade war tariffs. “We are
   absorbing a significant part of the tariff to help make our
   cars more affordable for customers in China,” Tesla said in a
   statement sent to Reuters.
9. California fire conspiracies have started to
   proliferate on YouTube. An
   investigation by Motherboard found YouTube’s autocomplete was
   pushing videos blaming the fire on a government conspiracy.
10. The president
    of George Soros’s philanthropic organisation called for
    Facebook to be investigated by Congress. Patrick
    Gaspard, president of Soros’s Open Society Foundations, also
    criticised the tech giant for revealing what it knew about
    Definers PR on the eve of Thanksgiving.

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