Tech Roundup: Electronics "Right to Repair", Xiaomi Mi Mix 3 & More

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

• Portrait of Edmond Belamy, a painting made by an artificial intelligence program sold at Christie's in New York auction on Thursday for US$ 432,500.
• A new study by Oxford University researchers finds that third-party Android apps (959,000 apps to be exact) all have trackers that can send back user data back to companies like Alphabet (i.e. Google), Facebook, Twitter, Verizon, Microsoft and Amazon.
• Google kept mum about Android founder Andy Rubin's sexual misconduct (a woman had accused him of coercing her into performing oral sex on him back in 2013), according to a New York Times report, but instead of outright firing Rubin, Google "handed him a $90 million exit package, paid in installments of about $2 million a month for four years," and given a hero's farewell when he departed the company in 2014, in addition to shielding two other executives with similar payouts to quietly leave the company; Google responds by saying that it has fired 48 employees over the last two years for sexual misconduct and urges employees to come forward if they experience such behaviour.
• Verizon/Oath-owned Yahoo! agrees to US$ 50 million settlement package for victims of a 2013 security breach that's said to have affected up to 200 million U.S. consumers and some three billion email accounts worldwide.
• Facebook and Google face a new class action lawsuit that alleges that the companies secretly track their users' locations against their will (despite stating to the contrary) and use the information to pad its advertising business. (It's worth noting here that Google recently updated its location history settings after the privacy scare came to light back in August this year.)
• Italy's antitrust authority fines Apple (about US$ 11.5 million) and Samsung (US$ 5.7million) for "planned obsolescence" aka throttling of older phones with degraded batteries by reducing performance, thus accelerating the phone's substitution with new ones.
• Popular Indian mobile payments service Paytm launches in Japan as PayPay as a joint venture with SoftBank Corp and Yahoo Japan Corporation. (ICYMI, Paytm raised US$ 1.4 billion in funding from Softbank last May.)
• Brendan Iribe, co-founder and former CEO of Oculus, departs Facebook after internal reorganisation of the VR arm and cancellation of Rift 2 headset; comes merely a month after Instagram co-founders left the company amid mounting tensions with Mark Zuckerberg. (A quick history: WhatsApp co-founder Jan Koum left Facebook earlier this year, and Iribe's fellow co-founder Palmer Luckey left Facebook in late 2016 amid controversy surrounding his political contributions and financial support of far-right groups, a decision he was recently quoted as saying "wasn't my choice to leave.")
• Facebook use by teens at least once a month drops to 36% in the fall of 2018, down significantly from 52% two years ago (in contrast, Instagram visits are at 85%, Snapchat at 84%, Twitter at 47% and Pinterest at 23%); also emerges the least favourite social platform among teens (5% vs Snapchat's 46% vs Instagram's 32% vs Twitter's 6%).
• Apple accused of exercising complete control over device repairs, in addition to overcharging and restricting third-parties who are willing to fix the device for a fraction of the price; U.S. passes a landmark judgement in "right to repair" movement to give consumers and independent repair experts the control to legally hack embedded software on their devices in order to repair or maintain them. (For example, Apple has embedded software that can prevent new MacBook Pros from functioning if they have been repaired by anyone who is not authorised to do so by Apple. This decision makes it legal to bypass that lock.)
• Mozilla to bundle ProtonVPN subscription US$ 10 per month) with Firefox 64, once again proving that privacy comes at a cost.
• Apple's iPhone XR officially goes on sale; bans Bloomberg from its upcoming iPad event over its refusal to retract the spy chip story. 
• Instagram Stories gain SoundCloud integration (Spotify support was added back in June) and allows users pin songs to their Facebook profiles "to show people your tastes and who you are"; takes on TikTok (previously musical.ly) with Lip Sync Live and overlay music in Facebook Stories and said to be working on its own AR glasses, reports TechCrunch, as the company continues draw cold reception for its hardware products.
• Facebook gives Messenger a complete visual overhaul with focus on simplicity and dark mode (almost 6 months after its announcement) following its disastrous attempts to bloat the messaging app in an attempt to mimic the success of WeChat and Snapchat; reportedly developing a TikTok-like standalone video app called Lasso "where users can record and share videos of themselves lip syncing or dancing to popular songs." (Classic buy-rivals-or-imitate-them-to-put-them-out-of-business startegy!)
• Internet giant Baidu unveils an artificial intelligence-powered tool that can translate English into Chinese and German in real time, as its steps up its fight against Google, which is currently looking into reenter the market after eight years.
• Twitter's monthly user base falls from 335 million last quarter to 326 million amid crackdown on bots, spam and other problematic accounts; says daily active users are up 9% QoQ.
• Xiaomi unveils Mi Mix 3 with a notch-free full-screen display with 10GB RAM (!) and a magnetic slider that can push the screen down to reveal dual front-facing cameras, antenna and an array of sensors.
• Dropbox's note-taking platform Paper expands into scheduling with calendar features and to-do lists.
• Google mandates two years of security updates for Android phones, according to a new contract made with smartphone manufacturers; adds a "Your data in Search" to search settings for users to quickly control their search activity and officially brings a clipboard manager to Gboard keyboard app for Android.
• Google makes it possible for users to follow their favourite businesses (stores, bars, restaurants etc.) on Google Maps; takes on Pinterest by bringing computer vision-powered Google Lens to Google Image Search and announces handy .new domains for Google Docs (a new Doc can be created typing doc.new, docs.new or document.new; Sheets by entering sheet.new, sheets.new, or spreadsheet.new; Slides with slide.new, slides.new, deck.new, or presentation.new; Forms with form.new or forms.new; and Sites with site.new, sites.new, or website.new).
• Apple's ad-supported, human-curated News app (only available in U.S., U.K. and Australia) hits 90 million regular readers three years after launch; said to be launching a news subscription service within the app. (Apple acquired Texture magazine subscription app earlier this year.) 
• Amazon's advertising business continues to grow at the expense of Google and Facebook, even as growth from AWS and its international sales (outside U.S.) slows (blames Indian festival of Diwali for contributing to sales only in Q4 than Q3). 
• Samsung to launch three Galaxy S10 models (with in-display fingerprint scanners) and a foldable phone (codenamed Winner) early next year, according to a new Bloomberg report.
• Snapchat reports 1% decline in daily active users to 186 million as it struggles to gain footing amid competition from Instagram; releases a new Snapchat Camera app for Mac and Windows OS to let users add filters to their videos while streaming to other platforms like Hangouts, YouTube, Skype, Zoom and more.
• Google's Gmail has 1.5 billion users sending and receiving emails; officially brings a clipboard manager in Google Keyboard app for Android and adds Android Pie support to Pixelbook, bringing Android and Chrome OS further together.
• China-based TikTok-owner Bytedance emerges the world's most valuable startup at US$ 75 billion valuation. (For comparison, Uber is valued at US$ 72 billion.)
• Music streaming service Spotify reportedly testing "What's New" timeline feature that highlights the latest releases from artists users enjoy.
• Popular video streaming platform Netflix unveils plans to raise as much as US$ 2 billion in debt to double down on original content and strategic acquisitions.