Tech Roundup: Clubhouse "Houses," Twitter Audio Digests & More

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

• Streaming services HBO Max and Discovery+ to combine into one on-demand platform in 2023, as HBO, HBO Max and Discovery+ report a combined total of 92.1 million subscribers.
• Visa and Mastercard end ties with the advertising arm of Pornhub owner MindGeek, days after Visa faces lawsuit alleging it is liable for CSAM distribution.
• Social audio platform Clubhouse starts beta testing private communities called Houses, which can be created by a person or group looking for a more intimate alternative to Clubs.
• Microsoft starts testing an Xbox Game Pass family plan in Colombia and Ireland, letting users add up to four people in the same country to their subscription.
• Meta's WhatsApp pilots new "Past Participants" feature that show a list of "people who left or were removed in the last 60 days" from groups; expands NFT features in Instagram to more than 100 countries across Africa, Asia-Pacific, the Middle East and the Americas
• Google-owned YouTube tests a new "Pinch to Zoom" feature in its mobile app that allows its premium subscribers to zoom in on any video.
• Microsoft faces criticism for blocking users of the end-to-end encrypted email service Tutanota from registering an account with its Teams cloud-based collaboration platform.
• Users spend over 4 hours in mobile apps daily in 13 markets, including the U.S., the U.K., Japan and India, and more than 5 hours in Indonesia, Singapore and Brazil, data released by app intelligence firm data.ai (formerly App Annie) shows; Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, WhatsApp, Snapchat, Telegram, Facebook Messenger, Meesho, CapCut and Spotify emerge as the most downloaded apps for Q2 2022.
• Twitter now lets all businesses display location and contact information on their profiles; reportedly developing an updated version of its audio chat rooms product known as Spaces with thematic audio stations and personalised audio digests.
• Block reports Q2 revenue of US$ 4.4 billion, down 6.6% YoY, US$ 2.62 billion net revenue excluding bitcoin, and Cash App bitcoin revenue of US$ 1.79 billion, down 34% YoY.
• Web infrastructure firm Cloudflare reports Q2 revenue of US$ 234.5 million, up 54% YoY, a and a net loss of US$ 63.5 million.
• Communications software company Twilio reports Q2 revenue of US$ 943.4 million, up 41% YoY, and a US$ 311.9 million loss from operations; says it has over 275,000 active customer accounts.
• Lyft reports Q2 revenue of US$ 990.7 million, up 30% YoY, a US$ 377.2 million net loss, and active riders of 19.9 million, up 16% YoY.
• Delivery service DoorDash reports Q2 revenue of US$ 1.6 billion, up 30% YoY; orders up 23% YoY to 426 million, as gross order value surges 25% YoY to US$ 13.1 billion.
• Atlassian reports Q4 2022 revenue of US$ 760 million, up 36% YoY, and a US$ 105.5 million net loss, down from US$ 213.1 million YoY.
• Chinese tech giant Alibaba reports Q1 2022 revenue of 205.55 billion Chinese yuan and net income of 22.73 billion yuan, marking the first time the company posted flat growth in its history.