Donald Trump has said he “approves a deal in concept” that will allow TikTok to continue to operate in the US, after threatening to ban the Chinese-owned app.
Related: China attacks US 'bullying' over ban on Tiktok and WeChat
Continue reading...Consumers buying chlorine dioxide solution on Amazon platform say they have been drinking fluid despite FDA warnings
Industrial bleach is being sold on Amazon through its product pages which consumers are buying under the mistaken belief that it is a “miracle cure” for Covid-19, despite health warnings from the US Food and Drug Administration that drinking the fluid can kill.
Related: 'Archbishop' of Florida church selling bleach 'miracle cure' arrested with son
Continue reading...Donald Trump’s decision to ban downloads of the Chinese-owned platform prompts realignment of tech space
TikTok users in the United States have reacted with a collective shrug to Donald Trump’s decision to ban new downloads of the video-sharing app, but many are already planning an exit to other platforms should the clampdown lead to an outright ban.
“Oh my God! Ok! It’s happening! Everybody stay calm!” TikToker Nick Foster told his 577,000 followers, dubbing a video of himself with audio of actor Steve Carell’s character on the series The Office panicking during a fire alarm.
Continue reading...Innovative community alarm system provides solution in places where violent crime and theft have become endemic
Ntsako Mgiba was sleeping at his aunt’s place in eMalahleni (previously known as Witbank) in Mpumalanga province when thieves broke in and stole hundreds of pounds worth of laptops, smartphones and other tech. The next morning Mgiba followed the burglars’ footprints – theirs was not the only home to be targeted. The police filed a report that afternoon, but any hope of tracking them down had gone.
Crime is a fact of life across South Africa. But while richer residents have access to one of the world’s largest private security industries – there are 2.57 security personnel for every police officer – poorer communities like that in eMalahleni, a town that leads the country in house break-ins, are left to fend for themselves. “In the townships you have burglar bars, dogs and lapsed alarm contracts,” says Mgiba, explaining that a couple of big security firms have tried and failed to enter the market.
Continue reading...Police in Canada have charged a man with speeding and dangerous driving after he was found asleep at the wheel of his self-driving car as it travelled at 150km/h down a highway in the province of Alberta.
Related: Elon Musk becomes world's fourth richest man on Tesla boom
Continue reading...Tyre attachment designed by four students aims to reduce road transport pollution
A device that captures microplastic particles from tyres as they are emitted – and could help reduce the devastating pollution they cause – has won its designers a James Dyson award.
The Tyre Collective, a group of masters students from Imperial College London and the Royal College of Art, scooped the UK prize of the international competition with their solution for the growing environmental scourge of tyre wear caused by road transport.
Continue reading...President warns any agreement to continue operating in US must be ‘100% as far as national security is concerned’
Donald Trump has questioned plans by the Chinese tech firm ByteDance to keep a majority stake in TikTok’s US operations as part of a “trusted technology deal” with Oracle.
“Conceptually I can tell you that I don’t like that,” Trump told a news conference when asked about a reported proposal to give Oracle only a minority share. “I’m not prepared to sign off on anything. They’re going to be reporting to me tomorrow morning and I’ll let you know.”
Continue reading...Cybersecurity experts concerned by possible intent behind use of big data to compile lists featuring everyone from low-key individuals to the royal family
The personal details of millions of people around the world have been swept up in a database compiled by a Chinese tech company with reported links to the country’s military and intelligence networks, according to a trove of leaked data.
About 2.4 million people are included in the database, assembled mostly based on public open-source data such as social media profiles, analysts said. It was compiled by Zhenhua Data, based in the south-eastern Chinese city of Shenzhen.
Continue reading...Oracle reported to be ‘technology partner’ after Donald Trump set a 15 September deadline for US businesses to stop dealing with Bytedance
Bytedance will not sell TikTok’s US operations to Microsoft, the US tech-giant said in a statement, with reports it has instead picked a consortium led by Oracle as a “technology partner”.
ByteDance has been in talks to sell TikTok’s US business since Donald Trump threatened last month to ban the service if it was not sold. The president’s executive order in August gave Americans until 15 September to stop doing business with the video platform’s Chinese parent company ByteDance, or it would be shut down in the US. It effectively set a deadline for a potential pressured sale of part of the tech company to an American bidder.
Continue reading...Miniature satellites open up a world of technological possibility. But experts say they degrade the astronomical landscape
The natural serenity of the night sky is a touchstone for all of us. Everyone alive today looks at the same stars no matter where they are located on the planet. But the connection is more profound because, next to our brief lives, the stars are immortal. Shakespeare saw the same stars in the same patterns that we do. So did Galileo, Columbus, Joan of Arc, Cleopatra and the first human ancestor to look up in curiosity. The night sky is nothing short of our common human heritage.
Last year, however, something happened that might change that view for ever. On 23 May 2019, Elon Musk’s company SpaceX launched 60 small satellites from a single rocket. The satellites were the first in what is planned to be a “megaconstellation” of thousands of satellites that will bring internet coverage to the entire planet.
Continue reading...Platforms will target unverified claims of election rigging and premature results declarations
Premature claims of victory will be blocked from Twitter and Google in the run-up to November’s US presidential election, as both companies follow Facebook in trying to fight the prospect of a stolen vote.
Under its new rules, Twitter will treat as harmful misinformation any tweet which makes false claims about election rigging, or prematurely claims to announce the election results.
Continue reading...Court filings reveal Apple may delay return even if developer backtracks in App Store dispute
Fortnite could be banned from iPhones and other Apple devices for a year, the game’s developer, Epic Games, has revealed, as the court battle between the two companies continues.
The scale of the ban was revealed in a legal filing from Epic, which asks the court to force Apple to allow the game back on the iOS App Store while the wider lawsuit winds its way to a full hearing.
Continue reading...Carmaker’s value plunges after failing to make S&P 500 listing as all major US stock markets fall
The US tech sell-off on Wall Street extended to a third day on Tuesday, with electric carmaker Tesla among the biggest fallers suffering its worst day in nearly six months.
The tech-heavy Nasdaq stock market dropped close to 3% in morning trading, following similar falls on Thursday and Friday. Wall Street was closed on Monday for the Labor Day holiday.
Continue reading...Graphic footage originally broadcast on Facebook has spread across social network
TikTok is battling to remove a graphic video of a livestreamed suicide, after the footage was uploaded to the service on Sunday night from Facebook, where it was initially broadcast.
Although the footage was rapidly taken down from TikTok, users spent much of Monday re-uploading it, initially unchanged, but later incorporated into so-called bait-and-switch videos, which are designed to shock and upset unsuspecting users.
Continue reading...QAnon is dangerous but some action taken to stem its influence may further embolden its followers
Saturday, 5 September was supposed to be the day Australian history was irreconcilably changed. It was to be “Freedom Day”, the day when “real” Aussies took back control of the streets, their airways and their collective destiny.
Rather than changing it, the protests amounted to what might constitute a footnote in an awfully specific history of Australia. Disparate groups gathered in separate events around the country. Dozens of protesters were arrested, dozens more were fined with breaching Covid-19 restrictions, one protester jumped into Melbourne’s Albert Park Lake and all of it was livestreamed.
Continue reading...Terminally ill French man is told his plan was blocked because it could promote self-harm
Facebook has blocked a terminally ill French campaigner for assisted dying from livestreaming his own death.
Alain Cocq, who has been suffering for 34 years from a rare and incurable degenerative disease, has stopped taking food, drink or medicine, and says he wants his death to be seen to help persuade French authorities to lift a ban on medically assisted suicide.
Continue reading...Internet Research Agency also hired real, unwitting freelance reporters in operation Facebook has removed
The Russian agency that interfered in the 2016 US election created a fake leftwing news publication, staffed it with fake editors with AI-generated photos and hired real freelance reporters as part of a fresh influence operation detected and removed by Facebook, the company said on Tuesday.
The latest operation by the Internet Research Agency (IRA) was still in its early stages when it was detected thanks to a tip from the FBI, according to Facebook’s head of security policy, Nathaniel Gleicher. The network had 13 accounts and two pages, with about 14,000 total followers.
Continue reading...Beijing says some exports will now need government approval in move believed to be linked to Trump sale order
New Chinese government restrictions could complicate ByteDance plans to sell TikTok to a US company and avoid a ban threatened by Donald Trump.
Late on Friday, Beijing issued new restrictions or bans on tech exports, requiring companies to seek government approval – a process that can take up to 30 days. In mid-August, Trump gave the company 90 days to sell up or face a shutdown.
Continue reading...Billionare entrepreneur presented animal during a livestream event to recruit workers for his neuroscience startup
The tech entrepreneur Elon Musk on Friday showed off a pig whose brain he says has been implanted with a small computer.
“We have a healthy and happy pig, initially shy but obviously high energy and, you know, kind of loving life, and she’s had the implant for two months,” Musk said of Gertrude, the pig.
Continue reading...In a letter to staff Meyer cited a ‘sharply changed’ political environment, after Donald Trump ordered ByteDance to sell up within 90 days
Tik Tok’s chief executive, Kevin Mayer, has quit just months after his appointment, amid a “sharply changed” political environment after Donald Trump accused the platform of threatening national security.
The Financial Times reported on Thursday that the former Disney executive would be replaced in the interim by Vanessa Pappas, the general manager. In a letter to staff, parts of which have been seen by the Guardian, Mayer said he had decided to leave after Trump ordered TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, to sell its US assets to a US company within 90 days.
“In recent weeks, as the political environment has sharply changed, I have done significant reflection on what the corporate structural changes will require, and what it means for the global role I signed up for,” the letter said.