Tech Roundup: Android 11, IFTTT Pro & More

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

• Apple revises App Store guidelines to allow game streaming services like Google Stadia and Microsoft xCloud, but demands the platforms submit each game title for review and make them available as individual App Store downloads, and paid for through in-app purchases to unlock extra features, in addition to supporting "Sign in with Apple" for logins; Microsoft rejects Apple's proposal, stating "gamers want to jump directly into a game from their curated catalog within one app just like they do with movies or songs, and not be forced to download over 100 apps to play individual games from the cloud."
• These loosened guidelines do not apply to the Facebook Gaming app, which is still not allowed to sell instant games within its app.
• But the revised guidelines could also mean subscribers of game streaming services subscribers will have to pay for a game again should they choose to play them on Apple's platforms, giving Apple its 30% cut.
• It's far from an ideal solution, and if anything, the changes make it sound like Apple is supporting game streaming only on paper when it really isn't, for Microsoft and Google would have to radically change their cloud gaming offerings to get their services onto the iPhone this way. As Apple makes it amply clear: "Of course, there is always the open Internet and web browser apps to reach all users outside of the ‌App Store‌."
• Ireland's data protection watchdog, the Data Protection Commission (DPC), sends Facebook a preliminary order to suspend data transfers from the E.U. to the U.S., almost two months after a landmark ruling in July nullified the "Privacy Shield" pact and cast doubt on the legality of Standard Contractual Clauses (SCCs) for transatlantic data transfers; Facebook seeks judicial review, claiming "a lack of safe, secure and legal international data transfers would have damaging consequences for the European economy and hamper the growth of data-driven businesses in the E.U."
• Italy's antitrust authority AGCM opens an investigation into cloud services operated by Apple, Dropbox, and Google over complaints of unfair practices related to the collection of user data for commercial purposes without valid consent.
• Vodafone Idea, one of India's largest telecom operators, rebrands as Vi, two years after the British company's India business merged with Idea Cellular in August 2018. (Vodafone India was previously known by different brand names such as Max Touch, Orange, Hutch, and Vodafone before the Vodafone Idea deal.)
• China launches a new global data security initiative with an aim to respect "data sovereignty," outlining the principles that should be followed in areas from personal information to espionage; to not ask Chinese companies to transfer overseas data to the Chinese government in breach of other countries' laws, and calls on states to oppose mass surveillance against other states, and not to request domestic companies to store data generated and obtained overseas in their own territory.
• Amazon's Kindle e-book reader is found collecting device information, usage metadata, and details about every interaction with the device (or app) while it's being used, linking them directly to users' accounts; "opening the app, reading a book, flipping through a few pages, then closing the book sends over 100 requests to Amazon servers," including time a page is opened, device orientation, Goodreads account details, and IP addresses.

Android 11 is finally here

• Google offically begins rolling out Android 11 to select Pixel, OnePlus, Xiaomi, OPPO, and realme phones, in addition to unveiling Android 11 Go Edition with support for phones with 2GB of RAM (up from 1.5GB before) and improved app launch times; debuts a new feature for its Google Phone app called Verified Calls that lets legitimate businesses reach out to consumers with verification, branding, and call reasons in a bid to cut down spam and build trust.
• Google starts blocking resource-intensive heavy ads (that specifically use more than 4 megabytes of network bandwidth) on Chrome browser to improve performance; expands support for RCS messaging to more countries, including Croatia, Czechia, Lithuania, Romania, and Slovenia, months after rolling out the feature to Argentina, Pakistan, Poland, and Turkey, and redesigns Google Finance with a new Watchlists feature to help users group stocks and find relevant news, stats, and earnings details.
• Digital ad-based recommendation platforms Taboola and Outbrain call off merger talks after failing to agree on revised deal terms and antitrust scrutiny in the U.K. and Israel, a year after announcing a US$ 850 million deal in October 2019.
• Google's Area 120 incubator for experimental projects launches Orion WiFi, a service that allows cellular carriers like Google Fi in need of better service to rent public venue WiFi networks in malls, grocery stores, and other "public venues" for better coverage; also debuts Fundo, an app for creators to host small paid online events, in the U.S. and Canada, with Google taking a 20% cut of the revenue.
• ByteDance-owned TikTok becomes the latest company to come aboard the European Union's Code of Conduct on Countering Illegal Hate Speech, joining the likes of Dailymotion, Facebook, Instagram, Jeuxvideo.com, Microsoft, Snapchat, Twitter, and YouTube; says it uses machine learning to maximise user engagement by determining content users' past interactions to serve more of it as well as adjacent content based on their likes, adding it's studying how to break filter bubbles that can boost misinformation and hoaxes.
• Microsoft announces all-digital gaming console Xbox Series S, the "smallest Xbox ever," for US$ 299; warns of cyberattacks targeting key people and organisations by hackers from Russia, China, and Iran ahead of the U.S. presidential elections in November.
• Chinese tech conglomerate Tencent relinquishes its rights to publish PUBG Mobile in India to the game's developer PUBG Corp, a week after the popular mobile game's ban in the country. (PUBG Corp is subsidiary of South Korean video game company Bluehole, in which Tencent is the second-largest shareholder.)
• Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg plays down concerns that the social media platform is an accelerant of social destruction; says "I have a little more confidence in democracy than that. And I hope my confidence isn't misplaced."
• Facebook is that distorted mirror which presents a warped reality refracted through its own constantly-changing algorithmic prism that favours viral engagement and polarisation over hard facts, shaping people's preferences and behaviour along the way.
• Although there's no denying the social effects of Facebook, there's no doubt it's also become a powerful vector for propaganda and misinformation, and a platform optimised for extremism and conspiracy theories to flourish.
• It raises an interesting question: What do we really need social media for? Staying in touch with friends, probably? But despite the companies' best efforts to convince us otherwise, the undeniable truth is that we don't need social media for all the things we're told we need it for. We don't need a Facebook to make friends or build relationships, or even do shopping or find new things to do.
• The key problem, then, comes down to the difficulty of pursuing big tech in a world that it not only controls, but also defines and advances its own vision of a better society.
• Ultimately, it's enticing to think we might be able to peer past our screens into the inner workings of the tech giants and see how much our data is really worth to them. Except opening those black boxes aren't that easy. In designing them to be addictive and habit-forming, the big tech has all but secured our continued participation in the ad-driven platform economy, thereby making sure that the more we're there, the more we'll be there.
• Yubico, the maker of physical security keys for multi-factor authentication, launches YubiKey 5C NFC with USB-C and NFC support for US$ 55.

Instagram gets more tabs and more bloated!

• Amazon partners with U.S. cellular carrier AT&T to let customers link phone numbers to their Alexa accounts, making it possible to make and receive phone calls via their Alexa devices, following similar rollouts in the U.K. and Germany; launches Alexa Print in partnership with third-parties that lets Echo device owners use voice commands to print out Alexa to-do lists, recipes, weekly calendars, crossword puzzles, and educational content for kids.
• Workflow automation platform IFTTT (If This Then That) switches to a Pro subscription model; limits free tier to three Applets, as it opens up the service to query data from different sources before triggering multiple actions.
• Beleagured Chinese handset manufacturer Huawei announces plans to bring its HarmonyOS operating system to a wider range of devices such as smartphones, smartwatches, and TVs; kicks off new OpenHarmony project, allowing developers to build upon an open-source version of the OS, similar to what AOSP is to Android. (Huawei already ships Android phones without Google services, and and HarmonyOS could be that bulwark against sanctions prohibiting the Chinese giant from doing business with American companies and open its ecosystem to other companies as a fourth alternative to Apple, Google, and Samsung.)
• Payment company Square announces Cryptocurrency Open Patent Alliance (COPA), a non-profit that aims to advance cryptocurrency technologies by instituting a "shared patent library where members pool all of their crypto patents together to form a collective shield of patents, allowing members to use each others' patents to deter and defend against patent aggressors."
• Google tests new feature in its Play Store app that makes it easy for users to share apps with one another using proxmity information to transfer the app through a combination of Bluetooth, NFC, and Wi-Fi Direct.
• Times Internet-owned Indian music streaming service Gaana hits 185 million monthly active users, with its on-demand video platform MX Player surpassing 200 million monthly active users.
• Former Oculus VR founder Palmer Luckey's Anduril Industries unveils Ghost 4 military drone that can fly autonomously, form a data-sharing swarm to relay information back to its Lattice software platform, and track people, missiles, and battlefield equipment using artificial intelligence.
• South Korean chaebol Samsung and memory manufacturer SK Hynix to suspend component sales to Huawei on September 15, as the U.S. government tightens sanctions on the Chinese phone maker over national security concerns.