TikTok escapes ban again, big week ahead, and more tech news you need to know

Your tech news digest, by way of the DGiT Daily tech newsletter, for Monday, 28 September 2020.

1. TikTok saga continues (Part IV)

Sorry (again) but the TikTok saga continues, and continues with the Sunday evening events that shape the start of the week.

The latest, at least, is pretty straightforward: as a ban was set to come into force prohibiting new downloads of TikTok, a US judge temporarily blocked the White House executive order (Reuters).

• Four hours before the ban was set to start, US district judge Carl Nichols granted a preliminary injunction sought by ByteDance, meaning the app remains on US app stores.
• The judge’s reasoning was sealed, but is expected to be released this morning. The actual order is readable via DocumentCloud.
• What we do know is that Nichols declined “at this time,” to add further blocks, including on potential more strict Commerce Department restrictions that will take effect on 12 November.
• The same kind of block allowed WeChat to continue to operate normally.
• So, fair hearings in US courts for companies based in China. (Judge Nichols was nominated by President Trump last year, h/t WSJ).

What’s next?

• It’s a short-term victory but still the deal with Oracle and Walmart may come to pass.
• The US Committee on Foreign Investment still must approve the deal, including the issue of majority ownership, what ownership means, and what portion of TikTok is sold.
• Meanwhile, the Chinese government could also squash any deal that ticks all the boxes on the US side.
• In better news …this can’t go on forever, right?

2. Leak: These are the new Mi 10T series phones: 144Hz, big battery, and Snapdragon 865 (Android Authority).

3. Is $629/€629 the right price for the Pixel 5? (Android Authority).

4. Amazon Prime Day(s) 2020 officially starts on October 13 across two days, early deals announced (Android Authority).

5. Apple iPad (2020) review: Peerless performance outweighs dated design (Android Authority).

6. Review: TCL 6-Series TV — the best television for almost everyone, but note these TVs “cannot display 4K pixel resolution at 120 Hz, so it cannot take full advantage of the upcoming PS5 and Xbox Series X” (Wired).

7. Windows XP source code has leaked (The Verge). And, part of the fun is there’s loads of weird stuff in the code comments (Reddit). Also, more seriously: Is Windows XP source code leak a bad thing? (Hackaday).

8. Facebook Gizmo: either a consumer device never launched, or Facebook’s internal meeting room tools (Twitter). More here (andrea-locatelli.com).

9. Battle of the $350 laptops: Acer Swift 1 vs. Gateway Ryzen 3 3200U (Ars Technica).

10. Logitech MX Anywhere 3 review: The best compact wireless mouse, just know it is quite small (Laptop Mag).

11. HOTorNOT shaped the social web as we know it — great retrospective with the founders about the forgotten site that may have started it all (Mashable).

12. NASA wants ideas for keeping Moon missions powered in the dark, key for long-term lunar settlements (Engadget).

13. This person cycled 2,550 miles from Poo Poo Point to Pee Pee Creek, raising money for the humanitarian crisis in Yemen (Twitter).

14. “Is it me or has YouTube’s advertising amount been extra ruthless lately?” (r/nostupidquestions).

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