Tech Roundup: Facebook Dating, Mozilla Firefox 69 & More

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

• State-sponsored hackers working for the Chinese government have broken into telecoms networks to track Uyghur travellers in Central and Southeast Asia, according to a new report from Reuters, as multiple investigations by Google and Volexity detail what they said were Chinese efforts to hack the phones and email accounts of the Muslim minority around the world; Apple accuses Google's Project Zero security team of stoking fear by creating a "false impression of mass exploitation" and says the sophisticated attack was narrowly focused.
• Privacy-focussed Brave browser finds fresh evidence alleging Google use of hidden webpages (called push pages) to pass personal data of users to advertisers in direct violation of E.U. GDPR laws.
• Facebook begins rolling out long-in-the-making Dating service in the U.S., and 19 other countries for users aged 18 and above, sending rival match.com's shares down by 4.5 percent; opt-in feature allows users to create a dating profile that's separate from their main profiles, but integrates with Facebook and Instagram, with an intention to encourage the use of its properties that harvest data as much as possible. (For a company that's constantly looking at new avenues to gobble up yet another slice of users' online social lives, dating is not an entirely new front. If anything, it's just a new feature crammed into Facebook's kitchen-sink approach to market domination. But given how most users already use its services as makeshift dating apps, the idea doesn't strike odd. I wouldn't be surprised by Facebook doesn't use the data gathered through the dating service for ad targeting. What is not clear is whether messages sent between Dating users are end-to-end encrypted, something Facebook has been talking about since its pivot to privacy.)
• Facebook confirms it is considering testing removal of Like counts on News Feed posts, just like Instagram, to protect users' from envy and dissuade them from self-censorship (In other words, Facebook doesn't want you destructively comparing yourself to others and potentially feeling inadequate if your posts don't get as many Likes. It could also stop you from deleting posts you think aren't getting enough Likes); Instagram's efforts to hide like counts in posts (currently being tested in select countries) leads to less engagement and slower growth in followers, with influencers' posts dropping down in the feed.
• Google starts rolling out Android 10 with system-wide dark mode, live captions, improved digital wellbeing features and privacy improvements; finally adds a setting to block automatic image loading on its iOS Gmail app, giving users the ability to more easily block unwanted email tracking via tracking pixels.
• Facebook says its facial recognition tech will no longer identify new users in their photos by default in a deliberately vague announcement; users can now opt out via a new Face Recognition setting (in place of the now-discontinued Tag Suggestions feature) that lets users manage whether face recognition can be applied on their photos in order to suggest tags and help protect their identities on the social network. (The change applies only to new Facebook users and people who currently have the "tag suggestions" setting. Given how Facebook migrated many, if not most, existing users from "tag suggestions" to "face recognition" in December 2017, this means the safeguard does not apply to the billions of current Facebook users who have already been moved.)
• Google rolls out new Tinder-like swipe-based tool to improve TV and movie recommendations surfaced by Google Search on mobile; launches a fashion vertical in YouTube, aggregating the platform's fashion content into one place, as it takes on rival Instagram.
• Chinese handset maker Xiaomi sells 100 million smartphones in India within five years since beginning operations in the country, making it fastest handset manufacturer to hit the milestone.
• Apple to livestream the September 10 iPhone event on YouTube, marking the first time that the company will live stream one of its keynotes on Google's platform.
• Mozilla releases Firefox 69 that blocks third-party tracking cookies, Adobe Flash Player and cryptomining by default; allows users to switch on 'Strict Mode' to get protection from fingerprinting scripts.
• The number of data breaches reported and records exposed both increased by more than 50 percent during the first half of 2019 compared to the same period in 2018, with 3,816 data breaches reported during the first six months of the year, up 54 percent, resulting in 4.1 billion records being compromised, up 52 percent.
• A new survey by Pew Research Center finds that a majority of Americans (56 percent) trust law enforcement agencies to use facial recognition technologies responsibly; 59 percent of adults say it's acceptable for law enforcement to use facial recognition tools to assess security threats in public spaces, but only 30 percent of the respondents said it's okay for private tech companies to use the technology to track employee attendance at work, and only 15 percent thought it was acceptable for advertisers to use it to see how people respond to public ad displays.
• YouTube removes over 100,000 videos and 17,000 channels for hate speech, five times more than during the period January to March, since implementing changes to its hateful content policies on June 5 that specifically prohibits videos borderline content and those alleging that a group is superior in order to justify discrimination, segregation or exclusion based on qualities like age, gender, race, caste, religion, sexual orientation or veteran status.

Apple Music is finally on the web

• Apple planning a lower-cost iPhone next spring to win customers in emerging markets in a bid to halt sales decline and retake ground in China lost to Huawei Technologies and other rivals, including Google's Pixel cheaper 3A; said to be developing in-screen fingerprint tech to work alongside Face ID for its 2020/2021 iPhones.
• YouTube agrees to pay between US$ 170 million to resolve a U.S. Federal Trade Commission investigation into 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; to treat anyone watching children's content on YouTube "a child," disable comments and personalised ads on children's content, and assemble a US$ 100 million fund "dedicated to the creation of thoughtful, original children's content on YouTube and YouTube Kids globally." (The paltry fines are yet another indication that the U.S. government is not prepared for a Big Tech crackdown that will fundamentally alter their business, even as FTC calls it a "historic fine.")
• Apple finally unveils Apple Music on the web that lets subscribers stream music directly from a browser without having to install iTunes or a separate Apple Music app, putting it at par with Spotify. (Can we get iMessage next?)
• Google open sources differential privacy library, which it uses to securely draw insights from data sets containing sensitive user information.
• Medium said to be working on read-it-later service within its app that would let users save articles from the web to a reading list just like Instapaper or Pocket.
• Fintech startup Stripe forays into lending with Stripe Capital, a service for advancing loans to customers that get repaid out of future sales made through Stripe's platform, in the US.
• General Motors to begin using Google's new Android Automotive OS (not to be confused with Android Auto) to power the infotainment systems in its cars starting in 2021; to offer Google Assistant, Google Maps and other applications available through the Google Play app store in all its vehicle brands outside China.
• Retail conglomerate Alibaba buys import e-commerce platform Kaola from NetEase for US$ 2 billion; plans to integrate it into Tmall, creating the largest cross-border e-commerce platform in China.
• Google's app store/entertainment platform Google Play adds support for India's UPI digital payment solution, which is already used for more than 900 million transactions a month across the country.
• Samsung to launch Galaxy Fold foldable handset in South Korea for US $2,000; cancels all Galaxy Fold pre-orders placed online earlier this year (following which it was cancelled due to display issues) to rethink the entire customer experience, but to offer a $250 credit for the Samsung store.
• Phone numbers linked to over 400 million Facebook accounts found exposed on an online server that was not password-protected (now taken offline), in what's a continuing string of privacy gaffes for the social network; issue stemmed from a feature (since shut down) that allowed users to search for friends by their phone numbers, meaning third parties could have used that feature to harvest the information, in addition to putting them at risk of spam calls and SIM-swapping attacks.
• Twitter suspends ability to tweet via SMS messages after a series of high-profile SMS swapping attacks targeting CEO Jack Dorsey and other celebrities.
• Amazon-owned doorbell-camera company Ring shares "active camera" map showing hundreds of dots representing the locations of Ring owners in a neighbourhood with local law enforcement agencies in the U.S., while offering departments access to its platform in exchange for outreach to residents.
• Apple and Amazon move production of iPhones and Echo smart speakers from China to India as the world's largest contract manufacturer Foxconn shifts operations in the wake of ongoing US-China trade war.
• Apple patents Watch band that could ID users from their wrist skin using infrared to build a thermal image of the wrist and its identifying traits; rival Amazon reportedly working on speeding up checkouts at its physical stores tests via a new biometric payment system that identifies and charges users by scanning their hand to authenticate store purchases.
• Swiggy, one of the largest food delivery startups in India backed by China's Meituan Dianping, takes on Dunzo with Swiggy Go, an on-demand service to enable consumers and businesses to instantly deliver laundry, forgotten keys, documents and just about anything else within a city. (The service is currently limited to Bangalore.)
• Popular crowdsourced online encyclopaedia Wikipedia goes offline in Europe and parts of the Middle East after a malicious DDoS (distributed denial of service) attack on its servers.