Tech Roundup: Anthropic Claude 2.1, YouTube's Ad Blocker Crackdown & More

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

• The European Data Protection Board (EDPB) instructs the Irish DPC to ban Meta's use of personal data for behavioral ads on the legal base of contract and legitimate interest in the EU and EEA, following a request from Norway's data protection authority, Datatilsynet, to make a previously-issued interim ban in Norway permanent and extend its reach and impact to all of Europe.
• Google announces a design refresh of its Chrome Web Store; integrates Tasks within Calendar to provide a consolidated view of upcoming activities and reminders.
• Tinder redesigns profile pages to add prompt conversation starters, basic information tags and quizzes, and updates its mobile app with new animations and a dark mode.
• Google announces plans to eliminate third-party cookies in Chrome as part of its Privacy Sandbox initiative, starting with a 1% user testing period early in 2024 and leading to a broader phase-out in Q3.
• Epic Games calls Android a "fake open platform" following revelations that Google signed a secret deal with Spotify that allowed the latter to completely bypass Android’s app store fees when users opt to subscribe to the music streaming service through its own billing system, as opposed to the 26% fee Google charges as part of its Play User Choice Billing Pilot for every in-app purchase. (It's worth noting that Google has pursued similar deals with large companies like Netflix, Match Group, and even Epic, which rejected the offer. In 2021, the tech giant offered US$ 147 million to Epic to bring Fortnite to the Play Store, The Verge reported earlier this month.)
• Nothing pulls its Sunbird-based Nothing Chats (which claimed to bring Apple iMessage to Android devices) from the Google Play Store after it's found that all the documents sent via the service are public and that the messages aren't actually end-to-end encrypted, enabling malicious actors to delete users' messages from Sunbird's servers. (In a related development, Sunbird has temporarily shut down the service while it investigates these issues.)
• Google faces flak after it introduces an "artificial" five-second load time when users try to watch YouTube with ad blockers enabled; says "users who have ad blockers installed may experience suboptimal viewing, regardless of the browser they are using."
• Stability AI releases Stable Video Diffusion in research preview, its first foundation model for generative video based on the Stable Diffusion image model.
• OpenAI debuts voice narration feature for ChatGPT users that makes it possible to converse withe the generative AI chatbot using voice.
• The U.S. Department of Justice brings criminal charges against Binance, the world's largest crypto exchange, and its billionaire founder and CEO, Changpeng "CZ" Zhao, for violating sanctions and anti-money laundering laws, including "knowingly and willfully" offering its services to Iran, enabling terrorist outfits like Hamas, al-Qaeda, and ISIS to raise funds; Binance agrees to forfeit US$ 2.5 billion to the government, as well as to pay a fine of US$ 1.8 billion, as Zhao steps down as its CEO.
• Sonos is reportedly set to make a long-awaited push into headphones with a US$ 400 model coming as early as April 2024, alongside plans for a video service and set-top streaming box, according to Bloomberg.
• Anthropic debuts Claude 2.1, offering a context window of up to 200,000 tokens, or ~150,000 words, a claimed 50% increase in accuracy, 2x decrease in hallucination rates and new API integrations.
• Amazon announces "shoppable ads" in Prime Video where viewers can scan QR codes for instant purchases.
• Meta releases its Content Library and an API to "provide access to near real-time public content from Pages, Posts, Groups and Events on Facebook, as well as from creator and business accounts on Instagram" for non-profit research institutions and academic institutions.
• Sony faces legal setback after a London tribunal rules the company must face a massive lawsuit alleging it abused its dominance by forcing digital games and add-ons to be bought and sold only via its store.
• Meta's WhatsApp gains support for email verification, allowing users to authenticate their account on a device with an email address as an alternative to using a phone number; Instagram begins allowing all users download public Reels.
• News aggregation platform Flipboard discontinues X (formerly Twitter) integration to focus its efforts on Mastodon and other open social platforms.
• Spotify unveils new royalty policies starting 2024 that excludes songs with fewer than 1,000 streams per year from being eligible for any payment whatsoever, which it says is to counter the impact of artifical streaming; to increase the minimum track length of functional noise recordings to two minutes, in order to be eligible to generate royalties.
• Google pushes ahead with its controversial transition to Manifest V3 effective June 2024, defining new ways how extensions can interact with the Chrome web browser, including enforcing new rules that content filtering add-ons such as ad blockers can include, a move seen as an attempt to not hurt its advertising business.
• Sam Altman returns to OpenAI as its chief executive, alongside co-founder Greg Brockman, merely days after his sudden dismissal.
• The U.K. Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) urges websites to make changes to "must make it as easy for users to 'Reject All' advertising cookies as it is to 'Accept All,'" or risk facing enforcement action.
• ByteDance-owned TikTok seeks Indonesian e-commerce partnerships with Tokopedia, Blibli, Bukalapak, weeks after the government banned online shopping on social media platforms.
• Google updates its Bard AI chatbot with capabilities to "understand YouTube videos," allowing it to answer questions about the content in the videos; also updates Google Meet to recognise gestures in meetings, including raising a hand to trigger the "Raise hand" button.
• Proton debuts end-to-end encrypted Proton Drive for Mac, four months after it landed on Windows.
• Global smartphone market witnesses a 5% increase in sales, after two years of negative year-on-year growth, according to Counterpoint Research.
• X announces plans to start showing headlines in preview cards with URLs on the platform again after removing titles last month.
• Google plans to allow users to use its voice-based Assistant without Bard as part of a future update; tests iMessage and Telegram-style animations for message reactions.
• The European Parliament passes Data Act, a new legislation that establishes rules on the sharing of data generated through the use of connected products or related services (e.g., the Internet of Things, industrial machinery) and allows users to access the data they generate; also contains a controversial clause that could make most smart contracts unlawful.