NewsBytes Briefing: Walmart-Microsoft team up for TikTok deal, and more
What's the story
In the updates since last night, TikTok, the current talk of the town, got Walmart as the latest bidder for its business. The retail giant has partnered with Microsoft to pursue a deal to buy the US assets of the hit video service, in compliance with the US government's sell-or-close order. Notably, Oracle and Netflix are also pursuing a deal. Here are other updates.
News #2
Facebook sues developer selling fake likes on Instagram
Facebook on Thursday filed a lawsuit against a US-based man who operated a fake engagement service on Instagram and "used a network of bots and automation software to distribute fake likes, comments, views, and followers." The company also sued a British developer who used malicious software to collect Facebook's user data and failed to comply with the social network's audit requests.
News #3
Tesla employee thwarted a major cyber attack
Tesla boss Elon Musk has confirmed that a Russian citizen attempted a ransomware attack against his company. The person (27) contacted a non-American Tesla employee working at the Nevada Gigafactory and offered them $1 million for the job of injecting malware into the car-makers' systems. The employee agreed with the hacker but then informed Tesla and worked with the FBI to get him arrested.
News #4
Google brings Duo to Android TV
Days after bringing Chromecast support for Meet, Google has announced its personal video calling app Duo will be coming on Android TV - as a native app. It will be available for testing in the coming weeks and let you have both one-on-one and group calls from the big screen, which should be connected to a microphone and camera.
Other developments
Other important developments to note
Among other things, LG announced a new air-purifying mask, Activision officially revealed Call of Duty: Black Ops - Cold War, setting its launch date for November 13, and Google announced revamped Snapshot menu for Assistant to show more relevant information. Twitter, meanwhile, updated its policy to hide 'copypasta' or tweets that have been copied, pasted and tweeted in the same way.
COVID-19
Finally, some COVID-19 related updates
On Thursday, India reported a record 77,000 new coronavirus infections, taking the total cases to 33.84 lakh. The death toll rose to 61,716. As for the vaccine, Trump said US will have a safe and effective shot this year to crush the coronavirus pandemic, while a separate research found that Serum Institute is well positioned to deliver a vaccine to India in Q1 2021.