Tech Roundup: BlackBerry OS End-of-Life, DuckDuckGo Growth & More

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

• The South Korean government orders Apple and Google to stop accepting play-to-earn (P2E) games, which has become popular in the cryptocurrency industry and require in-app purchases before playing, and remove existing ones from app stores.
• Meta acquires synthetic data startup AI.Reverie, consolidating it into Reality Labs and terminating its U.S. Air Force contract worth up to US$ 950 million; Instagram to "double down" on video, consolidate its video products around Reels, and focus on creators, transparency, and messaging in 2022.
• Privacy-focused search engine DuckDuckGo sees record growth in 2021; serves 34.8 billion queries in the year, up 47% from the previous year.
• Canadian company BlackBerry to officially stop supporting BlackBerry OS and BlackBerry PlayBook OS effective January 4, 2022; to lose legacy key services like calling, texting, data usage, and 911 access for BlackBerry 7.1 OS and earlier, BlackBerry 10 software, BlackBerry PlayBook OS 2.1 and earlier versions.
• Apple puts Foxconn's southern India factory located in Sriperumbudur, which assembled iPhone 12 models, on probation after worker protests shut it down and an investigation revealed substandard living conditions, raising concerns about food safety and accommodation conditions.

• Freelance marketplace Fiverr begins rolling out out an interactive Pinterest-like personalised discovery feature called Inspire aimed at enabling users to engage with a constantly updated feed of visual content, and help users uncover freelancers on the marketplace.
• Amazon gets ranked #4 in global shopping app installs in 2021, down from the first in 2020, according to Apptopia, as e-commerce apps Shopee and Shein take up the top slots respectively.
• Indian antitrust watchdog, the Competition Commission of India, orders an investigation into Apple's practice of mandating use of its proprietary payments system for iPhone apps in the App Store; says the mandatory use of Apple's in-app payments system for paid apps and in-app purchases "restrict[s] the choice available to the app developers to select a payment processing system of their choice especially considering when it charges a commission of up to 30% for app purchases and in-app purchases," as the tech giant deems itself too small of a player in the country.
• Roskomnadzor, Russia's media regulator, adds Netflix to its "audio-visual services" register, requiring it to offer 20 major Russian federal TV channels starting in March 2022.
• Videoconferencing service Zoom purchases broadcast tools and other assets from Liminal, an event production startup, as part of the company's strategy to expand into the event space.