Tech Roundup: Google One VPN Shutdown, Proton's Standard Notes Acquisition & More

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

• The U.K. Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) says it identified an "interconnected web" of more than 90 partnerships and strategic investments involving Google, Apple, Microsoft, Meta, Amazon and Nvidia; cautions that "powerful partnerships and integrated firms should not reduce rival firms' ability to compete, nor should they be used to insulate powerful firms from competition."
• The U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) formally requires all but the smallest internet servcie providers (ISPs) to publish broadband "nutrition labels" on all their plans to increase transparency.
• Meta adds options to send clearer photos in high definition and create shared albums with friends as well as send larger files up to 100MB in Messenger chats; to automatically detect and blur nude images sent in direct messages to teens on Instagram.
• The U.S. Congress introduces a new bill called the Generative AI Copyright Disclosure Act that would force artificial intelligence companies to reveal the copyrighted material they use to train their generative AI models; comes as developers of AI models are training on publicly available data, which could also include copyrighted materials, as well as information sourced from other sources like Reddit and Stack Overflow via special partnerships.
• Google tests new security settings in Chrome that prevent websites from opening picture-in-picture windows upon switching to a new tab, as well as locking keyboard and mouse pointer; announces Chrome Enterprise Premium with added security benefits for US$ 6/month per user.
• Google launches multi-party approvals in Workspace that requires multiple admins to approve high-risk actions in an effort to protect customers from malicious actors taking sensitive admin actions; debuts support for voice messages in Chat and expands portrait touch-up for Google Meet to the dektop web.
• DuckDuckGo launches Privacy Pro, a US$ 9.99-per-month subscription service offering a VPN, personal information removal, and identity theft restoration, for users in the U.S.
• Amazon says it will stop giving third-party developers free AWS credits to create and host Alexa apps on June 30, 2024; notes developers can keep monetizing their apps via in-app purchases.
• Apple plans to allow owners of the iPhone 15 or newer (and independent repair shops) to fix broken devices with used genuine parts, including screens, batteries and cameras, starting in fall 2024.
• WordPress and Tumblr parent company Automattic acquires all-in-one messaging application Beeper for US$ 125 million months after the latter briefly brought Apple's iMessage to Android devices; to merge both Texts.com, another universal messaging app Automattic bought in October 2023, and Beeper under the Beeper brand.
• Newsletter platform Substack lets podcasters distribute their shows on Spotify.
• ByteDance-owned TikTok is reportedly testing an AI feature that generates a virtual influencer and a script for a video ad based on prompts submitted by advertisers.
• X informs users "the hide your checkmark feature of X Premium is going away soon", after it began adding "complimentary" blue checks to "influential" users with more then 2,500 Premium or Premium+ followers but hadn't signed up for the the subscription themselves; rolls out passkeys support to iPhone users worldwide.
• Google plans to make Magic Editor and other AI editing tools, previously limited to Pixel phones and Google One subscribers, available to all Google Photos users for free.
• Adobe previews Frame.io version 4, adding new workflow and tagging capabilities for project management to the cloud-based media collaboration service, for Free and Pro customers on the web, iOS and iPadOS.
• Sunbird relaunches its messaging app in beta with AV2 encryption protocol for enhanced message security and privacy, months after it shut down its Android app over concerns that the messages sent over the service are not end-to-end encrypted.
• Microsoft says it will start testing app recommendations (aka ads) under Recommended on the Start menu as part of a beta test in the U.S.
• Child safety groups raise concerns after Meta-owned WhatsApp officially lowers the minimum age from 16 to 13 in the U.K. and E.U.; say "we're fed up with the tech giants putting their shareholder profits before protecting our children"; comes as the U.K. mulls considering banning sale of smartphones to children under the age of 16.
• Meta trials an AI-powered search bar in Instagram to let users chat with Meta AI and discover content, as the company confirms it's testing Meta AI, its large language model (LLM)-powered chatbot, with WhatsApp, Instagram and Messenger users in India and parts of Africa; to also bring status updates, a feature called Notes, directly on users' profiles, as opposed to limiting their visibility to direct messages inbox, allow Threads users to initiate Instagram messages.
• OpenAI gives premium ChatGPT users access to an updated GPT-4 Turbo, promising "more direct, less verbose" responses that "use more conversational language."
• Adobe used images created by tools from its rivals like Midjourney to train Firefly, according to a report from Bloomberg, as the company admits nearly 5% of AI-generated images from other platforms were used to train its tool.
• Google announces plans to discontinue its VPN service bundled with Google One later this year, making it the latest product from the company to be on the chopping block; says "people simply weren't using it." (It's worth noting that Pixel phones come with a VPN offering of their own and Google Fi also has support for VPN.)
• Swiss online service provider Proton expands its pro-privacy portfolio by acquiring end-to-end encrypted note-taking application Standard Notes, which is used by over 300,000 people; says it complements its offerings and aims to "find ways to make Standard Notes more easily accessible to the Proton community."
• eBay adds an AI-powered "shop the look" feature to its iOS app, offering personalised recommendations to users who have viewed more than 10 fashion items over the past six months.
• Dutch company Fairphone releases new Fairbuds wireless earbuds with repairable design and user-replaceable batteries.
• Apple loses bid to throw out a class action lawsuit filed in the U.K. last year representing over 1,500 developers in the country that alleged that the company's App Store commissions for in-app purchases is unfair.
• Google releases Android 15 Beta 1 for Pixel devices, with edge-to-edge app scaling by default, OS-level support for app archiving and unarchiving; makes progress on a feature called Private Space, which offers an encrypted storage space for apps and files.
• Truecaller debuts a web version of its eponymous caller ID application with SMS and chat mirroring, call notifications and number search functionality to the desktop.
• Google's YouTube adds shopping features, including creator-curated product lists for users to browse called Shopping Collections and a new Affiliate Hub with information on commission rates and promo codes.
• Controversial iris biometric cryptocurrency project Worldcoin, which claims to provide a novel way to authenticate people using World ID to counter the threat posed by artificial intelligence by scanning users' irises in exchange for WLD tokens (that can be accessed by providing their email address or phone number), unveils privacy features that allows to un-verify their World IDs through permanent iris code deletion and prevent minors from participating with an in-person age verification.
• Indian ride-hailing giant Ola shuts down its operations in the U.K., Australia and New Zealand, six years after expanding to international markets.
• Google unveils ARM-based Axion chips for AI, claiming they have up to 30% better performance over the top ARM rivals as the AI arms race intensifies; makes Gemini 1.5 Pro (with support for processing audio streams) and Imagen 2 generally available in Vertex AI, releases new AI-powered video creation app for work called Vids, brings Gemini to Chat, and options for taking notes and translating conversations on Meet.
• Google partners with German multinational pharmaceutical and biotechnology company Bayer on AI solutions that can flag anomalies within images for radiologists and summarize information from a patient's medical history.
• Apple researchers detail Ferret-UI, a multimodal LLM tailored for enhanced understanding of mobile UI screens; says "automating this process of perception and interaction has the potential to help users achieve their goals with relative ease, [and that it's a] valuable building block for accessibility, multi-step UI navigation, app testing, usability studies, and many others."
• Google debuts Infini-attention, a new technique that gives LLMs the ability to work with text of infinite length (i.e., extending the context window, which refers to the textual range around a target token that an LLM can process and helps with information recall during a session) while keeping memory and compute requirements constant; introduces Search-Augmented Factuality Evaluator (SAFE) that allows an LLM to evaluate the accuracy of claims. (The development also comes as new research has shown that LLMs are capable of downplaying their cognitive abilities to fit the persona they simulate.)
• Google tests adding a new warning in its Messages app for Android when opening links from unknown numbers in an effort to control spam.