Tech Roundup: Amazon Pharmacy, Microsoft Surface Duo & More

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

• The San Francisco Superior Court orders Uber, Lyft and Doordash to immediately reclassify Uber and Lyft ride-share drivers as employees after the companies were sued for violating law by misclassifying Uber and Lyft drivers as independent contractors since January 1 when a state law known as AB5 went into effect; Uber and Lyft threaten to suspend operations in California in response to the ruling, alleging the change in driver status "will almost certainly need to shut down the Rides app while it builds these departments and systems, millions of drivers who use the app to earn vital income will likely lose that opportunity the day the injunction goes into effect—and that source of income will be lost for months, at least."
• The Indian government outlines plans to regulate anonymised data in addition to proposing a mechanism to share said data with other entities, including competitors, in a bid to spur the digital ecosystem and build businesses.
• Oracle and Salesforce face new class action lawsuits, potentially worth more than €10 billion, in the U.K. and the Netherlands over using cookie data without consumers' consent in violation of E.U. GDPR regulations.
• Employees of social media platform Pinterest stage a virtual demonstration in light of recent accusations of racial and gender inequity at the company.
• France's privacy watchdog CNIL says it has opened a probe into ByteDance's TikTok, as part of an investigation into its plans to open an EU-based data centre; new investigation reveals the video sharing app used a technical loophole in Android to collect MAC addresses from Android devices for 18 months to use the persistent device identifiers for ad tracking without an ability to opt out before it discontinued the practice in November last year.
• Facebook removes 22.5 million posts for violating hate speech policies during the period April to June, with 95% of the violations caught using automated systems; to begin asking some Instagram users to verify their identities by submitting government IDs in cases where it detects coordinated inauthentic behaviour, or "or when we see the majority of someone's followers are in a different country to their location, or if we find signs of automation, such as bot accounts."

• ByteDance's Indonesian news aggregator app Baca Berita (aka BaBe) censored content perceived as critical of the Chinese government between 2018 and mid-2020, reports Reuters, in what's the latest setback for the company that's facing a potential ban in the U.S.
• Apple reportedly readying Amazon Prime-like "Apple One" tiered subscription bundles, with Music, TV+, News+, iCloud storage, alongside a new subscription for virtual fitness classes, as early as October, according to Bloomberg.
• I don't know how I feel about the multi-tiered à la carte offerings, but as Daring Fireball's John Gruber succinctly puts, "Apple One should cost $15/month for an individual and $20/month for family sharing, and include: Music, TV+, Arcade, and the top tier of iCloud storage. Make News+ a $5/add-on."
• Google adds Apple Watch support for Google Maps, three years after removing the feature in 2017, along with integration with CarPlay Dashboard, offering users turn-by-turn navigation and playback capabilities for music, podcasts and audiobooks.
• Amazon rebrands Twitch Prime as Prime Gaming, positioning it alongside other Prime perks such as Prime Video and Prime Reading, letting Prime subscribers access free games and exclusive in-game content; to follow the footsteps of Spotify by bringing free podcasts in Amazon Music, for both free and paid tiers, and on Audible.
• Russian competition watchdog FAS rules Apple abused its dominance of the mobile apps market to unlawfully block any third-parties' apps from the App Store following Kaspersky's antitrust complaint last year.
• Adobe previews new feature in Photoshop that will will help identify edited images in an attempt to tackle deepfakes and other efforts at manipulation.
• Amazon launches new online pharmacy called Amazon Pharmacy in Bangalore, the capital of India's southern Karnataka state, to deliver both over-the-counter and prescription-based medicines, as the e-commerce giant looks to compete with rivals 1mg, Netmeds, Medlife and PharmEasy in the country.
• Popular instant messaging app Telegram trials end-to-end encrypted video calls on its platform, with support for encrypted group video calls to be rolled out in the coming months.
• Facebook confirms it's testing TikTok-style short videos in its flagship app in India, with a dedicated Short Videos section in the news feed; begins merging Instagram and Messenger chats in new Instagram update, letting users to "chat with friends who use Facebook."

The new virtual business cards feature in Google Search

• Google rumoured to eventually replace Duo video chat app with Meet over the next two years, as part of a transition to Google Chat and Meet.
• Here we go again! While it's good to see Google trimming down its messaging portfolio, let's also not forget that Duo and Meet serve entirely two different purposes, and are perhaps best left untouched.
• Chinese giant ByteDance reportedly in early talks with Reliance Industries Limited, the parent firm of telecom giant Jio Platforms, for financially backing TikTok's business in India after a ban in late June from its its biggest market.
• Mozilla cuts 250 jobs, about a quarter of its workforce, as part of a broader shift to subscription-based offering amid "economic conditions resulting from the global pandemic have significantly impacted our revenue"; extends search deal with Google for another three years to keep Google Search the default search engine provider inside the Firefox browser until 2023 at an estimated price tag of around US$ 400 million to 450 million per year.
• Facebook discontinues Facebook Lite app for iOS citing poor adoption; faces fresh lawsuit over allegedly harvesting the biometric data of 100 minion Instagram users without their knowledge or consent.
• In a separate development, Instagram also fixed a bug that retained people's photos and private direct messages on its servers even after users removed them.
• Microsoft to launch its Surface Duo dual-screen Android phone on September 10 for a price tag of US$ 1,399; sells SlideShare, a presentation-sharing service LinkedIn acquired in 2012, to Scribd, which will take over its operations effective September 24.
• Google rolls out virtual business cards in Google Search in India with links to user's website and social media profiles and optionally, phone number and email; announces new document scanning features in its computer vision Lookout app, an Android Auto refresh with calendar integration, and partners with USGS to create a worldwide, Android phone-powered opt-in earthquake alert system using phone accelerometers.
• Twitter rolls out new feature that limits who can reply to a tweet to just those that follow the author or just the accounts that are tagged in the tweet; launches new API to make it easier for businesses, academics, and third-party developers to build on its platform.