TikTok's daily active users in the U.S. is also just about 5% of ByteDance's DAUs worldwide, said one of the sources.

So much drama in the US over this but it's apparently merely a money-losing afterthought for its owner.

You’re not missing anything. There was a period of time where a lot of patents were granted for “basic idea, but on a computer!” The USPTO stopped doing it and these patents, which should have never been issued, have been systematically invalidated, including most of this guy’s. He’s a classic patent troll suing over patents that were then invalidated.

1. This is advertising. It's not the most worst example, but it's still fundamentally an ad.
2. Revenue is absolutely the wrong metric to use. If you had $100 of revenue and $99 in costs, you have only $1 left to pay your fines. Amazon did not earn enough to pay its fines in 1 hour and 50 minutes because most of that that money was used to buy and deliver the products, plus various other expenses. The blog post is misstating the numbers by over an order of magnitude for some of the companies. If you're going to do it, do it right at least. The profit numbers are just as easy to come by as revenue.

This headline is ridiculous; I expect better from Ars Technica. You "admit" to things you shouldn't have done. In this case the government compelled Apple to disclose certain data and simultaneously prohibited Apple from disclosing the disclosure. Thanks to a senator's letter, Apple is now free to disclose something that they previously wanted to disclose, about something they were forced to do in the first place.

Compare to the Reuters headline: "Governments spying on Apple, Google users through push notifications - US senator." The emphasis and agency are correctly placed on the bad actors.

On the tech side, Android users also get lower-quality photos and videos when they're sent through iMessage.

Android users don’t receive anything at all through iMessage; the whole conversation becomes SMS/MMS. I suppose getting major, relevant tech details is hard for an outlet like Engadget.

The new pope and Mussolini essentially rose to power together, forming an alliance. The church’s open embrace of the Fascists was critical to the government’s power and to ending the enmity between the church and secular authorities.

The pope was also jaw-dropping antisemitic. Jews did not have many friends in the Catholic Church.

I think you’re more likely to find sophistry trying to dress up racism in euphemisms. Prager U is a far-right organization created to indoctrinate young people and Republicans are now using their “educational” materials in public schools. They really are racist so the joke rings true.

If he were not part of the Seattle police I might be willing to put down my pitchfork and give him the benefit of the doubt, but since he is, in fact, a prominent member of a lawless gang that is notorious for egregious civil rights violations, I say guilty until proven innocent. He’s already actively lost the trust of the public.

The confusing alphabet soup of Wi-Fi versions got renamed. 802.11n became Wi-Fi 4, 802.11ac became Wi-Fi 5, and 802.11ax became Wi-Fi 6. Wi-Fi 7 is still in development so 6 is the best in-use version.

Apple offers to match donations from employees so this is a case of an employee making a small donation and Apple matching it rather than Apple explicitly choosing to make a tiny donation itself.

The western Allies and Soviets both actively took Germany, coming in from either side and meeting in the middle. They split the country because they were already there. The Soviet Union never really made it to Japan proper. They took over Manchuria and Japan surrendered ASAP to the US alone once it became obvious that the only alternative was to surrender to both powers later and likely be split like Germany.

It’s worth highlighting that this was the immediate impetus for surrender. The atomic bombs were basically non-factors.

If your device locally analyzes your behavior and files, then Apple itself is not actually collecting and analyzing your data. The "locality" is a fundamental difference in who is doing what. If your private information never leaves your phone, your privacy is still fully maintained.