Tech Roundup: Elon Musk's Neuralink, Twitter Redesign & More

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

1. The Kazakhstan government issues new directive mandating internet service providers to force users to install a government-issued security certificate on all devices and in every browser to intercept HTTPS traffic with an aim to thwart cyber threats, raising fresh surveillance concerns.
2. Google officially confirms it has terminated Project Dragonfly, its controversial initiative to launch a censored version of its search engine in China; "We have terminated Project Dragonfly," Google's vice president of public policy, Karan Bhatia, tells U.S. Senate.
3. Local government in Guangzhou issues Safe Campus Smartwatches to 17,000 students across 60 elementary schools that send the children's locations in real-time to their respective parents' smartphones, and allow them to make a call in the case of an emergency.
4. Popular AI-based photo editor FaceApp invites privacy concerns for its ambiguous privacy policy and terms of service that gives the company a perpetual license to users' photos; developer Wireless Lab responds by saying that "most" of the uploaded photos are deleted after a period of 48 hours.
5. Meredith Whittaker, Google employee who helped organise Google Walkout in response to the search giant's handling of sexual harassment complaints last year along with Claire Stapleton, resigns from the company; follows Stapleton's departure earlier this June, citing they both faced retaliation for organising the protest.
6. Twitter redesigns desktop version of its website for the first time in seven years; user experience streamlined to be more in line with the platform's native apps for Android and iOS.
7. Google to shut down AdSense's iOS and Android apps by the end of 2019 to focus instead on its mobile web interface, as the search giant continues to trim its product portfolio.
8. Facebook rolls out new features for its Workplace enterprise chat platform; standard (basic) tier gets rebranded as Workplace Essential (free), the premium tier renamed to Workplace Advanced (US$ 4 per person, per month), and adds a Workplace Enterprise tier (US$ 8 per person, per month) that will come with a new set of services specifically around guaranteed, quicker support and first-look access at new features.
9. Apple reportedly to begin funding exclusive, original podcasts, and has reached out to media companies, to better compete with Spotify, according to Bloomberg, as the tech giant switches to a full-fledged service oriented business.
10. Ride hailing service Uber open sources Plato, a tool for developing and testing conversational AI across many deep learning frameworks, including TensorFlow and PyTorch.
11. Intel unveils Pohoiki Beach, a neuromorphic system that contains 64 of its Loihi AI processors, simulating 8 million neurons in total; the AI chips seek to imitate the learning ability and energy efficiency of human brains and can perform tasks up to 1,000 times faster than more general-purpose processors such as CPUs and GPUs, while using much less power.
12. Google's experimental Area 120 launches Byteboard, a new tool that aims to make the technical interview experience less tedious and more effective.
13. Amazon sells over 175 million items during 48-hour Prime Day 2019 sale, more than Black Friday and Cyber Monday combined, as workers in Minnesota and German warehouses go on strike; company says "unions" and "critics" are exploiting Prime Day as an opportunity to spread "awareness for their cause," and that they are conjuring misinformation to work in their favour.
• It's worth pointing out that Prime Day is a shopping event aka marketing gimmick solely created with an intent to ensnare more shoppers into its Prime subscription.
• That's not all. Amazon also has a new deal in place for Amazon Assistant that lets users earn US$ 10 of credit in return for tracking web activity, underscoring the need for better regulation when it comes to free services.)
14. Atlanta-based Ebix, which develops software solutions for insurance, financial, e-commerce, e-learning, healthcare and travel industries, to acquire Indian online travel booking company Yatra through a merger deal at an enterprise value of US$ 337.8 million as it looks to strengthen its position in India's hotel and flight ticketing market.
15. Elon Musk-founded 2017 ultra-high-bandwidth brain-computer interface startup Neuralink announces prototypes to alleviate chronic medical conditions like Parkinson's and epilepsy; unveils plans to let people control their iPhones with their mind by connecting tiny chip that features a USB-C port (the same adapter used by Apple's MacBooks), and connects via Bluetooth to a small wearable computer worn over the ear and to a smartphone app.
16. European antitrust watchdog European Commission officially launches an investigation into Amazon's "dual role" as both a merchant and a marketplace; and to assess its compliance with EU competition rules; fines Qualcomm €242 million (US$ 271 million) for abusing its dominance in 3G baseband chipsets by selling below cost to force its competitor Icera out of the market.
17. New study uncovers that over 1,300 popular Android apps circumvent user permissions and gather sensitive data without their consent; apps found to collect location data from EXIF metadata in images, two apps — say, 'A' and 'B' — that share the same SDKs allows 'A', which has not been granted the permission, to collect identifying information from 'B' that has been approved.
18. Netflix confirms it will launch a mobile-only streaming option starting with India, as it explores new ways to boost subscribers; loses US subscribers for the first time since Q3 2011, dropping 130,000, and adding fewer global subs than expected, citing a weak Q2 content slate. (Worldwide, Netflix added 2.7 million total paid subscribers for the Q2 2019, significantly missing its forecast of 5 million. It is also set to lose popular TV shows like Friends and The Office.)
19. Facebook-owned Instagram expands its test to hide the total number of likes and video views for select people to Australia, Brazil, Canada, Ireland, Italy, Japan, and New Zealand.
20. Google removes seven stalkerware apps from the Play Store that were found by Avast researchers; the apps had been installed more than 130,000 times.
21. YouTube adds one click switch between audio and video for YouTube Premium and YouTube Music Premium subscribers; says it has time-matched over 5 million songs.
22. Google Chrome and Firefox extensions with up to 4 million installs leaked sensitive data, including names and passwords, to marketing intelligence service Nacho Analytics, according to a new report by The Washington Post.
23. Online marketplace EBay buys 5.5 percent stake in Indian e-commerce marketplace Paytm Mall as the global firm makes another push to gain in the country's fast-growing e-commerce market.
24. Match Group-owned Tinder begins testing letting users pay it directly in its Android app, bypassing the Play Store and avoiding Google's 30 percent cut.
25. The U.S. Federal Trade Commission has reportedly finalised a multimillion dollar settlement with Google in an investigation into YouTube for violating federal data privacy laws for kids.