Tech Roundup: Google Toolbar, Apple iOS 15.2 & More

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

• Meta begins finally running a small test of a "live chat help for some English-speaking users globally, including creators, who've been locked out of their accounts" for unusual activity or for potentially violating the community standards, following years of complaints that there is no mechanism to regain access to the accounts.
• Apple expands its music streaming service, Apple Music, to stream on Google Assistant-enabled devices like the Nest Mini and Nest Audio in five more countries, including Australia, Canada, India, Mexico, and South Korea, a year after launching the feature in the U.S., U.K., France, Germany and Japan.
• Meta-owned WhatsApp to limit users' last seen status to "My Contacts" by default, as Instagram debuts TikTok-like Reels Visual Replies; acquires the worldwide trademark assets of U.S. regional bank Meta Financial Group for US$ 60 million in cash via its affiliate Beige Key, months after the company formerly known as Facebook changed its name to focus on the metaverse.
• Apple releases macOS 12.1 and iOS 15.2 with SharePlay, App Privacy Report, emergency SOS, Apple Music Voice Plan, Legacy Contacts and other improvements; launches Tracker Detect Android app to identify AirTags and other Find My-enabled trackers.
• Microsoft and iFixit partner to let approved independent repairers buy official Microsoft service tools for Surface devices from iFixit.com.

• Poland's Office of Competition and Consumer Protection (UOKiK) opens an investigation into Apple's App Tracking Transparency feature — a prompt developers had to add to their apps with iOS 14.5 to ask iOS users for their permission to track them across apps — for antitrust concerns; says it intends to "examine whether Apple's actions may be aimed at eliminating competitors in the market for personalized advertising services, the objective being to better sell their own service."
• Adobe takes on Canva with Creative Cloud Express, a mobile and web app for creating logos, videos, and social media posts, for free or US$ 9.99/month with advanced templates.
• U.K.'s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) to assess Microsoft's US$ 19.7 billion acquisition of speech-to-text specialisation company Nuance earlier this April to assess whether the merger could "result in a substantial lessening of competition within any market or markets in the United Kingdom for goods or services."
• Google officially kills Google Toolbar add-on for Internet Explorer browser nearly after more than 20 years, the company's oldest product other than the search engine itself; recommends users to try Google Chrome to "get the best of the web."
• Meta tests new AI technology dubbed Few-Shot Learner to flag posts that discourage COVID-19 vaccines or imply violence with only a small amount of training data.