Biden signs TikTok ban into law but Bytedance promises legal challenge
President Joe Biden has signed into law a bill that could see TikTok banned in the US over security concerns, though parent Bytedance vowed to challenge any forced sale of its social media platform
Biden rubber-stamped the law, drafted and approved by US congressmen earlier this week, meaning TikTok-owner Bytedance now has nine months to find a buyer for its stake in the social media platform or risk seeing TikTok blocked in the US completely.
The vote was a landslide, with 79 senators voting in favor and 18 against. Biden then signed the bill into law – which cites security concerns as the reason for a potential ban.
TikTok’s head of public policy for the Americas, Michael Beckerman, has made it clear the company plans to fight the legislation in court, claiming it is “unconstitutional”.
Women Who Code to close citing lack of funding
Influential coding charity Women Who Code has announced it is to close, citing a lack of funding.
The US-based non-profit was set up 13 years ago by a small group of female engineers in San Francsico to support women in the tech industry, and had built a community of around 360,000 people across 145 countries, including more than 1,000 volunteers.
The decision to dissolve the organisation was taken by its board of directors after a loss of “critical” funding.
“This decision has not been made lightly. It only comes after careful consideration of all options and is due to factors that have materially impacted our funding sources – funds that were critical to continuing our programming and delivering on our mission,” the group said in a statement published on its blog.
Apple cuts Vision Pro production due to falling demand
A report from an industry analyst claims Apple has slashed production of its new VR/AR headset, the Vision Pro, due to a lack of demand.
Established industry analyst Ming-Chi Kuo claims that iPhone-maker has dropped its shipment forecasts almost in half to around 400,000 before the device has even been made available outside of the US.
Lower than expected shipments since its launch earlier this year has also prompted Apple to reconfigure its product roadmap, pushing back plans to launch a new Vision Pro next year, according to Kuo, though Apple has not confirmed any sales numbers for the device.
Fujitsu facing job cuts amid Horizon scandal fallout
Fujitsu is reportedly planning to cutting up to100 jobs in the UK as the fallout from its role in the Post Office scandal impacts its sales pipeline.
Computer Weekly reports that the IT firm has put nearly 70 members of staff at risk of redundancy, with another 30 set to leave.
Roles across sales, pre-sales and logistics jobs are likely to be affected.
It comes as Fujitsu has faced heavy criticism following ITV’s dramatization of the UK Post Office’s Horizon scandal. The Horizon platform – which was found to have had major defects that caused accounting errors subsequently blamed on subpostmasters, many of whom wrongly faced prosecution -was supplied by Fujitsu since 1999.
Nvidia sprints to Run.AI acquisition
Chipmaker Nvidia has agreed a deal to acquire Israeli software startup Run.AI for around $700 million, according to reports.
Israeli newspaper Calcalist claims US-based Nvidia has agreed to buy Run.AI – which develops software for handling artificial intelligence computing resources – to boost its AI offering.
Nvidia was already partnered with Run.AI and the chipmaker said it’ll continue to offer Run:ai’s products “under the same business model”.
“Run:ai has been a close collaborator with Nvidia since 2020 and we share a passion for helping our customers make the most of their infrastructure,” Omri Geller, Run:ai’s CEO, said in a statement. “We’re thrilled to join Nvidia and look forward to continuing our journey together.”
