TikTok’s user data drama is back

On Friday Chinese-owned TikTok announced it completed the migration of its American user data to Oracle-owned U.S.-based servers, ostensibly bringing to close a years-long national security debate between the company and the U.S. government. We say “ostensibly” because the announcement came within hours of a new report citing leaked audio from TikTok meetings that allegedly confirms U.S. user data has repeatedly been accessed from China.

Those claims come by way of a Friday BuzzFeed News report which cites leaked audio from more than 80 internal, China-based TikTok meetings. (Chinese tech giant ByteDance owns TikTok). Specifically, BuzzFeed claims the recordings include 14 statements from nine employees who admit engineers had access to U.S. user data for five months between September 2021 and January 2022.

Gizmodo could not independently confirm the contents of the reported leaked audio.

While TikTok executives previously assured U.S. lawmakers an American security team decides who gets the final say on accessing data, the leaked audio allegedly calls into question that commitment. According to BuzzFeed, eight different employees reportedly said they weren’t granted permission to access data on their own and described situations where they had to turn to their China-based colleagues for approval. Fourteen of the recordings allegedly involved conversations with or about Booz Allen Hamilton employees, who were reportedly brought on to assist with data migration efforts, according to one recorded consultant

Summing up the claims during a September 2021 meeting, one member of TikTok’s Trust and Safety department allegedly admitted, “Everything is seen in China.” In another recording, one TikTok data analyst allegedly told a colleague: “I get my instructions from the main office in Beijing.”

TikTok did not immediately respond to Gizmodo’s request for comment and dodged the allegation in its response to BuzzFeed.

“We know we’re among the most scrutinized platforms from a security standpoint, and we aim to remove any doubt about the security of US user data.” a TikTok spokesperson said. “That’s why we hire experts in their fields, continually work to validate our security standards and bring in reputable, independent third parties to test our defenses.”

Hours before the BuzzFeed report went live BuzzFeed released a blog post mentioning its migration of U.S. user data to Oracle servers. Previously, TikTok claims U.S. user data was held on data servers in Virginia, with backup servers in Singapore. Now, according to the company, 100% of U.S. user data will be routed through Oracle’s Cloud Infrastructure. The Virginia and Singapore servers will still be used as backups.

“We’re dedicated to earning and maintaining the trust of our community and will continue to work every day to protect our platform and provide a safe, welcoming, and enjoyable experience for our community,” the company wrote.

While TikTok’s efforts to move U.S. user data out of Chinese servers do little to alleviate all the concerns voiced by national security groups, the fact that China-based employees can still allegedly access that data worries some experts. In an interview with BuzzFeed, Adam Segal, the Director of the Digital and Cyberspace Policy Program at the Council on Foreign Relations, said such a situation could potentially result in a Chinese employee sharing that data with a Chinese intelligence agency.

It’s also unclear just how much of an effect the Oracle data hosting will have. According to BuzzFeed, the leaked recordings suggest a portion of U.S. users’ data, including video bios and comments, will still be stored in the previous U.S.-based Virginia data center. Information from that data center, the report alleges, may still be accessible by Chinese-based ByteDance employees.

To say TikTok’s history in the U.S. has been messy is an understatement. Hawkish lawmakers have for years wondered if TikTok could function as a useful espionage tool for nosey Chinese intelligence officials. Those concerns reached a fever pitch several years into the Trump administration when the former president signed an executive order threatening to ban the app unless ByteDance sold the U.S segment of its business to an American firm. A number of U.S. companies, including Walmart and Microsoft, reportedly feigned interest in the explosive app, but Oracle ended up looking like the strongest contender when all was said and done. Oracle and TikTok danced around the deal, opting instead to move forward as a “trusted technology partner.”

The Biden Administration last year acted to cool the temperature around TikTok and reportedly “shelved” talks of a TikTok, Oracle deal. Though Biden stepped back from the Trump era deal, his administration didn’t necessarily abandon the festering national security concerns full-bore. In a Wall Street Journal interview at the time, National Security Council spokeswoman Emily Horne said the administration was still evaluating how to properly approach TikTok and other Chinese-owned apps.

“We plan to develop a comprehensive approach to securing U.S. data that addresses the full range of threats we face,” Horne said. “This includes the risk posed by Chinese apps and other software that operate in the U.S. In the coming months, we expect to review specific cases in light of a comprehensive understanding of the risks we face.”

Though Biden had softened the U.S. edges around TikTok, it’s possible the new BuzzFeed report, if verified, could change the temperature.

Gizmodo reached out to the White House for comment but hasn’t heard back.

Chinese-owned social media site TikTok told US senators it was working on a final agreement with the Biden Administration that would “fully safeguard user data and US national security interests,” according to a TikTok letter seen Friday by Reuters.

The letter dated Thursday came in response to questions raised in a June 27 letter by a few senators including Republicans Marsha Blackburn and Ted Cruz, TikTok said.

TikTok, owned by Chinese technology conglomerate ByteDance, is one of the world’s most popular social media apps, with more than 1 billion active users globally. It counts the United States as its largest market.

TikTok Chief Executive Shou Zi Chew told senators in the letter the short video app was working with Oracle on “new advanced data security controls that we hope to finalize in the near future.”

Last month, TikTok said it had completed migrating US users’ information to servers at Oracle but it was still using US and Singapore data centers for backup.

TikTok’s letter acknowledged that China-based employees “can have access to TikTok US user data subject to a series of robust cybersecurity controls and authorization approval protocols overseen by our US-based security team.”

TikTok said it expected “to delete US users’ protected data from our own systems and fully pivot to Oracle cloud servers located in the US”

TikTok has sent a response to the senators’ letter, a company spokesperson said in a statement to Reuters. “We look forward to connecting with members of Congress to discuss the substance of our letter.”

TikTok is working to build US-based engineering capacity to further reduce the need for data access across regions, the spokesperson added.

Senator Blackburn, of Tennessee, said TikTok “should have come clean from the start but instead tried to shroud their work in secrecy.” She said TikTok needs to “come back and testify before Congress.”

The TikTok letter came nearly two years after a US national security panel ordered ByteDance to divest TikTok because of fears that US user data could be passed on to China’s communist government.

That order was not enforced after Joe Biden succeeded Donald Trump as US president last year. The panel, however, known as the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), is still conducting a national security review of the company, according to the letter.

“We know we are among the most scrutinized platforms from a security standpoint and we aim to remove any doubt about the security of US user data,” the letter said.

TikTok has said in the past that employees in China have data access to US user data. In a 2020 blogpost Roland Cloutier, TikTok’s chief information security officer, said, “Our goal is to minimize data access across regions so that, for example, employees in the APAC region, including China, would have very minimal access to user data from the EU and US.”

A BuzzFeed story in June showed ByteDance engineers in China had access to US data between September 2021 and January 2022.

The letter also said “ByteDance developed the algorithms for both Douyin and TikTok, and therefore some of the same underlying basic technology building blocks are utilized by both products.” TikTok is known as Douyin in China.

But TikTok’s business logic, algorithm, integration and deployment of systems is specific to the TikTok application and separate from Douyin, the letter said.

Reuters previously reported that while the code for the app, which determines the look and feel of TikTok, has been separated from Douyin, the server code was still partially shared across other ByteDance products. The server code provides basic functionality of the apps such as data storage, algorithms for moderating and recommending content and the management of user profiles. 

The Chinese government took a stake and a board seat in a key ByteDance entity in 2021. 

TikTok explained in its letter to the senators that its acquisition of 1% of Beijing Douyin Information Service Ltd was necessary to obtain a news license in China.

Missouri to connect statewide finance and HR systems by moving to the cloud, increasing productivity, reducing costs, and improving employee experience

VIRGINIA BEACH, Va., June 28, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Mythics™ has been selected as the partner to support the State of Missouri's decision to move to Oracle Fusion Cloud Applications Suite. The state will use Oracle Fusion Cloud Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) and Oracle Fusion Cloud Human Capital Management (HCM) to connect its statewide finance and HR systems, eliminating duplicative systems and standardizing processes. This will in turn, help Boost transparency, reduce repetitive manual work, and increase efficiency across departments.

"The State of Missouri is looking forward to partnering with Mythics and Oracle for its new ERP solution after a thorough procurement process," said Stacy Neal, Director of Accounting, State of Missouri's Office of Administration. "Mythics and Oracle both have a long history and have demonstrated success in state government providing the ideal partnership to begin our modernization journey."

The state chose Oracle Fusion Applications after a thorough review of available solutions. In a scoring assessment of Oracle, SAP, Workday, Infor, and other solutions, Oracle Cloud ERP and Oracle Cloud HCM scored the highest in both software and hosting capabilities. Now, the state can utilize a cloud-based solution to deliver more modern functionalities while reducing the administrative burden of system fixes and upgrades, and improving alignment across state agencies. With the help of Mythics, Missouri expects to eliminate data silos to Boost reporting, access to information across departments, and proactive decision-making with Oracle Fusion Applications. In addition, Missouri and Mythics will Boost IT security with Oracle's consistent, automatic patching and benefit from the delivery of hundreds of new features every 90 days.

"Mythics is honored to support The State of Missouri with the replacement of its legacy statewide administration system with a full suite of Oracle Fusion Applications," says Mythics Sector President, Doug Altamura.  "Mythics has a proven track record of helping the Public Sector solve large and complex business and IT challenges. We look forward to supporting the State with this important digital transformation initative and realize the benefits of Oracle's solutions."

"Government agencies are always looking to achieve more with limited resources; the more mundane and duplicative tasks that can be tackled by technology, the more resources can be dedicated to higher value work," said Gene Casciola, senior vice president of healthcare, higher education, and public sector at Oracle. "Using Oracle Cloud ERP and Oracle Cloud HCM, Missouri will benefit from a modern, integrated system to Boost efficiencies across the state's agencies and free up resources to support their constituents."

To learn more about how you can transform and modernize your state's digital infrastructure, reach out to the experts at Mythics by emailing sales@mythics.com.

About Mythics, Inc.

Mythics is an award-winning Oracle systems integrator, consulting firm, managed services provider and member of the Oracle PartnerNetwork representing Oracle product lines across cloud, software, support, hardware, engineered systems and appliances.  Mythics delivers technology solutions serving the Federal Government, State and Local Governments, Commercial, Higher Education, Utilities and Healthcare sectors and is a trusted partner to organizations worldwide. For more information or to place an order, contact Mythics at 866-698-4427; email sales@mythics.com or visit https://www.mythics.com or @mythics on LinkedIn and Twitter.

View original content to obtain multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/the-state-of-missouri-selects-mythics-inc-as-partner-to-support-move-to-oracle-fusion-cloud-applications-301577033.html

SOURCE Mythics, Inc.

Oracle ORCL and TikTok, a popular China-owned video app, recently announced an agreement per which the latter will store data from users in the United States on Oracle’s servers.

The announcement coincided with a BuzzFeed report that claims TikTok employees in China have controlled and routinely accessed private data from U.S. TikTok users between September 2021 and January 2022.

TikTok has been trying to calm concerns that its Chinese parent or even the local government could gain access to the huge amount of data it has on Americans and other users. TikTok and Oracle have worked for months on a plan to manage the social media company's U.S. user data, including developing procedures for Oracle to audit TikTok's handling of the data.

The Oracle-TikTok deal has been in the works since 2020, when TikTok had announced that Oracle would become a minority owner of the service after a U.S. national security panel backed by President Donald Trump ordered ByteDance to divest TikTok under a national security risk.

By March 2022, ByteDance and Oracle renewed negotiations for Oracle to take over TikTok’s U.S. data storage, this time to allay the Biden administration’s privacy concerns.

Oracle set out to win the TikTok data storage contract, leveraging the U.S.-China antagonism, to expand its flagging data storage business. TikTok has changed the default storage location of U.S. user data and 100% of U.S. user traffic is being routed to Oracle Cloud Infrastructure.

Oracle Corporation Price and Consensus

Oracle Corporation price-consensus-chart | Oracle Corporation Quote

Oracle’s Autonomous Database Strength to Boost Cloud Push

Oracle, currently carrying a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold), is making every effort to enhance the functionalities of cloud-based applications, thus encouraging adoption. Shares of the company are down 22.3% year to date compared with the Zacks Computer and Technology sector’s decline of 32.3%. You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

Oracle’s Cloud services and license support revenues (64% of total revenues) in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2022 increased 3% year over year (up 7% at cc) to $7.61 billion. The upside can be attributed to continued strength in the Fusion, Autonomous Database and Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (“OCI”) services.

The next-generation autonomous database launched by Oracle, supported by ML, is witnessing steady traction. Product introductions, including new OCI managed services, are likely to boost growth in this category. The autonomous database in Gen2 public cloud infrastructure is witnessing a healthy uptake.

Oracle’s latest Exadata Cloud@Customer service offering is gaining traction among on-premise customers. The latest wins include Deutsche Bank, the City of Atlanta and the State of Kansas.

Storing data from over 100 million US TikTok users will be a boon for Oracle, which was once one of the world’s biggest data hosts but has struggled to catch up with rivals, Amazon AMZN, Microsoft MSFT and Alphabet GOOGL owned Google after they made early breakthroughs in the cloud computing domain.

Amazon is the leading provider of cloud infrastructure as a service to enterprise customers. The expanding customer base of AWS, driven by its strengthening cloud offerings will continue to aid Amazon's dominance in the global cloud space.

Even more encouraging is the fact that AWS generates much stronger margins than the traditional retail business, which should remain a positive for Amazon’s profitability as it continues to grow in the mix.

Microsoft is benefiting from the momentum in Azure and impressive growth in clientele, triggered by the coronavirus-led work-from-home and online-learning wave and telehealthcare trends. Furthermore, it is well poised to expand the total addressable market through the acquisition of GitHub.

Notaby, Alphabet generated $5.8 billion of revenues from Google Cloud in first-quarter 2022, up 43.8% year over year.

According to Canalys report, in the first quarter of 2022, the top three cloud infrastructure providers were AWS (33% market share), Microsoft Azure (21%) and Google Cloud (8%).

Nevertheless, Oracle’s 12.5% stake in the TikTok Global business, is likely to be a game-changer. It positions the company well to rev up competition in the cloud domain and ensnare more market share in the days ahead.

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Welcome back to This Week in Apps, the weekly TechCrunch series that recaps the latest in mobile OS news, mobile applications and the overall app economy.

The app industry continues to grow, with a record number of downloads and consumer spending across both the iOS and Google Play stores combined in 2021, according to the latest year-end reports. Global spending across iOS, Google Play and third-party Android app stores in China grew 19% in 2021 to reach $170 billion. Downloads of apps also grew by 5%, reaching 230 billion in 2021, and mobile ad spend grew 23% year over year to reach $295 billion.

Today’s consumers now spend more time in apps than ever before — even topping the time they spend watching TV, in some cases. The average American watches 3.1 hours of TV per day, for example, but in 2021, they spent 4.1 hours on their mobile device. And they’re not even the world’s heaviest mobile users. In markets like Brazil, Indonesia and South Korea, users surpassed five hours per day in mobile apps in 2021.

Apps aren’t just a way to pass idle hours, either. They can grow to become huge businesses. In 2021, 233 apps and games generated more than $100 million in consumer spend, and 13 topped $1 billion in revenue. This was up 20% from 2020, when 193 apps and games topped $100 million in annual consumer spend, and just eight apps topped $1 billion.

This Week in Apps offers a way to keep up with this fast-moving industry in one place, with the latest from the world of apps, including news, updates, startup fundings, mergers and acquisitions, and suggestions about new apps to try, too.

Do you want This Week in Apps in your inbox every Saturday? Sign up here: techcrunch.com/newsletters

Instagram to “nudge” teens away from some negative content

Image Credits: Meta

Social apps are taking a closer look at how they’re being used by teens and minors as regulatory pressure increases.

Last week, TikTok improved its protections for minor users when adding a new feature that allows users to remind themselves to “take a break” after watching videos for a certain amount of time on the app. As a part of this, the company also said it would notify younger teens on the app that the new tool was available if they had spent more than 100 minutes on TikTok the prior day.

This week, Instagram said it’s rolling out its own set of improvements to the teen experience. It’s expanding access to its existing parental control features outside the U.S. to users in the U.K., Japan, Australia, Ireland, Canada, France and Germany starting this month, and plans to make them globally available by year end.

In addition, Instagram will now allow parents and guardians to send invitations to teens to initiate the setup of supervision tools. Once enabled, they’ll be able to limit their teen’s usage of the app during specific times of day and days of the week. They’ll also be able to see more information when the teen reports an account or a post, including who they reported and the type of report. For parents who were already using parental controls in the U.S., the feature will be updated to include these new features.

Notably, Meta is also now taking a cue from last fall’s congressional line of inquiry into how Instagram’s algorithms could be leading teens to develop eating disorders as searches for healthy recipes push them down rabbit holes to content that encourages disordered eating, over-exercise and other things that could trigger negative body image issues. Instagram says it will roll out “nudges” in the app that encourage teens to switch to a different subject if it sees them repeatedly looking at the same type of content on the Explore page. This feature aims to help direct them away to content they may be obsessing over to discover something new. It also won’t nudge users toward content that’s associated with “appearance comparison,” the company said.

Of course, by limiting nudges to the Explore page, Instagram isn’t fully addressing the problem as users could still encounter this content while browsing their Feed, Stories or Reels. But in that case, the content is there because the user explicitly chose to follow someone — which is why parental monitoring of the time spent on the app remains important.

Sherlocks from Apple’s WWDC

Image Credits: Apple

Apple introduced a number of new features and services across its platforms at this month’s Worldwide Developers Conference, but in doing so, the company appears to have once again pulled inspiration from the wider developer community. TechCrunch’s Ivan Mehta took a look at which apps got “sherlocked” during WWDC as a result. (The term refers to Apple’s old finder app called Sherlock which the company updated with features offered by a competitor, Watson. The move eventually put the latter out of business.)

This time around, Apple introduced a number of concepts popularized by other apps — like Continuity Camera, which seems to be inspired by companies like Camo, which had allowed users to use their iPhone as a computer webcam. This situation recalls how the makers of Duet Display and Luna had to refocus on serving a broader ecosystem after Apple introduced Sidecar in 2019 to offer a similar ability to use the iPad as a secondary display. Camo, too, will need to shift some of its focus to Windows and Android as Apple moves in on its market.

Other services that may see increased competition include: BNPL apps like Klarna and Afterpay, which will now go up against Apple Pay Later; apps for removing the background from photos, which is now a native iOS 16 feature; medication tracking apps, which will compete with a native Apple Health feature; Figjam and other collaboration tools, which will have a new first-party rival in the form of Apple’s Freeform; and sleep tracking apps, whose functionality has been added to Apple Health.

While this year was a particularly bad one for smaller startups that had seen an opportunity in the market, not everything Apple copies is a fully developed product. For instance, Camo saw the shift to online meetings in the wake of COVID was driving consumer demand for better webcams — and what better way to serve that market than to repurpose the excellent camera most people already carried as a smartphone? But, as Florian Mueller explained on the FOSS Patents blog this week, Camo was more of a feature than a product. And perhaps in those cases, developers should focus on patenting whatever feature it is they’ve come up with, rather than waiting for Apple to swoop in with an app or API that could significantly impact their business. At least then, some of their work could be compensated.

FOSS also noted, however, that there continues to be concern that apps delivering their software to users through Apple’s own App Store are inadvertently giving Apple access to valuable data about their customers and traction. Alternative app stores could help somewhat to alleviate this concern.

In fact, Apple’s “sherlocking” was a line of inquiry at last year’s antitrust hearing in the U.S. Senate, when a rep from Apple was asked whether there was a “strict firewall” or other internal policies in place that prevented them from leveraging the data from third-party businesses operating on their app stores to inform the development of their own competitive products. Apple had only offered vague responses as to whether or not it leveraged such App Store data for product development ideas.

“We don’t copy. We don’t kill. What we do is offer up a new choice and a new innovation,” Kyle Andeer, Apple’s chief compliance officer, had said at the time. He noted simply that Apple had “separate teams” and “controls in place” to avoid such issues.

TikTok relocates U.S. user data to Oracle

In a huge move, TikTok said it would move its U.S. users’ data to Oracle servers located in the U.S. at the same time BuzzFeed published a remarkable report indicating that TikTok’s U.S. data was regularly being shared with ByteDance colleagues in China. Concern over China’s access to TikTok had previously led the Trump administration to ban the app in the U.S. The ban was initially held up by the courts and the appeals were then put on pause when Biden came into office. All the while, TikTok had repeatedly said it would never hand over U.S. user data to anyone.

When the Trump ban was underway, TikTok had engaged in discussions with several tech companies to acquire its U.S. business if it was forced to spin it off. Oracle had been among the suitors, so it’s not surprising it was named in the new deal.

In recent days, TikTok had come under fire in media reports about its toxic workplace culture where employees were quitting because of being overworked — spending some 12 hours a day at their job due to requirements to align themselves with China’s business hours. The company was said to also reward the overworked and punish those who set more reasonable boundaries, as it seemed to enforce China’s 996 work schedule on non-Chinese employees. This dictates a schedule of working from 9 am to 9 pm, 6 days per week. A WSJ report also noted some U.S. employees said they had worked 85 hours per week on average, resulting in health concerns, stress, anxiety and emotional lows so severe they sought therapy.

Image Credits: Bryce Durbin/TechCrunch

The next big social platform is the smartphone’s homescreen

This week, we took a deep dive into a new app trend involving social apps that are leveraging homescreen widgets to connect and engage with younger users who are looking for simpler, more private social networking apps that let them stay in touch with friends through casual photo-sharing. Read more here:

Platforms: Apple

Image Credits: Apple

• Apple announced new sessions of Apple Camp for children and families. The Apple Store program runs June 20-August 31 and will offer lessons about using Apple’s technology and apps to do things like make a digital comic book, take photos, use Apple Pencil to draw and more.
• With Apple’s upcoming release of iOS 16, users will now be able to remove 30 stock apps from their Apple devices, including Contacts, FaceTime, Clock, Camera, Find My, Health and others.
• Apple made a notable update to its Apple Developer Program that will now allow apps that use iCloud to be transferred to another developer without removing them from the App Store. This makes it easier for developers to sell apps or relocate them to another organization.
• The focus may be on iOS 16, but Apple is still working on the next version of iOS 15, as well. This week, the company rolled out iOS 15.6 beta 3 and iPadOS 15.6 beta 3 to developers.

Platforms: Google

• Google said it’s shutting down Google Assistant’s Conversational Actions in favor of App Actions for Android. Developers have 12 months to migrate to the Android-focused replacement for the older, voice-only features.

E-commerce

Image Credits: eBay

• eBay launched livestream shopping. The company announced the debut of eBay Live, a live shopping platform that allows users to interact with sellers in the chat and through reaction buttons, then purchase any items they like during the livestream. The service is currently in beta and available on the website and mobile app. The first event will see eBay taking on Whatnot with a curated selection of rare trading cards offered by eBay seller Bleecker Trading.
• Food delivery app JOKR is exiting the U.S. The company said it’s closing its New York and Boston locations by June 19 and leaving the U.S. market altogether in order to focus on Latin America.
• Grocery delivery app Instacart renamed its subscription service Instacart+. The service will continue as usual, with $9.99/mo or $99/yr tiers, but will also now gain Family Accounts that allow multiple members of a household to add items to a shared Family Cart.

Fintech

Image Credits: Samsung

• Samsung launched its new “Samsung Wallet.” The wallet app lets users store digital keys, boarding passes, identification cards and more, and combines Samsung Pay and Samsung Pass into one secure platform.
• A report suggests Apple’s new Apple Pay BNPL service — Apple Pay Later, available in Apple Wallet — may be related to its privacy push, as it would not involve sharing personal data with third parties.
• PayPal introduced another BNPL option called PayPal Pay Monthly, which lets shoppers split purchases of $199-$10,000 into monthly payments over a 6-24 month period, if they qualify. The company previously offered Pay in 4, which was for smaller purchases up to $1,500, split over four payments.

Social

Image Credits: Instagram

• Instagram said it’s begun testing a new version of its full-screen feed, similar to TikTok’s, which aims to Boost upon the way photos appear in this new format. The company said it will also use this experiment to try out changes to the navigation bar at the bottom of the Instagram app, where it will soon add shortcuts for creating a post — a button removed from the nav bar in 2020 — and another for accessing messages. Instagram had been testing a different version of the full-screen feed before now, but had been met with negative feedback.
• An internal memo provided to The Verge said Meta is planning to make Facebook more like TikTok, including by bringing Messenger back into the app and recommending posts from unconnected sources.
• Snapchat is experimenting with a subscription service. The company is testing Snapchat+, which would provide users early access to experimental features like pinning certain conversations and exclusive icons and badges.
• TikTok is testing a feature that lets you see which followers have viewed your posts. People you follow will be able to see that you viewed their posts, too. The company has made the test available to a limited audience, but it may not be welcomed by all users.
• Twitter is now allowing local businesses to display their location, operating hours and contact info on their Twitter Professional profiles.
• Pinterest is turning Idea Pins into ads. The feature has allowed Pinterest creators to tell their stories using a combination of video, images, music and other editing tools, resulting in something that’s a cross between TikTok’s short videos and a Stories product with multiple pages of content. Now, Pinterest is opening up this new format to its advertisers with the launch of its new “Idea Ads.”

Messaging

• Apple and WhatsApp announced that Apple’s Move to iOS app will now allow users to transfer their WhatsApp chat history, photos, and voice messages from Android to iPhone when switching between devices, while keeping e2ee. Before, users could only transfer chats from iPhone to Android. The feature is rolling out in beta and will take a week or so to reach all users.
• Messaging app Telegram’s CEO Pavel Durov, writing on his Telegram channel, accused Apple of limiting competition by banning other browsers on iOS beyond those that are WebKit-based. The comments follow news that the U.K.’s CMA was looking into this area due to possible anti-competitive concerns. “I think it’s an accurate summary [by the CMA] and hope that regulatory action will follow soon,” Durov said. “It’s sad that, more than ten years after Steve Job’s death, a company that once revolutionized mobile web turned into its most significant roadblock.”

Dating

• A ban on dating apps in Pakistan has sent users flocking to Facebook Groups. The country banned apps like Tinder, Grindr and Skout in September 2020, leading to local Facebook matchmaking groups gaining tens of thousands of members.
• Dating app Bumble has been pushing for legislation across multiple U.S. states that would criminalize what it calls cyberflashing — the sending of unwanted sexual images to another person online. The company previously helped pass a bill in Texas that made sending lewd photos without the consent of the recipient a class-C misdemeanor, The NYT said.

Streaming & Entertainment

• YouTube Music takes on Spotify’s Wrapped with a new feature called seasonal recaps — a culmination of your top artists, songs, albums and playlists. A “Spring Recap” will be the first recap that users can try. The streaming service had first introduced a Wrapped-like feature called Recap as a year-end review.
• YouTube added a “corrections” feature that will allow creators to add a note to the video’s description or pin a comment with the correction after the video is uploaded.
• Pirate streaming apps were spotted beating out traditional streamers like Netflix and Disney+ on the Top Charts in the Play Store in Brazil. The apps have a lot of traction. One app, Cine Vision V5, has more than 5 million downloads and 82,000 reviews.
• Spotify said it would slow its hiring by 25% after adding 2,000+ staff from 2019-2021. The company’s total headcount is now 6,617.
• Spotify also announced the formation of a Safety Advisory Council to help it make better decisions about content moderation. The effort follows the controversies that arose over its hosting of the Joe Rogan podcast which helped spread medical information related to COVID-19 vaccines, prompting a backlash.
• Apple’s TV app will become the exclusive destination to watch every single live MLS match beginning in 2023 thanks to a new partnership with Major League Soccer (MLS).

Gaming

Image Credits: Sensor Tower

• Netflix’s venture into mobile gaming has generated 13 million downloads, according to a report from Sensor Tower. The company now has 24 mobile titles and is preparing to launch others, including The Queen’s Gambit Chess, Shadow and Bone: Destinies, and Too Hot To Handle, which tie into Netflix series. To date, the most popular game is Stranger Things 1984, which has close to 2 million downloads. Asphalt Xtreme ranks No. 2 with 1.8 million installs, and Stranger Things 3: The Game ranks No. 3 with 1.5 million. (These don’t include the games’ original release downloads before they were Netflix-owned.) Netflix games are now being downloaded at a rate of more than 1 million installs per month, the report found.

Health & Fitness

Image Credits: Sleep Reset

• Sleep Reset is a new app from meditation app Simple Habit’s founder, Yunha Kim, which helps users Boost their sleep. The app aims to bring the same treatment you’d otherwise receive in sleep clinics — such as Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Insomnia (CBT-I) — to mobile devices.

Travel & Transportation

• Google Maps introduced a new feature for Android users that now shows live traffic around you not just in the app but in a widget you can access on your lock screen. The feature follows Apple’s introduction of Live Activities on the iOS 16 Lock Screen. It also rolled out a new feature that shows the total toll prices for a trip.
• London-based Waymap is introducing an app to help visually impaired people to navigate their surroundings, starting with public transit. The company wrapped trials of its navigation app at three stops within Washington, D.C.’s Metro, and hopes to begin a public trial at 25 Metro stations and 1,000 bus stops by September.

Productivity

Image Credits: Readdle

• Readdle now offers its popular iOS Calendars app for the Mac. The app includes other useful features, like to-dos, weather, meeting integrations (e.g. Zoom, Meet, GoToMeeting), color-coding, natural language event creation and more. It works with calendar providers like Google, Outlook, iCloud and others. The Pro plan is $19.99/year and unlocks all the features across Mac, iPad, iPhone and Apple Watch.
• Google officially shuts down Google Talk. After June 16, anyone trying to use the app will get an error message. Users are being pushed to Google Chat instead, which is available on web and mobile.

Government & Policy

• Social app makers and big tech co’s, including Facebook, Twitter, TikTok, Google and others, have agreed to new EU rules focused on fighting disinformation on their platforms. Among the 44 commitments they’ve agreed to are those focused on creating libraries for political ads, demonetizing fake news sites, reducing bots/fake accounts, offering more tools for flagging disinformation and accessing authoritative sources, giving researchers more access to platforms’ data, and more.
• Meta (then Facebook)’s acquisition of GIF startup Giphy may be revisited. The U.K.’s competition authority may have to look again at the decision to approve the merger after the country’s Competition Appeal Tribunal (CAT) endorsed the regulator’s finding that the deal could harm competition, Reuters said.
• Germany’s Federal Cartel Office (FCO), its antitrust watchdog, announced it’s investigating Apple’s App Tracking Transparency (ATT) framework over concerns that the company could be breaching competition rules by self-preferencing or creating unfair barriers for other companies.
• The Netherlands’ competition regulator said Apple’s latest changes to its App Store Rules, which now allow dating app makers to choose alternative payment methods, now meet local and EU competition requirements.

💰 Indian esports fantasy app FanClash raised $40 million in Series B funding led by Alpha Wave Global, formerly known as Falcon Edge Capital. Users compete across several titles, including Counter Strike: Go, FreeFire and League of Legends. The company is now experimenting with expanding in the Philippines.

💰 Mobile gaming platform VersusGame raised $25 million in a new funding round with a number of investors, including Apex Capital, Brightstone Capital Partners, Feld Ventures and others. The startup has content creators pose “prediction contests” to viewers, who can win cash and prizes. It has previously worked with BuzzFeed, Billboard, ESPN, UFC and others.

🤝 Reddit is acquiring machine learning startup Spell for an undisclosed sum. The startup was founded by former Facebook engineers to provide a cloud computing solution that allows anyone to run resource-intensive ML experiments without the high-end hardware that would normally be necessary. Reddit could use the ML to Boost its personalized recommendations and its Discover tab.

🤝 Spotify closed its acquisition of audiobook company Findaway, announced last November. The company cited the potential for its expansion into audiobooks, noting the market is expected to grow from $3.3 billion to $15 billion by 2027.

💰 Food delivery app Wonder, led by Marc Lore, raised $350 million in a new round led by Bain Capital Ventures at a $3.5 billion valuation, bringing its total raise in equity and debt to $900 million. Lore previously sold Quidsi (Diapers.com) to Amazon, then Jet.com to Walmart, where he stayed to lead its U.S. e-commerce business for years. Wonder is now looking to bring local restaurants and food truck deliveries to consumers’ homes.

💰 Edtech company Pok Pok, which spun out of Snowman (Alto’s Adventure, Alto’s Odyssey) raised $3 million in seed funding led by Konvoy to expand its play-based learning experiences for kids. The company’s Pok Pok Playroom app is designed to help kids learn through digital play using open-ended toys which, unlike mobile games, don’t have a goal to achieve, points or other gaming elements.

💰 Indonesian consumer payments app Flip raised $55 million in Series B funding in a round led by Tencent, with participation from Block (formerly Square) and existing investor Insight Partners. The company has helped more than 10 million people in Indonesia as of May this year, up from more than 7 million users in December 2021. Its app lets users perform interbank transfers to more than 100 domestic banks, use an e-wallet, and create international remittances.

💰 Onymos, a “feature-as-a-service” platform for app development, raised $12 million in Series A funding led by Great Point Ventures. The startup offers off-the-shelf features that can be added to apps like login, biometrics, chat, data storage, location services, notification modules, underlying logic and server-side functions needed to process data in the cloud.

Image Credits: Grace

A new startup called Grace launched an app to make it easier for parents to monitor and manage their kids’ screen time and app usage on iOS devices. Although Apple offers built-in parental controls, many parents would prefer an app-based solution as opposed to having to dig around in the settings for Apple’s tools. In addition, Grace offers more customization over kids’ screen time schedules. With Apple’s controls, parents can only configure start and stop times for “Downtime,” for instance, as opposed to being able to set other times when app usage should be limited, like school hours, family dinner time, homework time and more.

Grace is also notable for being one of the first to arrive that’s built with Apple’s Screen Time API, introduced at Apple’s Worldwide Developer Conference last year. The new API allows developers to create an interface that works with Apple’s built-in tools in order to expand their functionality.

You can read more about Grace here:

NEW YORK, July 07, 2022--(BUSINESS WIRE)--For the fourth consecutive year, Accenture (NYSE: ACN) has been named a Leader in the Gartner "Magic Quadrant for Oracle Cloud Applications Services, Worldwide," the global research and advisory firm’s annual assessment of Oracle Fusion Cloud Applications service providers. This Magic Quadrant assessed the relative positioning of 19 service providers based on completeness of vision and ability to execute worldwide in delivering the full life cycle of Oracle Cloud Application services.

This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20220707005099/en/

For the fourth consecutive year, Accenture has been named a Leader in the Gartner "Magic Quadrant for Oracle Cloud Applications Services, Worldwide," the global research and advisory firm’s annual assessment of Oracle Fusion Cloud Applications service providers. (Photo: Business Wire)

According to the report, "‘By year-end 2024, 75% of Oracle application services revenue will be cloud-related as enterprises accelerate their move to the cloud in response to the massive disruption of the COVID-19 pandemic." Additionally, "70% of large ERP deployments will be executed by predominantly remote rather than on-site implementation teams," and, "60% of organizations will select integrated financial management capabilities as their preferred approach to process automation."

"Accenture’s longstanding alliance with Oracle and our full spectrum of industry and function solutions continue to propel clients around the world to realize the full potential of the cloud, driving better business outcomes across the board. We believe our recognition as a Leader in the Gartner report is a testament to this, and a strong indicator of future success in delivering greater value for customers via Oracle technologies," said Phillip Hazen, senior managing director and Accenture Oracle Business Group lead.

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According to Gartner, "Organizations are looking for a vendor that can support them throughout their cloud adoption journey — from designing the transformation, implementing the solution to ongoing support for their cloud environments. This demands excellent abilities to understand the client’s business requirements and to collaborate in an ongoing way. Vendors that can do both of these in addition to demonstrating excellence in technology enablement are those that are most successful in this market."

Accenture has deep global capability across a range of Oracle solutions with thousands of Oracle-skilled consultants worldwide who help accelerate digital transformation by implementing Oracle-based business solutions and new business processes that develop and evolve as their digital business grows. Accenture has teamed with Oracle for over 30 years and is a member of Oracle Partner Network. For more information on the Accenture and Oracle relationship, visit www.accenture.com/oracle.

Gartner Disclaimer

GARTNER and Magic Quadrant are registered trademarks and service marks of Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates in the U.S. and internationally and are used herein with permission. All rights reserved.

Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in its research publications, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest ratings or other designation. Gartner research publications consist of the opinions of Gartner's research organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Gartner disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.

Gartner Magic Quadrant for Oracle Cloud Application Services, Worldwide 20 April 2022, by Analyst(s): Gunjan Gupta, Denis Torii, Alan Stanley, Akshit Malik, Rajib Gupta, Eric Cheung

About Accenture

Accenture is a global professional services company with leading capabilities in digital, cloud and security. Combining unmatched experience and specialized skills across more than 40 industries, we offer Strategy and Consulting, Technology and Operations services and Accenture Song — all powered by the world’s largest network of Advanced Technology and Intelligent Operations centers. Our 710,000 people deliver on the promise of technology and human ingenuity every day, serving clients in more than 120 countries. We embrace the power of change to create value and shared success for our clients, people, shareholders, partners and communities. Visit us at accenture.com.

Trademarks
Oracle, Java and MySQL are registered trademarks of Oracle Corporation.

Copyright © 2022 Accenture. All rights reserved. Accenture and its logo are trademarks of Accenture.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20220707005099/en/

Contacts

Christina McDonald
Accenture
+1 415 537 7997
christina.mcdonald@accenture.com

Missouri to connect statewide finance and HR systems by moving to the cloud, increasing productivity, reducing costs, and improving employee experience

VIRGINIA BEACH, Va., June 28, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Mythics™ has been selected as the partner to support the State of Missouri's decision to move to Oracle Fusion Cloud Applications Suite. The state will use Oracle Fusion Cloud Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) and Oracle Fusion Cloud Human Capital Management (HCM) to connect its statewide finance and HR systems, eliminating duplicative systems and standardizing processes. This will in turn, help Boost transparency, reduce repetitive manual work, and increase efficiency across departments.

"The State of Missouri is looking forward to partnering with Mythics and Oracle for its new ERP solution after a thorough procurement process," said Stacy Neal, Director of Accounting, State of Missouri's Office of Administration. "Mythics and Oracle both have a long history and have demonstrated success in state government providing the ideal partnership to begin our modernization journey."

The state chose Oracle Fusion Applications after a thorough review of available solutions. In a scoring assessment of Oracle, SAP, Workday, Infor, and other solutions, Oracle Cloud ERP and Oracle Cloud HCM scored the highest in both software and hosting capabilities. Now, the state can utilize a cloud-based solution to deliver more modern functionalities while reducing the administrative burden of system fixes and upgrades, and improving alignment across state agencies. With the help of Mythics, Missouri expects to eliminate data silos to Boost reporting, access to information across departments, and proactive decision-making with Oracle Fusion Applications. In addition, Missouri and Mythics will Boost IT security with Oracle's consistent, automatic patching and benefit from the delivery of hundreds of new features every 90 days.

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"Mythics is honored to support The State of Missouri with the replacement of its legacy statewide administration system with a full suite of Oracle Fusion Applications," says Mythics Sector President, Doug Altamura.  "Mythics has a proven track record of helping the Public Sector solve large and complex business and IT challenges. We look forward to supporting the State with this important digital transformation initative and realize the benefits of Oracle's solutions."

"Government agencies are always looking to achieve more with limited resources; the more mundane and duplicative tasks that can be tackled by technology, the more resources can be dedicated to higher value work," said Gene Casciola, senior vice president of healthcare, higher education, and public sector at Oracle. "Using Oracle Cloud ERP and Oracle Cloud HCM, Missouri will benefit from a modern, integrated system to Boost efficiencies across the state's agencies and free up resources to support their constituents."

To learn more about how you can transform and modernize your state's digital infrastructure, reach out to the experts at Mythics by emailing sales@mythics.com.

About Mythics, Inc.

Mythics is an award-winning Oracle systems integrator, consulting firm, managed services provider and member of the Oracle PartnerNetwork representing Oracle product lines across cloud, software, support, hardware, engineered systems and appliances.  Mythics delivers technology solutions serving the Federal Government, State and Local Governments, Commercial, Higher Education, Utilities and Healthcare sectors and is a trusted partner to organizations worldwide. For more information or to place an order, contact Mythics at 866-698-4427; email sales@mythics.com or visit https://www.mythics.com or @mythics on LinkedIn and Twitter.

View original content to obtain multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/the-state-of-missouri-selects-mythics-inc-as-partner-to-support-move-to-oracle-fusion-cloud-applications-301577033.html

SOURCE Mythics, Inc.

TikTok’s user data drama is back

On Friday Chinese-owned TikTok announced it completed the migration of its American user data to Oracle-owned U.S.-based servers, ostensibly bringing to close a years-long national security debate between the company and the U.S. government. We say “ostensibly” because the announcement came within hours of a new report citing leaked audio from TikTok meetings that allegedly confirms U.S. user data has repeatedly been accessed from China.

Those claims come by way of a Friday BuzzFeed News report which cites leaked audio from more than 80 internal, China-based TikTok meetings. (Chinese tech giant ByteDance owns TikTok). Specifically, BuzzFeed claims the recordings include 14 statements from nine employees who admit engineers had access to U.S. user data for five months between September 2021 and January 2022.

Gizmodo could not independently confirm the contents of the reported leaked audio.

While TikTok executives previously assured U.S. lawmakers an American security team decides who gets the final say on accessing data, the leaked audio allegedly calls into question that commitment. According to BuzzFeed, eight different employees reportedly said they weren’t granted permission to access data on their own and described situations where they had to turn to their China-based colleagues for approval. Fourteen of the recordings allegedly involved conversations with or about Booz Allen Hamilton employees, who were reportedly brought on to assist with data migration efforts, according to one recorded consultant

Summing up the claims during a September 2021 meeting, one member of TikTok’s Trust and Safety department allegedly admitted, “Everything is seen in China.” In another recording, one TikTok data analyst allegedly told a colleague: “I get my instructions from the main office in Beijing.”

TikTok did not immediately respond to Gizmodo’s request for comment and dodged the allegation in its response to BuzzFeed.

“We know we’re among the most scrutinised platforms from a security standpoint, and we aim to remove any doubt about the security of US user data.” a TikTok spokesperson said. “That’s why we hire experts in their fields, continually work to validate our security standards and bring in reputable, independent third parties to test our defences.”

Hours before the BuzzFeed report went live BuzzFeed released a blog post mentioning its migration of U.S. user data to Oracle servers. Previously, TikTok claims U.S. user data was held on data servers in Virginia, with backup servers in Singapore. Now, according to the company, 100% of U.S. user data will be routed through Oracle’s Cloud Infrastructure. The Virginia and Singapore servers will still be used as backups.

“We’re dedicated to earning and maintaining the trust of our community and will continue to work every day to protect our platform and provide a safe, welcoming, and enjoyable experience for our community,” the company wrote.

While TikTok’s efforts to move U.S. user data out of Chinese servers do little to alleviate all the concerns voiced by national security groups, the fact that China-based employees can still allegedly access that data worries some experts. In an interview with BuzzFeed, Adam Segal, the Director of the Digital and Cyberspace Policy Program at the Council on Foreign Relations, said such a situation could potentially result in a Chinese employee sharing that data with a Chinese intelligence agency.

It’s also unclear just how much of an effect the Oracle data hosting will have. According to BuzzFeed, the leaked recordings suggest a portion of U.S. users’ data, including video bios and comments, will still be stored in the previous U.S.-based Virginia data centre. Information from that data centre, the report alleges, may still be accessible by Chinese-based ByteDance employees.

To say TikTok’s history in the U.S. has been messy is an understatement. Hawkish lawmakers have for years wondered if TikTok could function as a useful espionage tool for nosey Chinese intelligence officials. Those concerns reached a fever pitch several years into the Trump administration when the former president signed an executive order threatening to ban the app unless ByteDance sold the U.S segment of its business to an American firm. A number of U.S. companies, including Walmart and Microsoft, reportedly feigned interest in the explosive app, but Oracle ended up looking like the strongest contender when all was said and done. Oracle and TikTok danced around the deal, opting instead to move forward as a “trusted technology partner.”

The Biden Administration last year acted to cool the temperature around TikTok and reportedly “shelved” talks of a TikTok, Oracle deal. Though Biden stepped back from the Trump era deal, his administration didn’t necessarily abandon the festering national security concerns full-bore. In a Wall Street Journal interview at the time, National Security Council spokeswoman Emily Horne said the administration was still evaluating how to properly approach TikTok and other Chinese-owned apps.

“We plan to develop a comprehensive approach to securing U.S. data that addresses the full range of threats we face,” Horne said. “This includes the risk posed by Chinese apps and other software that operate in the U.S. In the coming months, we expect to review specific cases in light of a comprehensive understanding of the risks we face.”

Though Biden had softened the U.S. edges around TikTok, it’s possible the new BuzzFeed report, if verified, could change the temperature.

Gizmodo reached out to the White House for comment but hasn’t heard back.