Tech Roundup: Apple AirTags, YouTube Shorts & More

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

• Microsoft rebrands Office 365 subscription to Microsoft 365, with new AI-based editor built into Word and outlook.com and its Teams enterprise messaging platform to be made available for family Microsoft 365 subscriptions, allowing members to talk in group chats, as well as share grocery lists, trip plans, photos, videos, and other files with each other.
• Huawei open sources MindSpore, an AI computing framework akin to TensorFlow and PyTorch, which it claims offers a 50 percent efficiency boost over rivals on average.
• Troubled shared office space provider WeWork to sell social network Meetup to AlleyCorp and other private investors at a fraction of the US$ 156M that the company paid for Meetup in 2017; Japanese conglomerate Softbank walks away from the company, as it terminates a US$ 3 billion rescue deal announced last October to save the company from collapse citing concerns about "multiple, new, and significant pending criminal and civil investigations."
• Apple reportedly working on improving iCloud Keychain with support for generating passwords and two-factor authentication (2FA) codes in iOS 14, thereby obviating the need for a dedicated 2FA app.
• Facebook improves its Download Your Information tool on Facebook and Instagram to contain additional information about users' interactions on Facebook and Instagram, more inferences about the content users interact with on its services, in order to recommend what content in Facebook's News Feed, news tab and Watch sections.
• Saudi Arabia reportedly tracked phones of its citizens as they travel around the U.S. by exploiting weaknesses in SS7 (Signaling System 7) protocol that's used to route and direct calls and messages between networks.
• Microsoft-owmed Skype no longer requires video call participants to have an account or to download software, just like rival Zoom, letting users join a call via a link; company's Chromium-based Edge browser (7.59 percent) surpasses Firefox (7.19 percent) to become the second most popular desktop browser after Google Chrome.
• Global online music streaming subscriptions were up 32 percent YoY in 2019, hitting 358 million subscribers, according to new estimates from Counterpoint Research; Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music, Tencent Music, and YouTube Music take the top five spots.
• Snap debuts App Stories, which lets app developers syndicate Stories in other apps that default to a seven-day expiration; comes as Snapchat's Stories format has been widely cloned, most famously by Instagram and Facebook, but with versions in various states of development for YouTube, Twitter, LinkedIn, SoundCloud, Netflix, and Spotify.
• Disney's Disney+ on-demand streaming service goes live in India within its already existing Hotstar streaming platform; raises yearly subscription cost of Disney+ Hotstar to US$ 20 (Rs. 1,499), up from US$ 13.20 (Rs. 999).

• Tile, the company that makes trackers to locate keys, bags, and other common household items, accuses Apple of engaging in anti-competitive behaviour following reports that the iPhone maker was readying a tracking device dubbed AirTags (which, by the way, leaked in a now-removed support video released on YouTube) that would compete directly with Tile's offerings; says it stopped selling its products in its retail outlets as of June 2019 and locked down background processes from accessing location continuously, thus hampering the user experience.
• With iOS 13, Apple replaced the "Always Allow" location services option with "Allow Once," prompting users for authorisation each time an app requests device location information. Although Apple has said it's working to enable the "Always Allow" functionality in a future update, Apple's own apps, including Find My, enable background location tracking without user authorisation, thereby putting third-party apps at a disadvantage.
• YouTube reportedly developing a new short-form video feature called Shorts that will go head to head with ByteDance-owned TikTok; to allow users to link their videos to YouTube's music library to create videos similar to those on TikTok.
• Apple now lets select video streaming apps, like Amazon Prime Video, use their own payment methods for in-app purchases on Apple devices, avoiding Apple's 30 percent cut on each transaction; said to be part of a program for premium subscription video providers that closely integrates Apple features such as Apple TV app, AirPlay 2 support, tvOS apps, universal search, and Siri support. (This however doesn't mean Amazon can directly sell books through its Kindle app, or Spotify can bypass Apple's 30 percent cut of in-app purchases and subscriptions.)
• TikTok owner ByteDance begins allowing Chinese users stream dozens of films in the local version of the popular video app, known as Douyin, in the wake of coronavirus pandemic.
• Enterprise messaging app Slack launches new app to integrate Microsoft Teams calling features into its chat app, allowing users to launch Teams calls directly from Slack; also unveils integrations for Zoom Phone, Cisco Jabber, Dialpad, and RingCentral.
• U.S. cellular service provider T-Mobile officially completes US$ 26 billion merger with Sprint; CEO John Legere steps down.
• Google to shut down Neighbourly, an India-focussed crowdsourcing app that allows users to explore their neighbourhoods with help from local experts, on May 12; says the platform hadn't "grown as we had hoped."
• Apple acquires Ireland-based AI startup Voysis for an undisclosed sum with an aim to improve its Siri voice assistant; Voysis focussed on "improving digital assistants inside online shopping apps, so the software could respond more accurately to voice commands from users."