Tech Roundup: Fortnite's Return to iOS, Twitter's Nigeria Return & More

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

• Austria's data protection authority upholds a decision that a local health-focussed website called netdoktor.at violated GDPR laws by exporting its visitors' "personal" data — IP address and identifiers in cookie data — to the U.S. as a result of implementing Google Analytics, raises a big red flag over the use of U.S. cloud services that require transferring E.U. users' personal information to the U.S. for processing.
• Meta faces new class-action lawsuit in the U.K. seeking US$ 3.1 billion in damages to its users in the country for breach of competition law on the basis that it abused its dominance of social networking and exploited user's data between 2015 and 2019 by setting an "unfair price" that saw the social media giant harvesting users' highly valuable personal information to generate billions of dollars in revenues in return for a free service with no financial compensation.
• Nigeria lifts its ban on Twitter after suspending it on June 4 last year as the social media platform agrees to open an office in the West African country; to also "develop a Code of Conduct in line with global best practices, applicable in almost all developed countries."
• Apple says "No changes were made to iCloud Private Relay in iOS 15.2 that would have toggled the feature off," and that no carriers have blocked its users from using it, days after reports emerged that the feature is being deliberately turned off by mobile carriers in the U.S.
• Global PC shipments went up 15% YoY in 2021 to 341 million, the highest annual shipments since 2012, with Lenovo, HP and Dell leading the race, followed by Apple, which had its market share growing by 28.3%, and Acer.
• Nvidia updates its Shield streaming media device with support for Android 11, including the original model from 2015, making it one of the most upgraded Android devices ever released.

• Meta-owned Instagram becomes the top app by downloads for the fourth quarter of 2021, benefiting from ByteDance's TikTok ban in India; TikTok, Facebook, WhatsApp, Telegram, Snapchat, Facebook Messenger, Shopee, Meesho, and Spotify round up the remaining top 10 spots.
• Microsoft hires a law firm to review sexual harassment policies at the company; discontinues sales of Xbox One gaming consoles to focus on the production of Xbox Series X and S.
• Meta to shut down its experimental video speed dating service Sparked on January 20, after launching it last April and testing it in select markets.
• A bipartisan group of lawmakers in the U.S. introduces the TLDR Act, which would require sites and apps to offer easy-to-digest, nutrition label-like summaries of their terms of service.
• Block, the payments company formerly known as Square, announces plans to build an open-source bitcoin mining system to make mining more "distributed and efficient," after the company teased the idea in October 2021.
• Baby Shark becomes the first YouTube video to cross 10 billion views, after becoming the most-viewed YouTube video in November 2020.
• Epic Games' popular battle royale game Fortnite, which found itself banned in the wake of ongoing legal tussle with Apple, returns to iOS, iPadOS, and Android through a closed beta via Nvidia's GeForce Now game streaming service designed to run in mobile browsers.
• PayPal's digital wallet app Venmo introduces a new gift-wrapping feature to give users a new way to gift money to friends and family.
• Twitter rolls out the option for hosts to record Spaces, its social audio feature, that can be made available for public playback for 30 days once the Space has ended.