TikTok

Chicago joins Cleveland, Milwaukee, New York City, and Columbus on the list of city governments suing Kia and Hyundai over cars that can be stolen in seconds by teenagers armed with nothing more than a USB cable and the knowledge gleaned from a TikTok video, as we wrote about the Kia Boys thieves in June.

According to a big report about TikTok Shop in The Information, TikTok is considering the big move to better bolster its shopping efforts.

What’s the good of being named Wesley if I don’t have a Star Trek: The Next Generation-era console to fiddle with? The Trek-themed launcher in this TikTok from thetechpreacher might be just the thing... if I had a Pixel Fold.

In a draft agreement obtained by Forbes, TikTok reportedly offered the government a number of concessions to avoid a ban in the US.

Setting aside the idea that a motorized standing desk that lets you sit and stand throughout your day might actually help with back pain, this song by Tom McGovern sums up why I’ve never tried a standing desk.

The company’s music head, Ole Obermann, talked to Semafor about how that’ll work:

Women have a lot of things to do these days — we go on hot girl walks in our tomato girl dresses; prepare our girl dinners in our clean girl apartments. And of course, be a vessel for mass marketing campaigns.

“MovieTok” TikTok creators are in The New York Times letting everyone know they are not critics — as if that wasn’t already very clear.

Bill Hammack, AKA The Engineer Guy, explains why he calls this Nerf three-dart blaster’s cascading air mechanism “the epitome of good engineering” in this video on TikTok and YouTube.

Self-proclaimed meme artist Sunday Nobody went to incredible lengths to create his hot dog sculptures, fabricating a custom mold to melt down blocks of ice from leftover water from cooking 394 hot dogs.

A new feature lets users import full shows via their RSS feed and link them to shorter clips — potentially a big new way to boost discovery.

TikTok creator Nahre Sol put up a couple of masterful, quick breakdowns of the songs that play when you ride a horse, in both The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom and its prequel, Breath of the Wild.

DeSantis wouldn’t commit to banning the app, but said its connections to China raised some serious concerns.

Not so much if you’re reading The New York Times. Two very different takeaways on what was presented at Wednesday’s House Oversight subcommittee hearing on UFOs, that rehashed much of what has been reported already over the last few years, like these three classified Pentagon videos released in 2020.

We’ve been running a steadily growing list of alternatives for that formerly bird-associated social network, and now that TikTok has added a text-only option, it’s become part of our inventory of 15 social networks vying for your attention. If you’re wondering where to go next, these are some interesting choices.

Lego builds are endlessly fascinating and they get far more complicated, but I fully respect this person’s dedication to creating a small device for the sole purpose of lining up Lego-made dominoes.

Enjoyed this Bloomberg story about the possibility that we are all old and tired, sick of seeing each other’s bad posts, and hoping to touch grass:

On Wednesday, TikTok asked a judge for a preliminary injunction to block Montana’s ban on the app, which will go into effect in January 2024.

#BookTok is evidently a big thing, and seeing how influential its platform is, TikTok owner ByteDance has begun to court writers to publish their books under its new 8th Note Press, according to The New York Times.

Over on TikTok, creator Billy Skipper Hughes decided his iBook G3 needs to be an iPad in disguise, and I couldn’t be happier. It even has space for the Apple Pencil! And an Apple Watch charger!

I had completely missed that TikTok added this feature. To flip it on for yourself, go to your profile, then Settings and privacy in the three lines menu, then Playback, and then toggle the Open TikTok on mute option.

Bloomberg reports Spotify “has already begun talking to partners about the product” adding full-length music videos to its app. After Spotify’s podcast plan went awry, it appears the company could try to take a bite out of YouTube (which also deeply integrates videos into its YouTube Music service) and TikTok.

The company has been a key part of user lawsuits before: The Wall Street Journal reported in 2020 that TikTok and ByteDance “orchestrated” a user lawsuit against former President Donald Trump’s TikTok ban.