Online safety act to be watered down? TikTok facing €500m fine
Young people should be removed from social media altogether if the Online Safety Act is watered down as part of US trade negotiations, the children’s commissioner for England has said. Dame Rachel de Souza told Sky News’ breakfast with Wilfred Frost that she fought for the flagship bill because children as young as eight are being exposed to “gore, pornography, terrible degrading violence towards women” on the internet. The act requires social media firms to block children accessing illegal and harmful material, with fines if they fail to do so. Sky News
TikTok is facing a €500m (£422m) fine for illegally sending European users’ data to China. In the latest crackdown on the video app and its Beijing-based owner, Ireland’s data protection commissioner (DPC) is expected to hit TikTok with the fine as soon as next week – concluding a four-year investigation. It would be one of the largest fines handed out under Europe’s strict GDPR data laws and the second imposed on TikTok in less than two years. Telegraph
After months of speculation, Nintendo has confirmed the successor to its wildly popular Switch console will be released on 5 June, when it will cost £395.99 to buy in the UK.But it’s not so much of the price of the Switch 2 but its games that have been raising eyebrows, with the new Mario Kart World that is being released alongside it coming in at a whopping £74.99 for a physical copy. Fans will have to wait weeks before seeing what the new console and game are like – and whether they are worth that sort of money – but here’s what I found when Nintendo gave me a chance to try them both out. BBC
McLaren Automotive is merging with UK luxury electric vehicle start-up Forseven Holdings in a radical makeover of the 62-year-old British supercar manufacturer under its new owner. The integration was announced on Thursday after Abu Dhabi investment group CYVN completed its acquisition of McLaren’s auto business from Bahraini sovereign wealth fund Mumtalakat. CYVN, which backs Forseven and Chinese EV maker Nio, has also bought a minority stake in McLaren’s Formula 1 team as part of the deal announced last year. FT.com
After releasing the newest iPad Air last month in 11-inch and 13-inch guises, Apple is working on its next-gen smaller tablet, the iPad Mini, and a leak yet again claims the tablet is set to launch with an OLED display. As shared by leaker Jukanlosreve, rumors of Apple ditching the iPad Mini in favor of a foldable are wide of the mark. This comes after reports of Apple developing a foldable iPhone with a 7.74-inch inner display screen. While that display size indicates some overlap with the 8.3-inch iPad Mini, it appears the foldable iPhone will be a separate model and not a replacement for the small tablet. Notebook Check
Sony has a replacement for its current flagship QD-OLED TV, the extremely well-received A95L. That’s the model that was crowned “King of TV” at last year’s Value Electronics TV Shootout, which Verge editor-in-chief Nilay Patel served on the judging panel for. The new model is called the Bravia 8 II. Sony claims that it has 125 percent the peak brightness of the A95L and 150 percent of last year’s Bravia 8, which will remain on sale as an OLED-but-not-QD option. It has a similar design to the A95L, and Sony even says it’ll be cheaper — though pricing information won’t be shared until later in spring. The Verge
