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Tag: App

Elon Musk’s X partners with Visa on payment service in an effort to become an ‘everything app,’

NEW YORK — X is teaming up with Visa to soon offer a system for real-time payments on the social media platform — signaling some progress in a yearslong vision from billionaire owner Elon Musk to create an “everything app.”

Visa is the first partner for the platform’s “X Money Account” service, which is set to launch later this year, X CEO Linda Yaccarino said in a Tuesday post announcing the news. The offering, Yaccarino noted, will support an in-platform digital wallet and peer-to-peer payments connected to users’ debit cards, with an option to transfer funds to a bank account.

According to Visa, which also posted about the partnership on X Tuesday, these services will be powered by Visa Direct — the payment giant’s instant money transferring service — and will be available to X Money Account users in the U.S.

Whether X Money will become available to consumers in other countries, and perhaps through additional payment partners in the near future is still known. And an exact date for the U.S. launch has also not been announced yet.

In her post Tuesday, Yaccarino called the partnership with Visa a “milestone for the Everything App” and the “first of many big announcements about X Money this year.”

The prospect of San Francisco-based X, formerly known as Twitter, becoming an “everything app” has been floated around for some time. Before officially closing the deal to purchase the platform for $44 billion back in 2022, Musk expressed interest in creating his own version of something similar to China’s WeChat — a “super app” that does video chats, messaging, streaming and payments.

And his fascination with such a platform began long before the Twitter deal was on the table. Musk has been toying with the idea of an “everything app” since the late 1990s when he launched a startup called X.com that was later merged into what became X.com. He continued to push for PayPal to diversify but was rebuffed by company CEO Peter Thiel and other executives. PayPal was sold in 2002 to eBay for $1.5 billion — providing Musk with a windfall that he funneled into the creation of SpaceX and an investment in Tesla in its early days.

The landscape is far more competitive today — with a handful of companies making similar efforts to expand their in-platform offerings. Other social media giants, such as Facebook parent Meta, have added shopping, games and even dating features.

Consumers now have different platforms at their disposal for communications, payment services, entertainment and more. How X’s coming “everything” features will fare has yet to be seen. Since Musk’s 2022 takeover, the platform has already alienated many users and advertisers over reports of rising hate speech and misinformation.

X’s ambitions could also thrust the company into the crosshairs of other powerful tech giants trying to fend off a perceived competitive threat. U.S. regulators have alleged that Apple, for example, has been illegally using its market power to stifle so-called super apps from making their way onto its iPhone since 2017.

As part of an antitrust lawsuit filed last year, the U.S. Justice Department said it had uncovered evidence showing that Apple believed a super app would lessen consumers’ usage of the iPhone’s own software and services, including payment processing. The Cupertino, California, company has vehemently denied the allegations and is trying to persuade a federal judge in New Jersey to dismiss the entire case.

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AP Technology Writer Michael Liedtke contributed to this report from San Francisco.

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January 28, 2025
New Diet App Focuses On Protein And Fibre For Smarter Weight Loss

Maintaining a healthy weight got a high-tech upgrade. Researchers at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign have developed EMPOWER, an innovative online programme that makes weight loss smarter and more accessible, reported IANS. Unlike traditional diet apps that focus on calorie counting, this programme emphasizes meal planning around protein and fibre to boost satiety and muscle retention while shedding weight. The weight management programme helps individuals plan meals with the assistance of a web application and support from a registered dietitian.

Many people struggle to maintain a healthy weight, and choosing the optimal meals for weight loss can be challenging. Most dieting apps available are usually macronutrient calculators, according to the study published in the journal JMIR Formative Research.

“But we want people to focus on finding foods that have a high protein and fibre density to get them to their meal goals. It’s less about counting calories and more about finding the foods that will satisfy us and provide the protein we need to maintain muscle mass as we lose weight,” said Ashleigh Oliveira, a doctoral student at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign in the US.

“Foods that are high in fibre also have all the micronutrients we need, so we’re not missing out on vitamins and minerals as we’re eating less food,” Oliveira added.

The programme’s first iteration, the Individualized Dietary Improvement Programme (iDip), was an in-person programme where participants received education and feedback from registered dieticians. Subsequently, iDip was converted to a fully online programme, EMPOWER, to increase accessibility. The researchers tested the program’s efficacy with individuals in rural Illinois.

EMPOWER has three components: Educational materials about nutrition; an online app where participants can design meals for weight loss and monitor their progress; and personalized support from registered dieticians, who are available for online chats.

The research team developed MealPlot, an interactive feature that charts protein and fibre content in food. People enter the food they want to eat into a chart that plots fibre and protein content. The goal is to ensure each day’s overall food intake falls within a specific protein/fibre target range.

The MealPlot app is freely available and anyone can register for an account, but to get the full benefit you should work with a dietitian, the researchers said. The researchers are now fine-tuning the application and plan to launch the full programme by spring 2026.

This tool could redefine how we approach weight loss and healthy eating. Whether you’re aiming to slim down or simply eat smarter, this app, combined with expert dietitian support, might just be the game-changer you’ve been waiting for.

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January 26, 2025
What will happen to TikTok on Apple and Google’s app store on Sunday?

With President-elect Donald Trump adding uncertainty around whether a TikTok ban will go into effect, the focus is now turning to companies like Google and Apple that are expected to take the popular video sharing app off their platforms in just two days.

Though the Supreme Court on Friday unanimously upheld a federal law that could ban TikTok nationwide, it’s unclear how a shutdown of the popular social media platform will play out and what Americans will see when the clock strikes midnight on Sunday.

The court decision comes against a backdrop of unusual political agitation by Trump, who vowed that he could negotiate a solution after he takes office, and the administration of President Joe Biden, which has signaled it won’t enforce the law beginning Sunday, his final full day in office. Now, tech observers — and some users — are intently watching to see what happens over the weekend and beyond.

“We’re really in uncharted territory here in terms of tech policy,” said Sarak Kreps, the director of Cornell University’s Tech Policy Institute.

Under the law, mobile app stores — like the ones operated by Apple and Google — and internet hosting services will face major fines if they continue to distribute the platform to U.S. users beyond the deadline for divestment from ByteDance, TikTok’s China-based parent company. The companies could pay up to $5,000 for each user who continues to access TikTok, meaning penalties could total to a large sum.

A lawyer representing TikTok told Supreme Court justices last week that the platform will “go dark” on Jan. 19 if the law isn’t struck down. But TikTok, which is not required to block its own platform under the statute, has not said whether it will limit access to the app, or its website, on Sunday. Experts have noted TikTok’s app should remain available for current users, but existing ones will no longer be able to update it, making it unusable in the long term.

Trump’s national security adviser has signaled this week that the incoming administration may take steps to “keep TikTok from going dark,” though what that looks like — and if any of those steps can withhold legal scrutiny — remains unclear.

“My decision on TikTok will be made in the not-too-distant future, but I must have time to review the situation,” Trump said Friday in a post on Truth Social after the court’s ruling. Earlier in the day, he said in another post that TikTok was among the topics in his conversation with Chinese leader Xi Jinping.

In the meantime, some of the attention has turned to tech companies, such as Apple, Google and Oracle, who currently offer TikTok on their app stores or host company data on their servers.

Tech CEOs have been attempting to forge friendlier ties with Trump, who wants to put the TikTok ban on hold, since he was elected in November. But Kreps said it would “defy credulity” for them to continue to offer TikTok, even if they want to please Trump, since it would open them up to punitive fines.

Tech companies are also used to removing apps at the behest of governments. In 2023, Apple says it removed nearly 1,500 apps globally. Nearly 1,300 of the apps were taken down in China.

“Penalties for companies like Apple and Google could run as high as $850 billion,” Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., wrote on X on Thursday, while referring to the U.S. TikTok law. “Not sure I’d take a politician’s word if I ran those companies.”

Meanwhile, David Choffnes, executive director of the Cybersecurity and Privacy Institute at Northeastern University in Boston, said he believes there’s a “small chance” that nothing happens to TikTok, but acknowledged that would require “enormous risk on the on the part of the companies that support them.”

Apple, Google and Oracle did not respond to questions sent this week about their plans on TikTok.

In a video after the court ruling, TikTok CEO Shou Chew, who is expected to attend Trump’s inauguration and be granted a prime seating location on the dais, thanked the president-elect for “his commitment to work” with TikTok to “find a solution” that keeps the platform available.

“We are grateful and pleased to have the support of a president who truly understands our platform — one who has used TikTok to express his own thoughts and perspectives, connecting with the world and generating more than 60 billion views of his content in the process,” Chew said.

Earlier this week, TikTok told its U.S. employees that its offices would remain open for work even if the “situation” won’t be resolved by Sunday. In the memo, which was first reported by The New York Times and confirmed by the company, TikTok told workers that their “employment, pay and benefits” were secure, adding that the law was written in a way that impacts the U.S. user experience, not the entities that employ them.

Meanwhile, in a letter sent Friday to Biden and Attorney General Merrick Garland, an attorney for TikTok creators who sued the government asked the administration to pause enforcement of the law “until there is further definitive guidance.”

“In addition, we request that you clarify that no app store, internet hosting service, or other provider faces any risk of enforcement or penalties with respect to TikTok, CapCut, or any other ByteDance apps, until such further guidance has been issued,” said the letter by attorney Jeffrey Fisher.

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January 18, 2025
TikTok refugees are pouring to Xiaohongshu. Here’s what you need to know about the RedNote app

WASHINGTON — As the fate of TikTok hangs in the balance, U.S. TikTok users are flocking to the Chinese social media app Xiaohongshu, also called RedNote – making it the top downloaded app in the U.S.

Some of the “TikTok refugees,” as they call themselves, say the TikTok alternative, a Chinese app, is being chosen in protest of the TikTok ban. Here’s what you need to know about Xiaohongshu.

It is a lifestyle social media app which allows users to post short videos, photos and texts, and it also includes functions like live-streaming and shopping.

A rare wave of U.S.-China camaraderie broke out online in recent days as “refugees” from the popular short video platform TikTok poured onto a Chinese social media platform to protest a likely ban on the service.

They were met with surprise, curiosity and in-jokes on Xiaohongshu — literally, “Little Red Book” — whose users saw English-language posts take over feeds almost overnight.

Americans introduced themselves with hashtag TikTok refugees, ask me anything attitude and posting photos of their pets to pay their hosts’ “cat tax.” Parents swapped stories about raising kids and Swifties from both countries, of course, quickly found each other.

It’s a rare moment of direct contact between two online worlds that are usually kept apart by language, corporate boundaries, and China’s strict system of online censorship that blocks access to nearly all international media and social media services.

Chinese and American users rarely find themselves in the same online spaces, in large part because China’s “Great Firewall” blocks internationally popular platforms like Instagram and X. Even TikTok blocks users in China, directing them to its onshore sister platform Douyin.

But as the deadline approached for a law that would ban TikTok in the United States beginning Jan. 19 unless the popular social media program is sold by its China-based parent company, some began migrating to Xiaohongshu.

“When they tell us you can’t have a Chinese app anymore, we go straight to another Chinese app,” said Katie Lawson, a farmer in Tulsa, Oklahoma, who has posted videos of her chickens and saved many recipes from the app. “We’re going to go explore that country and their values ourselves. We’re going to go straight to the source.”

Although TikTok is owned by a Chinese parent company, the short video platform popular with Generation Z is an international app whose content and users are walled off from those of the Chinese version, Douyin.

Xiaohongshu’s 300 million monthly active users are overwhelmingly Chinese – so much so that parts of its interface have no English-language version. They skew heavily female, often addressing strangers simply as “sister.”

Known for a friendly atmosphere that focuses on user reviews and peer-to-peer advice, it’s one of China’s fastest-growing apps. Foreign celebrities – including Mariah Carey and Elon Musk’s mother Maye Musk — are longtime users. Kim Kardashian joined the app back in 2018.

The company hasn’t released official data, but the app has reached No. 1 in free downloads on both iOS and Android, remaining in that spot for days.

On the platform, two versions of the TikTok refugee hashtag have over 24 million posts, with related posts appearing at the top of many users’ feeds.

A large number of American users say they’ve received a warm welcome from the community, with #TikTokrefugee. “Welcome the global villagers” remains the top one trending topic on Xiaohongshu, with 8.9 million views on Thursday.

Users from both countries are comparing notes on grocery prices, rent, health insurance, medical bills and the relationship between mother-in-law and daughter-in-law. Parents talk about what the kids learn in school in two countries. Some have already joined book clubs and are building up a community.

American users asked how Chinese see the LGBTQ community and got warned that it was among sensitive topics, Chinese users taught Americans what are sensitive topics and key words to avoid censorship on the app. Chinese students pulled out their English homework, looking for help.

Chinese state media, which have long dismissed U.S. allegations against TikTok, have welcomed the protest against the ban.

People’s Daily, China’s biggest national newspaper, said in an op-ed about TikTok refugees on Thursday that says the TikTok refugees found a “new home,” and “openness, communication, and mutual learning are the unchanging themes of mankind and the heartfelt desires of people from all countries.”

The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs didn’t respond immediately to AP’s interview request.

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Cohen reported from Bangkok.

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January 18, 2025
ByteDance’s Lemon8 gains traction amid TikTok ban threat as creators push the app

Hearing a lot about Lemon8 lately? You’re not the only one.

Amid a looming U.S. ban on TikTok, content creators have been pushing the platform’s sister app. Lemon8 resembles an amalgamation of the types of short-form videos found on TikTok and the picture-perfect aesthetic of Instagram and Pinterest.

Like its popular relation, Lemon8 is owned by China-based ByteDance, whose collection of internationally available apps also includes the video editing app CapCut and the photo and art editing app Hypic. In addition, the company operates Douyin, the Chinese sibling of TikTok that follows Beijing’s strict censorship rules.

Lemon8 launched in the U.S. in 2023, a few years after it first popped up in Asian markets. Though it garnered some media and user interest in its early days, the app hasn’t taken off as much as TikTok, which has more than 170 million U.S. users.

But more people have downloaded the app in the past month, making it one of the top-ranking free apps on Apple’s app store. Lemon8’s popularity could potentially soar further depending on the outcome of a U.S. Supreme Court hearing Friday over a law requiring TikTok to break ties with ByteDance or face a U.S. ban.

TikTok says it plans to shut down the platform in the U.S. by Jan. 19 if the government prevails, as it did in a lower court.

Influencers previously partnered with Lemon8 to promote the lesser-known app on TikTok. In recent weeks, many of them have hailed Lemon8 as the place to go if TikTok is banned under federal law. Some have also been recommending it through paid sponsored posts tagged #lemon8partner, showing a recent corporate push to generate more users.

But there’s a hitch. The law, which would wipe out TikTok’s U.S. operation if it’s not sold to an approved buyer, states the divest-or-ban requirement applies generally to apps that are owned or operated by ByteDance, TikTok or any of their subsidiaries. That means even though Lemon8 and CapCut are not explicitly named in the statute, their futures in the U.S. also are in jeopardy.

Jasmine Enberg, an analyst at market research company Emarketer, noted that the creators recommending Lemon8 may not be aware of the possible implications for the other ByteDance apps because the law does not identify them.

The recent Lemon8 ads on TikTok also may be a sign that ByteDance is “hoping or betting” Lemon8 slips through the cracks as lawmakers and regulators focus their attention on TikTok, Enberg said. Representatives for the companies did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

To boost Lemon8’s user base, TikTok announced in November that creators would be able to access a Lemon8 account with the same account they use on TikTok, a feature the company says will enhance their ability to cross-post content. TikTok said the integration was designed to expand creators “reach and engagement potential.”

Like TikTok, Lemon8’s main feed features both a “following” section that lets users look at content from the creators they follow and a “For You” section that recommends other posts. The newer platform also sorts posts into different categories, like relationships, wellness and skincare.

ByteDance has not disclosed the number of global or U.S. users on Lemon8, which is believed to be miniscule compared to its trend-setting sister app. Data from the research firm SimilarWeb indicates Lemon8 has a little over 1 million daily active users.

Market intelligence company Sensor Tower estimates the app saw a significant jump in global downloads in December — a 150% increase — compared to an average 2% month-over-month decline last year. The U.S. accounted for 70% of the month’s downloads.

The largest number of U.S. downloads were performed on Dec. 19, according to Sensor Tower. That was the day after the Supreme Court said it would hear this week’s oral arguments over the constitutionality of the federal law that could ban TikTok.

The law passed with bipartisan support last year after lawmakers and Biden administration officials expressed concerns that Chinese authorities could force ByteDance to hand over U.S. user data or sway public opinion towards Beijing’s interests by manipulating the algorithm that populates users’ feeds.

President-elect Donald Trump asked the Supreme Court on Dec. 27 to pause the potential TikTok ban from going into effect until he is inaugurated and his administration can pursue a “political resolution” to the issue.

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January 8, 2025
Closing arguments to begin in trial over stabbing death of Cash App founder Bob Lee

SAN FRANCISCO — Closing arguments will begin on Monday in the trial of a tech consultant in the 2023 stabbing death of Cash App founder Bob Lee in San Francisco, an event that shocked the broader tech community whose members mourned the loss of an entrepreneur they called charismatic and kind.

San Francisco prosecutors say Nima Momeni stabbed Lee three times after a dispute over his treatment toward Momeni’s sister, Khazar Momeni, with whom Lee was friends.

Defense attorneys say Lee, 43, was on a multi-day drug bender of cocaine and ketamine that made him agitated and violent, forcing Momeni to use his Krav Maga martial arts skills to fend off the paring knife Lee brandished in the early morning hours of April 4, 2023 after a “ bad joke.”

Momeni faces 26 years to life if convicted. He has pleaded not guilty.

The trial, which began Oct. 14, has been emotionally taxing for family members of both men. Mahnaz Tayarani, mother of the defendant, has sat on one side of the court room while Lee’s father, brother and ex-wife sat on the other.

Surveillance video of Bob joking around on his final night and autopsy photos of his wounds have been difficult to view, said Lee’s brother, Timothy Oliver Lee. He dismissed Momeni’s explanation of events as a fabrication.

“Even if he was under the influence, he was still Bob. He was never aggressive. He was always a teddy bear and always a great guy,” he said.

Surveillance video shows the two men leaving the posh condo of Khazar Momeni around 2 a.m. and getting into Momeni’s BMW. Other surveillance then shows them getting out of the car in an isolated section of the city by the Bay Bridge.

Momeni testified he stopped his car after going over a pothole that caused Lee to spill the beer he was holding. Momeni said he then cracked a joke suggesting Lee should spend his last night visiting the city with family instead of trying to find a strip club to keep the party going.

That’s when Lee suddenly pulled a knife, Momeni said. He said Lee later walked away, showing no signs he was injured.

“I was scared for my life,” Momeni said in testimony that was at times rambling and contentious. “I had to defend myself.”

Lee was found staggering on a deserted downtown San Francisco street at 2:30 a.m., dripping a trail of blood and calling for help. He later died at a hospital.

Prosecutors say Momeni was furious with Lee after he introduced Khazar to a drug dealer who gave her GHB, known as a date-rape drug, hours before the stabbing. They say Momeni grilled Lee earlier in the evening about what might have happened to his sister at the drug dealer’s apartment.

Jurors were allowed to ask questions and, through San Francisco Superior Court Judge Alexandra Gordon, asked why Momeni did not call police, either after Lee’s knife attack or after Momeni realized Lee had been stabbed to death.

A knife recovered from the area where Lee was stabbed showed Momeni’s DNA on the handle, but the defense said the handle should have been tested for Lee’s fingerprints.

Lee’s death stunned the tech community as fellow executives and engineers penned tributes to his generosity and brilliance. He was chief product officer of cryptocurrency platform MobileCoin when he died.

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December 2, 2024
Tech consultant spars with the prosecutor over details of the death of Cash App founder Bob Lee

SAN FRANCISCO — A tech consultant charged with murder in Cash App founder Bob Lee’s stabbing death sparred with the lead prosecutor at trial Thursday, interrupting questions asked of him with his own questions as he was grilled on his testimony.

Nima Momeni, 40, had to be told several times by the judge to provide responsive answers.

He broke his public silence after 18 months when he took the witness stand Wednesday to explain how Lee was found staggering on a deserted downtown San Francisco street at 2:30 a.m. on April 4, 2023, dripping a trail of blood and calling for help. He later died at a hospital.

Momeni testified Lee, 43, suddenly pulled a knife on him after he cracked a “bad joke” suggesting Lee should spend his last night in the city with family instead of trying to visit a strip club. He said Lee later walked away, showing no signs he was injured.

His testimony stunned Lee’s father, brother and ex-wife, who have been a steadfast presence in the criminal trial. They say Lee was big-hearted and gentle, and close to his two children and ex-wife.

“What you have seen is Nima be aggressive on the stand, you’ve seen him just trying to take control of this room, his arrogance and his entitlement are on full display here,” said the victim’s brother, Timothy Oliver Lee, speaking with reporters outside the court room Thursday.

“This is insane,” he said. “All of this is ridiculous.”

The trial is in its fifth week. Momeni faces 26 years to life if convicted.

Lee’s death stunned the tech community as fellow executives and engineers penned tributes to the charismatic entrepreneur’s generosity and brilliance. He was chief product officer of cryptocurrency platform MobileCoin when he died.

Prosecutors say Momeni planned the April 4 attack after a dispute over his younger sister, Khazar Momeni, with whom Lee was friends. Momeni had picked up his sister from the home of a drug dealer introduced to her by Lee, and she said she may have been sexually assaulted after ingesting a date-rape drug called GHB.

They say Momeni was angry with Lee so he took a knife from his sister’s condo, and after the pair was kicked out of her place at 2 a.m., he drove Lee to a secluded area and stabbed him three times and then fled.

Omid Talai, the assistant district attorney, grilled Momeni on Thursday on details of exactly how the attack unfolded. He asked Momeni why he did not call police after the attack and learning Lee had died, and why he did not respond to his sister’s text asking where he had dropped off Lee.

Momeni said he did not learn of Lee’s death until the following day and was puzzled by his sister’s query. He said he thought Lee could have been stabbed by someone else shortly after he saw him walk off, unharmed.

In response to questions, Momeni said he didn’t know what the prosecutor was getting at, accused him of misrepresenting his statements and said he had already answered.

At one point, San Francisco Superior Court Judge Alexandra Gordon said that the prosecutor had no obligation to provide him with a printout of the texts he was questioning him about or to put them on the multimedia screen.

“Gotcha,” said Momeni, dressed in a blue suit and tie. “Thank you for clarifying.”

Prosecutors have video showing Lee and Momeni leaving Khazar Momeni’s condo after 2 a.m. and driving off together in Momeni’s BMW. Video also shows the two men getting out of the car in an isolated spot by the Bay Bridge.

Prosecutors say that is where Momeni stabbed Lee, while the defense says that is where Lee attacked Momeni, erratic and aggressive from a multi-day bender of cocaine, ketamine and drinking.

A knife recovered from the area where Lee was stabbed showed Momeni’s DNA on the handle, but the defense said the handle should have been tested for fingerprints, namely Lee’s.

Momeni said he and Lee were on friendly terms when they left his sister’s condo, but prosecutors say the defendant grilled the entrepreneur earlier in the evening about what might have happened to his sister at the drug dealer’s apartment.

The prosecutor pointed out multiple times Thursday that Momeni was questioning him the way he grilled Lee.

Nima Momeni was 14 when his mother, Mahnaz Tayarani, took him and Khazar to the U.S., fleeing Iran and a husband who had inflicted years of abuse and violence on the family, she wrote in a letter submitted to the court in support of her son’s pre-trial release.

She has sat on one side of the courtroom while Lee’s family members sit on the other.

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November 15, 2024
Fitness app Strava gives away location of Biden, Trump and other leaders, French newspaper says

PARIS — An investigation by French newspaper Le Monde found that the highly confidential movements of U.S. President Joe Biden, presidential rivals Donald Trump and Kamala Harris, and other world leaders can be easily tracked online through a fitness app that their bodyguards use.

But the U.S. Secret Service told the newspaper that it doesn’t believe the protection it provides was in any way compromised.

Le Monde found that some U.S. Secret Service agents use the Strava fitness app, including in recent weeks after two assassination attempts on Trump, in a video investigation released in French and in English. Strava is a fitness tracking app primarily used by runners and cyclists to record their activities and share their workouts with a community.

Le Monde also found Strava users among the security staff for French President Emmanuel Macron and Russian President Vladimir Putin. In one example, Le Monde traced the Strava movements of Macron’s bodyguards to determine that the French leader spent a weekend in the Normandy seaside resort of Honfleur in 2021. The trip was meant to be private and wasn’t listed on the president’s official agenda.

Le Monde said the whereabouts of Melania Trump and Jill Biden could also be pinpointed by tracking their bodyguards’ Strava profiles.

In a statement to Le Monde, the U.S. Secret Service said its staff aren’t allowed to use personal electronic devices while on duty during protective assignments but “we do not prohibit an employee’s personal use of social media off-duty.”

“Affected personnel has been notified,” it said. “We will review this information to determine if any additional training or guidance is required.”

“We do not assess that there were any impacts to protective operations or threats to any protectees,” it added. Locations “are regularly disclosed as part of public schedule releases.”

In another example, Le Monde reported that a U.S. Secret Service agent’s Strava profile revealed the location of a hotel where Biden subsequently stayed in San Francisco for high-stakes talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping in 2023. A few hours before Biden’s arrival, the agent went jogging from the hotel, using Strava which traced his route, the newspaper found.

The newspaper’s journalists say they identified 26 U.S. agents, 12 members of the French GSPR, the Security Group of the Presidency of the Republic, and six members of the Russian FSO, or Federal Protection Service, all of them in charge of presidential security, who had public accounts on Strava and were therefore communicating their movements online, including during professional trips. Le Monde did not identify the bodyguards by name for security reasons.

It said movements trackable on Strava could lead to security breaches, especially when security agents travel in advance to places like hotels where leaders then stay and hold meetings.

Macron’s office said Monday that the consequences of the issues reported by Le Monde “are very slight and in no way affect the security of the President of the Republic.”

Local authorities are aware of Macron’s movements ahead of time and the places where Macron is staying are always fully secure, “so the risk is non-existent,” the statement said.

“A reminder was nevertheless issued to agents by the chief of staff asking them not to use this app,” Macron’s office added.

The Harris campaign deferred comment on the security issue to federal officials. In response to questions posed to the Trump campaign, a spokesperson for the Republican National Committee repeated some of its criticisms of the Biden administration but did not address the vulnerability or how the campaign has responded.

The security risks associated with fitness apps show the need for better regulations on how tech companies can use consumer data, according to Ibrahim Baggili, a computer scientist and professor of cybersecurity at Louisiana State University.

Baggili’s research has exposed how bad actors could use fitness app data to track potential victims — creating risks for stalking, robbery and other crimes.

Consumers often grant app developers the right to use or sell their data when they agree to the terms of service, Baggili said.

“Companies love our data, and we love the product, so we give away the data for free,” he said. “The government really needs to start cracking down on how data can be used and how long it can be retained.”

Identifying the presidential bodyguards — some of them using their full name on Strava — could also help in finding other details about their personal addresses, their families, their movements, and photos they posted on various social media, all of which could possibly be used to put pressure on them for malicious purposes, the report stressed.

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AP reporter David Klepper contributed from Washington.

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October 29, 2024
Judge delays order in antitrust case requiring Google to open up its app store

SAN FRANCISCO — A federal judge on Friday delayed an order requiring Google to open up its Android app store to more competition until an appeals court decides whether to block the shake-up because of legal questions surrounding a jury’s verdict that branded Google as an illegal monopolist.

The delay granted during a court hearing in San Francisco comes less than two weeks after U.S. District Judge James Donato issued a decision that would have forced Google to make sweeping changes to its Play Store for Android smartphones starting Nov. 1.

The mandated changes included a provision that would have required Google to make its library of more than 2 million Android apps available to any rivals that wanted access to the inventory and also distribute the alternative options in its own Play Store.

Google requested Donato’s order be stayed until the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals could examine the handling of a month-long trial that led to the December 2023 verdict, which framed the Play Store as an illegal monopoly that stifles innovation and drives up consumer prices.

In Friday’s hearing, Donato scoffed at the notion that Google could succeed in overturning the trial verdict. “The verdict in this case was amply supported by a mountain of evidence about Google’s anti-competitive conduct,” the judge said.

But he decided the Ninth Circuit should be given a chance to consider a postponement until a panel of judges can decide can consider Google’s appeal of the 2023 trial focused on antitrust claims lodged by video game maker Epic Games.

Donato said he wouldn’t be surprised if the Ninth Circuit imposes an even longer delay on his ruling, “but that is for someone else to decide.”

In a statement, Google said it was pleased Donato hit the pause button while it tries to extend the delay even further. “These remedies threaten Google Play’s ability to provide a safe and secure experience and we look forward to continuing to make our case to protect 100 million U.S. Android users, over 500,000 U.S. developers and thousands of partners who have benefited from our platforms,” Google said.

Epic declined to comment.

It’s unclear how long the Ninth Circuit will take to decide on Google’s request for a permanent stay of Donato’s ruling while its appeals unfolds — a process that could take more than a year.

In 2021, the Ninth Circuit delayed a provision of another federal judge’s order mandating that Apple allow links to alternative payment systems with apps made for the iPhone as part of another antitrust case brought by Epic.

Although Apple avoided being labeled an illegal monopolist in a trial involving the iPhone app store, it unsuccessfully fought the provision requiring the company to allow alternative payment links within apps. But delaying that requirement preserved Apple’s exclusive control of a payment system that has generated commissions ranging from 15% to 30% on some e-commerce occurring within apps. Apple exhausted its avenue of appeals in the U.S. Supreme Court earlier this year.

Google also pockets billions of dollars annually from a similar commission system within its Play Store for Android phones — a setup that is allowed to continue as long as Google can prevent Donato’s ruling from taking effect.

In its arguments for delaying Donato’s order, Google said it wasn’t being given enough time to make the drastic changes it framed as “a Herculean task creating an unacceptable risk of safety and security failures within the Android ecosystem.”

Google also argued the shake-up would saddle it with unreasonable costs, a contention Donato also brushed aside during Friday’s hearing.

“I don’t want to be glib about it, but the expense that Google might incur appears to be a drop in the bucket compared to the profits it reaps annually from the Play Store,” Donato said.

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October 18, 2024
Murder trial of tech consultant in death of Cash App founder Bob Lee begins

SAN FRANCISCO — The murder trial of a tech consultant in the stabbing death of Cash App founder Bob Lee begins Monday, a year and a half after the widely admired entrepreneur was found staggering on a deserted downtown San Francisco street seeking help.

Lee’s death at age 43 stunned the tech community, and fellow executives and engineers penned tributes to his generosity and brilliance. Lee was chief product officer of cryptocurrency platform MobileCoin when he died. He was a father to two children.

Prosecutors say Nima Momeni, 40, planned the April 4 attack after a dispute over his younger sister, Khazar, with whom Lee was friends. They say Momeni took a knife from his sister’s condo, drove Lee to a secluded area and stabbed him three times, then fled.

Defense lawyers disagree, and they say that Lee, high on drugs, attacked Momeni.

“Our theory is that Bob had the knife, and that Nima acted in self defense,” attorney Saam Zangeneh said.

He said his client is eager to tell his side of the story, but they haven’t decided whether Momeni will testify in his defense.

Momeni, who lives in nearby Emeryville, California, has been in custody since his arrest days after Lee died at a San Francisco hospital. Momeni’s mother has been a steadfast presence at court hearings, and he is close to his sister.

Prosecutors have said in court documents that a friend of Lee’s told homicide investigators they had been drinking with Momeni’s sister the day before the stabbing. The friend said Momeni later questioned Lee about whether his sister was doing drugs or otherwise engaging in inappropriate behavior, and Lee said she had not.

Surveillance video of Lee’s final night shows him entering the posh Millennium Tower downtown, where Momeni’s sister lives with her husband, a prominent San Francisco plastic surgeon.

Video then shows Lee and Momeni leaving the building together after 2 a.m. and driving off in Momeni’s car. Lee was found around 2:30 a.m. in the Rincon Hill neighborhood of San Francisco, which has tech offices and condominiums but little activity in the early morning hours.

Police recovered a knife with a 4-inch (10-centimeter) blade at the scene. Prosecutors said tests showed Momeni’s DNA on the weapon’s handle and Lee’s DNA on the bloody blade. But the defense said police should have tested the handle for fingerprints, namely Lee’s.

Momeni, who has pleaded not guilty, faces 26 years to life if convicted.

San Francisco Superior Court Judge Alexandra Gordon has told jurors the trial could last until mid-December.

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October 14, 2024