Tech Roundup: Google Keen, Audio Tweets & More

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

• Facebook, Microsoft and Fortnite-owner Epic Games join the likes of Spotify, Tile, Rakuten's Kobo and Match Group to rally against Apple's App Store 30 percent commission for subscription apps; say "some app stores create a far higher barrier to fair competition and access than Microsoft's Windows did when it was found guilty of antitrust violations 20 years ago," as it emerges that Apple has rejected Facebook's dedicated Gaming app five times (the app is currently only available on Android) due to "rules that prohibit apps with the 'main purpose' of distributing casual games."
• The development comes as the App Store facilitated US$ 519 billion in commerce globally in 2019, including physical (retail, travel, ride hailing, food delivery, grocery, mobile payments) and digital goods (ebooks, streaming, dating, fitness, photo and video editing, enterprise, education and games) and in-app advertising, ahead of Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) tomorrow.
• It's not hard to see that Apple sees App Store as the only means to distribute apps and games, including Apple Arcade, and any app that threatens its clout over the mobile software and entertainment ecosystem is turned down. The only sensible way forward for Apple would be to allow users to decide the choice for themselves by setting default apps, and even downloading apps outside of the App Store like Android.
• Popular stock trading app Robinhood implements new measures to make it difficult for users to get access to its options offering after a 20-year-old customer, a Alex Kearns, commits suicide, citing US$ 730,000 in losses on the trading platform.
• Neighborhood social networking app Nextdoor discontinues a feature that let users forward posts directly to police departments amid concerns of racial profiling and partnerships with law enforcement, and reports that some of its community moderators were removing posts that mentioned Black Lives Matter; retains ability to contact police via direct messages through the app.
• Facebook-owned WhatsApp begins rolling out a payments service for its users in Brazil to send and receive money within chats and make purchases from local businesses after prolonged testing in India. (The Indian version is expected to use the country's UPI platform, but has been stuck in a regulatory and legal battle over privacy concerns.)
• Chinese tech giant ByteDance to shut down two of its social video sharing apps in India, Vigo Lite and Vigo Video, the latter of which reportedly had 4 million monthly active users, urging users to move to TikTok; move comes weeks after discontinuing its news aggregator app TopBuzz following a failure to replicate the viral success of TikTok.

• E-commerce giant Walmart acquires technology and intellectual property from CareZone, a company that makes apps to help people manage their medicines and organise a home delivery, in a deal worth US$ 200 million. (This however doesn't include CareZone pharmacy, which sorts customers' medications into pill packs and delivers them to patients via mail.)
• News aggregator service Flipboard launches Storyboards, allowing publishers and verified users create roundups of articles, videos, tweets, and other content, as part of its new Curator Pro tool.
• Facebook acquires Mapillary, a Swedish mapping startup that aims to map the world using crowdsourced database of street-level imagery, for an undisclosed sum; comes months after it bought Scape, a startup that develops a "Visual Positioning Service" based on computer vision for improved location accuracy, back in February.
• Google's experimental products incubator Area 120 debuts Keen, a new way to curate, collaborate and track interests; allows users to search for topics of interest to curate an automated machine-learning based feed of web content that matches the search. (Notwithstanding the fact that Area 120 is already trialling a similar product called Tangi, Keen is what would be the result if Google Discover merged with Pinterest.)
• Financial services provider and point-of-sale payment processor Square acquires Spanish mobile wallet app Verse, two years after it purchased website builder Weebly for US$ 365 million; comes following Square's launch of its in-app payments SDK that allows developers to build Square-powered payments right into their mobile apps in a bid to compete against Stripe, Adyen and others.
• ByteDance-owned TikTok details the secret sauce behind its personalised recommendations on the platform; says user interactions, device and account settings factor into curating content tailored to a user, adding a video is likely to receive more views if it's posted by an account that has more followers, simply because that account has a larger base of viewers.
• Google enters into a partnership with virtualisation software provider Parallels to bring Windows application support, including Office apps, to Chrome OS enterprise devices later this year; paves the way for supporting both Android apps and Windows apps in Chrome OS.
• Ride hailing service Uber to make its software technology that powers its business available to others, starting with public transit agencies; to provide logistics for four wheelchair-accessible vans in California's Marin County as it seeks to find new ways to re-purpose its software for other agencies.

• Microblogging service Twitter begins rolling out the ability to record audio snippets and attach them to tweets; says the "new feature that will add a more human touch to the way we use Twitter." (The bigger question is, how are they going to be moderated?)
• Google begins limited testing of a new billing method that lets Android app developers sell subscriptions without requiring an app install on the Play Store; launches new Link to Text Fragment extension for Chrome browser (versions 80 and above) that lets users generate URLs that link to specific text on a webpage. (Outside of Edge browser, there's no word on if and when other popular browsers are planning to add support.)
• Cloud storage provider Dropbox unveils Dropbox Passwords password manager (based on its Valt acquisition last year), a secure Dropbox Vault for storing sensitive documents like birth certificates, a backup service that automatically creates backups of PC or Mac files stored on the desktop, and a family plan for Dropbox Plus users for US$ 17 per month, allowing families to share two terabytes of storage between individual profiles, with all members able to create "shared spaces" for content such as photos, videos, and documents.
• Google ramps up integration between Gmail and Meet video conferencing app in the wake of Zoom's unexpected success during the coronavirus pandemic; updates Gmail app for Android and iOS with a new feature that makes it possible for users to join a Meet video call by simply clicking an event link in an email, without the need for the standalone Meet app, as well as initiate new Google Meet calls on the web by just typing meet.new (similar to docs.new, sheets.new, and slides.new) on the address bar.
• While the integration is convenient, is what Google doing really fair, especially when it's facing growing antirust scrutiny?
• Not to be left behind, Microsoft also appears to be using a similar URL scheme — word.new, excel.new, and powerpoint.new — to create new Office documents. Sweet!
• Facebook to begin allowing users in the U.S. to turn off seeing political and electoral ads on the service; to debut a new Voting Information Center hub on Facebook and Instagram with an aim to provide information to U.S. voters on how to register to vote, request a mail-in or absentee ballot, and when and where to vote, and other election information.