Tech Roundup: iPhone 12, Zoom Zapps & More

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

• Belgian data protection authority finds that Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) Europe's GDPR consent framework, adopted by Google and others, fails to meet required legal standards of data protection.
• France and the Netherlands jointly propose stricter E.U. rules to regulate and control the market position of large technology firms, such as Alphabet, Facebook, and Amazon.
• Facebook likes, comments and shares of articles from news outlets that regularly publish falsehoods and misleading content roughly tripled to over 1.5 billion interactions from the third quarter of 2016 to the third quarter of 2020, suggested that users are engaging more with publications that routinely publish misinformation than they did before.
• Facebook Messenger gets a colourful facelift, complete with chat themes, custom reactions, a vanish mode to make chats disappear, and a new vibrant logo which it says "reflects a shift to the future of messaging," as it pivots to cross-platform communication with Instagram, Portal devices, and Oculus VR headsets.
• Apple announces new spherical HomePod Mini for US$ 99, and four new iPhones — iPhone 12 (US$ 729, 6.1 inch 60Hz OLED display), iPhone 12 Mini (US$ 829, 5.4 inches), iPhone 12 Pro (US$ 999, 6.1 inches), and iPhone 12 Pro Max (US$ 1099, 6.7 inches) — with 5G support, A14 Bionic processor, "Ceramic Shield" hardened glass, improved cameras, and LiDAR scanner (limited to the Pro models) for AR and low-light photography; drops EarPods and AC power adaptor for a lightning-to-USB-C cable which it says is an attempt to reduce e-waste and officially discontinues iPhone 11 Pro lineup.
• It's worth noting that the accessories will also no longer be shipped with iPhone XR, iPhone 11, and iPhone SE. Apple, however, has lowered the price of its EarPods with a Lightning connector from US$ 29 to US$ 19. Given that the iPhone is also Apple's best chance to turn its services bundle, Apple One, into an Amazon Prime-level smash hit, it will be interesting to see how its Services business fares going forward. Also be prepared for all other companies to follow suite soon by dropping headphones and adaptors.
• African nations Lesotho, Zimbabwe, Uganda, Tanzania, and Burkina Faso begin tightening social media regulations requiring social media users with more than 100 followers to strictly abide by broadcasting rules and those contravening the guidelines to remove such posts or content.

• Popular videoconferencing solution Zoom to begin rolling out end-to-end encryption for video calls; launches Zapps, third-party applications that integrate into the platform's existing workflow, including Atlassian, Salesforce, and Slack, and begins testing a new service called OnZoom that allows Zoom users to host and monetize online events.
• The We Company, which was once known as WeWork, to change its branding back to WeWork, as it attempts to return "the company to WeWork's office-sharing roots."
• Apple TV lands on Android TV-compatible Sony 4K HDR TVs for the first time via a software update, months after Apple made it available on select Samsung, LG, and Vizio TVs, and Amazon's Fire TV streaming devices.
• Google unveils its latest iteration of web analytics platform, dubbed Google Analytics 4, with AI-powered insights, deeper integration with Google Ads, cross-device measurements, and more granular data controls; to discontinue Trusted Contacts app in December (recommends users to set up location sharing via Google Maps instead) and to make Slack competitor Chat (formerly Hangouts chat) available as a free service next year to all users, both as a standalone app and integrated into Gmail, as part of its plans to transition users from Hangouts.
• Snapchat debut new Sounds feature that allows iOS users add song clips from a curated catalog of music to their Snaps and Stories.
• Disney restructures its media and entertainment divisions with a primary focus on its streaming service Disney+ in order to further accelerate its direct-to-consumer strategy in the wake of COVID-19, which has crippled theatrical business and pushed customers more towards streaming options.
• Tencent-owned all-in-one app WeChat begins testing live-streaming on its short video feature Channels with a select group of content creators, as it increasingly competes with popular short video apps Douyin (Chinese version of TikTok) and Kuaishou in the short video and live-streaming e-commerce space.

• Google announces new Google Assistant feature called "hum to search" that lets users users hum or whistle a tune to identify potential song matches; launches a redesigned Nest thermostat for US$ 129, its first update in two years, that's integrated with Google Home and ditches the rotating dial in favour of a touch sensitive strip on the right side that is used to navigate the interface and make adjustments.
• ByteDance-owned TikTok says the software stack comprising TikTok is "entirely separate" from its Chinese equivalent Douyin, with each app's source code and user data are maintained separately, adding obsolete source code with Chinese IP addresses has been eliminated from legacy versions of the TikTok app and that it wouldn't comply with a request for user data from the Chinese government, as it attempts to quell security concerns that the app could be used by China to surveil its users outside the country.
• Handset manufacturer OnePlus removes pre-installed Facebook apps and services (aka bloatware) from the newly-announced OnePlus 8T, months after drawing critcism for the practice in its Nord and OnePlus 8 series phones.
• Twitter to begin warning users with a prompt before they attempt to retweet or quote tweet a post that has been flagged under the platform's misinformation rules.
• Russian search engine Yandex's proposed plans for a US$ 5.48 billion acquisiton of online bank Tinkoff, the world's largest fully online bank with more than 10 million customers across the country, falls through less than four weeks over differences in the deal structure, as Tinkoff reiterates it's not for sale.
• Facebook-owned Instagram to add a prompt asking about compensation, improve detection algorithms, and report poor labeling in an attempt to catch influencers who fail to disclose when they have been paid for their posts.