Tech Roundup: Instagram Blend, LinkedIn Video Feed & More

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

• The E.U. publishes draft election security guidelines aimed at platforms with more than 45 million regional monthly active users that are regulated under the Digital Services Act (DSA) to "mitigate systemic risks online that may impact the integrity of elections."
• Poland's consumer and competition watchdog, the UOKiK, fines Amazon about US$ 8 million for allegedly misleading consumers, including with dark pattern design tricks that sought to induce a false sense of urgency into product purchases and mislead shoppers about product availability and delivery dates; company says it will appeal the fine.
• Anthropic's Claude 3 Opus large language model (LLM) surpasses OpenAI's GPT-4 for the first time and come on top on popular crowdsourced AI leaderboard Chatbot Arena.
• The U.S. state of Oregon signs the first right-to-repair law in the country that bans manufacturers from using "parts pairing" to dictate what replacement components can be used, landing a huge blow to companies like Apple that uses encrypted software checks to track their parts and control how they are used.
• Google says it blocked or removed 5.5 billion ads and 12.7 million advertiser accounts for violating its policies in 2023, up from 5.2 billion and 6.7 million respectively in 2022; brings new search updates that allows users to rate recommendations to get personalised shopping results, follow favourte brands, generative AI-powered features to shop for apparel matching their tastes, surface recommendations and create customisable lists in Maps, and expands Circle to Search to more Android devices
• Disney adds Hulu to Disney+ after beta testing the integration since December 2023 and unveils a new "Aurora" green logo.
• X brings xAI's Grok available to all Premium subscribers; comes amid reports that X usage in the U.S. declined 18% year-over-year, and down 23% since its acquisition by Elon Musk.
• Google rolls out Gemini to some Google Messages beta users with RCS enabled on select Pixel and Galaxy devices, letting users chat to Gemini over RCS; announces plans to shut down its Podcasts service on April 2, 2024, urging users to migrate their subscriptions to YouTube, as it becomes the latest product to be sent to the Google graveyard. (It also showcases a pattern of Google's inability to make its services make sense and shut down those that don't align with its revenue model.)
• Robinhood launches Gold Card, a 3% cashback credit card for Robinhood Gold members, eight months after acquiring credit card startup X1 for US$ 95 million.
• Microsoft adds mouse and keyboard support to select Xbox Cloud Gaming titles for Xbox Insiders, nearly two years after announcing plans to add the feature.
• Apple schedules its annual Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) from June 10 to June 14 to showcase its AI strategy and next generation iOS and macOS operating systems.
• Google releases a Chrome version optimised for Windows laptops powered by Snapdragon; Qualcomm says the native version "provides a dramatic performance improvement over previous versions."
• Adobe launches GenStudio to let brands create content and measure its performance using generative AI; announces Custom Models to let businesses customise Firefly models and makes available set of generative AI and creative APIs that automates workflows using Firefly Services.
• Amazon launches same-day prescription medication deliveries in New York City and the greater Los Angeles area; to add more than a dozen other cities in the U.S. by the end of the year.
• AI-powered news mobile platform Artifact, which earlier announced its plans to shut down in February 2024, reverses course, stating it intends to continue working as expected for the time being and noted it's "exploring all possible routes for it going forward."
• ByteDance pulls the plug on LetsChat, an app that was once considered a rival to WhatsApp and Telegram, in Africa; had over 7 million downloads in Africa before it shut down.
• Web-based design platform Canva acquires the Affinity creative software suite, positioning itself as a challenger to Adobe's dominance over the digital design industry; pledges to "offer perpetual licenses in the future."
• Microsoft-owned LinkedIn tests a new TikTok-like short-form video feed within a dedicated Video tab in its mobile apps.
• Music streamer Spotify tests video courses in partnership with third-parties like the BBC and Skillshare as a way for users to spend more time and money on its platform.
• Newly unsealed court documents show that Meta launched a secret project called Ghostbusters to intercept and decrypt the network traffic from people using Snapchat, YouTube and Amazon to help it understand user behavior and better compete with its rival by leveraging a VPN called Onavo, which Facebook acquired in 2013 and shut down in 2019 after it came under scrutiny for using the service to track users' web activity related to its competitors and secretly paying teens to capture their internet browsing patterns.
• Israel has deployed a mass facial recognition program in the Gaza Strip following the October 2023 attacks, creating a database of Palestinians using Google Photos and a custom tool provided by a company called Corsight without their knowledge or consent, according to a report from The New York Times; says "Google's ability to match faces and identify people even with only a small portion of their face visible was superior to other technology." (That said, it's worth noting that Photos does not provide identities for unknown people in photographs.)
• Scammers are using sample videos of influencers with modest social media presence to create AI deepfake ads that often push offensive products and ideas, according to an investigation from The Washington Post.
• Google-owned YouTube lets creators share exclusive Shorts with paying subscribers, as the short-form video format averages more than 70 billion daily views for the platform; updates Search to show cryptocurrency wallet balances across bitcoin and Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) networks.
• Amazon debuts Android and iOS apps for its One palm recognition service that uses AI to scan users' palm vein structure without having to visit a physical location.
• Microsoft rolls out new Azure AI Studio tools that aim to prevent users from manipulate its AI systems to behave in unintended ways, such as producing harmful content or exfiltrating confidential data; debuts Prompt Shields to safeguard LLMs against prompt injection attacks.
• FTX co-founder Sam Bankman-Fried gets sentenced to 25 years in prison for defrauding customers and investors following the collapse of the cryptocurrency exchange in late 2022.
• Four Canadian school boards seek more than CAD$ 4 billion in damages from social media firms such as Meta and Snap, alleging that their products are "negligently designed for compulsive use, have rewired the way children think, behave and learn", causing learning and mental health crises in students.
• Meta tests a new feature called Blend in Instagram, which creates a feed of Reels for two friends to share based on shared interests and Reels they shared with each other.
• OpenAI debuts a new model dubbed Voice Engine that lets users generate synthetic copy of a voice from a 15-second sample; holds back from a broader release due to the potential for synthetic voice misuse.
• Queer dating platform Grindr becomes the latest company to bet big on generative AI by working on chatbots that "engage in sexually explicit conversations with users."
• X reportedly profits from selling user data for government surveillance purposes through partnerships with companies like Dataminr that offers tools to monitor public activity on social media and other internet platforms, according to a new report from The Intercept.
• Newly unsealed documents in an antitrust lawsuit against Meta allege that the company killed its own video streaming ambitions to appease Netflix, one of its biggest ad customers, to which it's believed to have given privileged access to users' private messages via an Inbox and Titan APIs, a claim the social media firm has denied. (The company discontinued its plans for original progrmming in April 2023, stating it's focused on creating virtual-reality experiences.)