Tech Roundup: Apple "One more thing" Event, WhatsApp Payments & More

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

• Apple announces "One more thing" event for November 10 to debut Apple Silicon Macs; to begin requiring third-party app developers provide new privacy "nutrition labels" to users in the App Store starting December 8.
• Singapore amends its Personal Data Protection Act (PDPA) to allow local businesses to use consumer data without prior consent for selective purposes, such as business improvement and research; also allow for harsher financial penalties to be meted out for data breaches, above the previous cap of SG$1 million.
• Brave browser hits 20.5 million monthly active users and 8.7 daily active users as of November 2020, as rivals Firefox and Microsoft Edge introduce more privacy-focussed features and slowly chip away Google Chrome's market share; says "users are fed up with surveillance capitalism, [and that] the global privacy movement is gaining traction."
• Offline messaging app Bridgefy adds support for end-to-end encryption, two months after researchers discovered a number of security flaws that could be used to deanonymize users, decrypt and read direct messages, and even shut down the network.
• Google Pay and Walmart's PhonePe lead the mobile payments market in India with 820 million and 835 million recorded UPI transactions respectively, as the UPI digital payment infrastructure surpasses two billion transactions in October. (Paytm records 245 million transactions, while Amazon Pay's is at 125 million); comes as the NPCI, the body that operates the popular UPI payments infrastructure, unveils plans to enforce a cap to ensure that no single payments app processes more than 30% of UPI transactions in a month.
• Facebook's WhatsApp, which began testing its mobile payments service in India with 1 million users in 2018, receives approval from the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) to expand the service, starting with 20 million users; makes it easier for users to free up space taken by the app with new storage management tool (Settings > Storage and data > Manage storage), and rolls out ephemeral messages, photos and videos that are automatically deleted after seven days.

• Google expands RCS support for Messages to more countries, including India, Morocco, Qatar, Sweden, Taiwan, and the UAE; releases new app called Device Lock Controller that would let credit providers "remotely restrict access to your device if you don't make payments," and to add new photo editing features and filters in Google Photos for Google One subscribers.
• Snapchat now lets creators display their subscriber counts, making it the first time the ephemeral messaging service has given users any public-facing metric of their audience or followers.
• Huawei reportedly working on plans for a dedicated chip plant in Shanghai that aims to produce 28nm chips by the end of 2021 and 20nm chips by late 2022 in an attempt to sidestep the U.S. trade ban.
• The U.S. state of California sides with Uber, Lyft, DoorDash on Prop 22 to exempt the companies from requiring them to classify drivers as employees as part of the state labor law known as Assembly Bill 5.
• Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and TikTok are each fined US$ 1.2 million by Turkey for failing to appoint a local representative by November 2 as required by a new law that coerces social media platforms to comply with censorship and surveillance.
• Bitcoin surges past US$ 15,000, hitting its highest level since January 2018, as the cryptocurrency more than doubles in value in 2020; "comes on the back of unprecedented stimulus from global governments and central banks during the coronavirus pandemic, which some industry insiders believe has made the virtual currency more attractive than fiat currencies like the dollar."
• Netflix begins testing Direct, a linear channel with real-time, scheduled programming from its library, which is accessible only via its website, in France.
• Epic Games' Fortnite set to arrive in iOS and iPadOS via Nvidia GeForce cloud gaming service that runs on Safari browser, months after getting banned for introducing a direct payment option that circumvents Apple's developer guidelines. (Apple will not get its typical 30% cut of in-app purchases when apps are distributed via the browser.)
• Samsung launches SmartThings Find app to track down lost phones, tablets, Buds, Watches, and other Galaxy devices.
• Raspberry Pi launches Raspberry Pi 400, a compact keyboard with a built-in ARM-based computer, for US$ 70.
• Music streaming service Spotify begins testing a new service that lets artists and labels promote their tracks in users' recommendations in exchange for a lower royalty rate.