Tech Roundup: South Korea App Store Law, LinkedIn Stories Shutdown & More

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

• South Korea becomes the first country in the world to pass landmark legislation that that forces Apple and Google to allow alternative payment systems in their app stores, thereby giving users the flexibility to use a payment provider of their choice and allowing app developers to bypass Apple and Google's 30% commission and accept payment directly from consumers — a move that's likely to pose a significant challenge to the companies' app marketplace business models.
• The development comes amid heightened scrutiny of Apple and Google's gatekeeper practices that enable the tech giants to enforce app store restrictions as ways to control the flow of commerce on mobile platforms.
• The bill's passage is expected to have ripple effects across the world, what with new revelations that Google offered Netflix a special deal where it would take a "significantly reduced revenue share" to keep Netflix actively using the Play Store's billing system rather than switching to alternate payment options within the app.
• Russia-based internet giant Yandex to buy Uber's stakes in their joint food tech, delivery, and self-driving businesses as part of a US$ 1 billion deal.
• Square's TBD subsidiary announces plans to build a Bitcoin-centric decentralised exchange for digital assets.
• Apple acquires Primephonic, a service that specialises in streaming the classical genre, with plans to incorporate the app's functionality and playlists into Apple Music, alongside releasing a standalone Apple Music classical app in 2022.

• Messaging app Telegram surpasses 1 billion global downloads, with nearly 214.7 million installs in the first half of 2021, up 61% YoY, and 22% of total global downloads coming from India.
• Facebook expands its ongoing experiment in downranking political content in users' News Feed to Costa Rica, Sweden, Spain and Ireland after "positive results" in Canada, Brazil and Indonesia; Instagram to now require all users to share their date of birth to "create safer, more private experiences for young people."
• TikTok's parent company ByteDance takes on Facebook as it acquires virtual reality headset maker Pico, after taking over the mantle of most-downloaded social media app in the world with its short-form social video app.
• China institutes new restriction on video games that will allow minors (under 18) to play video games for only three hours a week (one hour each on Fridays, weekends, and on official holidays) from 8 p.m. to 9 p.m. in an attempt to curb the problem of rising gaming addiction in the country. (It's worth noting that under 2019 rules, people under 18 were allowed to play games for 1.5 hours a day on most days.)
• Microsoft to officially release Windows 11 on October 5 (but without support for running Android apps); LinkedIn becomes the latest social media platform after Twitter to scrap its Stories feature, a little over a year after the company debuted the ephemeral messaging format in February 2020.
• Retail and entertainment giant Amazon is reportedly developing a live audio feature, led by its Music division, with a focus on live music and potentially radio and podcasts.
• Music streaming service Spotify officially launches Blend, allowing friends to match their musical tastes and make playlists together.