Tech Roundup: Android 13 Public Beta, Meta Physical Retail Store & More

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

• A leaked document written by privacy engineers from Facebook's Ad and Business Product team shows that Meta has an inadequate level of "control and explainability over how our systems use data."
• Google officially debuts iOS-like privacy "nutrition labels" for Play Store apps, requiring third-party developers to disclose security practices and the data their apps collect by July 20, 2022.
• Apple faces fresh scrutiny after Japanese government proposes the introduction of new competition rules that allow users to install apps from third-party app stores.
• Twitter to ban ads that promote climate change denial and contradict "scientific consensus"; pilots a CC button for captions on videos and is said to be working on a feature codenamed "Vibe" that would let users set a status on a per-tweet basis or on a profile level.
• Meta's Instagram tests Templates, a new editing feature that allows Reels creators to use the same format as other videos; pilots pinned grid posts at the top of users' profiles, up to a maximum of three, similar to pinned tweets and videos on Twitter and TikTok.
• Online payments firm Stripe lets companies pay users in cryptocurrencies via USDC, starting with Twitter, which starts paying creators in digital currencies for Ticketed Spaces and Super Follows.
• Reliance Industries calls off its $3.4B acquisition of core parts of Indian retail chain Future Group, following Amazon's legal fight against the deal; comes as Amazon acquires women-focussed Indian social commerce startup Glowroad in an all-cash deal.
• Apple warns it will remove apps from the App Store that haven't been "updated in a significant amount of time"; gives developers 30 days to update.
• Meta to open its first physical retail store next month in the U.S., in a sign of the increasing importance of its hardware business as the company pivots to the metaverse.
• Chinese drone maker DJI to temporarily suspend business in Russia and Ukraine to ensure its products are not used in ongoing combat.
• Google releases first public beta of Android 13 with support for Bluetooth Low Energy (LE) Audio, a new photo picker, app icon theming options, and new granular permissions for accessing images, video or audio files in place of asking for blanket permissions to access all files.
• Worldwide App Store downloads grows 1.2% to hit 8.5 billion in the first quarter of 2022, with Google Play downloads touching 28.3 billion, according to data shared by Sensor Tower; TikTok becomes the most downloaded app globally, passing 3.5B all-time downloads, followed by Instagram, Facebook, WhatsApp and Telegram.
• Google (aka Alphabet) reports weaker-than-expected earnings and revenue for Q1 2022, with total revenues of US$ 68.01 billion and net income of US$ 16.44 billion; traffic acquisition costs jump 23% to US$ 11.99 billion, ad revenue from YouTube falls to US$ 6.87 billion, as Google Cloud brings in US$ 5.82 billion.
• Microsoft's cloud revenue jumps 32% YoY to US$ 23.4 billion, with total revenue of US$ 49.4 billion and net income of US$ 16.7 billion.
• Robinhood plans to let go of about 9% of its full-time employees; says it's cutting down on duplicate roles and job functions as a way to mitigate "more layers and complexity than are optimal."
• Twitter reportedly locked down product updates to limit unauthorized changes by disgruntled employees in the wake of Elon Musk's US$ 44 billion bid to acquire the company.