Tech Roundup: Australia's Anti-Encryption Bill, Facebook's Mounting Troubles & More

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

• Australia passes new Assistance and Access Bill (aka Anti-Encryption Bill) authorising encryption backdoors that forces companies, and even websites, operating in the country to help the government access an individual's communication without that person's knowledge, or else risk facing financial penalties. (The impact to privacy and security aside, this is what happens when the public gets accustomed to and comfortable with the digital world, trusting mega corporations with their sensitive communications. Not only does this enable repressive governments to spy on its citizens on a scale that was previously unimaginable, it also gives them ammunition to arrest dissidents who are lured by the false privacy of the digital world. Which is why any attempt to deliberately weaken encryption is a dangerous precedent. It's akin to leaving a safe open, and never expect a burglar to walk in.)
• A new cache of documents released by the U.K. Parliament reveals Facebook's growth-at-all-costs mindset with a blatant, intentional disregard for user privacy, raising significant concerns about consent (or lack thereof) and engaging in monopolist behaviour; uncovers proof that the company (i) whitelisted companies that it thinks can further its own business interests and give them explicit access to user data (Netflix and Airbnb), and cutoff access to friends data to rivals (Mark Zuckerberg personally approved cutting off Vine's friend-finding feature on the day it was launched), (ii) continue to collect Android users' call and SMS history despite knowing it was sensitive, with the sole purpose of improving People You May Know feature. (Not only wasn't this setting made opt-in, but there was no way to opt-out either.), and (iii) used a VPN app it acquired (Onavo) to sneakily monitor what apps users install without their knowledge.
• AI Now, a research institute affiliated with New York University, calls for regulation of artificial intelligence and facial recognition technologies before deployment; reiterates that, "... we don't believe that the world will be best served by a commercial race to the bottom, with tech companies forced to choose between social responsibility and market success. We believe that the only way to protect against this race to the bottom is to build a floor of responsibility that supports healthy market competition. And a solid floor requires that we ensure that this technology, and the organizations that develop and use it, are governed by the rule of law."
• Popular question-and-answer site Quora becomes the latest victim of a data breach; discloses that hackers gained unauthorised access into one of its systems and made away with data on 100 million users, including names, email addresses, encrypted passwords, data imported from linked social media networks, and other information like upvotes, downvotes, questions, answers, comments and direct messages.
• Facebook is fined €10m (£8.9m) by Italian competition watchdog for misleading users over its data practices during sign-up, emphasising only the free nature of the service without informing them of its business model and sharing their data with third-parties without consent by taking advantage of the default sharing settings.
• Apple removes Fitness Balance and Calories Tracker from App Store after the apps were found to be abusing Touch ID feature to swindle users of more than US$ 100 by asking them to scan their fingerprints "to view personal calories tracker and diet recommendations" only to sneakily misuse the authentication mechanism to charge a fee. (How did they bypass Apple's app review process, you ask? Well, like the apps shipped with a list of Apple owned IP addresses, and modified their behaviour when on Apple's network. Which in itself is a massive flaw in the review system!)
• Uber files paperwork in private for its initial public offering and reportedly holds talks to buy electric scooter startups Bird and Lime, according to The Information; company's India business tops US$ 1.6 billion in annualised bookings, even as it continues to consolidate its operations in other parts of Europe/Asia (China, S.E. Asia and Russia), while rival Lyft files for IPO with the United States Securities Exchange Commission, ending months of speculation, with debut officially planned in the first half of next year.
• Saavn and JioMusic's music streaming service relaunches as JioSaavn after Reliance Industries officially completes acquisition of the former, more than eight months post the announcement of the deal.
• Verizon-owned blogging platform Tumblr to no longer allow adult content aka porn starting December 17, weeks after the app was removed from Apple App Store for child pornography.
• Apple debuts new Veterans and Military Purchase Plan that allows current and Veteran members of the U.S. Military, National Guard and Reserve and their immediate family members avail 10 percent discount on select Apps products (iPhone XS is available at US$ 899, and iPhone XR at US$ 674); says it is "proud" to be offering such a program as "an expression of our gratitude for their brave service." (Is this another ploy to boost sagging iPhone sales? It could be possible. According to Bloomberg, Apple has reportedly reassigned marketing staff from other projects to work on bolstering sales of new iPhones.)
• Microsoft announces that it's rebuilding Edge web browser to run on Chromium, the open-source web rendering engine that powers Chrome (and also Brave, Opera, Samsung Internet, Vivaldi and Yandex browsers), thereby also coming to Mac after 15 years; releases a new version of Outlook email app for iOS complete with a design overhaul and dark mode.
• Google stops suggesting gender-based pronouns (like him or her) in its Gmail Smart Compose tool (an AI feature that predicts what users will write in emails and offer suggestions to finish the sentences for them) after it found that it was possible for the algorithm to confuse the gender. (It's after all a machine learning algorithm that's only as good as the data it's trained on.)
• On-demand video subscription service Netflix to continue streaming Friends TV series for another year after it enters into a US$ 100 million licensing agreement with Warner Bros. (Are the reruns really worth that much money? It a safe bet, sure, but could be better served by investing that much money on new content, which I admit, may not end up becoming as popular as Friends.)
• Google updates Chrome 71 with expanded ad blocking features to tackle ads that trick users into clicking on them by pretending to be system warnings or contain "close" buttons that do not actually close the ad; warns website owners that serve such "abusive experiences" to fix them within 30 days, failing which Chrome would start blocking all ads on the site by default.
• Facebook makes Collections (items that users can mark for later reading) shareable with friends and groups; expands reach of Stories by bringing them to Facebook Groups.
• French and German officials target ad duopolies Google and Facebook with a new proposal to impose a three percent tax on digital advertising.
• Google personalises search results even users are logged out and in incognito mode, according to a new study by rival DuckDuckGo (When 76 people searched for "gun control" at the same time across the U.S., it found 62 different sets of results, when ideally they should be the same.); Google says search results can change by the minute and sometimes even by the second, especially for news topics, but reiterates it doesn't personalise search results for incognito searches.
• Mastercard and Microsoft band together to find a universal identity management solution that puts the individual in control, the companies announce.
• U.S. mobile network operator Verizon officially comes aboard Google's RCS (enhanced messaging features replacing SMS) train; officially starts supporting the feature starting December 6 for all Pixel 3 phones. (T-Mobile and Sprint are already offering RCS, while AT&T is still working out the details.)
• Seven-year-old Ryan becomes the highest earning YouTube star (the kid is behind the popular channel Ryan ToysReview) with over US$ 22 million in earnings for the period June 1, 2017 - June 1, 2018, reports Forbes.
• Chipmaker Qualcomm unveils a new in-screen fingerprint scanner called 3D Sonic Sensor that employs ultrasonic sounds to unlock the phone by measuring the sound waves that bounce off your skin to read the fingerprint.
• Alphabet's self-driving car subsidiary Waymo officially gets into ride-hailing business to take on Uber and Lyft, unveiling new Waymo One service that's equipped with AI smarts to take passengers to their destination without involving any human drivers; Wing, the company's drone delivery business, to launch a trial service in Finland starting early next year to offer 10-minute deliveries of items of 1.5kg or less in weight over distances of up to 10 km in Helsinki.
• Popular RSS reader app Feedly gets a major redesign for Android and iOS after months of beta testing with a new faster and intuitive design, improved night mode and content discovery.
• Apple releases iOS 12.1.1 software update for iPhones and iPads with expanded eSIM support to more countries (Switzerland, Spain, Sweden and Denmark), redesigned FaceTime with capabilities to take a Live Photo while on a FaceTime call and easily switch cameras, and more features.
• Russian search giant Yandex, more than a year after winning an antitrust lawsuit against Google over the latter's policy of bundling Google services into Android, unveils new Android smartphone called Yandex Phone, ironically bundling its own maps, weather and virtual assistant Alice.
• Apple acquires Platoon, a London-based startup that works primarily with musicians and writers to produce, distribute and sell their work; releases its first sleep tracker for US$ 150 after acquiring Finnish company Beddit last year.
• Vacation home rental service Airbnb gets into homebuilding business; to start testing prototypes for "adaptable" residences (i.e. modular homes) as early as 2019 as part of a new initiative called Backyard.
• U.S. retail giant Walmart to acquire online home decor retailer art.com; joins a growing list of retail companies it has purchased over the years in an attempt to fight Amazon, including jet.com (e-commerce), ModCloth (indie and vintage-inspired women's clothing), Bonobos (men's wear), Moosejaw (outdoor recreation apparel), Parcel (package delivery), Bare Necessities (lingerie) and Eloquii (plus-size clothing), not to mention a 77 percent stake in Indian e-commerce giant Flipkart.
• Facebook trials new video based shopping in Thailand with live video mode for brands and sellers to showcase their merchandise; allows customers to take screenshot of the products they want to buy during the broadcast and interact via Messenger to complete the purchase.
• Mozilla partners with Qualcomm to develop a native version of Firefox browser for Windows 10 devices running on ARM processors; decries Microsoft's plan for a Chromium-based web browser, adding, "This just increases the importance of Mozilla's role as the only independent choice. We are not going to concede that Google's implementation of the web is the only option consumers should have. That's why we built Firefox in the first place and why we will always fight for a truly open web."
• Android founder Andy Rubin's smartphone startup Essential acquires email app CloudMagic to possibly integrate the product into its next iteration of the handset; says, "We are always on the lookout for companies with great technology and talent to help accelerate our product roadmap."
• Movie ticketing service MoviePass unveils new geography-based subscription tiers amid severe losses and significant subscriber dip. (The number of times MoviePass has rebooted itself is frankly baffling. Subscription-based movie ticketing sounds like a good idea on paper, but in practice it is a money-losing enterprise, especially at the rates charged by MoviePass - a movie a day for US$ 10 a month. Banking on accruing subscribers at the expense of losing money by offering the service at low cost will work for Netflix and Uber, but not MoviePass. Why? Because it's not like gym membership, where a lot of people keep paying the monthly subscription for something they hardly use. Also, while going to the gym regularly is a significant physical effort, going to the movies is not. And whoever in the management thought they can recover initial losses by letting subscribers watch unlimited number of movies is, well, living in a fool's paradise.)