Tech Roundup: COVID-19 Contact Tracing, Facebook Tuned & More

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

• Apple and Google announce a joint effort to introduce iOS and Android APIs in mid-May for an opt-in Bluetooth-based COVID-19 contact tracing tool, as countries around the world increasingly turn to technology to contain the spread of the pandemic. (If anything, the cure to the coronavirus cannot be arrived by giving up our right to privacy. There needs to be developed an open, secure data-sharing and surveillance framework that actually puts the public at the centre of control.)
• Phone-focussed video streaming service Quibi (short for "QUIck BIte") debuts in the U.S. for US5 5/mo (with ads, or US$ 8/mo for ad-free streaming) with a slate of short, scripted shows as it takes on a crowded streaming market, full of big names like Netflix, Amazon Prime, Disney+, Apple TV+, Google's YouTube Premium, and soon, AT&T’s HBO Max and NBCUniversal's Peacock.
• Local search-and-discovery platform Foursquare merges with location data company Factual in an all-stock deal. (Foursquare is not the same company it was when it launched in 2009. The location-based social network, which let people check in to locations to share with their friends and earn badges, has evolved over time into an advertising and marketing platform with a focus on location intelligence.)
• Ride-hailing service Uber partners with Flipkart and BigBasket in India to deliver groceries and other essential items in Mumbai, Bengaluru, and Delhi.
• Facebook releases new experimental iOS-only app called Tuned targeting couples, allowing users to share their mood, exchange music, and create a digital scrapbook (it's billed as a "private space" for two people to connect, but let's also not forget that there's nothing private about Facebook); introduces new Quiet Mode on its apps, allowing users to turn off notifications and take scheduled breaks.

Apple and Google join forces to enable COVID-19 contact tracing on Android and iOS (Image: Apple)

• Google's enterprise-focussed G Suite surpasses 6 million paying businesses, up from 5 million in February 2019, with Google Meet (rebranded Hangouts Meet) reaching 25 times more users than it did in January 2020 and the service gaining more than 2 million new users a day worldwide. (G Suite faces stiff competition from Microsoft's entrenched Office suite and Office 365 set of cloud-based services, which had 87.5% of the market for productivity suites in 2018 versus Google's 10.4%, according to Gartner.)
• Facebook-owned Instagram rolls out Direct Messages for desktop web globally, three months after testing the feature with "a small percentage" of users around the world.
• Disney's Disney+ streaming service surpasses 50 million subscribers five months after launch, up more than 22 million since February, as it expands to new markets in Europe and Asia. (Disney-owned Hotstar streaming service in India, which also includes Disney+ content, has close to 8 million paying subscribers.)
• Fingerprint scanners from Apple, Microsoft, Samsung, and others can be bypassed by fake fingerprints made with 3D printing, according to new research by Cisco Talos.
• Google brings native support for Braille keyboard on Android (on all phones running version 5 and above); makes use of a standard 6-key layout and each key represents one of 6 braille dots which, when tapped, make any letter or symbol.
• Microsoft introduces Linux file access directly in Windows File Explorer, providing access to the root file system for any distros that are installed in the device.
• Google is ordered by French antitrust regulator, the Autorité de la concurrence, to pay publishers to display snippets of their articles on its News platform and search results.
• Chinese tech giant Huawei follows Apple's footsteps with the launch of Huawei Card, an Apple Card-like physical and digital credit card backed by Chinese finance giant UnionPay that lets users receive cash rebates for purchases made using the card.
• Twitter to begin sharing with business partners information about ads that users see or interact and their phones' advertising identifiers by default as part of a change to its privacy policy. (The change will be opt-in for European Union and the U.K. users due to GDPR laws. The fact that European users get to decide whether advertisers can use Twitter's ad tools to tie actions on Twitter to device identifiers while everyone else has lost that right is why it shouldn't be up to tech companies to decide what's best for users' privacy. The time for strong data privacy laws has never been more crucial.)