Tech Roundup: Facebook Portal TV, Google's WeChat Ambitions & More

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

1. Personal information of almost 20 million Ecuador citizens, including 6.7 million children, exposed online; home addresses, national identification numbers, phone numbers, work information, and marital status leaked in a colossal18GB cache of data.
2. India reportedly opening bids next month to build a system to centralise facial recognition data captured through surveillance cameras across the country.
3. Google to announce its heavily leaked Pixel 4 smartphone on October 15; OnePlus to reveal its OnePlus 7 successors — 7T and 7T Pro — on September 26.
4. Amazon changed the algorithms late last year that power its product-search system to favour products with higher profit margins instead of items that are bestsellers or the most relevant for consumers, according to a report by The Wall Street Journal.
5. The Wi-Fi Alliance launches Wi-Fi Certified 6 program for devices using next-gen 802.11ax Wi-Fi radios, expected to be up to 40 percent faster than Wi-Fi 5. (Interestingly, both iPhone 11 and iPhone 11 Pro both support Wi-Fi 6, meaning adoption of the new tech will very suddenly be well underway.)
6. Popular podcasts app Pocket Casts switches up its money-making strategy by launching a subscription service; makes the app free but to charge user US$ 0.99 per month, or $10 per year, for a premium service called Pocket Casts Plus that includes access to desktop apps, exclusive app icons and themes, and 10GB of cloud storage for people who want to upload their audio and video content, but ends up offering free lifetime access to its web and desktop apps for users have previously paid following backlash that their lifetime access had been changed into a three year subscription "rental" overnight. (Hitting peak subscription services, aren't we?)
7. Amazon launches Amazon Music HD, offering lossless audio for streaming and downloads, for US$ 14.99/month or US$ 12.99/month for Prime customers; cracks down on third-party apps that access customer information through Marketplace Web Service (MWS) APIs and are in violation of its policies.
8. NBCUniversal names its ad-supported streaming subscription service Peacock; to debut in April 2020 with a lineup of more than 15,000 hours of content.
9. Co-working space provider WeWork delays its IPO amid continued skepticism around its corporate governance and dwindling valuation.
10. Google rolls out new feature in search that pulls key moments within videos based on provided timestamp information in the video description; launches new voices for Google Assistant in nine countries for Dutch, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, and Norwegian, and English for India and the U.K.
11. Interest network Pinterest upgrades its Lens visual search with integrated shoppable pins, offering users information about current price of a product and a direct link to checkout on the retailer's site; will make it possible for collaborators to "react" to a pin in a Group Board.
12. Microsoft-owned code repository platform GitHub buys code analysis tool Semmle, which helps identify security vulnerabilities in large codebases and has Microsoft, Google, NASA and Nasdaq among its clients.
13. Social blogging platform Medium adds a "Save to Medium" bookmarking feature that lets users save articles to a reading list via sharing extensions on mobile and in Chrome.
14. Apple releases iOS 13 with system-wide dark mode, over hauled Photos and Reminders apps, swipe keyboard, and a host of privacy improvements; iPhone 11 Pro models have up to 25 percent larger batteries, an automatic hybrid software and hardware system for performance management (aka throttling) to counteract effects of ageing batteries, and 4GB of RAM (same as last year's iPhone XS and XS Max), as the phones go on sale.
15. Facebook debuts Portal TV, a TV accessory for video calling, streaming, AR gaming, and co-viewing Facebook Watch shows for US$ 149; unveils second-generation 10-inch Portal for US$ 179, and 8-inch Portal Mini for US$ 129, with WhatsApp call support, picture-in-picture viewing, and Prime Video.
• Facebook has also confirmed it was collecting Portal audio clips, some of which were transcribed by human contractors alongside voice messages sent via Messenger app, but says the new Portal devices will offer an opt-out option. In addition, Facebook is said to have partnered with Luxottica to help make "Orion" AR Ray-Ban smart glasses designed to replace smartphones, with 2023-2025 launch timeframe. Facebook's recent years has been a parade of privacy scandals, even as the company is trying to pivot toward more private forms of communication and online dating after years of slowing user growth and in an attempt recapture the younger demographic, who are ditching the platform for Instagram and Snapchat.
• While Facebook has unsuccessfully tried over and over to launch a consumer-focused hardware product, it's largely betting on their social aspects — catching up with friends, watching shows together via video calls etc. — to be a major selling point. Facebook has been never shy about finding new ways to get users to spend more time on its digital properties, and certainly no service today matches its ubiquity. But it's fair to wonder if its products can offset the company's "tarnished" brand value and earn a place in people's homes. No matter how serious Facebook is about privacy, the cloud of suspicion will be hard to shrug off given its unsavoury reputation for breaking privacy promises time and again. Who said making hardware was easy?
16. Uber to join Lyft in blocking New York City drivers from working when demand for rides is low in an attempt to avoid complying with the city's pay standards, which ensure a minimum wage of US$ 17.22 an hour after expenses.
17. Huawei, which is caught in the middle of a trade war between the U.S. and China, unveils Mate 30 and Mate 30 Pro flagship smartphones running on open-source version of Android (AOSP) but without any Google apps pre-installed. (The Chinese tech giant is currently on a U.S. entity list, which prohibits US-based companies from doing business with it. That doesn't matter inside China, because no Android phone there is sold with Google services, to begin with; they all use the open-source version of Android — Android Open Source Project (AOSP) — and stick their own interface on top. They then have their own app stores, though the essential app is WeChat, an all-in-one platform in its own right.)
18. French court rules that European consumers can resell games they bought on Steam, just as they are able to resell packaged, physical games.
19. Twitter rolls out option to hide replies in conversations to users in the U.S. and Japan after earlier tests in Canada.
20. Amazon-owned Twitch live game streaming platform acquires Internet Games Database to improves its search and discovery features.
21. Google marks Assistant via a phone number for mobile users (Vodafone only) in India as it seeks new ways to reach more users in the country; opens a AI research lab in Bangalore and supercharges Google Pay with WeChat-style mini-apps called Spots.
22. Facebook says it investigated millions of apps and has suspended "tens of thousands" from about 400 developers to date, as part of its ongoing review into improper data use on the part of third-party developers following the Cambridge Analytica scandal since March 2018.