It hasn't even been a full day since ByteDance shut down TikTok in the US, and now it says it's coming back. In a statement posted on X Sunday afternoon, TikTok wrote, In agreement with our service providers, TikTok is in the process of restoring service. The statement also thanked Trump, who will be sworn in on Monday and previously said he was considering giving TikTok an extension amid reports of potential bidders (though ByteDance has expressed no interest in selling). We will work with President Trump on a long-term solution that keeps TikTok in the United States, TikTok said.
At the time of this writing, the TikTok app is once again up and running for me despite previously showing a message saying I can't use TikTok for now. Phew, what an agonizing checks watch 12 hours that was without it. TikTok doesn't yet seem to be back in the App Store or Google Play Store, though, so if you deleted the app from your phone, you'll probably have to wait a little longer to get it back. CapCut, one of the other apps affected by the ban, also isn't available.
STATEMENT FROM TIKTOK:In agreement with our service providers, TikTok is in the process of restoring service. We thank President Trump for providing the necessary clarity and assurance to our service providers that they will face no penalties providing TikTok to over 170 TikTok Policy (@TikTokPolicy) January 19, 2025
While the law banning TikTok was set to go into effect today, January 19, the outgoing administration has expressed that it would not be enforcing it in Bidens final hours as president. MSNBC reported on Saturday that White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre called TikToks threat to go dark a stunt, saying we see no reason for TikTok or other companies to take actions in the next few days before the Trump Administration takes office on Monday. But TikTok maintained that it couldnt stay online without assurance that service providers would not be punished.
Trump chimed in on Sunday morning, writing on Truth Social, Im asking companies not to let TikTok stay dark! I will issue an executive order on Monday to extend the period of time before the laws prohibitions take effect, so that we can make a deal to protect our national security. The order will also confirm that there will be no liability for any company that helped keep TikTok from going dark before my order.
He also outlined a vague plan for how he envisions TikToks future in the US. I would like the United States to have a 50% ownership position in a joint venture. By doing this, we save TikTok, keep it in good hands and allow it to say [sic] up. Without U.S. approval, there is no Tik Tok.
I sure hope you arent already exhausted by the back and forth ridiculousness of this situation because, my friends, its not over.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/social-media/tiktok-says-its-restoring-service-in-the-us-175440013.html?src=rss
Its been unclear in the leadup to the TikTok ban what the fate of parent company ByteDances other apps would be, but now we know: theyve gone dark in the US too. At the same time TikTok went offline this weekend, so did other apps ByteDance has developed or is affiliated with, including the popular video-editing tool CapCut, the social media platform Lemon8 and Marvel Snap. All are now displaying messages to US users that their services are unavailable. Ben Brode, Chief Development Officer for Marvel Snap developer Second Dinner, wrote on Threads that getting caught up in the ban was a surprise to us and that the team is working on getting it back online.
Second Dinner echoed this on X and in its in-app message to users, adding, MARVEL SNAP isnt going anywhere. While Marvel Snap was created by the US-based developer, its publisher Nuverse Games is a ByteDance subsidiary. Other Nuverse games appear to be affected too.
CapCut and Lemon8 may be less surprising casualties, both having been developed by ByteDance, but given the laws focus on TikTok alone as its target, their shutdown is still sure to come as a shock to many users. CapCut is widely used for video editing, especially among social media creators. And many TikTok users looking for an alternative in light of the ban flocked to Lemon8; just a few days ago, Lemon8 was the second most-popular app on the App Store.
On a new support page listing some of the affected apps, Apple notes, If you already have these apps installed on your device, they will remain on your device. But they cant be redownloaded if deleted or restored if you move to a new device. In-app purchases and new subscriptions are no longer possible. These apps also wont receive updates.
Along with TikTok, CapCut, Lemon8 and Marvel Snap, Apple names Lark, Hypic an AI photo editing tool and Gauth: AI Study Companion as apps that have been pulled as a result of the ban. But there are many others that arent listed that may be swept up in it too.
Apple is obligated to follow the laws in the jurisdictions where it operates, Apple said in a statement on the support page. Pursuant to the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act, apps developed by ByteDance Ltd. and its subsidiaries including TikTok, CapCut, Lemon8, and others will no longer be available for download or updates on the App Store for users in the United States starting January 19, 2025.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/social-media/marvel-snap-capcut-lemon8-and-other-bytedance-apps-have-also-shut-down-in-the-us-alongside-tiktok-153002137.html?src=rss
The switch has flipped on the US TikTok ban. TikTok's app stoped working and was removed from the App Store and Google Play on Saturday night, just hours before the January 19 ban was expected to take effect.
People who have previously installed the app are instead greeted with a pop-up. "Sorry, TikTok isn't available right now," it says. "A law banning TikTok has been enacted in the U.S. Unfortunately, that means you can't use TikTok for now. We are fortunate that president Trump has indicated that he will work with us on a solution to reinstate TikTok once he takes office. Please stay tuned."
The notice gives the option to close the app or "learn more," which directs users to TikTok's website, which has similar language. Existing users can also download their data from the website. ByteDance's popular video editing app, CapCut, is also no longer available within the US.
Following the passage of the "Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Apps Act" by President Biden, TikTok had six months to divest itself from Chinese parent company ByteDance. The company opted to fight the law, bringing a case to the Supreme Court claiming that its First Amendment rights were violated by the measure. The high court, with a limited amount of time to consider the case, ruled unanimously against the app.
As part of the ban, Apple's App Store, Google's Play Store and any other app marketplace must remove TikTok or be subject to a fine of $5,000 for every user in the US that downloads the app. White House officials said earlier in the week that the ban would not be enforced during President Joe Biden's final hours in office, but TikTok said that the government had "failed to provide the necessary clarity and assurance to the service providers that are integral to maintaining TikTok's availability to over 170 million Americans."
Multiple attempts have been made to ban TikTok in the US over concerns of spying, but this is the first time one has stuck, at least temporarily. President-elect Donald Trump was a major supporter of a ban during his first term in office and, ironically, is TikTok's only hope of surviving after his second inauguration. Earlier on Saturday, Trump told NBC News that he would "most likely" grant a 90-day extension to the company after taking office.
Should an extension come, it's not clear what kind of arrangement the company may work out to remain in the US after all. Perplexity AI has reportedly submitted a bid to merge with TikTok's stateside operations, CNBC reported. Others, including investor Kevin O'Leary (of Shark Tank fame) have also made proposals or expressed interest in buying the service.
Additional reporting by Karissa Bell.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/social-media/tiktok-is-no-longer-available-in-the-us-040204115.html?src=rss
Canoo said on Friday night that it has filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy and will cease operations effective immediately, after failing to secure enough funding to keep it going. The writing was on the wall for the EV startup leading up to the announcement; the company has lost multiple executives in recent months, announced furloughs and reported to the SEC in November that it had just $700,000 in the bank, per TechCrunch.
In a press release announcing the filing, Canoo said it was unable to get funding from the Department of Energys Loan Program Office or from foreign sources of capital that executives had been in talks with. In light of the fact that these efforts were unsuccessful, the Board has made the difficult decision to file for insolvency, it said. Canoo owes a total of over $164 million to hundreds creditors, and has about $126 million in assets, according to TechCrunch. Under the filing in Delaware, Canoos assets will be liquidated and the proceeds will be distributed to its creditors. In a statement, CEO Tony Aquila said, We are truly disappointed that things turned out as they did.
Canoo made a few electric vans for NASA and a prototype for the US Army, and had deals for larger fleets with the likes of USPS and Walmart, but only a small number of its vans appear to have ever materialized.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/transportation/evs/ev-startup-canoo-has-filed-for-bankruptcy-and-stopped-all-operations-232719895.html?src=rss
Kids and younger teens might soon be unable to play Genshin Impact's gachas. The developer behind the game has agreed to block players under 16 years old from making in-game purchases without parental consent in order to settle a complaint from the Federal Trade Commission. It has also agreed to pay a $20 million penalty. Samuel Levine, the director of FTC's Bureau of Consumer Protection, said "Genshin Impact deceived children, teens, and other players into spending hundreds of dollars on prizes they stood little chance of winning."
The developer's marketing actively targeted children, the commission said in its complaint, and the company also violated COPPA by collecting personal info from kids under 13. HoYoverse, the developer's US entity, allegedly deceives players "about the odds of winning" its rarer loot box prizes and uses a confusing virtual currency system that's unfair to kids and younger teens. The FTC says this misleads players on how much they actually have to spend to be able to get rarer prizes. Genshin Impact uses a gacha system instead of a traditional loot box mechanic, wherein players can "pull" on banners to win a random item or character.
Under the FTC's proposed order, it wants to prohibit Genshin Impact from selling loot boxes using virtual currency unless it also provides an option to purchase them directly with real money. It wants to prohibit the developer from misrepresenting loot box odds and processes, and it wants to require the company to disclose gachas' odds and the virtual currency exchange rate. The commission wants to order HoYoverse to delete personal information collected from kids until 13 unless it was obtained with parental consent, as well. A federal judge still has to approve the proposed order with all these requirements, though, so they won't be enforced immediately. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/ftc-orders-genshin-impacts-developer-to-block-young-teens-from-making-in-game-purchases-221532729.html?src=rss
Just one day before TikTok is expected to shut down in the US, startup Perplexity AI has submitted a bid to TikToks parent company ByteDance proposing a merger that would allow it to continue operating, CNBC reports. Citing an anonymous source, CNBC reports that the proposed merger would create a new entity combining Perplexity, TikTok US and New Capital Partners. It comes after the Supreme Court on Friday ruled unanimously to uphold a law that requires ByteDance to sell TikTok or it will be banned in the US. The company has so far resisted the idea of a sale.
According to CNBCs source, Perplexity is hoping a merger rather than a sale will be more appealing to ByteDance. The new structure would allow for most of ByteDances existing investors to retain their equity stakes and would bring more video to Perplexity, CNBC reports. If ByteDance were to accept the proposal, theres a chance the company would be given a 90-day extension by Trump to work out a deal, which he told NBC News' Kristen Welker that he would most likely do when he takes office on Monday. But there is as yet no indication that ByteDance will go this route.
Despite rampant speculation about potential buyers, TikTok said it will be forced to go dark on January 19 when the law takes effect unless the Biden Administration immediately provides a definitive statement to satisfy the most critical service providers assuring non-enforcement. The outgoing administration, however, reportedly says its leaving all that for the Trump team to deal with. Per MSNBC, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre called TikToks claim about shutting down a stunt, and said we see no reason for TikTok or other companies to take actions in the next few days before the Trump Administration takes office on Monday.
We have laid out our position clearly and straightforwardly: actions to implement this law will fall to the next administration, Jean-Pierre said, according to MSNBC. So TikTok and other companies should take up any concerns with them.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/social-media/perplexity-ai-has-reportedly-submitted-an-11th-hour-bid-to-save-tiktok-in-the-us-215012514.html?src=rss
Instagram is rolling out a bunch of changes this weekend that will conveniently make it look a lot more like TikTok, which could go dark in the US on Sunday now that the Supreme Court has ruled in favor of the law banning the app if parent company ByteDance doesnt sell it. Those changes include extending Reels to three minutes long and changing the longstanding square grid on your profile to a rectangular layout, as Adam Mosseri announced in an Instagram post and on his Story, respectively. Considering how some users have crafted a specific look for their pages around the square grid, the latter isnt likely to go over well with everyone.
Nor is the third thing: theres now a tab in your Reels feed that shows you videos your friends have liked or added Notes to, Mosseri shared on Threads. Which means, of course, that your friends can more easily see what youve been liking and interacting with, too. Didnt we already agree this was kind of invasive back when Instagram had and eventually removed a whole feed dedicated to seeing the activity of the people you follow? In any case, the changes have already begun rolling out. You'll now see a button showing your friends' activity at the top right of the Reels tab, which will bring you to the new feed.
View this post on Instagram A post shared by Adam Mosseri (@mosseri)
Addressing the switch from the square grid in his Stories, Mosserri chalked it up to aligning with users posting habits. I know some of you really like your squares, and square photos are kind of the heritage of Instagram, but at this point most of whats uploaded both photos and videos are vertical in their orientation, so portrait versus landscape or square, and it just is a bummer to overly crop them, he said. So I know its a change, I know its a bit of a pain, but I think its a transitional pain. He went on to say, I think that people will over the long run be excited not to have their posts appear aggressively cropped.
Instagram already had offered a somewhat TikTok-like view of users profiles under the Reels tab, but the latest move gives photos on the main grid the rectangular treatment too (only on the grid though, theyll expand to normal size when you click them individually). On making Reels longer, Mosseri said in a separate post that while Instagram has long focused on short-form video, weve heard the feedback that this is just too short for those who want to share longer stories. Instagram previously only allowed Reels of up to 90-seconds long, though you could work around this by sharing a longer video as a non-Reel post.
TikTok, which also began with a focus on short-form, extended its post length to three minutes several years ago, and later upped this to 10 minutes in 2022. If TikTok really does shut down, users are going to be looking for a new home for that type of content.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/social-media/instagram-swoops-in-with-3-minute-reels-and-rectangular-profile-grids-as-the-tiktok-ban-gets-real-201316339.html?src=rss
Bang & Olufsen announced its new $499 premium earbuds, the Beoplay Eleven, back in November, touting among other things their replaceable batteries for sustainability and alignment with the EUs impending device repairability requirements. But an iFixit teardown tells a more complicated story about actually replacing those batteries, describing the process of just getting the case open as a very onerous and labor intensive task even for a trained technician. And inside, the battery is affixed to other components in ways that require heat to remove it, which in itself wouldn't comply with the EU's upcoming rules. Given all the work involved, the earbuds scored an abysmal 1/10 on iFixits repairability scorecard.
Bang & Olufsen said the earbuds design allows for battery replacement by service, which, as iFixit notes, suggests that this isnt meant to be a repair you can do yourself at home. It did ultimately turn out to be possible to take one of the earbuds apart without damaging any of the electronics inside, but the laborious teardown calls into question how feasible and sustainable battery replacement would be even when carried out at a B&O service center. After opening up the case and finding a plastic weld mark barring access to the battery, iFixits Shahram Mokhtari notes in the video that, at a minimum, any battery replacement service would need to dispose of the plastic housing completely.
Id love to see B&Os process for changing these batteries out, Mokhtari wrote in the blog post. Im willing to bet its neither cheap nor waste-free but I would love to be proven wrong. The teardown also revealed the Beoplay Eleven to be a carbon copy of the 2022 Beoplay EX internally. Even the peel-away film on the rear of each earbud says Beoplay EX not Beoplay Eleven, Mokhtari wrote. Yikes.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/audio/headphones/bang-and-olufsens-new-earbuds-with-replaceable-batteries-dont-seem-to-be-very-repairable-174949894.html?src=rss
Amazon's drones won't be making any deliveries in the foreseeable future. According to Bloomberg, the company has paused all commercial drone deliveries in Texas and Arizona after a previously undisclosed event in which two of Amazon's MK30 drones had crashed at the Pendleton, Oregon airport it uses for testing. MK30 is the company's next-gen drone model, which is lighter and has a longer range than its predecessor, the MK27. The incidents took place in December, with one of the drones even catching fire after it fell. Amazon reportedly determined that its drones crashed due a software issue that's linked to the light rain drizzling at the time the tests were being conducted.
The company said, however, that the crashes weren't the "primary reason" why it's putting its drone deliveries on hold. Amazon spokesperson Sam Stephenson told Bloomberg that it's "currently in the process of making software changes to the drone" and that the operational pause is voluntary. After the updates are completed, Amazon still has to secure an approval from the Federal Aviation Administration before it can resume its operations. "Employees at the drone sites, who were told of the action Friday, will continue to be paid during the pause," Stephenson added.
In addition to the crashes in December, two MK30 drones collided during another test a few months earlier. Stephenson explained that Amazon expects to see incidents like these during testing and that they help the company improve the service's safety. Amazon has been sending out non-medical shipments via drones in Texas since 2022 before adding prescription medication a year later. In 2024, Amazon halted drone deliveries in California, but it also launched the service in Phoenix, Arizona. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/big-tech/amazon-puts-its-drone-deliveries-on-hold-following-two-crash-incidents-140026835.html?src=rss
The Federal Aviation Administration is ordering SpaceX to conduct a mishap investigation into what caused the company's Starship rocket to explode mid-flight on January 16. Until the FAA approves SpaceX's investigation reported, the company won't be allowed to proceed with future Starship missions.
SpaceX's launch seemed to be going as planned prior to the explosion. Starship successfully made it off the launch pad and SpaceX was even able to catch the ship's boosters. But then, only eight and a half minutes after taking off, the Starship spacecraft exploded, according to SpaceX's post-launch blog post. In response to the sudden explosion, the FAA activated a "Debris Response Area" and slowed or diverted nearby flights to prevent further accidents, severely delaying flights from multiple airlines, according to CNBC.
Success is uncertain, but entertainment is guaranteed! pic.twitter.com/nn3PiP8XwG Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 16, 2025
The FAA's statement says that no one was injured by the falling debris but that its working "to confirm reports of public property damage on Turks and Caicos." The mishap investigation SpaceX performs will have to determine not only what caused the explosion, but also what corrective actions the company needs to take to prevent it from happening again. "Initial data indicates a fire developed in the aft section of the ship," SpaceX says.
This isn't the first time Starship has met an explosive end. Multiple Starship launches have ended with either SpaceX's boosters, the Starship spacecraft or both exploding. The company does appear to be getting better at catching and reusing its Super Heavy boosters, however. The successful catch that preceded the January 16 explosion is only the second time SpaceX has pulled it off. Its first successful Super Heavy catch was in October 2024.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/science/space/the-faa-is-grounding-spacexs-starship-after-its-latest-explosion-223535001.html?src=rss
