Apps and games in 2020
Beijing lashes out at India after it banned another tranche of Chinese apps for national security reasons, the latest sore point between the two nuclear-armed neighbours.
Tensions remain high between Beijing and New Delhi after a deadly June clash in a disputed border area that left 20 Indian soldiers dead and an unspecified number of Chinese casualties.
India banned 43 Chinese apps on Tuesday -- including some from e-commerce giant Alibaba -- for threatening "sovereignty and integrity".
— AFP
Google says it plans to start enforcing a rule requiring Android apps in its Play store to use its payment system, which takes a 30 percent cut of transactions.
"We have clarified the language in our Payments Policy to be more explicit that all developers selling digital goods in their apps are required to use Google Play’s billing system," product management vice president Sameer Samat says in a blog post.
People with smartphones or tablets powered by Google-backed Android software are free to get apps from online venues other than the Play Store run by the internet giant. — AFP
Amazon unveils Luna streaming video game service, challenging Microsoft and Google in the fast-growing segment.
Gamers in the US were invited to request early access to Luna, which uses a video game controller to connect directly to games hosted at Amazon Web Services datacenters to stream play through Fire TV as well as personal computers.
Luna apps for mobile devices are on their way, according to Amazon, which is pricing the new service at a $6 monthly introductory price. — AFP
US President Donald Trump lashes out anew at ByteDance, issuing a fresh executive order stating the Chinese internet giant must sell its interest in the Musical.ly app it bought and merged with TikTok.
The order builds on sweeping restrictions issued last week by Trump that TikTok and WeChat end all operations in the US, his latest explosive moves aimed at countering China's rising global power.
ByteDance bought karaoke video app Musical.y from a Chinese rival about three years ago in a deal valued at nearly a billion dollars. It was incorporated into TikTok, which became a global sensation. — AFP
The US is expanding its China-targeted Clean Network program to include Chinese-made cellphone apps and cloud computing services that it claims are security risks, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announces.
Pompeo says the US wants to ban untrusted Chinese apps from the app stores of US mobile carriers and phonemakers.
"With parent companies based in China, apps like TikTok, WeChat, and others are significant threats to the personal data of American citizens, not to mention tools for CCP content censorship," he says, referring to the Chinese Communist Party. — AFP
A popular game that allows players to create a virus and spread it worldwide has been pulled from Apple's App Store in China, its developer says, as the country battles a real-life epidemic.
Users based in China could not download "Plague Inc" on Friday after the cyberspace watchdog ordered its removal over "illegal" content, UK-based Ndemic Creations says.
Ndemic says it was not clear if the decision was linked to the deadly new coronavirus outbreak, which began in central China in December. — AFP
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