Tech Roundup: Facebook's Housing Ads Controversy, Xiaomi Mi MIX & More

Apple unveiled its new MacBook lineup with a Touch Bar and Microsoft had its new Surface Book and Surface Studio, its first-ever in-house designed desktop computer. They are both beautifully designed and powerful, but it's also hard not to notice how costly they are. (It is be noted that Google's now-discontinued Chromebook Pixel was no less expensive.) Is it because the demand for Macs and PCs are in a steady state of decline, after having been upstaged by powerful smartphones, phablets and tablets? Or is it because they have become niche contraptions, relegated to performing tasks that require a large-screen computing experience? It's interesting how smartphones have made several things (cameras, MP3 players and whatnot) almost obsolete for the average user in a little over a decade.

In other news:

• Gaetan Dugas, a homosexual flight attendant widely regarded as Patient Zero of HIV AIDS, is convincingly cleared of claims he spread HIV to the United States, according to new research published in Nature.
• Global smartwatch shipments tank 51.6 percent year-on-year for the third quarter ending September.
• Microsoft tried to unsuccessfully acquire Facebook for just US$ 24 billion in 2010, reveals ex-CEO Steve Ballmer (Facebook is currently worth US$ 374 billion).
• Apple's mobile payment service Apple Pay comes to Japan.
• Twitter to lay off 9% of employees as it tries to turnaround its fortunes; kills short form video app Vine with android and iOS apps set to disappear in coming months, but adult website PornHub offers to buy it.
• Xiaomi takes on Apple with Mi Note 2 and Mi MIX, a 6.4-inch phone with edgeless display.
• Microsoft is working on its own Slack competitor called Teams.
• Apple's iPhone sales decline 30% in China as revenue from services (Apple music, Apple Pay, iTunes) continues to grow; CEO Tim Cook reiterates improvements in AI shouldn't come at the cost of user privacy.
• Microsoft revamps its Paint app with 3D options as part of Windows 10 Creators Update (free update coming Spring 2017).
• Apple delays AirPods release; says "We don't believe in shipping a product before it's ready, and we need a little more time before AirPods are ready for our customers."
• Amazon brings its virtual assistant Alexa to Fire tablets.
• American chipmaker Qualcomm acquires Dutch rival NXP Semiconductors for US$ 47 billion.
• Google's new voice-controlled Assistant gets IFTTT integration.
• Facebook clones more photo features from Snapchat and Prisma; adds filters and disappearing photos.
• Amazon brings Prime service to China to compete with Alibaba; to willingly invest in areas that could be the next big thing at the cost of thinner profit margins and a weaker stock price.
• Facebook has housing ads that allow advertisers to exclude people by ethnic groups, a ProPublica investigation reveals; company defends the practice saying "excluding people based on ethnic affinity does not equate to discriminating based on race."
• "European Union privacy watchdogs ask Facebook to stop processing user data from its WhatsApp messaging service while they are investigating the privacy policy changes the company announced in August," reports Bloomberg.