Tech Roundup: Google Dunant Cable, Myanmar Facebook Ban & More

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

• Myanmar's new military government orders local telecoms to temporarily block Facebook and its family of apps within the country until February 7, days after the military seized power in the Southeast Asian nation in a military coup.
• The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission reportedly looking into whether misinformation posted on social media was used to boost the stocks of companies like GameStop and AMC, as the social media-driven trading cools off (GameStop is down from its previous week's high of US$ 483 to US$ 90) and the government mulls tougher regulation for hedge funds, small investors, and stockbrokers.
• Facebook-owned Instagram confirms it's working on an early prototype of a "Vertical Stories" feed, which are presented in a TikTok-like scrolling fashion instead of having to browse through Stories through taps and horizontal swipes.
• Web browsers such as Brave and DuckDuckGo begin sending a new signal dubbed Global Privacy Control (GPC) that aims to replace the "Do Not Track" setting and better communicate users' privacy preferences with the goal of opting out of websites selling or sharing personal information.
• Adult entertainment website Pornhub announces new measures to address abuse on its platform; to expand human moderation, verify uploaders via "biometric" technoogy from Yoti by letting users provide a current photo and government-approved identification document following reports that it hosted child sexual abuse material, leading to Pornhub banning all non-verified users from posting to the site, and deleting all content uploaded from unverified sources.
• Google's second fully privately owned 3,977-mile "Dunant" transatlantic subsea cable between the U.S. and France goes operational, with capabilities to offer speeds of 250 terabits/second.
• Cloud storage service provider Box acquires Dutch cloud-based e-signature startup SignRequest for US$ 55 million; announces plans to launch Box Sign in summer 2021.
• Music streaming service Spotify surpasses 155 million paying subscribers, with ad-supported monthly active users rising 30% to 199 million, and a total of 345 million monthly active users, up 27% YoY.

• ByteDance TikTok to agrees to re-verify the age of every user in Italy and block access to users younger than 13 following an emergency order from the country's data protection agency in the aftermath of the death of a 10-year-old girl from Palermo who died of asphyxiation after participating in a "blackout challenge" on the video-sharing social network; to prompt users to seek credible information about a topic upon attempting to share videos flagged as misleading as well as disincentivise creators from uploading unsubstantiated content by making it harder for such videos to appear in users' main "For You" feed and go viral.
• Apple is rumoured to be planning to invest 4 trillion won (US$ 3.6 billion) in Kia Motors as part of a planned manufacturing partnership between the two companies, weeks after similar reports of a deal between Apple and Hyundai to develop its Apple Car, which is expected to be a autonomous, electric vehicle designed to operate without a driver.
• Popular video conferencing service Zoom announces software-hardware integrations for its Zoom Rooms, including dashboard viewing of real-time people count data and a contactless virtual receptionist mode to help facilitate enterprises' transition to hybrid work.
• Amazon begins deploying always-on AI-powered Netradyne cameras in vehicles at a handful of contracted delivery partners across the U.S.; the cameras, which record drivers 100% of the time while they're on their route and flag a series of safety infractions such as failure to stop at a stop sign, speeding and distracted driving, aim to improve safety in its delivery network.
• Canada's privacy authority rules Clearview AI's use of biometric information to create a searchable databases of facial images by scraping three billion photos from social media networks and other public websites is mass surveillance, calling it illegal and unacceptable; asks the company to delete its citizens' data.
• Microsoft says it backs Australian government's proposed new laws that would force internet giants Google and Facebook to pay domestic media outlets for their content; says the "code reasonably attempts to address the bargaining power imbalance between digital platforms and Australian news businesses."
• Sony ships 4.5 million PlayStation 5 units worldwide in 2020, with demand for the PlayStation 4 dropping dramatically year-on-year, with 1.4 million units shipped in the October-December quarter — a 77% decrease from the previous year.