By Catherine Thorbecke and Brian Fung, CNN Nearly two-and-a-half years after the Trump administration threatened to ban TikTok in the United States if it didn’t divest from its Chinese owners, the Biden administration is now doing the same. TikTok acknowledged to CNN this week that federal officials are demanding the app’s Chinese owners sell their
Continue Reading By Laura He, CNN Nearly three years after the Trump administration threatened to ban TikTok if its Chinese owner didn’t sell the company to American investors, the video app is once again facing an existential threat. TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew will appear later Thursday before US lawmakers, many of whom want the app banned
Continue Reading By Brian Fung, CNN The US government has launched a criminal investigation into TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, over improper access to the personal information of several US citizens, according to Forbes and The New York Times. News of the investigation, which reportedly involved a subpoena to ByteDance along with a number of interviews by the
Continue Reading By Jennifer Korn Facebook and Instagram users in the United States will soon be able to pay to get a coveted blue check on their account. Meta on Friday began testing a paid verification option for US users of the two social networks, CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced on Instagram. The company plans to gradually roll
Continue Reading By Brian Fung and Clare Duffy, CNN YouTube on Friday said it would restore former President Donald Trump’s channel, more than two years after suspending it following the January 6 attack on the US Capitol. The move follows similar actions by Twitter and Facebook-parent Meta in recent months, although Trump has yet to resume posting
Continue Reading By Brian Fung, CNN The Federal Communications Commission is cracking down on spammy text messages with new rules for telecom companies, citing a surge of consumer complaints in recent years tied to unwanted robotexts. The new rules require phone providers to block text messages from suspicious sources including phone numbers that appear to be “invalid,
Continue Reading By Laura He, CNN China has approved 27 foreign video games, including titles to be released by Tencent, NetEase and Bilibili, as it gradually reopens the world’s largest mobile entertainment market to international titles. It was the second batch of foreign games to be allowed to enter the Chinese market since December. The latest titles
Continue Reading By Michelle Toh, CNN Shares in Chinese search giant Baidu rebounded sharply a day after it unveiled ERNIE Bot, its answer to the ChatGPT craze. Its stock soared 14.3% on Friday in Hong Kong, making it the biggest winner in the Hang Seng Index. They also gained 3.8% in New York during US trade Thursday.
Continue Reading By Chris Lau New Zealand will ban TikTok on all devices with access to its parliament by the end of this month, becoming the latest country to impose an official bar on the popular social media platform owned by a Beijing-based tech conglomerate. Led by the United States, a growing number of Western nations are
Continue Reading By Chris Lau New Zealand will ban TikTok on all devices with access to its parliament by the end of this month, becoming the latest country to impose an official bar on the popular social media platform owned by a Beijing-based tech conglomerate. Led by the United States, a growing number of Western nations are
Continue Reading By Jennifer Korn Google will no longer sell the latest Enterprise Edition of Google Glass, the company announced this week, effectively killing off an innovative but failed wearable product line from another era that many consumers may have assumed was long gone. First unveiled in 2013, Google Glass was initially marketed for a general audience,
Continue Reading By Samantha Murphy Kelly, CNN Business Microsoft on Thursday outlined its plans to bring artificial intelligence to its most recognizable productivity tools, including Outlook, PowerPoint, Excel and Word, with the promise of changing how millions do their work every day. At an event on Thursday, the company announced that Microsoft 365 users will soon be
Continue Reading By Catherine Thorbecke, CNN After a rollercoaster week for Silicon Valley Bank’s customers, some prominent voices in the tech world are now publicly saying they will keep their money with the embattled lender — and they’re urging others to do the same. “As venture capitalists and customers of SVB, we are recommending our portfolio companies
Continue Reading By Livvy Doherty and Sharon Braithwaite, CNN Regulators in Italy issued a temporary ban on ChatGPT Friday, effective immediately, due to privacy concerns and said they had opened an investigation into how OpenAI, the US company behind the popular chatbot, uses data. Italy’s data protection agency said users lacked information about the collection of their
Continue Reading By Brian Fung, CNN The United Kingdom banned TikTok from official government devices on Thursday, adding to similar restrictions imposed by allies in Canada, the European Union and the United States. The social media app is not widely used by UK officials, according to a government announcement, but the measure reflects concerns about TikTok’s links
Continue Reading By Samantha Murphy Kelly, CNN Business In the first day after it was unveiled, GPT-4 stunned many users in early tests and a company demo with its ability to draft lawsuits, pass standardized exams and build a working website from a hand-drawn sketch. On Tuesday, OpenAI announced the next-generation version of the artificial intelligence technology
Continue Reading By Brian Fung, CNN The United Kingdom banned TikTok from official government devices on Thursday, adding to similar restrictions imposed by allies in Canada, the European Union and the United States. The social media app is not widely used by UK officials, according to a government announcement, but the measure reflects concerns about TikTok’s links
Continue Reading By Brian Fung, CNN The Biden administration has threatened to ban TikTok from the United States unless the app’s Chinese owners agree to spin off their share of the social media platform, TikTok acknowledged Wednesday evening. The apparent ultimatum by a US multiagency panel known as the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States
Continue Reading By Jennifer Korn Ryan Reynolds is about to have a nice payday. T-Mobile announced Wednesday that it’s buying budget wireless provider Mint Mobile in a larger deal for up to $1.35 billion. The acquisition of Mint Mobile’s parent Ka’ena Corporation will also include Ultra Mobile, an international calling service, and wireless wholesaler Plum. Reynolds, who
Continue Reading By Catherine Thorbecke, CNN Roughly a year-and-a-half after Facebook renamed itself “Meta” and said it would go all-in on building a future version of the internet dubbed the metaverse, the tech giant now says its top investment priority will be advancing artificial intelligence. In a letter to staff Tuesday, CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced plans to
Continue Reading