Tech Roundup: Apple TV+ Debut, Google's Fitbit Acquisition & More

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

1. Pakistan acquires the services of Canadian surveillance company Sandvine to work on creating a nationwide "web monitoring system" that will use Deep Packet Inspection (DPI) to monitor communications, measure and record traffic and call data on behalf of the country's national telecommunications regulator, Pakistan Telecom Authority (PTA).
2. Russia's "sovereign internet" bill becomes law effective November 1; regulation aims to route Russian web traffic and data through points controlled by state authorities and to build a national Domain Name System to allow the internet to continue working even if Russia is cut off from foreign infrastructure.
3. Facebook's online shopping destination Marketplace comes under antitrust scrutiny in the European Union over possible complaints that the social media service has used its market power and large user base to give it an unfair competitive advantage over rivals.
4. Microsoft-owned GitHub removes Android app developed by Tsunami Democràtic that leveraged social media and peer-to-peer technology (based on Retroshare) to orchestrate massive political protests in the autonomous community of Catalonia, acting on a takedown request from Spain's military police (aka the Guardia Civil), underscoring the challenges with finding the right balance between guaranteeing freedom of expression and upholding public order and ensuring security.
5. Mozilla, the nonprofit behind the free and open-source Firefox web browser, partners with Montreal-based artificial intelligence startup Element AI to push for ethical use of AI; to explore the idea of data trusts, a proposed data collection approach that aims to provide individuals with greater control over their personal information.
6. Apple debuts Apple TV+ with nine original titles in 100+ countries for US$ 4.99/month or US$ 49.99/year with a one year free trial on the purchase of a new Apple device.
7. Google's sister company Sidewalk Labs and Waterfront Toronto, the government body overseeing the high-tech development, reaches agreement to allow the company's ambitious smart city project Quayside to go forward after pushback from local authorities and activists over privacy and surveillance concerns.
8. Google to acquire fitness tracker maker Fitbit in a US$ 2.1 billion deal as it seeks to gain a foothold in a wearable market increasingly dominated by Apple Watch; Facebook reportedly held talks to acquire Fitbit but wanted to pay roughly half of the US$ 2.1 billion that Google eventually agreed to pay.
9. Twitter to stop accepting all political and issue ads on its platform globally starting on November 22, in a surprise policy turnaround that could put other social networks under further pressure to follow with similar moves to clean up social media platforms that largely become toxic cesspools and hostage to abuse and manipulation, with their growth-at-all-costs mentality; CEO Jack Dorsey says "This isn't about free expression. This is about paying for reach. And paying to increase the reach of political speech has significant ramifications that today's democratic infrastructure may not be prepared to handle. It's worth stepping back in order to address." (Facebook, for its part, continues to maintain that private companies shouldn't censor politicians or the news, while Pinterest and TikTok have prohibited political ads.)
10. Unified Payments Interface (UPI), a real-time payments platform created by India's largest retail banks for inter-bank transactions, crosses 100 million users and 1 billion transactions three-and-a-half-years after its launch.
11. E-commerce giant Amazon joins hands with local online movie ticketing giant BookMyShow to introduce ticket booking option on Amazon India shopping site and app, months after it began offering flight ticketing feature in the country as it races to turn its payments service Amazon Pay into a "super app" like Google Pay.
12. European fintech upstart Revolut updates its privacy policy in order to be able to share customer data with marketing platforms for targeted advertising, in possible violation of GDPR rules.
13. Facebook tests end-to-end encryption for video calls over secret conversations in Messenger, as the social media giant begins its "pivot to privacy" by unifying the backend of all its messaging services, including WhatsApp and Instagram; agrees to pay a £500,000 fine imposed by the U.K.'s data protection watchdog, the Information Commissioner, for its role in the Cambridge Analytica scandal, with no admission of any liability, reversing its earlier decision to appeal the fine.
14. Interest social media platform Pinterest reports 322 million global monthly active users at the end of the third quarter for the period July to September.
15. Apple makes its biggest shift to services yet; announces new iPhone purchase plan that allows Apple Card holders to purchase a new iPhone over 24 months with no interest, signalling that it intends to bank on subscriptions to drive iPhone sales going forward. (What's left for Apple is to just follow Amazon's Prime bundle approach to club together hardware upgrades with services like iCloud storage, Apple Music, News+, Arcade, and TV+ content for a single monthly fee. Talk about switching hardware as a service to service as a service!)
16. Microsoft says transport authorities in Dehradun, India were able to automate hundreds of driver license tests in recent weeks by using its AI-based project called HAMS (aka Harnessing AutoMobiles for Safety).
17. Facebook continues to grow even as it faces calls for checking its powers; monthly active users rises to 2.45 billion users, and over 1.62 billion daily active users, bolstered by new users from India, Indonesia and the Philippines, and the number of people who use a product in its "family of services," which includes WhatsApp and Instagram, every day hits 2.2 billion, and 2.8 billion every month.
18. New Jersey-based IT services firm Cognizant, which provides content moderation services for Facebook, Google, and Twitter, to exit the business in 2020 (rather than fixing it) after completing current contracts, impacting 6000 jobs, as it begins a strategic restructuring to cut jobs following reports of moderators being diagnosed with post-traumatic stress syndrome after being subjected to a daily onslaught of graphic and disturbing images.