Tech Digest daily round up: Lifting of US ban on TikTok ‘positive step’, claims China

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China’s Ministry of Commerce said Thursday that a U.S. move to revoke the Trump administration’s executive orders intended to ban apps like TikTok and WeChat was a “positive step,” amid strained relations between the two countries. “We hope that the US will treat Chinese companies fairly and avoid politicizing economic and trade issues,” ministry spokesperson Gao Feng said at a regular news briefing Thursday. Gao said the U.S. move to revoke previous government actions against apps such as TikTok and WeChat was a “positive step in the right direction.” The White House on Wednesday revoked some blanket-style orders made under former President Donald Trump against Chinese apps including the messaging app WeChat, short video app TikTok and the Alipay payments app. AP News

iOS 4 originally appeared nearly 10 years ago as Apple’s first mobile operating system to drop the iPhone OS naming convention. An 18-year-old developer has now lovingly recreated iOS 4 as an iPhone app, and it’s a beautiful blast from the past. If you never got the chance to use iOS 4, or you’re a fan of the iPhone 3G, OldOS almost flawlessly pulls off the experience of using an iPhone from a decade ago. OldOS is “designed to be as close to pixel-perfect as possible,” says Zane, the developer behind the app. It’s all built using Apple’s SwiftUI, so it includes buttery smooth animations and even the old iPhone home button that vibrates with haptic feedback to make it feel like a real button. The Verge

Electric car drivers can now utilise the Zap-Map app through in-car Apple CarPlay thanks to a new subscription service. Zap-Map is the UK’s leading electric vehicle mapping service, providing locations and information about the thousands of charging points dotted across the UK. However, up until this point, the app couldn’t be relayed on a car’s infotainment screen via Apple CarPlay – a commonly-used application which ‘mirrors’ a driver’s smartphone on the display. A new service is addressing this though. Called Zap-Map Premium, the new subscription will allow drivers to plan their journeys more quickly by giving them the option to filter by new charge points, different locations and also by user ratings. Yahoo!

The world’s largest meat processing company has paid the equivalent of $11m (£7.8m) in ransom to put an end to a major cyber-attack. Computer networks at JBS were hacked last week, temporarily shutting down some operations in Australia, Canada and the US. The payment was reportedly made using Bitcoin after plants had come back online. JBS says it was necessary to pay to protect customers. In a ransomware attack, hackers get into a computer network and threaten to cause disruption or delete files unless a ransom in cryptocurrency is paid. “This was a very difficult decision to make for our company and for me personally,” said JBS chief executive Andre Nogueira. BBC 

A ‘weird’ planet recently discovered has excited scientists in their hunt for extraterrestrial life. Researchers from Nasa’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the University of New Mexico discovered exoplanet TOI-1231 b orbiting an M dwarf star – otherwise known as a red dwarf. Scientists were able to characterise that star, and measure both the radius and the mass of TOI-1231 b. This then gave them the necessary data to calculate density, and hypothesise what the atmosphere is made of. The planet, a temperate sub-Neptune sized body with a 24-day orbit, is eight times closer to its star than the Earth is to the sun, but its temperature is similar to our home planet because the red dwarf itself is less potent. Independent

Chris Price
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