Tech Digest daily roundup: Delete TikTok or risk data being ‘exposed to hostile threats’, warns Government
People have been urged to delete TikTok from their phones, with the chair of Britain’s foreign affairs committee warning that “we are being naive” about the threat posed by the app. Alicia Kearns, a Conservative MP, said that keeping the video-sharing platform installed left users’ personal data exposed to “hostile” threats – specifically the Chinese government. TikTok, which is owned by Beijing-based ByteDance, has denied such information would ever be handed over.But Ms Kearns told Sky News’s Sophy Ridge on Sunday: “It is not worth having that vulnerability on your phone.” Sky News
Samsung made a lot of impressive announcements during its Galaxy S23 launch event last week. But an out-of-the-blue partnership with Qualcomm and Google on an upcoming mixed-reality platform certainly caught fans off guard. The new “XR” technology is an umbrella term for the intersection of AR, VR and mixed reality, or MR. In a year that’ll see a new PlayStation VR headset, a new HTC Vive VR headset, a new Meta VR headset and likely a first-ever Apple VR headset, how will this Samsung product (or products) end up changing the game, and when could it arrive? CNet
Google has invested about $300mn in artificial intelligence start-up Anthropic, making it the latest tech giant to throw its money and computing power behind a new generation of companies trying to claim a place in the booming field of “generative AI”. The deal involves Google taking a stake of about 10 per cent in the start-up and boosts Anthropic’s finances at a time when it is buying substantial computing resources from the search company’s cloud computing division. FT.com
Last week, Twitter said it is shutting down free access to its APIs starting February 9. Now, days before the deadline, Elon Musk said that after getting feedback from developers, Twitter will provide a write-only API for “bots providing good content that is free.” This decision is as opaque as some of the other policy decisions under Musk’s management. There is no information on what constitutes “good content” and who will decide that. However, if Twitter ends up implementing this rule, some bots will get a new lifeline on the social network. TechCrunch
We know that the OnePlus Pad is on the way, and will be getting its full unveiling in just a few days time. Now a newly leaked image gives us a better look at the Android tablet than we’ve had up until this point from official sources. The picture comes from the regularly reliable Evan Blass (via GSMArena), and shows almost the entire back of the tablet, together with a lot of the front. The OnePlus logo and a large-ish camera bump are visible, together with the Halo Green coloring. Tech Radar
Interpol secretary general Jurgen Stock says the global police agency is investigating how the organisation could police crime in the metaverse. The metaverse is the widely-discussed, but not yet realised, concept that in the future people will be represented by 3D avatars in their online lives. Interpol has built its own virtual reality (VR) space, where users can do training and attend virtual meetings. Mr Stock said it is important for the agency to not get left behind. “Criminals are sophisticated and professional in very quickly adapting to any new technological tool that is available to commit crime,” he said. BBC
