Tech Roundup: Square Becomes Block, Twitter Private Media Policy & More

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

• 2.9 billion people, or 37% of the world's population, have still never used the internet, while internet users rose from 4.1 billion in 2019 to 4.9 billion in 2021, a new report conducted by the U.N.'s International Telecommunication Union reveals.
• Twitter announces plans to ban sharing private images and videos without consent, with exceptions for newsworthiness and public figures; to also remove content that users report.
• Live streaming platform Twitch launches Suspicious User Detection, a tool for streamers and moderators that uses machine learning to detect users attempting to evade bans; rolls out support for SharePlay on iPhone and iPad, allowing up to 32 participants to watch and move between streams together.
• Google to expand permissions auto-reset feature to more devices with Google Play services that run Android 6.0 or higher; launches new widgets for Google Photos, Google Play Books, and YouTube Music and rolls out new update that allows Android phones to be used as a car key to lock, unlock and even start "compatible BMW vehicles" in select countries.
• Amazon unveils AWS Private 5G, a service providing hardware, software, and SIMs for deploying private mobile networks, without upfront or per-device charges; announces SageMaker Studio Lab, a free, no-configuration service that allows developers, academics, and data scientists to learn and experiment with machine learning.
• Microsoft faces flak for baking a "buy now, pay later" app called Zip directly into Edge browser by default, with users calling it a bloatware that's "unnecessary for a browsing experience"; begins displaying new prompts on Windows 10 and Windows 11 gear that urges users to keep using Edge browser when navigating to Google Chrome download page in an attempt to dissuade from downloading and installing the rival browser.

• Financial services company Square, which also owns TBD, Cash App and music streaming service Tidal, to change its name to Block effective December 10, days after its CEO Jack Dorsey resigned as the chief executive of Twitter.
• ByteDance-owned TikTok rolls out additional tools for creators to accept payments and video gifts alongside a new Creator Next hub that organises all of the platform's monetisation opportunities in one place, as it aims to retain creators and prevent them from hopping on other networks that pay creators, like Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, and Snapchat.
• Microsoft announces Teams Essentials, a standalone version of Teams communications app for small and medium-sized businesses with a simplified UI, focus on meetings, and no Office apps for US$ 4 per user/month.
• Reddit announces new real-time features, including live upvote, downvote, comment, and viewer counts, a typing indicator, and notifications for top-level comments.
• Ride-hailing company Uber adds ride booking via WhatsApp in India in the northern city of Lucknow, with plans to expanding to more locations in the near future.
• Microsoft's LinkedIn adds support for Hindi, bringing its language options total to 25, as it caters to India, its second largest market with 82 million members; begins widely rolling out new Office UI to all Office 365 and Office 2021 users.
• Secure messaging service and non-profit company Signal launches new feature that allows users to make donations from within the app.

• NVIDIA's plan to acquire ARM hits a major stumbling block after the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) sues to block the merger over concerns the US$ 40 billion deal would "stifle innovative next-generation technologies, including those used to run datacenters and driver-assistance systems in cars."
• Google removes The Pirate Bay and more than 100 related domains from its search results in the Netherlands following a local pirate site-blocking order forwarded by anti-piracy group BREIN; company's Pixel hardware group said to be working on its first smartwatch, internally codenamed "Rohan", which it plans to launch next year.
• Apple says it "could charge a commission" if third-party developers use a competing payments platform, following a similar policy Google instituted in South Korea after the government ordered app store owners to open their marketplaces to alternate payment methods.
• Meta (formerly Facebook) partners with U.K. non-profit Revenge Porn Helpline to launch a tool called StopNCII.org that allows people to create unique identifiers — known as hashes — of sexually explicit or nude photos and submit those hashes to a database, which can then be used by social media platforms to detect whether such photos have been posted or shared.
• Five major education publishers — Pearson Education, Inc., Macmillan Learning, Cengage Learning, Inc., Elsevier Inc., and McGraw Hill — sue Shopify for over US$ 500 million over failing to remove pirated textbooks and other content that violate their trademarks and copyrights, and that the e-commerce company "assists and profits from the online sale of infringing copies."