Friday, June 21, 2024

TikTok confirms it offered the US a "kill switch" in 2022 to shut down the app in the US at the government's discretion if TikTok did not follow certain rules (Imran Rahman-Jones/BBC)

Imran Rahman-Jones / BBC:
TikTok confirms it offered the US a “kill switch” in 2022 to shut down the app in the US at the government's discretion if TikTok did not follow certain rules  —  TikTok says it offered the US government the power to shut the platform down in an attempt to address lawmakers' data protection and national security concerns.



Estonia blocks an EU VAT reform that would have imposed new liabilities on short-term rental services like Airbnb and passenger transport services like Bolt (Bloomberg)

Bloomberg:
Estonia blocks an EU VAT reform that would have imposed new liabilities on short-term rental services like Airbnb and passenger transport services like Bolt  —  Estonia is blocking a reform of VAT which would impose new liabilities on digital platforms including short-term accommodation …



Huawei says around 900M gadgets are now running on its HarmonyOS and sales of premium Huawei smartphones climbed 72% in the first five months of 2024 (Bloomberg)

Bloomberg:
Huawei says around 900M gadgets are now running on its HarmonyOS and sales of premium Huawei smartphones climbed 72% in the first five months of 2024  —  - Consumer chief says Harmony users have reached 900 million  — Richard Yu says top-end device sales surged 72% in year to May



Qilin, hackers behind the London hospitals hack, published ~400GB of patient data on their darknet site and Telegram channel; the NHS is investigating the claim (Joe Tidy/BBC)

Joe Tidy / BBC:
Qilin, hackers behind the London hospitals hack, published ~400GB of patient data on their darknet site and Telegram channel; the NHS is investigating the claim  —  A gang of cyber criminals causing huge disruption to multiple London hospitals has published sensitive data stolen from an NHS blood testing company.



Thursday, June 20, 2024

Kenya ends a year-long investigation into Worldcoin with "no further police action" and says the startup must register its business, acquire licenses, and more (TechCrunch)

TechCrunch:
Kenya ends a year-long investigation into Worldcoin with “no further police action” and says the startup must register its business, acquire licenses, and more  —  Worldcoin — the crypto startup co-founded by OpenAI's Sam Altman — has been given the green light to resume iris-scanning …



Tests show Instagram continues to recommend sexual videos to accounts with ages listed as 13; Snapchat and TikTok did not produce the same sexualized content (Jeff Horwitz/Wall Street Journal)

Jeff Horwitz / Wall Street Journal:
Tests show Instagram continues to recommend sexual videos to accounts with ages listed as 13; Snapchat and TikTok did not produce the same sexualized content  —  Findings align with undisclosed internal research at Meta, which has pledged an ‘age-appropriate’ experience for teens …



Tencent removes hit game Dungeon & Fighter from select Android app stores after its contracts expired; local media says the app stores include Huawei and Oppo (Reuters)

Reuters:
Tencent removes hit game Dungeon & Fighter from select Android app stores after its contracts expired; local media says the app stores include Huawei and Oppo  —  Tencent (0700.HK) is removing from Thursday its hit mobile game “Dungeon & Fighter” (DnF Mobile) from selected Android app stores …



TikTok launches an in-app experience to celebrate Taylor Swift's Eras Tour, giving prizes to users who complete 11 weeks of tasks, following Instagram in April (Taylor Lorenz/Washington Post)

Taylor Lorenz / Washington Post:
TikTok launches an in-app experience to celebrate Taylor Swift's Eras Tour, giving prizes to users who complete 11 weeks of tasks, following Instagram in April  —  The app is the latest social platform to build a custom experience for the star.  —  You already knew Taylor Swift …



Tuesday, June 18, 2024

Margrethe Vestager says Apple has a number of "very serious" issues under the EU's DMA, and the conclusions of an investigation will arrive "hopefully soon" (Arjun Kharpal/CNBC)

Arjun Kharpal / CNBC:
Margrethe Vestager says Apple has a number of “very serious” issues under the EU's DMA, and the conclusions of an investigation will arrive “hopefully soon”  —  WATCH NOW  —  Apple has a number of “very serious” issues under the European Union's sweeping rules aimed …



Some Google users, frustrated by the results, turn to Reddit as a search alternative; a weeklong test finds Reddit is best for product recommendations and more (Ann-Marie Alcántara/Wall Street Journal)

Ann-Marie Alcántara / Wall Street Journal:
Some Google users, frustrated by the results, turn to Reddit as a search alternative; a weeklong test finds Reddit is best for product recommendations and more  —  Googling isn't what it used to be  —  Frustrated by their Google searches, people are funneling their queries to a site that isn't a search engine at all: Reddit.



Sources: Huawei is considering taking a cut of in-app purchases on its Harmony OS, and has discussed a ~20% fee with developers, below Apple and Google's 30% (Pei Li/Bloomberg)

Pei Li / Bloomberg:
Sources: Huawei is considering taking a cut of in-app purchases on its Harmony OS, and has discussed a ~20% fee with developers, below Apple and Google's 30%  —  - Chinese firm is looking at a lower fee structure than Apple  — Huawei's profit surged 564% as it reclaimed premium share



Constellation Energy plans to invest $1.6B to revive the Three Mile Island nuclear plant in Pennsylvania and sell all the output to Microsoft data centers (Bloomberg)

Bloomberg : Constellation Energy plans to invest $1.6B to revive the Three Mile Island nuclear plant in Pennsylvania and sell all the out...