Tech Roundup: Apple Find My network, NOYB's Google Complaint & More

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

• The U.K. launches Digital Markets Unit, a regulatory watchdog under the Competition and Markets Authority, tasked with policing allegations of anticompetitive behavior in tech sector, as governments around the world continue to heavily scrutinise how tech giants use their market heft.
• Privacy-oriented message app Signal begins testing payments in the U.K., allowing users to link a MobileCoin cryptocurrency wallet and transfer funds.
• Apple sets out new ways advertisers can measure the effectiveness of their ads in a privacy preserving manner ahead of upcoming App Tracking Transparency changes; says marketers can use its advertising products — SKAdNetwork, which tracks app installs after ads for it are viewed, and Private Click Measurement, which allows advertisers to measure the impact of ads that lead users to a website while minimising data collection using on-device processing.
• Austrian non-profit NOYB ("None of your business") lodges fresh complaint with the French privacy watchdog CNIL, alleging that the Android Advertising Identifier (AAID) that's used by developers and advertisers so they can track users' activity and target them with personalised ads violates the E.U.'s ePrivacy Directive; calls AAID a "digital license plate" that needs to be authorised by the user through prior consent.
• Apple launches an app for enterprises called Find My Certification Asst. to test devices that work with Apple's Find My network, ahead of its expected launch of its own new AirTags accessory; debuts a new Find My network accessory program, which lets third-party accessories integrate with the ‌Find My‌ app by taking advantage of the U1 Ultra Wideband chip built into the iPhone 11 and iPhone 12 models.

• Google open-sources Lyra in beta, an audio codec that uses machine learning to produce high-quality voice calls for low-bandwidth networks or archiving large amounts of speech.
• ByteDance TikTok to allow creators to add automatic captions to videos in US English and Japanese with support for other languages "in the coming months."
• Facebook's acquisition of customer service startup Kustomer may be subjected to European Union antitrust scrutiny after Austria's competition agency requests the European Commission to take over the task; comes as the E.U. steps up its probe into big tech's acquisitions of nascent rivals with the goal of shutting them down and eliminating competition.
• Twitter reportedly discussed buying social audio app Clubhouse for US$ 4 billion; comes after reports that the red-hot app is in talks to raise funding from investors in a round valuing the business at about US$ 4 billion.
• Facebook-owned WhatsApp is reportedly working on natively transferring chat history between Android and iOS; Facebook's experimental NPE team launches a public beta for Hotline, a web-based app letting creators stream live video or audio-only Q&As.
• Ride hailing giant Uber announces US$ 250 million stimulus to bring back existing drivers and "ensure first-time drivers do well as they learn the ropes."