Moving past mobile — why innovation must happen beyond smartphones The promise of connected living has fallen short The promise of connected living has fallen short for several reasons, and technology is not to blame. Huawei’s mission is to break the mold of the brand-specific connected ecosystems we’ve been sold. The company’s Global Chief Brand Officer, Andrew Garrihy, says brands have lacked the will to bridge connected devices together. “Companies haven’t been open and collaborative enough with the systems and consumers probably haven’t been demanding enough....

Moving Tiktok’s ownership to Microsoft will benefit tech giants — not users The Microsoft deal According to reports, ByteDance hasagreed to sell some of its TikTok operationsto Microsoft. The deal, which is unlikely toprogress before mid-September, would appease US regulators and could be seen as a way forward for TikTok in Australia. Microsoft has indicatedany takeover would include a complete security review and an offer of: Moving ownership to a US company could help address concerns surrounding the perceived influence of the Chinese government over TikTok....

Mozillahas announced that it is blocking the officialSkypeToolbar. According to theMozilla Blog, the toolbar is causing “browser crashes and [it] slows down certain processes by up to 300 times.” The browser plugin, which automatically installs itself to all Firefox user profiles upon installation of the Skype application, lets the the users call directly to the numbers displayed on websites using the Skype application. “The current shipping version of the Skype Toolbar is one of the top crashers of Mozilla Firefox 3....

Mozilla has announced its own new project to offer a truly open alternative: a Gecko-based mobile operating system,CNET reports. Gecko is the rendering engine that drives Firefox (and other browsers such as Camino) and Thunderbird. Mozilla’s project will be calledBoot to Geckoand code will be made available to the public as it is written. Andreas Galsays: We will do this work in the open, we will release the source in real-time, we will take all successful additions to an appropriate standards group, and we will track changes that come out of that process....

Mozilla is investigating YouTube’s algorithmic controls — and wants you to help. The non-profit has revamped itsRegretsReportertool to examine unwanted YouTube recommendations. The updated browser extension will explore whether the platformtruly allows users to reject recommendations. YouTube’s algorithmic controls include buttons such as “Not interested,” “Dislike,” and “Don’t recommend channel.”Your choices train YouTube’salgorithmto not surface similar content. RegretsReporterwas designed to determine whether the controls work as advertised. The extension lets you click a “Stop Recommending” button that’s placed on the thumbnail of each video that’s recommended or watched....