Tech Roundup: Apple HomePod Cancellation, Google Privacy Lawsuit & More

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

• The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) extends probe into tech giants with a new focus on "choice and competition in internet search and web browsers"; seeks to assess impact of "pre-installation and default settings on consumer choice and competition particularly in relation to online search and browsers," and the "extent to which existing consumer harm can arise from the design of default arrangements," arguing that "setting a product as a default option substantially increases the likelihood that a customer will choose it," such as the case of Google, which is estimated to pay north of US$ 12 billion every year to Apple to enable Google Search as the default search engine on Apple Safari.
• Australia, India, Japan, and the U.S. form the Critical and Emerging Technology Working Group with an aim to "respond to the economic and health impacts of COVID-19, combat climate change, and address shared challenges, including in cyber space, critical technologies, counterterrorism, quality infrastructure investment, and humanitarian-assistance and disaster-relief as well as maritime domains."
• Facebook launches new initiative called "Learning from Videos" to train its AI on Facebook users' public videos to "automatically learn audio, textual, and visual representations from the data."

• Google begins rolling out new feature in Google Messages app that automatically deletes one-time passcodes sent as SMS'es after 24 hours; releases Chrome 89 with several under-the-hood efficiency improvements aimed at reducing memory usage, and increasing browser responsiveness, and announces new plans to permit third-party developers to create custom Tiles for Wear OS.
• Apple officially discontinues its original HomePod after four years; to continue to produce and focus on the HomePod mini, introduced last year.
• Microsoft to adjust its release cycle for Edge browser to match the four-week release cadence of Chrome, starting with Edge 94, which is set for release in September.
• A federal judge in the U.S. state of California rules Google must face a US$ 5 billion class action suit alleging that it collects browsing history and other data even if users browse in "Incognito" mode to keep their search activity private; states that the company "did not notify users that Google engages in the alleged data collection while the user is in private browsing mode."
• Popular drop-in audio chat platform Clubhouse updates its app by removing access to users' phone contacts, allowing individuals to invite new people to the platform directly by using the person's phone number; says users can reach out to the company to delete previously-uploaded contacts, with plans to release a tool to let users delete contacts from the service.