|
TikTok has finalized the deal for its US entity, with its parent company ByteDance selling majority of its stake to a group of non-Chinese investors. The deal was closed just before the Trump Administration's latest deadline, banning the app in the US unless it was divested from ByteDance, which will only retain 20 percent of the new entity. TikTok's investors will own 80 percent, with Oracle, Silver Lake and MGX, an Emirati-state owned investment firm, taking 15 percent each. Other investors include the investment firm of Dell's CEO.
The terms of the deal were first leaked last month, after TikTok CEO Shou Chew reportedly told employees in a memo that TikTok and ByteDance had agreed to a group of investors. This ends a lengthy saga and months of slow progress as the agreement was being worked out, ensuring that the app will remain available in the US after years of being on the verge of a ban in the country.
According to TikTok's announcement, the joint venture will protect American users' data with Oracle's secure US cloud environment. It will also retrain TikTok's algorithm on US users' data and will be in charge of content moderation in the US. The entity promises interoperability, as well, promising that users will
|
|
The peak time for deals on streaming services — the holiday shopping season — has come and gone, but Disney is back with a fresh offer for the new year. New and eligible returning subscribers can get one month of the ad-supported Disney Hulu bundle for just $10. That's $3 off the usual monthly rate for the bundle, and more than 58 percent off if you consider the prices for each service individually (Disney at $12 per month and, separately, Hulu also at $12 per month).
We'd be remiss if we didn't mention that this isn't quite as good as the Black Friday deal we saw last year, which offered the same bundle for $5 per month for one year. However, if you missed that offer or just want to try out Disney and Hulu for a brief period of time, this is a good way to do so.
Disney and Hulu make one of the most balanced streaming pairs available, blending family-friendly favorites with
|
|
Microsoft has announced that the Xbox app is now available on all Arm-based Windows 11 PCs. The app's release follows an update Microsoft made to its Prism emulator in December 2025, which translates x86 and x64 apps to Arm, and now includes support for AVX and AVX2. Both extensions play a role in making games run efficiently on Windows.
Windows on Arm users will be able to use the Xbox app to purchase, download and stream PC games, and Microsoft says that "more than 85 percent of the Game Pass catalog" now runs on Arm PCs. Unlike Valve's SteamOS, Windows on Arm also supports anti-cheat software like Epic's Easy Anti Cheat, which means you can access a wider library of online multiplayer games in comparison to what you can get on the Steam Deck.
Microsoft has been working on getting Windows running on Arm for years at this point, and the company made a major push with its own Arm-based hardware and the launch of the Copilot PC program in 2024. Many Copilot PCs use Qualcomm's Snapdragon chips, the latest of which the company
|
|
In another attempt to reduce our attention spans to mush, TikTok has released the PineDrama app, which offers serialized drama series that are roughly a minute per episode. As first spotted by Business Insider, the app is designed exactly like TikTok, but instead of trendy dance videos, you can scroll through and watch "micro dramas."
For those new to the category, micro dramas are bite-sized TV shows shot in vertical video and available in minute-long episodes. Don't expect any nominations for Best Original Screenplay with series like The Officer Fell For Me or Married to my past life's nemesis, since they typically offer soap opera vibes with cliffhangers that keep users scrolling to the next episode. The app is designed to keep people on it with a Discover tab, a place to save favorites and the ability to react in real time alongside other viewers.
Right now, the micro dramas on PineDrama are all free to watch and don't have any ads. It's unclear if TikTok will introduce any costs or ads to the app, since other micro drama options like DramaBox or ReelShort have a paid structure. Late last year, TikTok also introduced a way to watch micro dramas within its own app, with a section called
|
|
