Tech Roundup: Apple's Services Push, Facebook Redesign & More

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

• New ad fraud scheme found to drains users' batteries and data by running auto-playing video ads concealed behind regular banner ads on Android apps; Google bans Chinese developer DO Global (partly owned by Baidu) after a Buzzfeed investigation finds popular Android apps to be abusing user permissions to commit ad fraud and included code that made them fraudulently click on ads even when a user was not using the app.
• Google to launch a new internal portal for its employees and its temp and vendor workforce (known as TVCs) to report issues such as harassment, discrimination, and retaliation; move comes days after Meredith Whittaker and Claire Stapleton, two of the several women who spearheaded the Google Walkout movement last November say they have faced blowback from the company for their actions in the intervening months.
• Facebook bans personality quizzes on its platform, a year after Cambridge Analytica data scandal blew the lid on the research-cum-quiz app "thisisyourdigitallife" that gathered personal information of 87 millions users to build voter profiles for the Trump campaign during 2016 U.S. presidential elections; the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada, the country's privacy regulator, accuses the company of violating local laws and failing to take responsibility for protecting the personal information of its citizens in the wake of the data scandal. (On a side note, Facebook is already staring at a potential billion-dollar fine from the U.S. Federal Trade Commission. Separately, Ireland's Data Protection Commission declared an investigation into Facebook's practices to see if the company is violating Europe's GDPR guidelines by logging hundreds of millions of user account passwords in plain text in its servers.)
• 41 percent of voice assistant users are concerned about trust, privacy and passive listening, according to a new report from Microsoft focused on consumer adoption of voice and digital assistants.
• Microsoft's market value hits US$ 1 trillion after it reports record revenues for the period Jan-Mar 2019 with solid growth across Productivity (Office, SharePoint, Skype, LinkedIn), Intelligent Cloud (Azure, Windows Server, Visual Studio), and Personal Computing (Windows, Xbox, hardware, search, advertising) verticals.
• Facebook hits 2.38 billion users for the period Jan-Mar 2019, with user growth in the U.S. and Europe continuing to plateau; sets aside US$ 3 billion for privacy penalties, says Stories in each of WhatsApp, Instagram and Messenger has 500 million daily active users, even as it shuts down Bonfire group video chat app. (In contrast, Stories inventor Snapchat has only 190 million daily users.)
• Brave browser launches new ad network that rewards users with cryptocurrency (called Basic Attention Tokens) for watching ads; users who choose to participate in the program will receive 70 percent of the revenue generated by the ads they see.
• Popular India-focussed music streaming service Gaana (backed by Tencent and others) hits 100 million monthly active users, up from 80 million last December; expands into mobile-first vertical videos with Gaana Video.
• Twitter beats expectations with revenue of US$ 787 million for the period January-March 2019 as monthly active users rise to 330 million, up from 321 million the previous quarter; rival Snapchat reaches 190 million daily active users, up 2 percent from 186 million in Q4 2018.
• Shenzhen-based Chinese smartphone maker OnePlus sets May 14 date to unveil OnePlus 7 and 7 Pro smartphones; the latter to come with a pop-up selfie camera that eliminates the need for a notch, a triple camera system but with no support for wireless charging.
• Apple launches new Apple TV YouTube channel; brings refreshed TV app to iOS with iOS 12.3 beta three.
• Facebook opens up its platform for the first time to more than 60 researchers from 30 academic institutions across 11 countries; will provide them access to a database of URLs its users have linked between January 1, 2017 to February 19, 2019, and an Ad Library API that throws more light on political ads on the social network in the US, UK, Brazil, India, Ukraine, Israel and the EU. (Read more about it here.)
• Facebook announces a ground-up redesign of Facebook with focus on groups and events as the company prioritises family and friends over brands and publishers and tries to move past a year marked by data scandals and legal battles; brings support for WhatsApp calls in Portal video chat device, and to take on Skype for desktop with new Messenger apps for MacBooks and PCs.

• India, Indonesia, Japan, Thailand and Vietnam emerge YouTube's top markets in Asia based on how long users spend watching videos on the site.
• PayPal reveals Venmo user stats for the first time; says the cashless mobile money transfer service has 40 million active users.
• Popular dating app Bumble to automatically detect and blur unsolicited "lewd" images sent on its platform using an AI-based tool called Private Detector, which has a 98 percent accuracy in detecting nudes.
• Amazon to cut short its free 2-day Prime delivery program to just one day as it aims to push for faster Prime shipping speeds; says it plans to invest heavily in artificial intelligence, smart home, and physical retail to maintain its momentum.
• Uber sets a price range of $44 to $50 per share and to reward its drivers worldwide up to US$ 40,000 as it readies for its much-anticipated IPO; PayPal says it plans to invest US$ 500 million in the ride-hailing startup.
• Coworking space provider WeWork (also known as the We Company) and enterprise communication platform Slack (which also announced it has hit 10 million daily active users) become the latest tech startups to file paperwork to go public; join the list of big tech IPOs this year alongside Lyft, Pinterest, Zoom and Uber.
• Amazon reportedly readying a high-fidelity music streaming service to take on TIDAL for a monthly subscription price of US$ 15; to be offered alongside Amazon Music Unlimited and the free, ad-supported Amazon Music service it debuted last week exclusively for Echo devices.
• South Korean electronics giant LG to suspend manufacturing of its mobile phones in the country and shift production to its other plant in Haiphong Campus, Vietnam, as it hopes to turn around its loss-making business.
• Music streaming service Spotify hits 100 million paid subscribers, double the number of Apple Music (total number of monthly active users is 217 million), as it continues to loose money, posting a loss of US$ 158.3 million for the period Jan-Mar 2019.
• Hotel chain Marriott International readies to take on Airbnb with a new home-rental business, according to The Wall Street Journal, adding the company would allow guests using the platform to earn and redeem loyalty points as they do with other brands Marriott owns, including Sheraton, W hotels and Ritz-Carlton.
• Ride-hailing service Uber follows Lyft's footsteps; adds public transportation schedules and directions to its app in London and begins selling train and bus tickets through its app for its customers in Denver, Colorado as it rebrands itself as a one-stop shop for transportation needs.
• Retail powerhouse Amazon enters an already crowded mobile payments market populated by Google Pay, PhonePe and Paytm; launches its own P2P mobile cash transfer service Amazon Pay in India.
• Apple's big services push starts to pay off; makes US$ 11.5 billion in revenue from the segment alone, an all-time high for the company, as the company looks to offset shrinking revenues from iPhone, iPad and Macs with a pivot to software-oriented services like the App Store, iCloud, Apple Pay, and Apple Music, inserting itself as a middleman in an ever-growing number of transactions that it hopes will lock loyal users into its walled garden, at the same time turning them into a recurring, steady source of revenue. (While Apple's new initiatives Apple News+, Apple Arcade and Apple TV+ are yet to pay off and see major returns, that the company is taking a more open, strategic approach to bringing its content to other platforms is a sign that the tech giant is willing to be where its customers are and not just where it wants them to be, allowing it to potentially make more money in the process.)
• Google admits it has had trouble selling its Pixel 3 lineup of handsets due to "recent pressures" in the premium smartphone market; rival Samsung sells 78 million smartphones during the first three months of 2019 amid declines in prices for memory chips, and lower demand for screens like the OLED display it makes for Apple's iPhone, dragging its quarterly profits down by more than 60 percent year-over-year.
• Chipmaker Qualcomm reportedly got at least US$ 4.5 billion from Apple as part of the surprise legal settlement announced by the two companies recently, which had previously been embroiled in an ugly patent dispute for the past few years, reveals the company's quarterly earnings report.
• Google rolls out new auto-delete controls for Location History and Web & App Activity that allows users to choose a time limit (3 or 18 months) for how long the activity data needs to be saved.
• YouTube shifts its paid subscription model; takes out original "Premium" content from behind paywall and makes it free and ad-supported, in addition to unveiling plans to create an expanded slate of new and returning series from a range of mainstream celebrities and YouTube creators focussed around "music, learning and personalities."
• Fitbit reports 117 percent year over year jump in smartwatch sales, making US$ 271.9 million in revenue, as it emerges a close competitor to Apple Watch.
• U.S. cellular service provider Verizon, which bought Tumblr for north of $1 billion in 2013 as part of its acquisition of Yahoo!, reportedly looking to sell the social blogging platform, according to The Wall Street Journal; popular porn website PornHub says it's interested in buying the company and put an end to the service's porn ban that went into effect last December.