Tech Roundup: E.U. Common Charger Directive, YouTube Redesign & More

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

• The E.U. gives final stamp of approval to a new legislation called the common charger directive that will mandate tech companies to switch to USB-C across a wide range of devices such as mobile phones, tablets and headphones in 2024.
• Uber pilots electric cab offering in India in select parts of national capital region (NCR).
• Google gives YouTube a redesign with a dynamic new look that offers a "more modern and immersive viewing experience"; also adds pinch to zoom to easily zoom in and out of a video on Android and iOS and support for precise seeking to get to the exact part of the video by dragging the progress bar by displaying a row of thumbnails in the video player.
• Apple releases iOS 16.1, iPadOS 16, and macOS Ventura with Stage Manager, Weather app, iCloud Shared Photo Library, Live Activities, and support for Passkeys and Clean Energy Charging; announces price hikes for Apple Music, TV+ and Apple One subscriptions, citing increased licensing costs.

• Google brings ability to add custom emoji in Chat; announces plans to drop Chrome web browser support for Windows 7 and 8.1 early next year.
• Apple unveils new App Store guidelines requiring social networking apps that sell "boosts" for posts to use in-app purchases for transactions; prevents apps from using NFTs (non-fungible tokens) to bypass in-app purchase rules.
• Online dating service Bumble open sources Private Detector, an AI tool the company launched in 2019 to detect unsolicited lewd images.
• PayPal adds Apple Passkeys support on iOS, iPadOS, and macOS, with plans to bring the passwordless authentication method to other platforms.
• Microsoft debuts the ARM mini-PC Windows Dev Kit 2023, formerly Project Volterra, with Snapdragon 8cx Gen 3 and 32GB of RAM for US$ 599 in the U.S., U.K., France, Germany, Japan, China, Canada and Australia.