Tech Roundup: Facebook, Messenger Encryption, YouTube Search Upgrades & More

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

• China's antitrust watchdog State Administration for Market Regulation releases draft rules banning unfair competition among internet companies, with the measures aimed at targeting practices such as false advertising, fraudulent online reviews, interoperability issues, data protection, and consumer privacy concerns.
• Reddit launches a Tik-Tok style video feed on its iOS app, primarily pulling content from subreddits users follow, as the social networking platform surpasses US$ 10 billion.
• A preliminary finding by the U.S. International Trade Commission ITC finds that Google infringed on five speaker-technology patents from Sonos following a complaint filed by the latter against the internet company in early 2020; Sonos says the "decision re-affirms the strength and breadth of our portfolio, marking a promising milestone in our long-term pursuit to defend our innovation against misappropriation by Big Tech monopolies," while Google reiterates it doesn't rely on Sonos' technology, and that it "compete[s] on the quality of our products and the merits of our ideas."
• Twitter pauses rolling out access to apply for verification, after it admits that several fake accounts, reportedly part of a botnet, were wrongly verified; tests adding option for users to report misinformation in the U.S., Australia, and South Korea to "help us identify trends so that we can improve the speed and scale of our broader misinformation work."
• Facebook rolls out end-to-end encrypted voice and video calls on Messenger, and says it will begin testing opt-in end-to-end encryption for Instagram direct messages.
• Online dating platform Tinder to bring its optional ID Verification feature, which has been available in Japan since 2019 and lets users verify their identities by uploading a passport or license, to all members globally "in the coming quarters."
• Apple releases new dedicated iCloud Passwords app for Windows as part of iCloud 12.5 update, allowing users to add, manage, and delete their passwords from iCloud Keychain.
• SAP acquires intellectual property of SwoopTalent, an AI-powered human resources platform that automatically connects companies' talent systems and workflows for analytics and machine learning; says it intends to "use SwoopTalent’s technology to strengthen its AI capabilities and provide customers with a holistic and continuously updated view of their people — from skills and capabilities to interests and learning preferences — so they can match employees to internal jobs, projects, learning courses, mentors and more."

• The U.S. Transportation Department to formally probe Tesla's autopilot technology, examining 11 crashes involving the electric car maker's driving assistance features.
• Google and Facebook to participate in a new 12,000-kilometer-long subsea cable system called Apricot linking Japan, Singapore, Taiwan, Guam, the Philippines, and Indonesia, that's set for launch in 2024 as part of infrastructure efforts to improve internet connectivity across the Asia-Pacific region; comes nearly five months after the companies announced two vital new subsea cables — Echo and Bifrost — to connect Singapore, Indonesia, and North America.
• Google unveils low-cost 5G Pixel 5a for US$ 449 with a 6.3-inch dislpay, IP67 water resistance, a dual camera setup with wide and ultra wide lenses, a 4,620mAh battery, 6GB RAM, Qualcomm Snapdragon 765G chip, and support for 5G; to officially drop bundling USB Type-C charging brick in the box from its upcoming phones, following similar moves from Apple and Samsung.
• Salesforce announces deeper integration between its services and Slack, including Sales Cloud and Tableau, following the close of its Slack acquisition.
• Content subscription platform OnlyFans begins promoting OFTV, a free safe-for-work app available on iOS and Android with over 800 videos, including original videos from pilates instructors, chefs and podcasters, as part of its attempts to "shed its reputation as a purveyor of pornography and rebrand itself as a vital tool for all online creators."
• Google's YouTube introduces new search features, counting options to view video chapters directly on the search page and better recommendations for foreign language videos that have captions in the user's local language, alongside complementing search results with links to other sites from Google Search.
• Amazon surpasses Walmart as the world's top retail seller outside China, with people spending over US$ 610 billion on Amazon in the 12 months ending in June.
• ByteDance-owned TikTok partners with Audius, a music streaming service built on Ethereum, to let users upload their music as TikTok Sounds, as China's state-owned firm Internet Investment Chinese (Beijing) Technology takes a minority stake and a board seat in ByteDance's main domestic subsidiary (short video-sharing app Douyin and news aggregator Jinri Toutiao), signalling closer oversight by the government over the country’s most valuable technology unicorn.