Tech Roundup: Android Antitrust, Uber Tipping & More

[A recurring feature on the latest in Science & Technology.]

Alphabet/Google:

• European Union regulators lodge formal antitrust complaint against Google over app bundling on Android (Google's admittedly top-notch first party apps that come with Play Services), and its Open Handset Alliance restriction of not allowing member OEMs to create Android forks in favour of a unified non-fragmented user experience.
• Introduces 360-degree live streaming on YouTube for a more immersive experience; stops short of being the 3D live 360-degree video capabilities Facebook unveiled last week.
• Unveils Chrome browser version 50; announces Material Design makeover for Chrome OS.
• Adds new features to its Inbox email app and Google Keep to save links for later reading (just like the Save to Google extension it announced recently), but the question remains - why three different ways, and why don't they sync between themselves?
• Updates Android Play Store accounts screen with a new design (a welcome change, but doesn't it look a lot like Samsung's TouchWiz?).
• Buries the hatchet with Microsoft and puts an end to all regulatory complaints against each other; will work together to settle disputes before filing official legal complaints.
• Officially brings Podcasts to Google Play Music as previously rumoured.

Is Google displaying trending searches, and search results with more shadow-filled cards?

Amazon:

• Takes on Netflix by making its Prime Video a standalone video streaming platform, as Netflix strategically shifts away from licensing non-exclusive content, and toward original series and movies you can't get anywhere else.
• Chinese company iMCO unveils the first-ever smartwatch CoWatch powered by Amazon's intelligent voice assistant Alexa.

Apple:

• In an about-face, Apple iBooks and iTunes Movie stores are shut down in China; South China Morning Post links it to arrival of pro-independence dystopian movie Ten Years on iTunes.
• Rebuts claims that it handed over source code of its iOS mobile operating system to Chinese government; says it refused its demands, as debate over user privacy and national security rages on.
• The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation paid about $1.3 million USD for software to hack into the iPhone 5c of San Bernardino gunman Syed Farook, director James Comey says; adds it was "worth it" despite finding nothing so far of significance.
• Announces Worldwide Developers Conference for June 13-17; hints at dark mode?
• Infighting within Apple's engineering teams hampering efforts to fix issues with iCloud and iTunes, reports The Information (paywall).

Microsoft:

• Adds Outlook support for Evernote, Wunderlist and Facebook Calendar integration through a new feature called Calendar Apps.
• To pause unwanted Flash ads and animations by default on Edge browser with its upcoming Windows 10 Anniversary Update.
• Aims to simplify business communication with a new Slack-like corporate chat app Kaizala.

Others:

• Researchers report first case of Alzheimer's in a person with HIV, suggesting that long time HIV positive survivors are living long enough to develop symptoms of memory loss.
• Venezuela to start scheduled power cuts up to four hours a day from next week as it copes with a crippling energy crisis following severe drought.
• Experimental solar-powered aircraft project Solar Impulse lands in California after a successful trans-pacific journey from Hawaii.
• "A complete picture of the areas that the immune system attacks to cause type 1 diabetes has finally been revealed," reports BBC; targets include Insulin, Glutamate decarboxylase, IA-2, Zinc transporter-8, and newly discovered tetraspanin-7.
• New research from Brown University explains why you have a hard time getting to sleep on the first night in a new place; the left side of the brain remains "on guard" in unfamiliar surroundings, even though the right side of the brain will go to sleep, the study reports.
• Australian government confirms the two items of debris recovered off the coast of Mozambique is from missing Malaysian Airlines flight MH370.
• Elon Musk announces that Tesla Model 3 pre-orders have touched 400,000, unsurprisingly suggesting there could be availability issues.
• Uber class-action lawsuit demanding that it classify its drivers as employees, and not as independent contractors, gets settled for $100 million USD; will continue to retain them as contractors, while giving tacit approval for optional tipping (a feature Uber says it won't build into its app, so get ready to fumble for cash).
• Yahoo! reiterates its plan of a possible sale as its quarterly revenues continue to shrink.
• Rakuten-owned chat app Viber rolls out end-to-end encryption for messages and calls across its platforms.
• Music streaming service TIDAL and Kanye West get sued by a fan for falsely claiming that West's The Life of Pablo album will be forever a TIDAL exclusive and for violating customers' privacy by collecting credit card information, music preferences and other personal user information.
• Samsung Galaxy S7 gets a pink gold variant in Korea; coming soon to other markets.
• LG has G5 SE coming (*cringe*) with downgraded hardware internals, targeting Russia and Latin America.
• Chip-maker Intel slashes 12,000 jobs in the wake of falling PC sales.
• Facebook brings group calls to Facebook Messenger.
• Opera becomes the first web browser to add a built-in free VPN (Virtual Private Network) service for anonymous internet access, and access content that might be geo-restricted to a certain country.
• Motorola G4 smartphone press renders leak ahead of release, sporting a front facing fingerprint scanner like Samsung Galaxy S7, HTC 10 and Meizu PRO 5 (I like it better on the front, that way it's easier to unlock when the phone's resting on a desk).