Tech Roundup: Messenger Rooms, Netflix Boom & More

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

1. Apple and Google release more details about their joint health care project to enable automatic contact tracing during pandemics; revises the name from "contact tracing" to "exposure notification," stating the system will encrypt metadata associated with smartphones (such as Bluetooth signal strength) and randomly generate keys (rather than mathematically derived from a user's private key) for identifying phones in order to make it harder to identify an individual or track people.
• The changes don's address questions of false positives or the fact that whether they would be openly embraced by public health agencies across the world instead of relying of a patchwork of tracking apps on a country-by-country basis.)
• The development comes as the French government has urged Apple to lift a technical limitation in iOS so as to roll out its contact-tracing application to contain the outbreak — iOS prevents apps (unless it's Apple's own such as Find My) from using Bluetooth and location constantly in the background for privacy reasons, thereby making it impossible for contact-tracing apps to function as expected. For the Bluetooth exchanges to happen, iOS devices would need to be unlocked with the app running in the foreground.
• The status quo is expected to change with the upcoming Bluetooth-based contact-tracing API Apple and Google are building into Android and iOS.
• In the interim, Germany has unveiled plans to adopt a decentralised approach to digital contact tracing backed by Apple and Google, abandoning its home-grown alternative following Apple's refusal to allow third-party contact tracing apps to run Bluetooth in the background. Also, Australia launched COVIDSafe contact tracing app based on Singapore government's open-sourced TraceTogether, using Bluetooth signals to log when people have been close to one another.
2. Facebook reveals new evidence connected to a WhatsApp vulnerability that was exploited by NSO Group to develop Pegasus spyware that was used by foreign government to hack over 1,400 users, including journalists, human rights activists and senior officials; claims the malicious code caused a WhatsApp user's mobile device to connect to the same remote server (run by Los Angeles-based hosting provider QuadraNet) in 720 such instances of the attack, landing a blow to the Israeli company which sought to dismiss the lawsuit on the grounds that it isn't capable of running operations in the U.S.
3. Apple disputes claims that security flaws impacting its native Mail app were exploited to target its customers; says it found no evidence of it being used in the real world.
• Cybersecurity firm ZecOps had identified multiple vulnerabilities that could allow an attacker to leak, modify, and delete emails, adding they may have been leveraged by a threat actor to target high profile executives from Germany, Israel, Japan, and Saudi Arabia. Apple has already patched the bugs in the latest iOS 13.4.5 beta.
• ZecOps said these bugs alone cannot cause harm to iOS users, but would need to be leveraged in conjunction with other kernel-level bugs to gain full control of the device in question. If anything, it shows that hidden zero-click flaws can be difficult to identify and verify that the bugs are being exploited in the wild.
4. Google rolls out BeyondCorp Remote Access, a new cloud-based tool that lets employees securely access their company's internal web apps without using a VPN.
5. Facebook's dedicated mobile-based gaming app, Facebook Gaming, launches on Android, allowing users to play some casual games with friends, as well as watching and hosting streams.
6. NBCUniversal-owned movie ticketing company Fandango to acquire Walmart's on-demand video streaming service Vudu for an undisclosed sum as streaming wars heat up. (It's worth pointing out that NBCUniversal just launched its Peacock streaming service for Comcast subscribers last week, with a wider launch set for July.)
7. WarnerMedia becomes the latest legacy media entertainment company to jump into the streaming fray; to launch HBO Max on May 27 for US$ 15 per month with 10,000 hours of programming.
8. Google to begin allowing merchants list their products for free in Shopping search results, as part of an effort to better compete against Amazon in product search.
9. Ride-hailing service Uber expands to grocery and package delivery with Uber Direct and Uber Connect, letting drivers deliver stuff beyond food, as demand for rides plummet following the coronavirus pandemic. (It's essentially what Dunzo has been doing in India for a long time. But better late than never.)
10. Facebook to invest US$ 5.7 billion into India's largest telecom operator Reliance Jio, as part of its commitment to India, making it the largest minority shareholder of Reliance Industries. (This is Facebook's new gamelan to profit from India's booming internet economy, especially after the spectacular net neutrality fiasco that was internet.org)
11. Snapchat reports a 20 percent jump in daily active users year over year to 229 million; streaming giant Netflix adds 15.77 million subscribers, taking its total user base to 182.86 million.
12. Apple launches App Store, iCloud, Apple Arcade, and Apple Podcasts in 20 new countries, reaching 175 countries across the world; expands Apple Music to 52 additional countries.
13. Epic Games officially launches Fortnite on the Play Store, after over a year of offering it only outside the store, noting Google puts sideloaded apps at a disadvantage "through technical and business measures such as scary, repetitive security pop-ups for downloaded and updated software, restrictive manufacturer and carrier agreements and dealings."
14. Facebook rolls out Messenger Rooms, which allows Facebook and Messenger users to create group video calls of up to 50 people, and increases group video call limits in WhatsApp to eight people (Google Duo has a limit of 12 people) as users sidestep the chat apps in favour of enterprise alternatives such as Zoom and Microsoft Teams, both of which support 100 and 20 participants in a private video chat. (Another limitation is that WhatsApp video calls are limited to smartphones, making them virtually useless on tablets and laptops.)
15. Vivaldi browser rolls out new tracker blocker made in partnership with DuckDuckGo and a built-in ad-blocker (disabled by default) as its Android app exits beta.
16. Facebook expands Messenger Kids to 74 new countries across Latin America and the Asia-Pacific region, including India, Australia, Indonesia, Argentina, Brazil, and Colombia; allows children to now accept, reject, and remove contacts through the Messenger Kids app, while notifying parents when their child approves a new contact and giving them options to override the decision through their dashboard.
17. Popular videoconferencing app Zoom hits 300 million active users, up from about 200 million on April 1, as demand for the app surges to an all-time high in the wake of coronavirus outbreak to become the go-to tool for informal social gatherings and virtual happy hours, family events, therapy sessions, and religious services.
18. Apple Music launches on Samsung Smart TVs (2018 and later models), the first such release of the product on a non-Apple TV.
19. Google mandates all advertisers across its platforms to verify their identities in an effort to boost transparency and curb malicious advertising; users to see disclosures behind the ads they see, thus allowing them to turn off ads from a particular advertiser.
20. Facebook to no longer allow advertisers to target users based on their interest in "pseudoscience," an ad category containing over 78 million people.
21. Google releases third Developer Preview for Android 11 with automatic permission revocation for unused apps, and other developer-facing improvements such as wireless debugging with ADB over Wi-Fi, ADB Incremental, and tweaks to exit reasons API.
22. Facebook outlines its plans for ads on WhatsApp; to use phone numbers to "match" Facebook and WhatsApp accounts in order to implement targeted advertising on the encrypted messaging app. (The Information also reported that Mark Zuckerberg suspended the push to introduce ads to WhatsApp partly to avoid antagonising regulators and avoid angering privacy-conscious users.)
23. Amazon launches Local Shops on Amazon in India, a program to let customers find and buy products from 5,000 participating local shops across 100 cities.
24. Indonesia's ride-hailing and food-delivery giant Gojek acquires mobile point-of-sale startup called Moka for about US$ 130 million, as it seeks to cement its position in the country's digital payments industry.
25. Google says it ditched a Google Contributor project that let users donate money to websites to help support news publishers, bloggers, and musicians to focus on other products, including a way for sites to request consent to personalise ads using their data amid strengthened regulations like GDPR.
26. Amazon accessed sales data from independent Marketplace sellers to help the company develop competing private-label products, according to a report from The Wall Street Journal; Amazon says it looks at "sales and store data to provide our customers with the best possible experience" and it explicitly forbids its employees from using using non-public, seller-specific data.
27. Japanese gaming company Nintendo confirms hackers gained unauthorised access to around 160,000 user accounts since the start of the month; says it's now contacting impacted users to reset their passwords.
28. Lenovo-owned Motorola releases new Edge Plus flagship Android smartphone with a 6.7-inch, FHD+ OLED panel, a Snapdragon 865 processor, 5G support, 12GB of RAM, 256GB of internal storage, a 5,000mAh battery, a 108 MP rear camera, and a 3.5mm headphone jack for US$ 999.
• Motorola once captured everyone's attention with the Moto X, a near-perfect Android phone, but those glory days are long over. Beyond the Nexus 6, it hasn't released a handset that's worth mentioning. And that was in 2014. Probably the Edge Plus, along with the budget friendly options Moto G Stylus and G Power, will turn that around.
29. China's Cyberspace Administration orders TikTok's parent ByteDance to temporarily remove its Slack-style office collaboration app Feishu, after discovering content from banned sites like Facebook and Twitter.
30. Instant messaging app Telegram hits 400 million monthly active users, up from 300 million a year ago; says it's working on secure group calls as video chat apps like Zoom, Google Meet, WhatsApp, and Microsoft-owned Skype and Teams vie for attention.