TECH
Trump bars US transactions with eight Chinese apps including Alipay – Fox Business
https://www.foxbusiness.com/technology/trump-bars-us-transactions-with-eight-chinese-apps-including-alipay

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U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday signed an executive order banning transactions with eight Chinese software applications, including Ant Group’s Alipay mobile payment app, the White House said, escalating tensions with Beijing two weeks before President-elect Joe Biden takes office.
The move, first reported by Reuters, is aimed at curbing the threat to Americans posed by Chinese software applications, which have large user bases and access to sensitive data, a senior administration official told Reuters.
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The order argues that the United States must take “aggressive action” against developers of Chinese software applications to protect national security.
It tasks the Commerce Department with defining which transactions will be banned under the directive within 45 days and targets Tencent Holdings Ltd’s QQ Wallet and WeChat Pay as well.
The order also names CamScanner, SHAREit, Tencent QQ, VMate which is published by Alibaba Group subsidiary UCWeb, and Beijing Kingsoft Office Software’s WPS Office.
Kingsoft said in a statement published by Chinese state media that it did not expect Trump’s order to substantially impact the company’s business in the short term. Ant and the Biden transition team declined to comment.
Alibaba, Tencent, CamScanner, SHAREit and the Chinese Embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
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“By accessing personal electronic devices such as smartphones, tablets, and computers, Chinese connected software applications can access and capture vast swaths of information from users, including sensitive personally identifiable information and private information,” the executive order states.
Such data collection “would permit China to track the locations of federal employees and contractors, and build dossiers of personal information,” the document adds.
The order aims to cement Trump’s tough-on-China legacy before the Jan. 20 inauguration of Biden, a Democrat, who has said little about how he plans to address specific tech threats from China.
Biden could, however, revoke the order on the first day of his presidency, though his transition team did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the matter.
The order will likely ratchet up tensions further between Washington and Beijing, which have been locked in a bitter dispute over the origins of the coronavirus and a Chinese crackdown on Hong Kong.
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Despite the 45-day time line laid out by the order, the Commerce Department plans to act before Jan. 20 to identify prohibited transactions, another U.S. official told Reuters.
The directive mirrors Trump executive orders signed in August directing Commerce to block some U.S. transactions with WeChat and the Chinese-owned video app TikTok.
Had those orders gone into effect, they would have effectively banned the Chinese apps’ use in the United States and barred Apple Inc and Alphabet Inc’s app stores from offering them for download for new users.
The restrictions, however, were blocked by courts mainly on freedom of speech grounds. The White House is confident the new restrictions will stand up to judicial scrutiny, since applications like Alipay would struggle to bring a First Amendment case, the senior administration official told Reuters.
U.S. Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross said in a statement that he supports Trump’s “commitment to protecting the privacy and security of Americans from threats posed by the Chinese Communist Party.”
Alipay has been in Washington’s cross hairs for months.
CHINA WARNS OF RETALIATION FOR NYSE’S DELISTING OF COMPANIES
Reuters reported in November that the U.S. State Department had submitted a proposal to add Ant Group to a trade blacklist in order to deter U.S. investors from taking part in its lucrative initial public offering. But the Commerce Department, which oversees the blacklist, shelved the proposal after Alibaba Group Holding Inc President Michael Evans urged Ross to reject the bid.
Ant is China’s dominant mobile payments company, offering loans, payments, insurance and asset management services via mobile apps. It is 33% owned by Alibaba and controlled by Alibaba founder Jack Ma, but is currently unavailable for American users.
Alipay was downloaded from Apple’s U.S. app store and Google Play 207,000 times in 2020, while image scanning app CamScanner and office suite app WPS Office were downloaded 4.4 million and 563,000 times respectively, according to research firm SensorTower.
Tuesday’s move is the latest in a raft of tough new curbs on Chinese companies.
The White House unveiled an executive order in November banning U.S. investment in alleged Chinese military companies including China’s top chipmaker SMIC and oil giant CNOOC. Last month, the Commerce Department added dozens of Chinese companies, including Chinese drone manufacturer SZ DJI Technology Co Ltd, to a trade blacklist.
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(Reporting by Alexandra Alper and David Shepardson in Washington; Additional reporting by Brenda Goh and Josh Horwitz in Shanghai; Pei Li in Hong Kong; Editing by Matthew Lewis, Leslie Adler and Lincoln Feast.)
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I love CES time—short for the Consumer Electronics Show—because we get exposed to all kinds of outlandish devices that are fun to get excited about, but nothing you should add to your shopping list right now. And that’s especially true in the wide world of wireless networking. Linksys unveiled the AXE8400 tri-band router at this year’s show, and it’s a bit of an eye-opener in three different ways.
First, it’s a 4X4 MU-MIMO router that supports Wifi 6E, the latest and greatest standard found in exactly zero devices you can buy right now. In other words, the AXE8400 is yet another “future-proofed” router geared for early adopters, or will be once it arrives in the spring or summer of this year.
Second, it costs a whopping $450 for one router, and it’s really designed to be used in a mesh setup. Linksys, to its credit, gives you a deal on a two-pack—it’s $850 for a pair of AXE8400 routers. But you’ll still be paying more for your routers than you would a new Mac Mini.
Finally, the router comes with built-in motion-sensing. Linksys bills this as a useful whole-home security feature and part of its separate “Linksys Aware” service, which will run you $3/month or $25/year. Yes, that’s right: You router now comes with a subscription service, because hashtag revenue, but it’ll only notify you if it detects motion in your home. It won’t connect to any other smarthome system—not even your smartlights—which lessens its usefulness considerably.
I don’t mean to dunk on Linksys unnecessarily. However, this router, and the excitement some will have over the “latest and greatest” device for wireless networking, is indicative of a larger issue. Namely, you don’t need to buy very expensive, new routers with technologies that might not make a lot of sense for your home setup.
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Stop buying routers because of their newness (or box copy)
I try to be accommodating with new technology launches. I get the excitement; I’ve covered the wireless networking industry for years. New standards come out, companies rush to be the first to market with routers that support them no matter what, and the devices typically cost a lot more than what you’d otherwise pay for a router in a year’s time or so.
However, I think it’s important to remember a critical piece of advice: Don’t buy a router that hasn’t been benchmarked by a number of reviewers in various situations. Ideally, you want to get a good representative sample of how a router performs in various real-life situations, instead of taking the word of that one reviewer who ran a few speed tests from another room and declared it the best wireless router ever assembled.
As wireless expert Dong Ngo puts it:
“Downloading a movie (or Netflix streaming for that matter) depends on the Internet speed, which has little to do with Wi-Fi. They are two different things.
Wi-Fi is the alternative to network cables — it allows for a local network without wires. So, the increased speed of Wi-Fi 6 is only meaningful locally, within your home or office.
In other words, assuming all of your devices are Wi-Fi 6-enabled, you’ll be able to print, perform network Time Machine backups, or stream from a local NAS server, etc., much faster.
As for the Internet, currently, the majority of residential broadband services offer speeds significantly below that of Wi-Fi 5, which is already plenty fast. Consequently, if you use Wi-Fi 6, you’ll experience no improvement at all in Internet access.”
Remember, just because a router is new, and just because it has different features that allow for higher maximum speeds, doesn’t mean that it’s the best on the market. And then there’s the price factor: Honestly, if I was building out the network for a reasonably sized house, I wouldn’t buy a two-access-point mesh system for $850. I’d buy a bunch of prosumer gear and saturate that house with access points.
Most people don’t even have a super fast internet connection to begin with. And even those lucky enough to have a gigabit pipe gigabit fiber going into their homes would probably see a greater benefit from more access points around their house—even if they support a slower standard than Wifi 6E, like “mere” Wifi 6 or, gasp, Wifi 5.
A Wifi 6E router, like any router, is going to lose performance the farther away you are from it. I’d rather have a bunch of “wifi bubbles” giving me ~750Mbps downloads and file transfers across more areas of my home than one room in which the wireless maxes out north of 1Gbps, with a steady drop-off in wireless speed as I move away.
Yes, a wireless mesh setup can help address this issue, but then you’re also dealing with the occasional peculiarities of a wireless bridge. As always, I think the best solution for great wireless speeds at home is a classic one: scatter access points around your home, even if they only support 1Gbps wireless connections at most. That should be more than sufficient for your everyday needs, so long as your network does a good job about dumping you and your family’s/roommate’s/pet’s devices to the best (MU-MIMO) wireless access point as they walk around. (Your devices typically handle that handoff, but just in case, it never hurts to have a great wireless setup that can also take charge as needed.)
It’s fun to get excited about new technology. I’m sure there will come a time when Wifi 5 will seem as ancient as wireless-n. For right now, don’t waste money on expensive Wifi 6 “solutions” when you can do better, for less, with “slower” gear. Wait until you need that much networking firepower, and you’ll probably get a much better deal—and better access points.
TECH
WhatsApp is Ditching These Old Phones in 2021 [Updated]
https://lifehacker.com/whatsapp-is-ditching-these-old-phones-in-2021-updated-1840367419
![WhatsApp is Ditching These Old Phones in 2021 [Updated] WhatsApp is Ditching These Old Phones in 2021 [Updated]](https://newsfortoday.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/nmprofetimg-1722.x77227.png)
WhatsApp will soon drop support for another round of older versions of iOS and Android. As described in WhatsApp’s recently updated system requirements, you must have a device that runs at least iOS 9 or Android 4.0.3 in order to access WhatsApp after January 1, 2021.
Notable devices losing WhatsApp support next year include the iPhone 4, Samsung Galaxy S2, and the Droid Razr.
WhatsApp’s move is hardly surprising. All technology gets left behind at some point, and this now seems to be an annual tradition for WhatsApp. Last year, the company removed even older Android devices, iPhones, and all Windows phones from its list of supported devices, and we suspect there will be another round of cuts in twelve months.
These changes are likely due to Facebook’s recent integration of WhatsApp, Messenger, and Instagram direct messages into a single, cross-platform service that doesn’t play nicely with older operating systems.
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That said, most of the affected devices are around ten years old and are no longer supported with OS updates themselves. So, if you’re still clutching an ancient iPhone, this might be yet another sign that it’s time to upgrade.
If your device is still eligible but its operating system is not, make sure you update your smartphone to meet the new WhatsApp requirements. You can check your Android version and if there are any updates available under Settings > About Phone. iPhone users can do the same in Settings > General > Software Update.
If your device’s operating system is too low and no update is available, it might also be worth looking into WhatsApp alternatives if you don’t feel like buying a new phone. We can’t guarantee that other chat apps will also support your super-old smartphone, but they’re worth exploring if WhatsApp is cutting you off.
This article was originally published in December 2019, and updated on December 30, 2020 with new WhatsApp requirements.
[BGR]
TECH
Johnson & Johnson coronavirus vaccine generates immune response, few side effects, in early trials – CNN
https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/13/health/johnson-coronavirus-vaccine-early-trials/index.html

TECH
Johnson & Johnson coronavirus vaccine generates immune response, few side effects, in early trials – CNN
https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/13/health/johnson-coronavirus-vaccine-early-trials/index.html

TECH
Your Illinois News Radar » ILGOP on Welch: “Travesty for the people of Illinois” – The Capitol Fax Blog
https://capitolfax.com/2021/01/13/ilgop-on-welch-travesty-for-the-people-of-illinois/

* Press release…
After a series of caucus votes, Illinois House Democrats have finally chosen Representative Chris Welch to be the next Speaker of the House. Illinois Republican Party Chairman Tim Schneider released the following statement in response:
“House Democrats have chosen to go from Mike Madigan, the most corrupt politician in America, to Rep. Chris Welch, a top Madigan lieutenant who has been credibly accused by multiple women in court documents of harassment, assault, and retaliation.
It’s now clear that House Democrats are doubling down on allowing Madigan’s corrupt machine to continue running state government. In Madigan’s stead, they have promoted a serial harasser and assaulter of women. But in spite of that, Welch passed the most important test this fall – he’s been a loyal Madigan ally for years but performed most recently as Madigan’s human shield in legislative hearings investigating the sweeping corruption scandal that ultimately brought Madigan down.
This decision is a travesty for the people of Illinois, and we will make sure every voter understands that House Democrats just can’t quit Madigan.”
Thoughts on the tone?
…Adding… Look who’s back…
Meet the new boss, same as the old boss. https://t.co/ReZoroDXV7
— Radical Candor (@RadicalCandorIL) January 13, 2021
…Adding… Illinois Policy Institute…
Matt Paprocki, president of the Illinois Policy Institute, offered the following statement:
“This is a historic day for the General Assembly. For the first time in nearly four decades, Speaker Madigan was not voted into power by members of his own party.
“No state gives their House speaker as much power as Illinois. Under Madigan’s 36 years as speaker, Illinois’ finances deteriorated from a perfect credit rating and just under $6 billion in unfunded pension debt to the lowest credit rating in the nation and over $144 billion in pension debt. And the state’s notoriety for public corruption has been backed up by 1,978 public corruption convictions since Madigan first became speaker, more than any other state and over one a week.
“This vote must become a catalyst for lasting, meaningful change. Illinois can only reverse its culture of corruption and recurring financial crises by dismantling the system that has allowed for one person to control so much power, starting with the House Rules. For the first time in nearly four decades, state lawmakers have an opportunity to change this power structure and finally put an end to the endless cycle of debt and corruption. This moment in Illinois state politics should not be just about a new face, but about a new way of doing the people’s business.”

Seniors gain more ways to get the COVID-19 vaccine through new state partnerships – WDEL 1150AM

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Israeli government on the verge of collapse after lawmakers fail to reach budget compromise – The Washington Post

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