Tech Roundup: Instagram Video Push, Uber Comfort Electric & More

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

• Meta defends its increasing emphasis on video content in Instagram, stating "more and more of Instagram is going to become video over time," after it faces criticism for trying to ape TikTok (after its previous attempts to copy Snapchat and Clubhouse).
• Google is offering advanced artificial intelligence and machine-learning capabilities to the Israeli government through its controversial "Project Nimbus" contract, raising concerns that the "efforts would inadvertently bolster the ongoing Israeli military occupation of Palestine."
• Google Search beats estimates with Q2 2022 revenue of US$ 40.69 billion, an increase of nearly 14% YoY driven by travel and retail advertisers, as overall revenue hits US$ 69.69 billion (of which YouTube accounts for US$ 7.34 billion and Google Cloud, US$ 6.28 billions), marking its slowest sales growth since Q2 2020, with net income of US$ 16 billion (down from US$ 18.53 billion YoY).
• Microsoft's Q4 2021 Surface revenue increases 10% YoY, driven by commercial PC sales, as Windows OEM revenue declines 2% YoY due to PC production shutdowns in China; reports Q4 revenue of US$ 51.87 billion and net income of US$ 16.7 billion, as gaming revenue drops $259 million or 7% YoY, impacted by an 11% YoY revenue decrease for Xbox hardware and a 6% YoY decrease for Xbox content and services.
• Facebook parent Meta raises the price of its Quest 2 virtual reality headset by US$ 100 to US$ 399 (for the 128GB model) and US$ 499 (for the 256GB model) effective August 1 "in order to continue investing in moving the VR industry forward for the long term." (It's worth noting that Meta’s Quest 2 captured 78% share of the combined AR/VR market during 2021.)
• Uber expands its premium electric car service, Comfort Electric, to more cities in the U.S., including Las Vegas, Seattle, Portland, Denver, Austin, Philadelphia and Baltimore, after launching the service in Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Diego and Dubai in May 2022.
• Apple adds support for two-factor authentication codes in its iCloud Keychain password manager in Apple's iCloud for Windows app.
• New report from BuzzFeed News alleges that China's ByteDance placed pieces of pro-China content in its now-defunct U.S. news app, TopBuzz, and censored negative stories about the Chinese government, citing former employees; company says the claim is "false and ridiculous."
• Google, like Amazon, allows law enforcement to access data from its Nest products — or theoretically any other data stored with Google — without a warrant in scenarios such as bomb threats, school shootings, kidnappings, suicide prevention and missing persons cases. (Apple and Anker's Eufy, on the other hand, enforce end-to-end encryption by default, leaving no option to access users' video feeds.)