Tech Roundup: Proton Sentinel, YouTube Samples & More

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

• The European Union to officially begin enforcing Digital Services Act (DSA) by the end of the month, requiring very large online platforms with over 45 million users in the bloc to combat addictive behaviours among teens and minors as well as establish safeguards to ensure their mental wellbeing.
• Iraq lifts ban on Telegram after messaging app after it was blocked over concerns that many channels were sharing citizens' personal data on the service; Telegram says it took down several channels sharing personal data.
• A new study from the Oxford Internet Institute finds that "positive correlations" between Facebook and well-being indicators in 72 countries, pushing back against the prevailing notion linking Facebook to depression and anxiety; says it "found no evidence suggesting that the global penetration of social media is associated with widespread psychological harm."
• Netflix begins a "limited beta test" of its cloud-streamed games on the web, TVs, and streaming devices from Roku, LG, Amazon, and others, in Canada and the U.K.
• Telegram expands its Stories feature to all users, following its availability to Premium users starting last month.
• Amazon announces a new generative AI feature that summarises product reviews for "a subset of mobile shoppers in the U.S. across a broad selection of products"; restarts Amazon Shipping, its UPS and FedEx competitor that handles packages from other websites, after pausing the U.S. service earlier in the pandemic.
• Substack starts allowing users to follow writers without having to subscribe to their newsletters.
• India ships two billion domestically assembled smartphones and feature phones between 2014 to 2022, jumping from a mere 19% in 2014 to 98% in 2022.
• Sony Music Entertainment, Universal Music Group and a handful of other music labels file a lawsuit against the Internet Archive, accusing it of copyright infringement for digitizing, "willfully upload[ing], distribut[ing] and digitally transmitt[ing]" pre-1972 sound recordings.
• Google's YouTube begins mass removal of videos promoting "cancer treatments proven to be harmful or ineffective" or discouraging "seeking professional medical treatment"; debuts a new TikTok-style short-form personalised vertical video feed in YouTube Music called Samples to supercharge music discovery.
• Meta-owned WhatsApp tests the ability to create custom stickers using generative AI by letting users provide brief descriptions; adds option to forward messages posted on Communities to family and friends, and starts rolling out HD photo support globally, with plans to add support for HD videos coming soon.
• Proton launches an advanced account protection program called Proton Sentinel to help secure users who are high-profile public figure, deal with sensitive data, or might be a target for cyber attacks.
• Google adds generative AI features to Google Photos and Chrome, allowing users to name memories and summarise entire articles; said to be developing generative AI to perform over 21 different types of personal and professional tasks, including to give users life advice, planning instructions and tutoring tips.
• X, previously called Twitter, officially makes TweetDeck now called XPro, a paid service that requires a subscription; comes as the platform gains a new Highlights tab to "feature your best posts" and sorts posts by like counts as opposed to the order in which they were posted when users are logged out. (The developments follow reports that the service throttled traffic by adding five-second delays, some now removed, on t.co links to Instagram, Facebook, Threads, Bluesky, Substack, the New York Times, Reuters, and other sites that have drawn the ire of CEO Elon Musk. The chief executive has also said that users will lose the ability to block unwanted followers from responding to their posts, eliminating a key safety feature to tackle harassment.)
• OpenAI acquires New York-based AI design studio Global Illumination, marking the company's first public acquisition, as part of an undisclosed deal; says the company has been using GPT-4 to enforce its content moderation policies and that some of its customers are already using the LLM for content moderation.
• Web browser company Opera launches its Aria AI assistant on iOS, after introducing it in the desktop and Android app versions.
• InMobi, a leading ad tech and digital marketing firm, announces the acquisition of Quantcast Choice, a platform for digital privacy.
• Adobe begins rolling out AI-powered features to Adobe Express (formerly Adobe Spark), its cloud-based all-in-one design platform.
• Intel and Tower Semiconductor cancel US$ 5.4 billion merger, citing its inability "to obtain in a timely manner the regulatory approvals required under the merger agreement."
• Apple supplier Foxconn begins starting production of the iPhone 15 in India, the first time that a new iPhone has been made outside China prior to its announcement as part of the company's plan to diversify its supply chain away from concentration in China.
• X rival Bluesky lets users to self-tag their posts (Suggestive, Nudity, or Porn) so they can be automatically filtered.
• Researchers from the University of Chicago unveil a new tool called Glaze that aims to prevent generative AI tools from copying the style of individual artists by computing "a set of minimal changes to artworks, such that it appears unchanged to human eyes, but appears to AI models like a dramatically different art style."
• Google announces plans to proactively alert users when an extension is taken down from the Chrome Web Store for violating policies, or been marked as malware; to open all links by default in HTTPS and display a warning upon trying to download "high-risk files" with an insecure connection.
• Google launches a new Transparency Center to let users report harmful content, make appeals, read transparency reports and product or service policies; updates its Keep note-taking service with support for text formatting and options to view version history on the web.
• Microsoft plans to close its Xbox 360 Store and Xbox 360 Marketplace on July 29, 2024; to add the ability to uninstall first-party apps like Camera, Cortana, Photos, People, and the Remote Desktop (MSTSC) client from Windows.
• Meta Threads adds reposts to its reverse-chronological Following feed, along with a separate Reposts tab, as the company teases an imminent web version amid plummeting user traffic.
• Tumblr unveils a new look for its website with a revamped navigation experience to make it "as easy as possible for everyone to understand and explore what's happening."
• Netflix partners with Jio Platforms, India's largest telecom operator, to bundle its Netflix Basic streaming tier with two of the carrier's pay-as-you-go plans.
• Global smartphone shipments in 2023 to drop 6% YoY to 1.15 billion units, the lowest level since 2013, according to preliminary figures from Counterpoint Research.
• The Indian government imposes new restrictions that subject new dealers of SIM cards to biometric ID verification to curb rampant fraud in which SIM cards are obtained through fake documents and biometrics scams.