Tech Roundup: Apple E.U. App Store Rules, Google Antitrust Ruling & More

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

• Google faces major setback after a U.S. federal judge says the company has a monopoly in "general search services" and "general search text advertising" and that it used exclusive agreements to raise prices without any competition; says it illegally dominated the search market through deals with Apple, Samsung and Mozilla to be the default option on Apple devices and browsers.
• While the final ruling may prohibit Google from paying for exclusive/default access, it wouldn't be surprising if Apple, which makes billions of dollars from the agreement every year, to create a choice screen of sorts during device setup (as it already happens in the E.U. on Android devices, and sell it to the highest bidder.
• With Google already planning to appeal the ruling, it remains to be seen how this regulatory battle will play out. But make no mistake, the process could be a long drawn-out one. At the same time, it has the potential to change the internet as know it.
• The European Commission says TikTok agreed to permanently withdraw and not replace TikTok Lite's "Task and Reward Programme" in the region to comply with the Digital Services Act. (The feature, per the Commission, allowed "users to earn points while performing certain 'tasks' on TikTok - such as watching videos, liking content, following creators, inviting friends to join TikTok, etc.," raising concerns that it was "launched without prior diligent assessment of the risks it entails, in particular those related to the addictive effect of the platforms."
• Russia officially passes law legalising cryptocurrency mining in the country; limits it to only Russian legal entities and individual entrepreneurs included in a register.
• Turkey blocks access to Roblox following a government investigation that found content that could lead to child exploitation, as it says it's restoring access to Instagram after Meta agreed to cooperate with authorities regarding "catalog crimes" and "censorship imposed on users"; Russia and Venezuela block instant messaging app Signal as part of efforts to curb internal dissent and censor critical views. (The ruling Venezuelan government is calling on supporters to switch from WhatsApp to Telegram.)
• Airbnb plans to expand into new products and services, including co-hosting, guest services, and a relaunch of experiences.
• Reddit says it plans to test AI-powered search result pages later this year, using a combination of first- and third-party tech to power the feature; reports 342.3 million weekly active users in Q2 2024, a 57% jump from the year prior.
• Apple discontinues its USB SuperDrive USB, a CD and DVD player accessory, after launching it in 2008.
• Swiss privacy-focussed startup Proton introduces a discreet icon for Proton VPN to make it appear as a weather, notes, or calculator app to help users evade detection in authoritarian regimes and adds the Stealth anti-censorship protocol to Proton VPN's Windows client after bringing it to Android, iOS and macOS, allowing users to disguise VPN traffic as regular internet traffic; updates Proton Pass with support for biometric authentication as an extra layer of security when filling passwords and other personal information on Windows and macOS.
• Google redesigns Authenticator app for Android with improved QR code scanner UI and app lock options, and updates Google Photos with a new Collections view that replaces Library to make "finding content easier than ever"; tests a new Web Monetisation feature in Chrome as a way for website owners to receive micro-payments as tips or rewards for their content as an additional way to generate revenue.
• Amazon debuts new AI-powered Topics feature in Amazon Music to help users find podcast episodes by topic.
• Google unveils the US$ 100 Google TV Streamer with improved performance and Thread and Matter support, as it discontinues the Chromecast line, which it launched in 2013, due to intense competition in the market, prompting it to pivot to a premium offering.
• Google showcases Gemini-based features for Google Home, including descriptive captions for Nest camera videos and a smarter Assistant for Nest; tests a feature that lets YouTube creators use Google Gemini to brainstorm video ideas.
• Microsoft's Windows 11 crosses 30% market share for the first time, as Windows 10, which is expected to reach end-of-life next October, drops below 65%.
• ByteDance-owned Faceu Technology, which also operates video editing app CapCut, debuts Jimeng AI, a software that can generate videos based on text prompts, following similar moves by Kuaishou and Zhipu AI.
• X files an antitrust lawsuit against the Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM), accusing it of organising an illegal advertiser boycott of the platform to coerce the company into following the initiative's safety standards and discriminate unfairly against it; World Federation of Advertisers, which run the GARM initiative, discontinues its activities, but says it intends to contest X's claims.

• Apple makes use of hidden prompts to program Apple Intelligence such that it can avoid hallucinations and ensure accuracy in its AI features; adds Distraction Control to Safari, which lets users block distracting elements on the page like pop-ups and ads after manually selecting them, and brings Apple Maps to Mozilla Firefox.
• OpenAI says it's taking a deliberate approach to releasing watermarking tools that can potentially catch students who cheat by asking ChatGPT to write their assignments but cautions it could "stigmatize use of AI as a useful writing tool for non-native English speakers"; says it's also researching how metadata could be used as a text provenance method.
• Automattic, the owner of WordPress.com, launches Write Brief with AI to help users write and tweak content using text prompts.
• X agrees to pause training Grok using millions of Europeans' public posts it collected between May 7 and August 1 after its gets accused of utilising user data to train its AI assistant without their consent by silently enabling the option by default without formally alerting the users; adds the ability to sort replies, letting users choose most relevant, most recent or most liked replies.
• Apple revises E.U. App Store rules after scrutiny; allows links to any website and removes other restrictions, but adds two new fees -- a 5% initial acquisition fee and a store services fee for sales of digital goods and services that the customer makes on any platform that occur within a fixed 12-month period from the date of an install-- that are associated with directing customers to purchase options outside of the ‌App Store‌.
• TikTok and Pinterest partner with Amazon to let users buy items from Amazon ads without leaving the social media apps; TikTok begins offering steep discounts on goods to U.S. users who invite friends to the app, expanding a referral scheme from countries like Japan and Thailand.
• OpenAI rolls out the ability for ChatGPT free users to create up to two images per day with DALL-E 3, after launching DALL-E 3 to Plus subscribers in October; releases a safety analysis of GPT-4o, noting that the model's voice capabilities poses risks of anthropomorphisation and emotional reliance. (As OpenAI continues to face an exodus of founding team members following the attempted boardroom coup against Sam Altman ands scrutiny for safety practices in its race to commercialise AI -- whether be it for amplifying societal biases, spreading disinformation, or breaking free of its controls (i.e., jailbreaking) -- the transparency measures could further by including details on the model's training data or who owns that data.)
• SoundHound acquires Amelia, which makes an AI agent that businesses can customise for internal or customer use, for US$ 80 million; comes as Hugging Face acquires XetHub, a collaboration platform to help developers work with and build large-scale AI models.
• TikTok launches TikTok Spotlight, in-app hubs for movies and TV shows that add links to "applicable" videos with more info and where to watch.
• Microsoft and Palantir partner to sell government cloud and AI tools, such as GPT-4, to U.S. defence and intelligence agencies; Palantir plans to add its tools to Azure.
• The U.K. Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) opens a formal merger inquiry into Amazon's Anthropic investment after getting "sufficient information" about the deal and investigate if the partnership poses antitrust concerns (Amazon, in response, said it "holds no board seat nor decision-making power at Anthropic, and Anthropic is free to work with any other provider"); approves HPE's US$ 14 billion deal to acquire Juniper Networks after finding no competition concerns, following the E.U.'s unconditional approval on August 1.
• Meta closes Ready at Dawn Studios, which it acquired in 2020 and produced VR games like Lone Echo and Echo VR, to meet the new Reality Labs budgetary ceiling; Instagram makes views the primary metric across all of its formats, letting creators track the same metric across Reels, Stories and photos.
• Meta says Facebook creators who violate Community Standards for the first time will be given the option to take a training course to remove their warning; discloses a technical issue in Instagram that permanently deleted some photos from users' Story highlights and archives.
• Meta-owned Instagram adds new feature that lets users share up to 20 photos in one post; tests a Snap Maps-like feature that lets users post text and video updates to a map that can be shared with friends.
• Social media platform Reddit says it may explore "new types of subreddits that can be built that may have exclusive content or private areas," as it seeks to monetise the platform beyond ads.
• Disney announces plans to enforce password sharing crackdown "in earnest" in September, after announcing paid sharing in February 2024.
• Newsletter platform Substack begins allowing all users to publish posts, effectively turning it into even more of a social network.