TikTok faces shutdown as commerce secretary pressures ByteDance over US control
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick made it clear that if China does not approve the proposed deal, TikTok will be forced to stop operating in the United States.
– Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, July 2025
The current proposal would create a new, US-based version of TikTok, run and majority-owned by American investors. While ByteDance could retain a small stake, the key point of contention is the algorithm – the software that determines what content users see. Lutnick stressed that the US must not only own the company's infrastructure but also control the algorithm itself. This is not the first time Washington has demanded a TikTok divestiture, as you know by now. A law passed in 2024 required ByteDance to sell or shut down TikTok's US operations by January 19, 2025. President Trump has delayed that deadline three times, most recently granting an extension to September 17. But that flexibility has done little to move the deal forward.Talks had made progress earlier this year, but they stalled after China signaled it would not approve the transaction – especially following Trump's announcement of new tariffs on Chinese imports. Yeah, it's not surprising this didn't have any effect.The situation has also drawn legal challenges and political disagreement. Some Democratic lawmakers argue that Trump does not have the authority to keep extending the deadline. They also question whether the proposed deal would meet the legal requirements of the 2024 law. Meanwhile, Attorney General Pam Bondi sent letters to Apple, Google, and other tech firms that host TikTok, assuring them the Justice Department would not pursue legal action if they continued to support the app during the delay.Meanwhile, another potential buyer has backed out of the deal, as we told you the other day. Blackstone has withdrawn from a group of investors aiming to take over TikTok's American operations, citing delays tied to US-China trade tensions.
I don't think a conclusion will be reached on September 17, the way things are going.
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There's no noticeable lag or hiccups during normal tasks; the camera opens quickly, and the UI is quite responsive too. Speaking of the UI... Huawei Pura 80 Ultra Software The Huawei Pura 80 Ultra runs on EMUI 15 based on Android 12 with a HarmonyOS overlay on top. This setup doesn't sound too modern, and as a matter of fact, in China Huawei phones run pure HarmonyOS, which is much more capable. The interface feels a bit dated, to be honest; there are no visual candies or clever Android 16 stuff on board. What's even more lackluster is the AI situation. The tools at hand are very basic; there's no circle to search, fancy AI real-time voice translation, image to video, or even a third-party LLM such as Gemini. What you're stuck with is some AI suggestions, AI Lens that can recognize bar codes and translate text, and a smart assistant called Celia that's not very helpful. There are some AI features inside the camera app, such as the "Remove" tool (similar to Magic Eraser) and AI Retouch, but they are rough around the worst part of the software deal is the support cycle. The EMUI interface is quite old already and a dead end, considering the fact that Huawei pushes HarmonyOS in China. It's also based on a quite old Android 12 version, with very limited updates coming (Huawei is silent about the actual update cycle, but according to our research, it's two major updates at best). In a smartphone world where software is one of the major development pillars and an area of AI innovation, the Pura 80 Ultra suffers quite a blow. The global version of the Huawei Pura 80 Ultra comes equipped with a 5,170 mAh lithium-polymer battery, while the Chinese model has a 5,700 mAh cell inside (possibly silicon-carbon). This huge 500+ mAh difference is probably due to regulations, but even the 5,170 mAh global version looks pretty solid, capacity-wise. The overall score of 7 hours and 50 minutes in our composite battery benchmark puts the Huawei Pura 80 Ultra in the ballpark with the big guys. The result is just 10 minutes shy of what the Galaxy S25 Ultra managed in the same test, and both the browsing and video streaming scores are quite solid at around 15 hours. When it comes to charging, phones from the Far East often deliver blazing-fast speeds, and the Huawei Pura 80 Ultra is no exception. The phone supports up to 100W of wired charging power, filling up its battery from zero to full in just 39 minutes. The Pura 80 Ultra also supports 80W wireless charging with a proprietary charger, and 0 to 100% takes under one hour in that scenario. The stereo speaker system inside the Huawei Pura 80 Ultra is quite powerful. You won't have any problems with missed calls or not hearing your music or video in a loud environment. That said, there's more to be desired from the audio quality. There are some harmonic distortions at max volume in the upper midrange and high-frequency range, and sometimes sibilant sounds can produce a harsh hissing effect. The haptics are also nothing to write home about, and you can't adjust the strength or timings. There's no 3.5 mm headphone jack on this phone, so you have to rely on an adapter or simply use Bluetooth headphones. The Huawei Pura 80 Ultra is a tough sell | Image by PhoneArena That's a very tough question. The Huawei Pura 80 Ultra is no doubt a very powerful camera phone, but it lags behind in almost every other area. The chipset is built on an old node, the screen is not the brightest out there, and the software support is almost nonexistent. The price is also steep at around 1,200 euros (around $1,400 after direct conversion), and the lack of Google Mobile Services adds salt to the already open wound. For that amount of money most people will probably buy a Galaxy S25 Ultra and be done with it. Which is a shame, really, because the camera system inside the Huawei Pura 80 Ultra is a true masterpiece, from the big 1-inch sensor under the main camera lens to the innovative dual-periscope telephoto camera. Let's just hope that the Pura 80 Ultra will raise the bar and push other manufacturers to up their camera game.
