Tech Roundup: Amazon Freevee, Reddit Comments Search & More

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

• ByteDance's TikTok comes under investigation by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security over its handling of child sexual abuse material, as the burgeoning short-form video app struggles to moderate a flood of new content; launches its own AR development platform, Effect House, that allows creators to build AR effects for use in the platform, and tests new feature that allows users to privately dislike comments deemed irrelevant or inappropriate.
• Snapchat launches a Dynamic Stories feature that lets over 40 media outlets automatically share news articles as Stories on the Discover platform through their existing RSS feeds.
• Josh, Indian rival to TikTok, surpasses 150 million monthly active users, fueled by the ban of ByteDance-owned social video platform in the country.
• India's payments body, the National Payments Corporation of India (NCPI), approves WhatsApp's plan to extend its payments service to 60 million additional users in India, allowing WhatsApp Pay to reach up to 100 million in total.
• Google launches new "Switch to Android" app on the iOS App Store that allows users to make the transition between mobile platforms and import their contacts, calendar, photos, and videos to their new Android phones.
• Retail giant Amazon rebrands IMDb TV (previously IMDb Freedive) to Amazon Freevee as part of its attempts to position it as an advertising-based video on demand service; announces two mobile games for its Amazon Kids+ service, the first games published by Amazon Mobile since May 2015
• Meta to reportedly release its first-generation phone-free Nazare AR glasses, and a cheaper pair codenamed Hypernova in 2024, with versions 2 and 3 to be followed in 2026 and 2028.
• Google's YouTube Shorts lets creators splice in 1- to 5-second clips from eligible long-form videos and Shorts; expands Google Lens features in desktop version of Chrome browser with capabilities to copy text, translate, and open Images Search.
• Reddit updates its search feature to index comments, available globally on the web (but not in its apps), and show more relevant, newer, or trending results.
• Opera launches its Crypto Browser for iOS, featuring a built-in crypto wallet supporting Ethereum, Polygon, and Celo, crypto exchange access, and support for decentralised apps (dApps).
• Search engine DuckDuckGo completely removes search results for YouTube-dl and many popular pirate sites including The Pirate Bay, 1337x.to, 123moviesfree.net and Fmovies.
• Apple updates iMovie for iOS and iPadOS with Magic Movie, for automatic movie creation from clips and photos.
• TikTok's ad revenue is projected to triple in 2022 to more than US$ 11 billion, surpassing Twitter and Snapchat combined, which are expected to make US$ 5.58 billion and US$ 4.86 billion.
• Audio streaming service TuneIn brings its Premium subscription service to all Amazon Alexa-enabled devices, allowing users to access live sports, commercial-free news and commercial-free music.
• Online dating platform Tinder launches a new feature called Festival Mode designed to help users connect ahead of their plans to attend concerts or larger music festivals.
• Movie and TV streaming service Plex pulls support for podcasts and web shows from the platform to spend "our time and energy in ways that best serve our awesome user community."