Tech Roundup: Meta E.U. Fine, OpenAI ChatGPT Search & More

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

• The European Commission fines Meta €797.72 million for tying Facebook Marketplace to Facebook and "imposing unfair trading conditions" on rival websites, the first such fine for the tech giant; opens formal investigation against e-commerce giant Temu to "assess whether Temu may have breached the Digital Services Act (DSA) in areas linked to the sale of illegal products, the potentially addictive design of the service, the systems used to recommend purchases to users, as well as data access for researchers."
• The European Union publishes its first draft of a Code of Practice for general purpose AI (GPAI) models, laying out guidelines for managing risks, including transparency and copyright-related rules, and giving companies a blueprint to comply and avoid hefty penalties.
• The European Commission opens an antitrust investigation into smartphone glass maker Corning for allegedly abusing its market dominance to squeeze out rivals.
• Meta faces legal setback after a U.S. court rules that the company must face trial in a U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) lawsuit seeking its breakup over claims that it acquired Instagram and WhatsApp to crush its competitors.
• Ireland adopts an Online Safety Code for video-sharing platforms headquartered in the country, requiring companies like TikTok and YouTube to ban uploads or sharing of a range of harmful content types, including TikTok, YouTube, and Instagram, as Australia plans to introduce legislation that would ban children under 16 from using social media, not exempting those already with accounts or parental consent.
• China sanctions Skydio, the United States' largest drone maker and a supplier to Ukraine's military for selling its products to Taiwan.
• Tencent-owned messaging app WeChat adds support for Passkeys for users outside of China.
• Meta reportedly plans to ask Facebook and Instagram users in Europe if they want to get "less personalised ads" (that are based on content that a user sees during a given browsing session, rather than a user’s broader activity history) without having to pay a monthly subscription, in a concession to E.U. regulators.
• X and Threads rival Bluesky says it has "no intention" of taking user content to train generative AI tools, as Threads tests custom feeds for certain profiles or topics. (While Bluesky has over 15 million active users, the Meta-owned platform confirmed that it has surpassed 275 million monthly users, up from 200 million back in August.)
• Meta's Facebook makes Views its primary metric for content, bringing it in line with Instagram; WhatsApp adds a new feature to save messages as drafts.
• Apple removes Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty's Svoboda app from the Russian App Store at the demand of the country's media regulator Roskomnadzor, after previously removing Kyrgyz Service and Current Time.
• Europe's biggest meal delivery firm, Just Eat Takeaway, announces a deal to sell its U.S. unit Grubhub to Wonder for US$ 650 million, after acquiring it in 2020 in a US$ 7.3 billion deal amid a pandemic-driven boom in delivery services.
• Snap unveils new Snapchat location and privacy tools, including letting parents request their teen's location and view their location-sharing settings.
• Amazon debuts Amazon Haul, a storefront in its app offering "crazy low prices" on a range of items, with free shipping on orders worth more than US$ 25, to take on Temu and Shein.
• Reliance and Disney complete their media merger, bringing together Star India and Viacom18 under a US$ 8.5 billion entertainment behemoth, that's expected to control about 85% of India's streaming market and roughly half of television viewership.
• The Browser Company's Arc Search hits general availability for Android, nearly a year after launching it in iOS.
• Google's YouTube rolls out "jewels" that users can buy to support creators during livestreams, following similar moves by Reddit and TikTok; debuts a new "captured with a camera" label, using the C2PA standard to detect if the video came from a real camera with unaltered footage and sound.
• Amazon One Medical expands telehealth services with cheap treatment plans and medication delivery for beauty and lifestyle issues like hair loss and skin care.
• OpenAI says the ChatGPT desktop app for macOS can now read code from some developer-focused apps, including VS Code, Xcode, TextEdit, Terminal and iTerm2; makes the ChatGPT desktop app for Windows available to all users.
• Apple faces an almost £3 billion (US$ 3.78 billion) lawsuit after British consumer group Which? alleges that the company breached competition law by locking millions of its customers out of its iCloud service and charging them "rip-off prices."

• OpenAI unveils ChatGPT Search to let paid users search for timely information using GPT-4o, after testing the feature in July 2024, in a direct challenge to Google, Microsoft and Perpexity.
• Microsoft delays the rollout of its controversial Recall AI feature to December to "refine the experience," after previously pushing it from June to October.
• Google updates Chrome desktop to let users choose how aggressively it frees up inactive tab resources across three modes Moderate, Balanced and Maximum, and adds a Performance Detection tool.
• Amazon plans to shut down its Kindle Vella serialised story platform in February 2025; discontinues Freevee, its free, ad-supported streaming service launched in 2019 under the IMDb brand, and plans to move the content to Prime Video.
• Microsoft plans to end support for the Windows Mail, Calendar and People apps on December 31, 2024, after moving users to the new Outlook app in recent months.
• Google plans to release Android 16 in Q2 2025 "to better align with the schedule of device launches; updates Maps with support for Gemini AI assistant in the U.S., with AI-summarised reviews and answers to conversational questions by users, adds 150 cities to Immersive View, and makes it easier to add new stops along a route.
• Meta AI surpasses 500 million users, as it reports 3.29 billion active users on average during Q3 2024, an increase of 5% year-over-year.
• Movie streamer Netflix plans to delist nearly all of its interactive shows and films as of December 1 saying the tech "served its purpose," after launching the format in 2017.
• Amazon unveils X-Ray Recaps on Prime Video, an AI feature that generates "spoiler-free and concise summaries" of TV shows, in beta to Fire TV users in the U.S.
• AI company Anthropic launches Claude apps for Mac and Windows in public beta, and releases a dictation tool for Claude on iOS, Android and iPadOS.
• OnePlus unveils the OnePlus 13, its next flagship with a Snapdragon 8 Elite SoC, 12GB+ RAM and a 6,000 mAh battery, for a starting price of US$ 630.
• Apple releases updates to Final Cut Pro, adding AI-generated closed captions and Vision Pro spatial video editing, and Logic Pro for macOS and iPadOS with a new Quantec Room Simulator plugin; now lets third-party developers apply to be featured on the App Store to promote new content, app enhancements or new app launches.
• Chinese tech giant Baidu unveils smart glasses, powered by its Ernie LLM, that aims to "become a private assistant" by tracking calories, playing music and more; to be officially launched in 2025.
• Google rolls out its Gemini-powered Vids app that lets users create video presentations using a prompt, with full access for Workspace users until at least 2026.
• Amazon updates the Kindle Scribe 2-in-1 e-reading and writing tablet to add modest design improvements, such as white bezels, a new stylus and a more paper-like feel, for US$ 400; unveils the US$ 280 Kindle Colorsoft Signature Edition, its first colour e-reader with a Paperwhite-like design and color E Ink display.
• Meta's Instagram enhances its profile sharing QR codes with a "profile card," showing profile info on the front and, using a flip animation, a QR code on the back; updates DMs with options to sort and filter their message requests by verified accounts, businesses, creators and subscribers.
• Microsoft starts rolling out AI-powered text editing feature Rewrite in Notepad, and Generative Fill and Generative Erase features in Paint to Windows Insiders.
• Perplexity launches Internal Knowledge Search, to search the web or internal files, and Spaces, a way to organise research, for its Pro and Enterprise customers.
• Social network Pinterest touches 537 million monthly active users, as Snapchat hits 443 million daily active users, Reddit reports 97.2 million daily active users, OpenAI ChatGPT says it has 250 million weekly active users.
• Google says it will test removing news articles from E.U.-based publishers from Search for 1% of users in France, Poland, Italy, Spain, and other EU countries to determine how it will impact traffic and the overall search experience; updates Chrome browser for iOS with capabilities to search using images and text at the same time.
• Music streaming service Spotify plans to pay incentives to video creators who hit certain viewing thresholds; to let Premium subscribers view podcast videos without ads starting January next year.
• Microsoft-owned LinkedIn launches Hiring Assistant, an AI agent designed to take on a wide array of recruitment tasks, like sourcing candidates, to a select group of customers; announces the ability to create autonomous agents with Copilot Studio that it says "will work on behalf of an individual, team or function to execute and orchestrate businesses process."
• Disney no longer lets new and returning customers sign up for and buy subscriptions to Hulu or Disney+ through Apple's App Store, avoiding Apple's 30% cut on in-app purchases.