Tech
US Supreme Court upholds law banning TikTok

The US Supreme Court upheld on Friday a law banning TikTok in the United States on national security grounds if its Chinese parent company ByteDance does not sell the short-video app by Sunday, as the justices in a 9-0 decision declined to rescue a platform used by about half of all Americans.
The justices ruled that the law, passed by an overwhelming bipartisan majority in Congress last year and signed by Democratic President Joe Biden, did not violate the US Constitution’s First Amendment protection against government abridgment of free speech. The justices affirmed a lower court’s decision that had upheld the measure after it was challenged by TikTok, ByteDance and some of the app’s users.
“There is no doubt that, for more than 170 million Americans, TikTok offers a distinctive and expansive outlet for expression, means of engagement and source of community. But Congress has determined that divestiture is necessary to address its well-supported national security concerns regarding TikTok’s data collection practices and relationship with a foreign adversary,” the court said in the unsigned opinion.
The court added that “we conclude that the challenged provisions do not violate petitioners’ First Amendment rights.”
A statement issued by the White House statement suggested that Biden would not take any action to save TikTok before the law’s Sunday deadline for divestiture. Republican Donald Trump, who opposed a TikTik ban, succeeds Biden on Monday.
The case pitted free speech rights against national security concerns in the age of social media.
The court said it was giving “substantial respect” to the US government’s national security concerns about China. The justices noted that evidence in the case reflected that China “has engaged in extensive and years-long efforts to accumulate structured datasets, in particular on US persons, to support its intelligence and counterintelligence operations.”
White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre in a statement reiterated Biden’s position that “TikTok should remain available to Americans, but simply under American ownership or other ownership that addresses the national security concerns identified by Congress in developing this law.”
Given the timing, Jean-Pierre added, action to implement the law “must fall to the next administration.”
Trump’s team did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
TikTok also did not immediately respond to a request for comment. TikTok plans to shut US operations of the app on Sunday barring a last-minute reprieve, people familiar with the matter told Reuters on Wednesday.
Without a decision by Biden to formally invoke a 90-day delay in the deadline, companies providing services to TikTok or hosting the app could face legal liability. It is not immediately clear if TikTok’s business partners including Google, Apple and Oracle will continue doing business with it before Trump is inaugurated. The uncertainty leaves open the possibility of a shutdown by TikTok on Sunday.
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The Supreme Court acted speedily in the case, having held arguments on Jan 10, just nine days before the deadline set under the law.
TikTok is one of the most prominent social media platforms in the United States, used by about 270 million Americans, including many young people. TikTok’s powerful algorithm, its main asset, feeds individual users short videos tailored to their liking. The platform presents a vast collection of user-submitted videos, often under a minute in duration, that can be viewed with a smart phone app or on the internet.
China and the United States are economic and geopolitical rivals, and TikTok’s Chinese ownership for years has raised concerns among American leaders. The TikTok fight has unfolded during the waning days of Biden’s presidency and at a time of rising trade tensions between the world’s two biggest economies.
The Biden administration has said the law targets control of the app by a foreign adversary, not protected speech, and that TikTok could continue operating as-is if it is freed from China’s control.
During arguments in the case, Justice Department lawyer Elizabeth Prelogar said Chinese government control of TikTok poses a “grave threat” to US national security, with China seeking to amass vast quantities of sensitive data on Americans and to engage in covert influence operations. Prelogar said China compels companies like ByteDance to secretly turn over data on social media users and carry out Chinese government directives.
TikTok’s immense data set, Prelogar added, represents a powerful tool that could be used by the Chinese government for harassment, recruitment and espionage, and that China “could weaponize TikTok at any time to harm the United States.”
The law was passed last April. Biden’s administration defended it in court. TikTok and ByteDance, as well as some users who post content on the app, challenged the measure and appealed to the Supreme Court after losing on Dec 6 at the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
Trump’s opposition to the ban represents a reversal in stance from his first term in office when he aimed to prohibit TikTok. Trump has said he has “a warm spot in my heart for TikTok,” opining that the app helped him with young voters in the 2024 election.
Tech
Google tests an AI-only version of its search engine

Alphabet’s (GOOGL.O)Google launched an experimental version of its search engine on Wednesday that completely eliminates its classic 10 blue links in favor of an AI-generated summary.
The new feature, available to subscribers of Google One AI Premium, can be accessed via the results page for any search query by clicking on a tab labeled “AI Mode” to the side of existing options like Images and Maps.
“We’ve heard from power users that they want AI responses for even more of their searches,” Robby Stein, a vice president of product, said in a blog post.
Google One AI Premium is a $19.99 per month plan that provides extra cloud storage and special access to some AI features.
Google currently displays AI Overviews, summaries that are increasingly appearing atop the traditional hyperlinks to relevant webpages, for users in more than 100 countries. It began adding advertisements to AI Overviews last May.
With AI Mode, users see a more comprehensive AI summary with hyperlinks to cited webpages. The 10 blue links have been replaced by a search bar for asking follow-up questions.
Google said AI Mode is being powered by a custom version of its Gemini 2.0 model with reasoning capabilities that make it better equipped to handle complex queries.
Alphabet’s $350 billion in 2024 revenue was primarily driven by search-related advertising. But it is facing the biggest challenge to its core business in years from AI challengers led by Microsoft-backed (MSFT.O) OpenAI, which added search functions to ChatGPT last October.
Google has made integrating AI into search its biggest bet, investment chief Ruth Porat said at the Reuters NEXT conference in December.
In February, edtech company Chegg (CHGG.N) sued Google, accusing the previews of eroding demand for original content and undermining publishers’ ability to compete.
Tech
Intel defeats shareholder lawsuit over foundry losses, 32bn dollars plunge

Intel (INTC.O) won the dismissal of a shareholder lawsuit accusing the chipmaker of fraudulently concealing problems in its foundry business, leading to job cuts and a dividend suspension that wiped out more than $32 billion of market value in one day.
In a decision made public on Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Trina Thompson in San Francisco rejected claims that Intel took too long to reveal a $7 billion fiscal 2023 operating loss linked to its business of making chips for outside customers.
Intel did not disclose the loss until last April, when it made changes to how it reported financial results.
But the judge said shareholders incorrectly attributed the $7 billion loss to the Intel Foundry Services business unit, and were not misled into believing the unit’s reported results “included results for the entire Internal Foundry Model.”
Thompson also said statements last March by former Chief Executive Patrick Gelsinger that Intel was enjoying “significant traction” and “growing demand for our foundry offering” were not misleading because they concerned specific customers rather than overall revenue, which was falling.
Lawyers for the shareholders did not immediately respond on Wednesday to a request for comment. Intel declined to comment. Thompson said the plaintiffs may file an amended complaint.
The lawsuit accused Intel of inflating its stock price from January 25 to August 1, 2024, when Intel posted a $1.61 billion quarterly loss and said it would lay off more than 15,000 people and suspend its dividend to help save $10 billion in 2025.
Intel’s share price fell 26% the next day, resulting in the $32 billion loss of market value.
The Santa Clara, California-based company has struggled to fend off competition from rival chipmakers and benefit from growth in artificial intelligence.
Its rivals include Nvidia (NVDA.O), Advanced Micro Devices (AMD.O), Samsung Electronics (005930.KS) and Taiwan’s TSMC (2330.TW). Intel ousted Gelsinger in December.
Tech
El Salvador announces more bitcoin purchases

El Salvador announced on Wednesday the purchase of a bitcoin, which takes the total in the country’s strategic reserve to above 6,102 coins, the National Bitcoin Office posted on social media.
The bitcoin purchase announcement comes days after the International Monetary Fund board approved a 40-month program with El Salvador for $1.4 billion that implied a downgrade of the cryptocurrency’s status in the Central American country. Bitcoin cannot be used to pay taxes and its acceptance by the public is voluntary, which is not what was expected when it was given a legal tender status back in 2021.
Importantly, the government has committed to the IMF not to accumulate further bitcoins “at the level of the overall public sector” according to the IMF.
“We consulted with the (Salvadoran) authorities, and they have assured us that the recent increase in Bitcoin holdings in the Strategic Bitcoin Reserve Fund is consistent with agreed program conditionality,” a fund spokesperson said.
The IMF did not respond to further questions on how purchases by the national office do not add to the government’s exposure to the cryptocurrency.
The Salvadoran Presidential House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Salvadoran government dollar bonds were mostly down in price on Wednesday, with the 2050 and 2041 maturities down 0.75 cents on the dollar.
El Salvador has bought 12 bitcoins since the IMF announced last week the board approval of the agreement reached in December. It currently holds near $550 million in bitcoin, according to the government.
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