TikTok owner refuses to sell, Freely to come to British TV
TikTok’s Chinese parent company ByteDance says it has no intention of selling the business after the US passed a law to force it to sell the hugely popular video app or be banned in America. “ByteDance doesn’t have any plans to sell TikTok,” the company posted on its official account on Toutiao, a social media platform it owns. TikTok did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the BBC. Earlier this week, TikTok said it would challenge in court the “unconstitutional” law. BBC
How Apple will improve the next iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Pro with artificial intelligence is one of 2024’s big questions. Now we know more about Apple’s plans to use AI in the iPhone, its approach and how it will sell it to consumers. Apple has submitted eight large language models to the Hugging Face hub, an online resource for open-source AI implementations. Forbes
A new British streaming service is coming. Well, a streaming service of sorts. Freely will soon be coming to British television sets and possibly streaming devices in the next few months of 2024 (officially it’s Q2 2024). The service aims to streamline on-demand TV and live public service channels into one, easy-to-navigate service, without an aerial. It’s essentially the online streaming version of Freeview. It comes from the BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5, and will stream each broadcaster’s programming live – with more channels set to follow. Stuff
Meta’s share price has fallen almost $200 billion in the wake of an announcement by Mark Zuckerberg. The company reported results which showed higher costs and smaller-than-expected revenues. Much of that was the result of investment in artificial intelligence. During those results, chief executive Mark Zuckerberg said that it could take “several years” for its work on AI to scale up and start making money. That led to fears among investors that the company’s huge investments in artificial intelligence may not pay off. Independent
There’s a trade war brewing between China and the West, at stake is who will dominate the global market for electric vehicles. Outside the port city of Ningbo, Chinese car company Zeekr is rolling out luxury EVs and growing fast. It is a new player in the EV market, but has unbridled ambition to sell its high-end, high-tech cars abroad. It’s a subsidiary of a state-backed company, Geely. However, US and EU critics say the financial backing and vast resources of China’s government gives companies like Zeekr an unfair advantage. Sky News
The cyber security company backed by extradited entrepreneur Mike Lynch is to be snapped up by a US private equity firm in a further blow for the London Stock Exchange. Darktrace, one of the UK’s biggest listed tech companies, has agreed a £4.2bn takeover by Chicago-based Thoma Bravo. The deal will mean a significant payday for Mr Lynch, who is currently standing trial in the US for alleged fraud at Autonomy. Telegraph
Google I/O 2024 is quickly coming to the forefront, as the event will start in a few weeks and may bring new hardware and software announcements from Google. The company gave us our first real idea of what to expect when it released a preliminary I/O 2024 schedule on Thursday, April 25. That schedule includes an early confirmation that a Wear OS upgrade is coming soon. One of the mobile sessions is titled “Building for the future of Wear OS,” and it explicitly lists Wear OS 5. Android Central
