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 On Sunday, January 19, Apple will need to remove TikTok from the U.S. App Store, because the app will be officially banned in the United States. On the 19th, app distributors and websites will be prohibited from distributing, maintaining, or updating the TikTok app, though the app itself could continue to function on devices where it has already been downloaded. TikTok has said, however, that it plans to shut down the app when the ban begins.
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TikTok's time in the United States is counting down. But Washington is only the latest country to impose restrictions on the video app.
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Sunday's sale deadline is fast approaching. TikTok supporters say the company should be given more time to find a buyer or another solution.
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The law will go into effect Sunday, so here's what could happen.
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In the announcement post, Microsoft says that the price of Microsoft 365 will be rising from $7 to $10 per month for Personal subscribers and $10 to $13 per month for the Family bundle. Per-year prices will be rising from $70 to $100 (Personal) and $100 to $130 (Family).
What do you get for that 42 percent jump in price at the lowest tier? Access to Copilot-powered text generation, formatting, and queries in Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, and OneNote, plus AI-generated images and editing in OneNote.
You won't have unlimited use of these tools, by the way. You get 60 "AI credits" per month, and they can't be banked or rolled over. Copilot Pro, which costs an additional $20 per month on top of existing 365 plans, is currently the only way to get "extensive usage." (Presumably that means unlimited credits since it isn't enumerated.)
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The Qi2 wireless charging spec was originally announced back in early 2023. However, Android phone makers haven't exactly been rushing to add Qi2 support to their latest devices since then. That's made finding a compatible handset rather difficult, which is a bummer for anyone who has seen the wealth of accessories and power banks that iPhone owners have had for several generations.
On top of faster charging speeds (up to 15 watts or higher in later revisions), Qi2 dictates the inclusion of embedded magnets designed to make aligning and attaching peripherals a cinch.
But what makes the slow rollout a bit more frustrating is that Apple is a member of the Wireless Power Consortium (the governing body in charge of Qi2) and its MagSafe tech was used to help define the spec and ensure that compliant add-ons work seamlessly with Qi2, so it's not like there's a lack of compatible peripherals.
Regardless, to help you figure out which Android phones officially come with Qi2, we've compiled a list of supported devices. (Note: Due to the complexities of the Chinese market, this list is primarily focused on gadgets available in North America and the EU.)
Android phones with Qi2:
The HMD Skyline.
That's it, seriously. At least for now.
However, things are looking up for 2025, as Samsung has already comm
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Unless the app is sold by its China-based parent company, federal law banning the app will be upheld.
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While TikTok remains hugely popular in Brazil, Indonesia and other markets, its 170 million users in the United States are its most valuable.
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Technically, this counts as compliance with the law in a "you are free to leave" sort of way. But not for lack of trying to get around it. As Ars Technica reports, the New York law requiring internet service providers to offer plans as cheap as $15 per month to qualifying low-income households was actually put on the books way back in 2021. Lobbyists for AT&T and other ISPs sued, lost, and appealed all the way to the US Supreme Court, which declined to hear the case and effectively punted the ruling down to a previous loss.
New York began enforcing its Affordable Broadband Act earlier this week, at which point AT&T pulled its home wireless broadband out of the state completely. "New York's broadband law imposes harmful rate regulations that make it uneconomical for AT&T to invest in and expand our broadband infrastructure in the state," it said in a statement to Ars. Other internet service providers appear to be staying, at least for the moment. AT&T is able to so quickly withdraw New York service because it's entirely wireless, built off the back of its existing mobile phone infrastructure.
Cell phone service will not be affected, and those who have AT&T hardware for 5G home internet will graciously be allowed to keep their now-useless boxes at no extra charge.
The Affordable Broadband Act requires
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Meta's Instagram and Google's YouTube are getting ready to welcome TikTok users, as the Supreme Court upheld a law that effectively bans the Chinese-owned app from the United States.
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TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew will be a guest of Donald Trump at his inauguration Monday as the popular app's ban is set to go into effect, according to three people familiar with his plans.
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Google has told the EU it will not comply with a forthcoming fact-checking law, according to a copy of a letter obtained by Axios. The company states that it will not be adding fact checks to search results or YouTube videos and will not use fact-checking data when ranking or removing content.
It's important to note that Google has never really participated in fact-checking as part of its content moderation policies. The company did, however, invest in a European fact-checking database ahead of recent EU elections.
The upcoming fact-checking requirement was originally implemented by the European Commission's new Code of Practice on Disinformation. It started as a voluntary set of "self-regulatory standards to fight disinformation" but will soon become mandatory.
Google's global affairs president Kent Walker said the fact-checking integration "simply isn't appropriate or effective for our services" in a letter to the European Commission. The company also touted its current approach to content moderation, suggesting it did a bang-up job during last year's "unprecedented cycle of global elections."
Google also points to a new feature added to YouTube last year that enables certain users to add contextual notes to videos, saying that it "has significant potential." This program is similar to X's Community Notes and, likely, whatever fresh hell
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But there is another. There are a lot of others, actually, all initially trying to ape TikTok's success, now poised to try and fully replace it. My personal poison (only slightly joking) is YouTube Shorts, perhaps because it happens to be built into the thing I already use. I have a lot of beef with YouTube as a platform, but that doesn't take away from the many talented creators that are on it.
YouTube Shorts is filled with a lot of the same garbage littering TikTok. Clips blatantly stolen from movies and TV shows, reactions that add nothing to the original video, AI-generated slop that the uploader didn't even bother to check. But there's some genuinely entertaining, interesting, and instructional stuff too. Here are 25 of my favorites to get you started.
I'm so sorry, puppets. We've all failed you.
Food I don't know how to cook
SJohnsonVoiceOvers, AKA SnackDaddy: Stefan Johnson is a professional voice actor, but lately he's been diving into his love of food, in both the snack/junk and home-cooked varieties. He'll do earnest and often hilarious reviews
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