Tech Roundup: Meta Llama 2, Telegram Stories & More

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

• The European Council officially adopts new regulation that requires portable batteries incorporated into appliances be removable and replaceable by the end user by 2027.
• The U.S. government secures voluntary commitments from AI companies, including Amazon, Anthropic, Google, Inflection, Meta, Microsoft and OpenAI, to implement measures such as watermarking AI-generated content, internal and external security testing of their systems, broader sharing of best practices, to ensure the "safe, secure and transparent development of AI technology" and address growing concerns and societal effects about the potential for AI to be used for disruptive purposes.
• Australia considers new regulation that would allow app developers to charge for in-app purchases without paying a cut to app stores run by Apple and Google; comes as Apple is granted a motion the U.S. to put on hold App Store changes for 90 days that would enable app developers to offer their own links or buttons to non-Apple payment systems, circumventing its 15%-30% commissions on in-app purchases and subscriptions.
• Meta rebrands Facebook's Watch tab as Video to now include all visual content like Reels, long-form content and live videos; and adds support for editing features.
• Microsoft plans to discontinue Games with Gold on September 1, 2023, and replace Xbox Live Gold with Xbox Game Pass Core, which includes over 25 games, on September 14.
• Norwegian Data Protection Authority (DPA) orders Meta to temporarily halt its practice of behavioral advertising (those based on tracking and profiling users) on Facebook and Instagram starting August 4, 2023, for a period of three months for failing to seek users' consent; to face daily fines of 1 million Norwegian Krone (€89,500) if it doesn't comply with the order.
• OpenAI hasn't made widely available a multimodal feature in ChatGPT that allows it analyze image inputs, potentially sparking concerns like facial recognition abuse and bypassing CAPTCHA barriers, according to The News York Times; says "OpenAI worried that the tool would say things it shouldn't about people's faces, such as assessing their gender or emotional state."
• Sony agrees to a 10-year deal for Call of Duty with Microsoft to keep the franchise on PlayStation after the proposed Activision Blizzard acquisition, ending a protracted battle between the two companies.
• Google releases Nearby Share for Windows, allowing users to sync files between PCs and Android devices closes to each other; discontinues certain features in Album Archive on July 19, 2023, deleting all content such as thumbnail photos, Hangouts data and background images uploaded in the Gmail theme picker prior to 2018.
• Wix announces a new generative AI tool to help enterprises create, edit and manage websites using natural language prompts.
• Twitter is working on a new feature called Articles (previously Notes) that allows users to publish articles on the platform with mixed media, as Meta's Threads releases a major update that adds translation features and a Follows tab that lists the accounts users are following; takes on LinkedIn by allowing select verified organisations post job listings directly on their profiles through a job listings feature and imposes daily limits on the number of direct messages unverified users can send in an attempt to tackle spam. (Meta has since said it's following Twitter's footsteps by enforcing rate limits to tackle spam attacks on Threads. The platform is also said to use a largely replicated Instagram algorithm, prioritising creators' and friends' posts over hard news. While it remains to be seen if Threads can supplant Twitter, its daily active users have dropped from 49 million to 23.6 million.)
• Microsoft updates its AI chatbot with support for visual search, brings AI-powered Copilot to Teams, and debuts Bing Chat Enterprise with improved privacy controls and Vector Search in Azure, which uses machine learning to capture the context of unstructured data like images and text; to charge businesses US$ 30 per user per month to incorporate its Copilot features into Microsoft 365 E3, E5, Business Standard, and Business Premium tiers.
• Logitech acquires Helsinki-based Loupedeck, which makes editing consoles and software for streamers and creative professionals, for an undisclosed sum.
• Spain's antitrust watchdog, La Comisión Nacional de los Mercados y la Competencia (CNMC), fines Amazon and Apple a combined €194.1 million for colluding to limit the sale of Apple devices from competitors on Amazon's Spanish sites; says "both companies agreed that only a series of distributors designated by Apple itself could sell Apple-branded products through the Amazon website in Spain."
• TikTok adds support for passkeys on its iOS app, allowing users to sign in to their accounts using Touch ID or Face ID instead of passwords; debuts Elevate, a program to help rising music artists via amplification and early access to new features, and expands its music streaming service to Australia, Mexico and Singapore, two weeks after launching it in Brazil and Indonesia.
• Meta releases Llama 2, its next-generation open-source large language model, for free for research and commercial use in partnership with Microsoft; to make its models available on Microsoft Azure and Qualcomm devices.
• Global smartphone sales decline for the eight consecutive quarter, with Samsung and Apple taking the top spots in terms of market share, according to Canalys and Counterpoint Research. (Smartphone shipments in India for the same period is estimated to be at 36.1 million units, led by Samsung, vivo, Xiaomi, realme, and OPPO.)
• Google experiments with a generative AI feature to create new backgrounds for Google Meet calls; increases the "number of users you can add to a space in Google Chat from 8,000 to 50,000."
• The U.K.'s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) provisionally approves Broadcom's US$ 69 billion bid for virtualization software giant VMware, a week after the European Commission approved the deal; comes as Microsoft and Activision Blizzard agree to extend their merger agreement to October 18, 2023, pending the outcome of negotiations with U.K. regulators.
• Netflix gains nearly 5.9 million subscribers globally in Q2 2023 amid crackdown on password sharing in the U.S., Canada, New Zealand, Portugal and Spain; to extend paid sharing to "almost all" remaining countries and axes its ad-free Basic tier in the U.K. and the U.S. for new and rejoining members.
• Meta launches a standalone WhatsApp app for Wear OS 3, letting smartwatch users start chats, reply to messages and take calls without their connected phone; tests feature that lets users initiate a voice or video call with up to 15 people at once.
• Google is reportedly testing a product under the code name Genesis that uses artificial intelligence technology to produce news stories; releases new ChromeOS update that allows users to reply to messages, check rideshare or package delivery status by streaming the companion Android phone's apps on a Chromebook.
• OpenAI adds opt-in "custom instructions" that ChatGPT should remember, in beta for ChatGPT Plus subscribers everywhere but the U.K. and E.U.; says the "feature allows customisation of ChatGPT's responses based on your preferences, and can be modified or removed anytime for future conversations."
• Microsoft's GitHub releases Copilot Chat, its AI-powered coding chatbot, to all Copilot for Business users in a limited public beta via Visual Studio and Visual Studio Code.
• Amazon plans to roll out its Amazon One palm scanning payment technology to over 500 Whole Foods stores in the U.S. by the end of 2023, enabling shoppers to make payments by connecting their palm print to a stored credit card.
• Telegram launches Stories for its Premium users, letting users control who can see their stories and how long they last before disappearing, as Signal tests new feature that allows users to schedule messages.