The Morning After: Chinas tech crackdown reaches TikTok

ByteDance has announced that Douyin, the version of TikTok for China, will introduce new limits for minors under 14. These minors will now be limited to just 40 minutes of use per day and cant access the app at all between 10 PM and 6 AM.

ByteDance is also urging parents to add in more comprehensive user data to avoid kids lying about their age to get around the ban. At the same time, the company unveiled a new TikTok-esque app called Xiao Qu Xing ("Little Fun Star"), which offers short educational videos.

This is another fairly dramatic move as part of Chinas broader crackdown on digital media and video games. Officials have recently described gaming as spiritual opium and limited kids playtime to just three hours a week.

Chinese leaders are reportedly concerned that children are becoming addicted to video games, which is having a detrimental effect on their development. The science behind video game addiction is controversial and disputed, with research into the condition ongoing.

Either way, the changes to Douyin arent likely to be that wide ranging in isolation since its thought that less than half a percent of users are under 14. Its just the overall trend thats likely to be worth keeping an eye on, especially if this anti-game rhetoric spreads to other countries.

Dan Cooper

Ikea's new $40 wireless charging pad mounts underneath your desk or table

No more drilling or unsightly charging plates on your table, desk or nightstand.

IKEA

When I added an Ikea-branded wireless charging plate to my Ikea nightstand, I had to buy a custom Ikea hole saw to drill through into the top. As it turned out, Ikea furniture is sufficiently weak that I managed to scorch the wood and the paint with just the friction of the saw. The charging plate was, mercifully, big enough to cover the burn marks, so I never got any lectures about being bad at DIY. I had, however, learned my lesson that drilling out a QI charger was not my forte.

Ikea seems to feel similarly and has now launched the new Sjmrke QI charger, which is strong enough to charge a phone from the underside of your desk. You can glue or screw the chunky $40 unit to the underside of a suitable wooden or plastic table top. Then, all you have to do is drop your phone on the right spot and watch as about 5W of juice wafts into your phone. Or, at least, you will when it arrives in October.

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ZTE Axon 30 review: An 'invisible' selfie camera comes at a cost

That cost being awful selfies.

Mat Smith

ZTEs Axon 30 is one of those rare smartphones offering a (pretty much) invisible front-facing camera. The lack of notch, punch-hole or cut-out means users can take full advantage of the 30s gorgeous, 6.92-inch, 2,460 x 1,080 120Hz AMOLED display. But, for $500, there are a couple of teeny-weeny compromises youll have to accept, including, er, lackluster selfies. We wont spoil the rest of Mat Smiths review but, suffice it to say, his feelings on this handset are pretty complicated.

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iOS 15 is now available

Your iPad, Watch and Apple TV will also get updated operating systems.

Cherlynn Low

iOS 15 and its device-specific cousins have now arrived and are making their way to your tech as we speak. Some of the biggest new features include upgraded FaceTime and Messages, better notifications and a Google Lens-esque Live Text function. Some of the more notable features announced at WWDC havent arrived just yet, including SharePlay, but those are expected to drop later in the year. At the same time, Apple showed off the full trailer for Finch, the Tom Hanks-fronted post-apocalyptic movie about a man, his dog and his robot trying to survive after the world ends. I imagine its a bit like if Cormac McCarthy had written Turner and Hooch after watching Short Circuit.

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US officials can't decide if Honor smartphones are a national security threat

Uh-oh.

Honor

When Huawei went on the US entity list, the Chinese giant was prevented from working with pretty much every tech company worth mentioning. Huawei couldnt source chips from Intel or Qualcomm or get software help (and Play Store access) from Google. Consequently, Huawei spun out and sold off Honor, its budget division, for it to thrive free from the sanctions threatening its own future as a global brand.

Unfortunately, those best laid plans may be undone by a quartet of federal agencies who are deciding if Honor should go on the same entity list. Reports suggest that teams from the Pentagon and Department of Energy are in favor of addition, while the Commerce and State Departments are against. If this deadlock cant be solved, however, the decision could ultimately end up on Joe Bidens desk to sort out.

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