Tech Roundup: Apple Search Engine, Coinbase Card & More

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

• The right to repair movement gains ground with proposed regulations in the U.S. and E.U. that would force companies to share parts, tools, and other information with consumers and repair shops.
• Epic files fresh filing against Apple, saying the iPhone maker "has no rights to the fruits of Epic's labor," adding it "did not 'steal' anything that belonged to Apple."
• Apple's plans to restrict trackers used for mobile advertising draws antitrust scrutiny in France in what's the latest in a long series of legal actions alleging that big tech groups are using privacy arguments to abuse their market power.
• Italy's antitrust authority to investigate Google for alleged abuse of its dominant position in the online display ad market, following a complaint by IAB Italy.
• Zoom officially adds support for end-to-end encryption, but disables several features like cloud recording, live transcription, polling, telephone dial-in, and one-to-one private chats when the setting is turned on.
• Facebook becomes the latest company to foray into cloud gaming on Android and the web (there will be no iOS version due to to what it calls Apple's "arbitrary" policies), allowing users to create an alternate "Player Name" and instantly play full mobile-quality games within Facebook without having to download them from an app store.
• Microsoft to force URLs from 1,156 sites to be opened in Edge browser instead of Internet Explorer starting next month as part of its plans to deprecate Internet Explorer; releases an optional Catalog update that removes Adobe Flash from Windows 10 and prevents it from being reinstalled, paving the way for the eventual death of the app in 2021, as Adobe readies to permanently suspend development of Flash by the end of the year.
• Apple famously decided to stop supporting Flash as early as 2007 in iOS with the launch of iPhone, citing battery life and security concerns, resulting in companies like Google, Facebook, Microsoft, and Mozilla following suit by dropping support for the multimedia platform in their browsers and ad networks in favour of HTML5.
• Zoom rival Microsoft Teams surpasses 115 million daily active users, up 53% from the 75 million daily active users in April.
• Netflix reportedly testing a new audio-only mode with a subset of its Android users, lettings users to stream just the audio track of a show or movie in the background; raises prices of standard plan to US$ 13.99 (up from US$ 12.99) and that of premium plan to $17.99 (up from US$ 15.99).
• Facebook's Instagram extends time limit on live streams to 4 hours, up from 60 minutes, in addition to giving streamers 30 days to download their videos before they are deleted.

• Coinbase brings its Coinbase Card, a debit Visa card for cryptocurrency, to the U.S., after launching in Europe; pulls funds directly from users' Coinbase accounts to spend cryptocurrency anywhere Visa cards are accepted.
• Samsung surpasess Chinese handset maker Xiaomi to lead the Indian smartphone segment with a 24% share in Q3 2020; Xiaomi, Vivo, Realme, and Oppo round up the remaining top four positions.
• Globally, 353.6 million smartphones were shipped in Q3 2020, with Samsung shipping 80.4 million (up 2.9% year-over-year), Huawei 51.9 million (down 22%), Xiaomi 46.5 million (up 42%), and Apple 41.6 million (down 10.6%) handsets, followed by Oppo, Vivo, and Realme.
• Interest-based social network Pinterest racks up 442 million monthly active users, with international users (outside U.S.) accounting for a 46% jump year-over-year); says the release of iOS 14 fueled user growth as approximately 4 million people used the platform "for inspiration for customized background filters."
• Amazon's audiobook platform Audible adds 100,000 free podcasts to its catalog; accessible through the app for all listeners with or without a subscription.
• Alphabet-owned Loon sets record for the longest stratospheric flight of 312 days while circumnavigating the globe, with one of its balloons.
• Apple reportedly stepping up its efforts to build its own search engine as its deal with Google to set it as the default search engine comes under antitrust scrutiny. (Google is said to be paying between US$ 8-12 billion every year in traffic acquisition costs to be the default search engine on Safari browser and Siri. Google also pays Mozilla US$ 400-450 million per year to be the default search engine provider in Firefox browser till 2023.)
• Music streaming service Spotify reaches 320 million monthly active users and 144 million paid subscribers, an increase of 29% and 27% respectively year-over-year, following blockbuster launch in Russia.
• Google brings its own VPN to desktops and phones with US$ 9.99 Google One subscription; to add an Android-based VPN free of charge to any 2TB Google One cloud storage subscriber in the U.S., with expansion to iOS, Windows and Mac and other countries "in the coming months."
• Apple launches its Apple One services bundle, as revenue from Services hits an all time high of US$ 14.5 billion, with paid subscriptions for its various Services reaching a new high of 585 million.
• Apple now has US$ 191.83 billion in cash on hand, down nearly 7% from a year ago. In comparison, Microsoft had US$ 137.98 billion at the end of Q1, and Google and Amazon had US$ 121.08 billion and US$ 71.77 billion, respectively, at the end of the second quarter.
• Facebook-owned WhatsApp messaging app hits a record of delivering roughly 100 billion messages a day, a dramatic increase from 50 billion texts a day in early 2014; Facebook reports 2.74 billion monthly active users and 1.82 billion daily active users, with its user base in the U.S. and Canada falling to 196 million daily active users, down from 198 million a quarter earlier.
• Amazon reports ad business revenue of US$ 5.4 billion, up 51% year-over-year, for Q3 2020 and subscription services revenue of US$ 6.58 billion, up 33% year-over-year, with total revenues of US$ 96.1 billion (up 37%) and net income of $6.3 billion.
• Google shrugs off looming antitrust scrutiny, staging a strong rebound in its core advertising business with US$ 46.17 billion in revenues; YouTube surpasses 30 million music and premium paid subscribers, with YouTube TV gaining more than 3 million subscribers.
• Fitness giant Under Armour to sell MyFitnessPal to investment firm Francisco Partners for US$ 345 million, after buying it in 2015 for US$ 475 million; to also sunset Endomondo health tracker platform which it acquired for US$ 85 million to "simplify and focus its brand."