Tech Roundup: Adobe Firefly, Android 16 Public Beta 2 & More

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

• Apple now lets users migrate apps, music, books, shows and movies between Apple accounts. (It's worth noting that the feature is currently not available in the E.U., the U.K. and India.)
• Web browser Brave adds a new feature called 'custom scriptlets' that lets advanced users inject their own JavaScript into websites for added customisation and control over their browsing experience.
• Google brings NotebookLM Plus, its AI research assistant tier with higher usage limits, to Google One AI Premium subscribers, and debuts a 50% student discount; expands Whisk, which lets users provide three images as prompts to create a new AI generated image that matches in subject, scene and style, to over 100 countries, and updates Gemini to recall and "reference past chats for more tailored help."
• OpenAI plans unify its o-series models and GPT-series models, and offer free ChatGPT users unlimited access to GPT-5, which also integrates its o3 reasoning model, at the "standard intelligence" level, with access to higher levels for Plus and Pro users; updates its Model Spec, which defines how its AI models should behave, emphasising "customisability, transparency and intellectual freedom."
• Reddit reports daily active unique users of 101.7 million in Q4 2024, up 39% YoY; says it plans to launch an upgraded search experience that leverages a conversational AI feature called Reddit Answers to show curated summaries of relevant responses and threads.
• Apple releases an Apple TV app for Android phones and tablets, allowing users sign up for Apple TV+ and MLS Season Pass directly on the app for the first time. (The app, however, does not serve iTunes Store purchases and rentals, nor does it allow users to access their previously purchased library.)
• The U.S. and the U.K. refuse to sign a declaration on "inclusive and sustainable" artificial intelligence at the Paris AI Action Summit, in what has been described as a blow to hopes for a concerted approach to developing and regulating the technology.
• Meta tests a new WhatsApp feature that allows users to link their social media profiles, including Instagram; also pilots expanding its group chat event planning feature to private chats, and rolls out new chat themes and wallpapers.
• Google plans to begin testing a machine learning-based model in the U.S. this year to estimate whether a user is under 18 to help provide more "age-appropriate experiences"; tests a new "Automated password Change" feature in Chrome that lets the web browser change a password if they have been identified as compromised in a data breach.
• Adobe launches Generate Video in public beta via its redesigned Firefly web app, alongside new image generation controls and audio translation features.
• Apple announces a new five-year-long research study that aims to gather data from iPhones, Apple Watches, and AirPods to develop new health-oriented features.
• Discord unveils Ignore, a feature that lets users hide new messages, direct messages, server notifications, profiles and activity from selected users without alerting them.
• Automattic-owned blogging platform Tumblr says it plans to integrate the ActivityPub protocol as part of its migration to the WordPress infrastructure.
• Hugging Face launches Open-R1, a fully open-sourced version of DeepSeek's R1 reasoning model that aims to "systematically reconstruct DeepSeek-R1's data and training pipeline, validate its claims, and push the boundaries of open reasoning models."
• Microsoft announces plans to remove the VPN feature from its Microsoft 365 subscription starting February 28, 2025; says it "will invest in new areas that will better align to customer needs."
• Online book marketplace Bookshop.org begins selling ebooks on its site, as it attempts to take on Amazon.
• Google revamps the Subscriptions page on the Google Play Store to highlight the features included as part of the subscription; introduces an updated look for Family Link that makes it "more intuitive for parents to use and navigate."
• Meta expands Teen Accounts feature in Instagram to India, one of its largest markets with over 350 million users, after launching it in the U.S., the U.K., Canada and Australia last September; tests a dislike button for comments that could be used to downrank comments.
• Meta's Facebook, X, Google's YouTube and other tech companies agree to do more to tackle online hate speech under the European Union's Digital Services Act; pledge to allow not-for-profit or public entities with expertise on illegal hate speech to monitor how they review hate speech notices and use automatic detection tools to reduce hate speech on their platforms.
• Indonesia's antitrust agency KPPU fines Google US$ 12.6 million for antitrust violation related to its payment system services for the Google Play Store; says the requirement that all purchases of digital products and services in the Google Play Store go through the Google Play Billing system led to fewer app users, reduced transactions and lower revenue.
• Advertising systems run by companies, including Google, Amazon and Microsoft, have inadvertently served ads on imgbb.com (and its affiliate, ibb.co) that has hosted images of child abuse, according to a new report from Adalytics.
• Chinese tech giant Alibaba says Apple will use the company's AI technology on iPhones sold in the country.
• Google updates YouTube Shorts to integrate DeepMind's latest video model Veo 2, letting creators generate AI video clips to add to any of their Shorts.
• Web browser developer Mozilla, which positions itself as a privacy-focused alternative, invites scrutiny for its bundling of Onerep.com, a company that offers to help people remove their personal information from almost 200 people-search websites, with its Mozilla Monitor subscription bundle, after an investigation finds that Onerep.com's CEO founded dozens of people search services; says it's looking for the right alternative.
• Google releases second public beta of Android 16 with new features for professional photographers that include manual control options when using auto-exposure, precise colour temperature and tint adjustments, and support for Ultra HDR images in the HEIC image format.
• A new investigation from The Markup finds that Match Group, the parent company of Tinder, Hinge, OKCupid and other dating apps, turned a blind eye to allegedly abusive users on its platforms and that the company's lax policies allowed banned Tinder users to sign up again on sign up for Hinge, OkCupid, and Plenty of Fish without changing their personal details.
• Apple and Google formally restore TikTok on their respective app stores following assurances from the U.S. government that they won't be fined for hosting the app.
• AI company Perplexity releases Deep Research, offering five queries daily to free users and 500 to subscribers, as it takes on similar offerings from Google and OpenAI.
• Meta announces Project Waterworth, an "ambitious" subsea cable project that will span over 50,000 km and connect five continents, making it the world's longest subsea cable project,
• Reddit plans to roll out paid subreddits in 2025 and is "laying the foundation" to monetize commerce within subreddits.
• Ride-share giant Uber files a lawsuit Friday against DoorDash, accusing the delivery outfit of stifling competition by intimidating restaurant owners into exclusive deals.
• JioCinema and Disney+ Hotstar officially merge to launch JioHotstar, a new streaming service in India that brings together content from the two platforms.
• Movie streaming service Netflix briefly adds the ability for some users in the U.S. to connect their Netflix accounts directly to Apple's TV app; says the temporary support was an error, and that it has been rolled back.
• Paid search engine Kagi announces a new feature called Privacy Pass that allows users to make searches "without knowing who you are or what you're searching for"; also debuts a Tor onion service.
• X rival Mastodon says it's planning to add Quote Posts to the platform, offering users the "ability to share another person's post to one's own followers, while adding a comment."
• Google updates the Contacts app for Android with options to set emojis or monograms as contact photos; updates Chrome with an improved "Enhanced protection" feature that uses AI to offer "real-time" protection against dangerous websites, downloads and extensions.
• Tencent tests allowing users to search via DeepSeek, alongside its Hunyuan foundational model, in its messaging app Weixin, as Baidu plans to fully connect its search engine to DeepSeek and its own LLM Ernie.
• Amazon announces plans to kill a feature from its website on February 16, 2025, that made it possible to download purchased books to a computer and then copy them manually to a Kindle over USB.
• X blocks users from posting links to Signal.me, which are used to quickly and securely send direct messages to Signal users.