Tech Roundup: DuckDuckGo Web Browser, Oracle's Cerner Purchase & More

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

• Popular social video platform TikTok dethrones Google to become the most visited domain in 2021, according to web infrastructure company Cloudflare, followed by Facebook, Microsoft, Apple, Amazon, Netflix, YouTube, Twitter, and WhatsApp.
• Swiss company Mitto, which offers text message services to companies in over 100 countries, is alleged have helped governments by "selling access to Mitto's networks to secretly locate people via their mobile phones" by exploiting weaknesses in a telecom protocol known as SS7, or Signaling System No. 7 that made it "possible for an adversary to determine the physical location of mobile devices and intercept or redirect text messages and voice conversations"; Mitto says it's conducting an internal review "to determine if our technology and business has been compromised," as Swiss data protection regulator opens a probe focusing on the company's business practices.
• Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei is reportedly playing a larger role in China's surveillance efforts than was previously known, according to over 100 "confidential" PowerPoint presentations obtained by The Washington Post, which details how the government could use its technologies to identify voices, track people for political purposes and monitor the movements of inmates within prisons, among other surveillance tactics; company says it "has no knowledge of the projects" and that it "provides cloud platform services that comply with common industry standards."
• ByteDance-owned TikTok faces allegations that it copied code from broadcast app OBS Studio and other open-source projects for Live Studio without adhering to licensing terms.

• Google announces plans to end support for OnHub, a $200 router and smart home hub the company launched in 2015, in December 2022, offering owners 40% off the latest Nest Wifi router; says the "number of users engaging with Android apps" on Chrome OS is up 50% YoY, as the operating system grows more than 92% YoY, 5X faster than the PC market.
• Enterprise software giant Oracle to acquire electronic medical records company Cerner for in an all-cash deal valued at US$ 28.3 billion, in what is its biggest purchase so far and amid a surge in global mergers and acquisition activity.
• Meta Platforms acquires ImagineOptix, a U.S.-based startup specialising in liquid-crystal lenses, which could be used in place of thicker lenses made of glass or plastic, effectively reducing the size of VR headsets and allowing for optical elements that can electronically change focus.
• The European Commission approves Microsoft's US$ 19.7 billion bid to buy speech technology giant Nuance; says proposed acquisition "would raise no competition concerns" within the European Union.
• DuckDuckGo, the company best known for its privacy-focused search engine of the same name, teases a web browser for desktop that it says will "redefine user expectations of everyday online privacy."
• Content recommendation company Taboola partners with Microsoft to launch a real-time service by the end of Q1 2022 that lets advertisers bid for ad inventory across the open web.