Tech Roundup: ChatGPT Traffic Drop, Threads' Explosive Growth & More

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

• Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, ByteDance, Meta, Microsoft and Samsung acknowledge they meet the criteria to be classified as "gatekeepers" under the new E.U. Digital Markets Act (DMA), which prohibits gatekeepers from favouring their own services over their rivals' and from locking users into their ecosystem as well as allow third parties to interoperate with their own services; the European Commission says the companies "have a market size that impacts the internal market." (Will this force Apple to ditch SMS and embrace RCS?)
• Twitter launches a new version of TweetDeck that it says will be only available for verified users starting next month.
• Meta's new social network Threads cross 90 million sign-ups within days of its launch on July 5, 2023, significantly beating out Bluesky, which is still invite-only and has 50,000 users, and overtaking OpenAI's ChatGPT as the fastest growing consumer app (For comparison, ChatGPT reached 100 million users in two months); comes as Twitter threatens to sue Meta over Threads, saying the company "engaged in systematic, willful, and unlawful misappropriation of Twitter's trade secrets and other intellectual property."
• A majority of the downloads on day one came from India (22%), Brazil (16%), and the U.S. (14%), according to data from Sensor Tower.
• With Meta actively distancing itself from news the past few years, Threads is not expected not "encourage" politics and "hard news," with the company stating that the goal isn't to replace Twitter but "create a public square for communities" on Instagram. It, however, could run into moderation issues should its plans to integrate with ActivityPub, an open, decentralised social networking protocol go through.
  
• It's worth noting here that a Threads profile cannot be deleted without deleting the associated Instagram profile, since it's linked to the latter. As a result, it's recommended that users create a separate Instagram account for Threads unless they have a significant following.
• Threads is also not available in the E.U. due to stringent privacy regulations in the region, but it is climbing up in popularity in China, despite being banned. That said, it hasn't stopped users from finding ways to download the app in the region by directly installing the Android APK files or switching to the U.S. version of the Apple App Store.
• France passes new bill that allows law enforcement to remotely access suspects' cameras, microphones and GPS on cell phones and other devices to investigate serious crimes.
• Meta-owned WhatApp pilots chat filters (All, Unread, Personal and Business) to quickly locate conversations; Facebook tests new option that prevents users from seeing posts and status updates on the platform unless ad blockers are disabled.
• Google updates its privacy policy to say the company may use "publicly available information" to train its AI models and build products like Translate and Bard. (The development comes as companies like Twitter and Reddit have taken drastic measures to try and prevent other companies from freely harvesting their data. The matter of whether or not the use publicly available data to train AI currently sits in a legal gray area, sparking a number of lawsuits against companies like OpenAI for making use of the data without their consent.)
• Music streaming service Tidal to increase its HiFi tier by US$ 1 to US$ 11/month and its family tier by US$ 2 to $17/month in the U.S. starting on August 1, 2023.
• Jio Platforms unveils Bharat, a ~US$ 12 4G phone in India, with support for mobile payments using UPI and access to its video and music streaming services, JioCinema and JioSaavn.
• OpenAI temporarily disables "Browser" feature in ChatGPT after it was found that it could be used to bypass website paywalls (the chatbot has been only trained on data up to September 2021); comes traffic to the service drops for the first time by 9.7% in June 2023, eight months after its launch, with the number of unique visitors declining by 5.7% and app downloads for ChatGPT and Microsoft Bing slowing in recent weeks. (The fact that Google launched Bard and that pretty much every online user has a Google account might make it easier to utilize Bard than ChatGPT. What's more, the guardrails incorporated by OpenAI and Google have also prompted some users to seek uncensored chatbots.)
• Spotify discontinues option that lets premium subscribers pay via the Apple App Store for in-app purchases and billing.
• Gfycat, a Snap-owned GIF-hosting platform, announces plans to shut down on September 1, 2023.
• The modular Fairphone 4 arrives in the U.S. in partnershop with Murena, the primary developer behind the /e/ Android fork that runs a deGoogled version of the mobile operating system.
• Meta faces fresh regulatory setback after the European Court of Justice (CJEU) finds that the company's practice of collecting user data for behavioural advertising (including off Facebook from its sister apps WhatsApp and Instagram and other third-parties) without their consent is an abuse of market power.
• Decentralised social network Bluesky launches a paid domain service in partnership with Namecheap as a way for users to verify their identity and set a custom domain as their handle; tops a million downloads across iOS and Android, with an estimated 300,000 new Bluesky installs were registered since June 30.
• Cloud hosting business DigitalOcean acquires Paperspace, a New York-based cloud computing and AI development startup, for US$ 111 million in cash.
• The European Commission opens a full-scale investigation into Amazon's US$ 1.7 billion iRobot acquisition, setting a November 15, 2023, deadline to clear or block the deal.
• Apple updates its Shazam music recognition app to allow it to recognise and identify songs that are playing in third-party apps like TikTok, Instagram and YouTube; removes several predatory lending apps from the App Store in India, including Pocket Kash, White Kash, Golden Kash and OK Rupee.
• Google tests a new Now Playing redesign for YouTube Music that includes a comments section.
• Media player software Winamp returns to Android and iOS with a new Fanzone feature that allows indie artists to interact and sell merchandise directly to their fans and also house their library of songs to stream.