Tech Roundup: Apple iPhone Exploits, Ring Law Enforcement Partnership & More

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

• Apple issues fix for a privilege escalation vulnerability, inadvertently reintroduced in iOS 12.4, which allowed up-to-date iPhones to be jailbroken for the first time in years, as Google researchers reveal data-stealing, web-based iPhone exploit which used a small collection of malicious websites as a watering hole to hack the devices, using previously undisclosed five different "exploit chains" — wherein a string of flaws are linked together to mount an attack.
• Amazon's doorbell-camera company Ring has partnerships with over 400 U.S. police forces, granting them access to footage by request; Ring releases a live law enforcement map showing everywhere it's working with police.
• Tencent teams up with Chinese carmaker Changan to roll out a voice-operated version of WeChat for use in vehicles and to develop a connected car system.
• Facebook begins testing Threads, a new messaging app for Instagram that lets users automatically share status, location, battery life, and more with close friends.
• Australia to block access to internet domains hosting terrorist material during crisis events; sites to be censored will be determined on a case-by-case basis by the country's eSafety Commissioner.
• Google and Dell partner to unveil Latitude enterprise-grade Chromebooks with 8th-generation Intel Core i7 CPUs; available to order from August 27 starting at US$ 699; Launches Google Nest Hub in India for Rs 9,999 as Baidu overtakes Google in global smart speaker market to become the world's second biggest vendor of smart speakers, capturing 17.3 percent of the global market with 4.5 million shipments in the second quarter of 2019. (Amazon remains the overall leader with more than 25 percent share of the market and 6.6 million shipments.)
• The Venezuelan government announces a new state-run cryptocurrency platform called Patria Remesa; urges its citizens who are working abroad to use it to send funds back home.
• China's Huawei has begun talks with Russia about installing Russian operating system (OS) Aurora on 360,000 of its tablets to conduct Russia's population census next year, reports Reuters; upcoming flagship phones Mate 30 and the Mate 30 Pro to go on sale without Google’s official Android operating system and other bundled apps such as Google Maps.
• Google to shut down Google Hire, a job application tracking system for small to medium sized businesses it launched two years ago, in September 2020, as it attracts antitrust scrutiny for its job search tool in the E.U. over claims that it is driving competitors out of the market. (Google Hire joins a long list of products like Google+, Areo, Allo, Chromecast Audio, Google Trips, Google Correlate, goo.gl, and Google Inbox that the company has discontinued just this year.)
• Dutch data protection agency says it found that Windows 10 may still be unlawfully collecting user telemetry data; refers Microsoft to its EU privacy regulator in Ireland for potential GDPR violations.
• Google rolls out Maps update that allows users to combine different transit modes, like biking, public transit, and ride-sharing, in their directions.
• Apple debuts iOS 13.1 beta, well ahead of iOS 13's release next month in an unprecedented move; adds audio sharing support, and brings back Shortcut Automation, a feature it removed from one of the earlier betas.
• Business directory service and crowd-sourced review forum Yelp adds personalised search results based on users' diet, lifestyle, accessibility, and other preferences, to its iOS app as part of a major redesign. (Android update to come later this year.)

Google new search results page for the web

• Co-working space provider WeWork (now The We Company), which is committed to elevating the world's consciousness, acquires New York-based startup Spacious that turns restaurants that sit empty during the day into co-working spaces.
• Apple to begin selling its devices online in India over the coming months, after the country eases rules that forced companies such as Apple to source 30 percent of their production locally — a requirement the iPhone maker has been lobbying against for years.
• Apple announces changes to its Siri audio clip review process, making it opt-in for users; would no longer relegate the task of listening to Siri recordings to contractors, and instead, only Apple employees would review these audio clips (Apple has laid off 300 contractors as a result) and promises it won't retain audio recordings. (But there's a catch. It will continue to use computer-generated transcripts of the conversation, as opposed to directly using the audio. Apple isn't unique in the tech industry in offloading some of its more unethical or upsetting tasks to a workforce with fewer labor protections and a more distant connection to powerful decisionmakers. As was the case for hundreds of Apple workers in Ireland, their abrupt termination appeared to be a product of a merciless decision that bodes best for the company's public image.)
• Music streaming service Spotify tests a "Create podcast” in its app that when tapped will either send users over to the Anchor podcast app, if it’s already installed, or send them to an informational webpage about the app. (It's to be noted that Spotify acquired Anchor, a podcast creation technology company, earlier this year.)
• France's C3N digital crime-fighting centre shuts down a cryptocurrency mining botnet that had infected more than 850,000 computers across 100 countries.
• Alphabet's Google to shift its Pixel smartphone production to Vietnam from China starting this year as it builds a cheap supply chain in Southeast Asia, following rising labor costs in China along with added pressure from spiralling tariffs due to the ongoing Sino-U.S. trade tensions.
• Facebook admits to design flaw in Messenger Kids app that allowed young users on the platform to participate in group chats with adults, without their parents' permission; ditches discover tab in Messenger to simplify the app.
• Microsoft begins testing a more desktop-like Windows 10 tablet mode for 2-in-1 convertible PCs, and a cloud download option to reset and restore Windows 10 PCs.
• Apple announces September 10 event "by innovation only" in Steve Jobs Theater at Apple Park to unveil new iPhones and roll out Apple Arcade, and Apple TV+.
• Apple announces a new repair program in the U.S. that will expand access to genuine iPhone repair parts for independent repair businesses for the first time; program to give independent repair shops access to parts for common out-of-warranty repairs, with the move representing an about-face for the company, which typically encourages any repairs to be made only by its authorised service providers.
• Amazon counters French government's decision to levy a 3 percent tax on Big Tech firms with global revenues higher than €750 million (~US$ 830 million) and French revenues exceeding €25 million by levying its own tax on French businesses and increasing seller fees by 3 percent. (With this development, Amazon may be in a league of its own as it threatens to not only dominate the market, but become the market.)
• Google launches YouTube Kids on the web; reportedly agrees to pay between US$ 150 million and US$ 200 million to resolve a U.S. Federal Trade Commission investigation into YouTube over alleged violations of the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) by collecting personal information about minors and using it to target advertisements without getting consent from parents.
• Popular RSS reader Feedly revamps web interface with dark mode, and new context menus to reorder news sources in the navigation panel.
• Facebook confirms unlinking Instagram profile from the social network doesn't actually separate the two accounts; says they are intrinsically connected as they share the same infrastructure, systems, and technology.