The Tech Weekender: Top news from the world of technology this week
The 2022 draft for the Data Protection bill is here, Apple may not be as privacy-focused as you think, Meta launches new minor safety tools for Facebook and Instagram, Call of Duty: Warzone 2 already has more than 25 million players, Qualcomm unveils the Snapdragon 782G, EU investigates TikTok over how it collects data, and Meta's Galactica AI is now offline
The Draft Digital Personal Data Protection Bill, 2022 comes after the government withdrew the Personal Data Protection Bill, 2019 being withdrawn from Parliament. The draft Bill is open for feedback, it remains to be seen how netizens, industry, and civil society will react to the new provisions. As we await the final form the bill will take and its impact, the introduction of the draft is a step towards a dedicated data protection framework, which is much needed as the economy increasingly gets digitalised and more and more Indians interact on social media.
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A report by Mysk, security researchers and app developers, shows that Apple collects usage data that can be tracked back to the user with something known as Directory Services Identifier (DSID), which is a unique identifier linked to Apple ID and iCloud accounts.
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Meta is testing new ways to keep "suspicious" accounts from messaging teens on Facebook and Instagram. Changes will also be made to "protect teens from messaging suspicious adults they aren't connected to". Meta says it tags an account as suspicious if it belongs to an adult who has "recently been blocked or reported by a young person".
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American game publisher Activision Blizzard has said its Call of Duty: Warzone 2 crossed 25 million players in just five days of the launch. The news follows another record for the gaming company. Earlier this month, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 set the record for becoming the fastest game in the franchise to cross $1 billion in revenue. It accomplished the feat within 10 days of the launch.
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US chipmaker Qualcomm has announced a new mid-range chipset called Snapdragon 782G to replace the Snapdragon 778G, a popular system-on-a-chip (SoC) usually found in mid-range smartphones. Qualcomm hasn't said when the new chipset will make its way into phones nor has it revealed the names of the companies that will be the first to carry the new SoC.
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The European Union has confirmed multiple ongoing investigations into TikTok's data practices and the way the company serves ads aimed at minors. In response to a letter sent by members of the European Parliament that expressed concerns that data from EU users was being sent to China, the European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen confirmed that the Union was investigating TikTok.
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Meta has taken the demonstration for its artificial intelligence (AI) bot Galactica offline after several users complained that it was faking research papers in the latest setback for the Facebook parent after its metaverse fiasco. Galactica was introduced as a large-scale language model for science that could "summarize academic literature, solve math problems, generate Wiki articles, write scientific code, annotate molecules and proteins, and more".
![Meta is testing new ways to keep "suspicious" accounts from messaging teens on Facebook and Instagram. There will also be changes made to "protect teens from messaging suspicious adults they aren't connected to". Meta says it tags an account as suspicious if it belongs to an adult who has "recently been blocked or reported by a young person".](https://images.moneycontrol.com/static-mcnews/2022/11/meta-fb-rep-770x433.jpg "Meta is testing new ways to keep "suspicious" accounts from messaging teens on Facebook and Instagram. There will also be changes made to "protect teens from messaging suspicious adults they aren't connected to". Meta says it tags an account as suspicious if it belongs to an adult who has "recently been blocked or reported by a young person".")
![Meta has taken the demonstration for its artificial intelligence (AI) bot Galactica offline after several users complained that it was faking research papers in the latest setback for the Facebook parent after its metaverse fiasco. Galactica was introduced as a large-scale language model for science that could "summarize academic literature, solve math problems, generate Wiki articles, write scientific code, annotate molecules and proteins, and more".](https://images.moneycontrol.com/static-mcnews/2021/11/facebook_nov2-770x433.jpg "Meta has taken the demonstration for its artificial intelligence (AI) bot Galactica offline after several users complained that it was faking research papers in the latest setback for the Facebook parent after its metaverse fiasco. Galactica was introduced as a large-scale language model for science that could "summarize academic literature, solve math problems, generate Wiki articles, write scientific code, annotate molecules and proteins, and more".")
