Tech
TikTok shuts down in the United States hours ahead of a ban

Published
3 months agoon
By
Ekwutos Blog
TikTok went offline in the United States Saturday night, less than two hours before a ban was slated to go into effect. The extraordinary blackout prevents access to one of the world’s most popular social media apps – one that had been used by 170 million Americans.
Visitors to the app were met with a message reading: “Sorry, TikTok isn’t available right now. A law banning TikTok has been enacted in the U.S. Unfortunately, that means you can’t use TikTok for now.”
TikTok’s action comes after the Supreme Court on Friday upheld a ban that was passed with broad bipartisan support in Congress and signed into law in April by President Joe Biden. The law prevents American companies from hosting or serving content for the Chinese-owned social media platform unless it sells itself to a buyer from the United States or one of its allies.
But TikTok may not be gone for long. The company suggested it could be back soon – perhaps as early as Monday.
“We are fortunate that President Trump has indicated that he will work with us on a solution to reinstate TikTok once he takes office,” the company posted in its pop-up message to users who opened the app beginning late Saturday night. “Please stay tuned!”
President-elect Trump said he will “most likely” delay a ban on TikTok for 90 days after he takes office on Monday, adding that he has not made a final decision in a phone interview with NBC Newson Saturday.
“I think that would be, certainly, an option that we look at. The 90-day extension is something that will be most likely done, because it’s appropriate. You know, it’s appropriate. We have to look at it carefully. It’s a very big situation,” Trump said in the interview.
“If I decide to do that, I’ll probably announce it on Monday,” he added.
The blackout from TikTok — and the suggestion that it could soon restore its service — is the latest twist in a saga that’s dragged on for months, leaving the fate of the app in limbo.
The app also has disappeared from Apple’s App Store and the Google Play store. And other apps owned by TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance – including CapCut – also displayed a similar message Saturday night.
Lawmakers said TikTok’s ties to China and its access to reams of data posed a threat to national security.
Many US users told CNN they were bracing for an end to the app, including influencers and other small businesses that said they depended on the platform for a living. Still, they said, they held out hope the app would somehow be saved.
But the Supreme Court’s decision dashed hopes of a last-second judicial assist.
Some of the companies that operate app stores and run computer servers are said to be concerned that they will be held liable for violating terms of the ban. Those service providers pledged to stop carrying the app to avoid legal consequences, a person familiar with companies’ discussions told CNN.
Meanwhile, Trump — who first warned of TikTok’s dangers five years ago — is now casting himself as the app’s savior. Earlier this month, on his Truth Social account, he posted stats about his own popularity on TikTok and asked, “Why would I want to get rid of TikTok?”
TikTok’s CEO Shou Chew has met with Trump at his Mar-a-Lago home in the weeks leading up to the ban taking effect and is expected to attend Trump’s inauguration on Monday.
TikTok did not immediately respond to a request for comment late on Saturday.
A 90-day extension?
The law passed last year allows the president to delay the ban from going into effect by 90 days but requires evidence that parties working to arrange a sale of TikTok to a US-owned company have made significant progress.
But TikTok’s owner, ByteDance, has rejected would-be buyers. The company has cited its popularity among American users, and its value to small businesses across the country, as it fights to stay online without any change in ownership.
After the Supreme Court ruled, 9-0, to uphold the ban, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre signaled the administration wouldn’t enforce the law on Biden’s final day in office.
Due to the federal holiday weekend and the inauguration, “actions to implement the law simply must fall to the next administration,” she said.
But TikTok wasn’t satisfied by that statement. According to a person familiar with the matter, some service providers — companies like Google and Apple that would face exorbitant fines for allowing US access to TikTok once the ban takes effect — told TikTok they believed they were vulnerable under the law starting Sunday.
A person close to TikTok says “multiple critical service providers” indicated to TikTok that they would no longer carry the app or its data, which forced the app offline. The service providers cited fears that the ban might be enforced starting Sunday, despite the Biden administration’s signals to the contrary.
So TikTok took action to take the app down – at least for now.
The tmove, and the pop-up naming Trump, could put even more pressure on the president-elect to negotiate a solution in the days or weeks to come.
TikTok employees were also told by the company on Saturday that the situation was “disappointing” but that the company was working on a solution.
“We know this is disappointing for you not only as employees, but as users. However, we are fortunate that President Trump has indicated that he will work with us on a solution to reinstate TikTok once he takes office. Please know our teams are working tirelessly to bring our app back to the U.S. as soon as possible,” read the message to employees.
A White House source reiterated to CNN that there will not be any fines by the Biden administration associated with keeping TikTok active on Sunday.
At the same time, however, some Biden officials are content with TikTok going dark for a day, since the law was passed with strong support from both parties.
The decision “is going to be made by the next president anyway,” Biden told reporters Friday.
TikTok’s final minute
On Saturday, the White House called TikTok’s warning about going dark a “stunt.”
“We see no reason for TikTok or other companies to take actions in the next few days before the Trump administration takes office on Monday,” Jean-Pierre said. “We have laid out our position clearly and straightforwardly: actions to implement this law will fall to the next administration. So TikTok and other companies should take up any concerns with them.”
A TikTok spokesperson had no immediate reaction to the statement from the White House.
The company said it expected service providers — like companies that operate servers full of videos — to restrict access to the app at 12:01 a.m. ET on Sunday.
On Apple and Google’s app stores, the most popular free apps for the past week have been TikTok-like apps, including two that are also owned by Chinese companies. One of them, photo-sharing app Lemon8, is owned by ByteDance, just like TikTok. But Lemon8 may have the same fate as TikTok in the future.
Given Trump’s public remarks about TikTok any blackout may not last long.
Trump is said to be considering issuing an executive order that could effectively pause the ban and provide some time to sort out a long-term solution.
But he will face pressure from multiple directions. Some Republican senators, like Josh Hawley of Missouri and Tom Cotton of Arkansas, remain strongly supportive of the ban.
“ByteDance and its Chinese Communist masters had nine months to sell TikTok before the Sunday deadline,” Cotton wrote on X. “The very fact that Communist China refuses to permit its sale reveals exactly what TikTok is: a communist spy app.”
Analyst Richard Greenfield of LightShed Partners, who has long followed the TikTok saga, anticipates that TikTok will ultimately stay online in the United States.
On Saturday, Perplexity AI, a San Francisco-based AI search-engine startup, confirmed to CNN that it submitted a bid to ByteDance to merge with TikTok.
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Tech
The 50-year-old code that reshaped the world: Bill Gates on the ‘revolution’ that started Microsoft

Published
8 hours agoon
April 4, 2025By
Ekwutos Blog
Even as he grows older, Microsoft founder Bill Gates still fondly remembers the catalytic computer code he wrote 50 years ago that opened up a new frontier in technology.
Although the code that Gates printed out on a teletype machine may look crude compared to what’s powering today’s artificial intelligence (AI) platforms, it played a critical role in creating Microsoft in April 1975 – a golden anniversary that the Redmond, Washington, company will celebrate on Friday.
Gates, 69, set the stage for that jubilee with a blog post reminiscing on how he and his old high school friend – the late Paul Allen – scrambled to create the world’s first “software factory” after reading an article in the January 1975 issue of Popular Electronics magazine about the Altair 8800, a minicomputer that would be powered by a tiny chip made by the then-obscure technology company, Intel.
The article inspired Gates, who was just a freshman at Harvard University, and Allen to call Altair’s maker, Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry Systems, and promise the company’s CEO Ed Roberts they had developed software that would enable consumers to control the hardware.
There was just one hitch: Gates and Allen hadn’t yet come up with the code they promised Roberts.
‘The coolest code I’ve ever written’
Gates and Allen tackled the challenge by latching onto the BASIC computer language that had been developed in 1964 at Dartmouth College, but they still had to figure out a way to make the technology compatible with the forthcoming Altair computer, even though they didn’t even have a prototype of the machine.
After spending two months working on the program with little sleep, Gates finished the code that became the basis for the Altair’s first operating system.
“That code remains the coolest I’ve ever written,” Gates wrote in his blog post, which includes an option to download the original programme.
The code would go on to provide the foundation for a business that would make personal computers a household staple, with a suite of software that includes the Word, Excel, and PowerPoint programs, as well as the Windows operating system that still powers most PCs today.
“That was the revolution,” Gates said of the code in a video accompanying his post. “That was the thing that ushered in personal computing”.
Gates’ recollection of the code is part of a nostalgic kick that he has been on this year as he prepares to turn 70 in October.
The trip down memory lane included the February release of a memoir exploring his early years as an often-misunderstood child with few friends and a hailing of the 25th anniversary of the philanthropic foundation he created after stepping down as Microsoft’s CEO in 2000.
The tech giant initially stumbled after Gates’ departure but has been thriving under CEO Satya Nadella, and has amassed a market value of about $2.8 trillion (€2.5 trillion).
In his memoir, Gates also reflected on his tempestuous relationship with fellow PC pioneer, the late Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, whose company will be celebrating its golden anniversary next year.
“Fifty years is a long time,” said Gates, whose personal fortune is estimated at $108 billion (€98 billion). “It’s crazy that the dream came true”.
Tech
Lucid Had Another Record Quarter Thanks To Tesla Owners Who Jumped Ship

Published
1 day agoon
April 3, 2025By
Ekwutos Blog
The American luxury EV maker had its fifth consecutive record quarter.
- Lucid Motors delivered 3,109 cars in the first quarter.
- That’s a 28% increase year-over-year.
- A big reason for the uptick? Tesla owners.
The Lucid Air is a phenomenal machine, albeit a very expensive one. It’s the longest-range electric vehicle on sale today, with up to 512 miles on a full charge. It’s also extremely comfortable, but it costs between $70,000 and $250,000.
Despite the high price tag, the Air just helped Lucid achieve its fifth consecutive record quarter for deliveries. Thanks in no small part to Tesla owners ditching their EVs for other battery-powered cars, Lucid delivered 3,109 units in the first quarter of this year–an impressive increase of 28% over last year.
“Tesla owners always have been a source of customers for us,” said Lucid’s Interim CEO Marc Winterhoff during a Fox Business interview last week. “We saw a dramatic uptick in the last two months. Right now, 50% of all the orders that we have are from Tesla owners.”
More Lucid Stories
Compared to last year’s fourth quarter, Lucid delivered just 10 more vehicles, but a record is still a record. When it comes to manufacturing, the California-based startup built 2,213 cars at its facility in Casa Grande, Arizona, with an additional 600 units in transit to Saudi Arabia, where they will be assembled at the company’s AMP-2 facility. Compared to Q1 2024, Lucid built 28% more cars in the first quarter of this year.
Deliveries of the new Gravity SUV are yet to begin, with the first demo units scheduled to be finalized by the end of April. As a reminder, Lucid also built a handful of Gravity SUVs late last year, but that was a limited run intended for employees and company friends. In other words, although Lucid doesn’t split the delivery numbers for its two models, all the cars delivered in Q1 were likely Air sedans.
With the Gravity, Lucid is broadening its appeal to a wider audience that may not be so convinced about a luxury electric sedan. “More than 75% of our Gravity orders are from people who don’t own a Lucid,” said Winterhoff. That said, don’t expect Lucid’s first SUV to be affordable. The Gravity Grand Touring starts at $94,900–this gets you up to 450 miles of range on a full charge and seating for up to seven adults. A cheaper Touring trin, which will start from $79,900, will go on sale in late 2025.
Lucid Motors Deliveries
Period | Units Delivered |
Q4 2022 | 1,932 |
Q1 2023 | 1,406 |
Q2 2023 | 1,404 |
Q3 2023 | 1,457 |
Q4 2023 | 1,734 |
Q1 2024 | 1,967 |
Q2 2024 | 2,394 |
Q3 2024 | 2,781 |
Q4 2024 | 3,099 |
Q1 2025 | 3,109 |
Tech
Ford’s EV, Hybrid Sales Surge In Q1 Ahead Of Tariff Chaos

Published
1 day agoon
April 3, 2025By
Ekwutos Blog
It was a record start to the year for electrified vehicles, mainly led by the Mustang Mach-E. But that could get pricier soon.
- Ford sold 73,623 electrified models in the U.S. in the first quarter, a 26% year-over-year growth.
- It was a record start to the year for hybrids, up 33% while Ford’s EVs were up 12%, mainly led by the Mustang Mach-E.
- Deliveries of the 2025 Mustang Mach-E, with improved range and more features, is imminent. But it could cost substantially more with President Trump’s 25% tariffs.
Ford sold more than half a million vehicles in the U.S. across powertrain types in the first quarter of this year.
While its overall sales sank marginally, electrified vehicles grew 26% year-over-year. Hybrids, plug-in hybrids and fully electric models now together account for 15% of Ford’s overall sales, a 3% jump over last year.
The Dearborn automaker sold 501,291 units in the first quarter, a 1.3% year-over-year drop. Gas-powered vehicles accounted for 427,668 units (85%) of the total sales, whereas fully electric models made up 22,550 units (4.4%) and hybrids totaled 51,073 units (10.1%).

2025 Mustang Mach-E Rally_04
The Mustang Mach-E outsold the gas-powered Mustang again and every single Lincoln model on sale. Ford sold 11,607 Mach-Es, a 21% increase year-over-year. By comparison, buyers drove home only 9,377 combustion-engined Mustangs, a sharp 31.6% drop.
Sales of the E-Transit electric van increased nearly 30% to 3,756 units. However, the F-150 Lightningdid not perform as well, even though the overall F-Series trucks grew by 24.5%. Only 7,187 Lightnings found homes so far this year, a 7.1% drop.
By comparison, sales of the Chevy Silverado EVgrew 125% to 2,383 units. General Motors also just launched cheaper versions of the 2026 Sierra EV, which has the potential to put the automaker at the forefront of the electric truck race in the coming months.
However, Ford’s momentum with its electrified models risks stalling as President Trump’s 25% tariffs on imported cars and auto parts went into effect on Wednesday. While most Ford cars are assembled in the U.S., all of them get over half of their parts content from overseas—mostly Mexico—according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

2025 Ford F-150 Lightning with the
A whopping 78% of the Mustang Mach-E’s parts are sourced from Mexico and the crossover is also assembled there. Even the hugely popular Bronco Sport and the Maverick are assembled across America’s southern border.
Unless the president provides American automakers with some tariff relief or trade concessions, their momentum risks getting wiped out, at least in the short term.
Have a tip? Contact the author: suvrat.kothari@insideevs.com
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