Tech Roundup: TikTok Notes, World Chain & More

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

• Apple removes Meta's WhatsApp and Threads from its App Store in China after being ordered to do so by the Chinese government, citing national security concerns.
• Smartphone shipments hit 289.4 million globally in Q1 2024, up 7.8% YoY, led by Samsung, Apple, Xiaomi, Transsion and OPPO; iPhone shipments fall 9.6% YoY, more than any top brand, declining from 20.7% to 17.3%, and Xiaomi grows 33.8% YoY.
• Intel reveals a new AI accelerator chip called Gaudi 3, positioning it as an alternative to Nvidia's H100 with a "significant leap in performance and productivity for AI training and inference on popular large language models (LLMs) and multimodal models."
• Adobe says it is in the early stages of developing a way to let Premiere Pro users tap AI models from OpenAI, Runway and Pika Labs to generate video; releases Acrobat AI Assistant to summarize documents and answer questions about them.
• Meta plans to temporarily shut down Threads in Türkiye from April 29 to comply with a Turkish Competition Authority (TCA) interim order prohibiting data sharing between Threads and Instagram; reportedly testing "Creator AI" chatbots for top Instagram influencers, which would automate DM responses to fans in a creator's "voice."
• X CEO Elon Musk says the company is planning to charge new X users a small annual fee to enable posting on the social network and to "curb the relentless onslaught of bots."
• Google expands its YouTube ad blocker crackdown to include third-party apps like ReVanced; says its "terms don't allow third-party apps to turn off ads because that prevents the creator from being rewarded for viewership."
• Apple debuts web distribution of iOS apps to European Union users, allowing qualifying devs who opt in to its Core Technology Fee to offer direct downloads from their sites.
• ByteDance-owned TikTok and ticketing provider AXS sign a deal to let users buy tickets to live events following a similar partnership with Ticketmaster since 2022; starts rolling out TikTok Notes, its Instagram rival for sharing photo and text content, for limited testing in Australia and Canada on Android and iOS.
• Chinese tech giant Baidu's AI chatbot Ernie Bot surpasses 200 million users and 85,000 enterprise clients, after reaching 100 million users in December 2023.
• Worldcoin debuts World Chain, a blockchain for humans, as part of its plans to accelerate the adoption of Proof of Personhood and decentralised finance; says "verified humans will get priority blockspace over bots as well as a gas allowance for casual transactions." (The development comes as Worldcoin surpassed 10 million total users in over 160 countries, with 2 million daily active users and more than 70 million total wallet transactions, since its launch in May 2023.)
• Third-party iOS app store AltStore PAL launches in the E.U. for €1.50 a year.
• Google takes down more than 120 YouTube videos and 27 Google ads promoting AI deepfake porn tools and "nudifier" Telegram bots.
• Meta faces new setback after the European Data Protection Board (EDPB) says large online platforms should give users a "real choice" to use their services for free without targeted advertising and that "offering only a paid alternative to services which involve the processing of personal data for behavioural advertising purposes should not be the default way forward for controllers."
• Snap plans to add watermarks to AI-generated images exported from Snapchat.
• Amazon's Prime bundle hit a new high of 180 million U.S. shoppers in March 2024, up 8% YoY.
• SpaceX cracks down on users who are connecting to its Starlink high-speed internet service from unauthorized countries, including Sudan, South Africa and Zimbabwe, as it cracks down on an expanding black market for the company’s satellite kits.
• Meta's WhatsApp adds chat filters that lets users sort messages by All (as it currently is), Groups or Unread and tests a new "Add to Note" option to save important messages; blocks certain election-related queries in India within its AI chatbot amidst the elections in the country.
  
• Newsletter platform Substack updates Notes with options to post videos and embed Notes on other websites.
• TikTok updates its community guidelines to penalise creators who repeatedly post problematic content (e.g., conspiracy theories, health misinformation, repurposed media, sexually suggestive and violent content) by making such accounts ineligible to be recommended in the platform's coveted "For You" feed; says "if a creator repeatedly posts content that goes against our For You feed standards, their account and content will be harder to find in search."
• TikTok draws scrutiny in the E.U. over concerns of mental health and addictive behaviour after it launches a new service called TikTok Lite that rewards users with cash incentives, Amazon vouchers and PayPal gift cards to peform various "taks" like watching videos, liking content, following creators or inviting friends to join TikTok.
• Hyundai subsidiary Boston Dynamics retires its hydraulic Atlas humanoid robot in favour of a fully electric version "designed for real-world applications."
• Web browser Brave launches Answer with AI in Brave Search, a "privacy-preserving answer engine" that provides AI-powered synthesised answers in search results; integrates its AI assistant Leo to Brave Talk videoconferencing tool to provide meeting summaries, task lists and transcriptions.
• Amazon announces Maestro, a new feature in Amazon Music that leverages AI to generate playlists using text and emojis; introduces an interactive and shoppable channel called FAST (free ad-supported TV) on Prime Video and Amazon Freevee.
• Meta cuts the price of the base 128GB Quest 2 from US$ 249 to US$ 199, its second permanent price cut in four months, after a drop from US$ 299 to US$ 249 in January; adds support for real-time AI image generation in beta for WhatsApp users in the U.S., as it officially debuts Llama 3-powered Meta AI assistant across Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Messenger, alongside a dedicated website.
• Netflix says its paying subscribers jumped to 269.6 million, up 16% YoY; to no longer report subscriber numbers or Average Revenue per Membership starting in Q1 2025, saying time spent is its "best proxy for customer satisfaction."
• Microsoft unveils a new AI model named VASA-1 that can create a synchronized animated video of a person talking or singing from a single photo and an existing audio track; says it's "capable of not only producing lip movements that are exquisitely synchronized with the audio, but also capturing a large spectrum of facial nuances and natural head motions that contribute to the perception of authenticity and liveliness" but notes it has "no plans to release an online demo, API, product, additional implementation details, or any related offerings until we are certain that the technology will be used responsibly and in accordance with proper regulations."
• Nothing brings ChatGPT integration for Nothing Phone (2) and Nothing earbuds, including voice and text widgets for the phone.
• Post.News, the news-focused social platform launched in 2022 that offered micropayments to publishers, plans to shut down on May 31, 2024, after failing to grow "fast enough to become a real business or a significant platform."
• A military court in Moscow sentences Meta Platforms spokesperson Andy Stone to six years in prison for "publicly defending terrorism", a verdict handed down in absentia; comes after designating the company as an extremist organisation in the country and its Facebook and Instagram social media platforms have been banned since 2022 following the Russo-Ukrainian war.