Technologies

Remember That TikTok Ban? This Week’s Deadline Brings Talk of a Deal

The Trump administration waxes optimistic once again about getting to a long-delayed resolution for TikTok in the US.

The Trump administration is working on a deal with China to determine TikTok’s fate, which could be finalized by the end of this week, according to reports citing Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.

On Tuesday, the Wall Street Journal reported that US and Chinese teams this week discussed a plan in which TikTok’s US operations would be controlled by an investor consortium that includes software giant Oracle. US users would move to a new app that TikTok is testing and that would recreate content-recommendation algorithms for the app. The Journal noted that details of the deal have yet to be finalized and could be subject to change.

President Trump has plans to talk on Friday with China’s President Xi Jinping about the fate of the Chinese-owned social media platform, reports said. Bessent said Monday that the two countries have reached a preliminary deal and «commercial terms have been agreed upon.»

The key question is whether ownership of TikTok will transfer to a US-based company. The platform could shut down temporarily in the US, as it has before, in accordance with a federal law passed last year in response to national security and privacy considerations. That law requires TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, to sell the social media service to a US-based company or essentially be off limits in the US. The initial deadline, set for January, has already been extended three times as Trump has teased progress on the matter.

Neither TikTok nor the Treasury Department responded to requests for comment.

An agreement over TikTok has been complicated by ongoing trade warring between the US and China and a new ruling against US-based Nvidia. China claims Nvidia has violated anti-monopoly laws in that country.

Skepticism about a TikTok deal

Even with the administration’s suggestion that a deal is imminent, it’s possible that TikTok’s future could remain in limbo even longer.

«I have seen the TikTok negotiations stall and shift so many times that I am not holding my breath on a deal being completed this week,» said Star Kashman, founder of Cyber Law Firm, who’s been following the TikTok saga. «Every time we hear about progress or a framework getting reached, some external complication throws the whole negotiation back into limbo.»

Tariffs and the Nvidia claims have further complicated what was already a complex negotiation over TikTok, she said. «It is likely that too much is already at play, including ByteDance’s potential obligations to the Chinese government, national security concerns, and privacy issues, as well as the desire to keep TikTok’s addictive algorithm, without isolating and segregating US users.»

Kashman said that none of the parties have been transparent about what would happen to TikTok under US ownership, including addressing reports that a US-only TIkTok app would be offered.

Negotiation factors

If a deal is reached to keep TikTok available in the US, it could be just the start of wrangling over the platform’s future, said one expert on US-China relations.

«The Chinese generally look at the signing of a deal as the beginning of negotiations, not the end,» said Usha Haley, Barton Distinguished Chair in International Business at Wichita State University. «So the devil will be in the details as they unfold over several years.»

Haley said that any deal would be subject to congressional scrutiny and could set a precedent for how future foreign-based apps operate in the US.

The Trump administration would likely insist on US-based storage of TikTok data, independent oversight and insulation from Chinese legal and political demands, while China’s government would want to protect its tech champion and maintain cultural influence, she said.

Whatever requirements the US imposes, Haley said, China might still find a way to maintain some control over TikTok by «keeping some possibly secret doors and trapdoors open for intervention in the future, if needed.»

Technologies

Today’s NYT Connections Hints, Answers and Help for Jan. 25 #959

Here are some hints and the answers for the NYT Connections puzzle for Jan. 25, No. 959

Looking for the most recent Connections answers? Click here for today’s Connections hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Wordle, Connections: Sports Edition and Strands puzzles.

Really, New York Times? The paper noted for being rather sedate actually put the words SUB and DOM next to each other in today’s NYT Connections puzzle. Of course, they didn’t mean what they could have meant, and they did not end up in the same category, but still. Read on for clues and today’s Connections answers.

The Times has a Connections Bot, like the one for Wordle. Go there after you play to receive a numeric score and to have the program analyze your answers. Players who are registered with the Times Games section can now nerd out by following their progress, including the number of puzzles completed, win rate, number of times they nabbed a perfect score and their win streak.

Read more: Hints, Tips and Strategies to Help You Win at NYT Connections Every Time

Hints for today’s Connections groups

Here are four hints for the groupings in today’s Connections puzzle, ranked from the easiest yellow group to the tough (and sometimes bizarre) purple group.

Yellow group hint: Like an understudy.

Green group hint: Delete is another one.

Blue group hint: Like penne.

Purple group hint: At the end of words.

Answers for today’s Connections groups

Yellow group: Act as a backup.

Green group: PC keyboard keys.

Blue group: Pasta shapes.

Purple group: Suffixes.

Read more: Wordle Cheat Sheet: Here Are the Most Popular Letters Used in English Words

What are today’s Connections answers?

The yellow words in today’s Connections

The theme is act as a backup. The four answers are cover, fill in, sub and temp.

The green words in today’s Connections

The theme is PC keyboard keys. The four answers are alt, enter, menu and windows.

The blue words in today’s Connections

The theme is pasta shapes. The four answers are bowtie, ribbon, shell and tube.

The purple words in today’s Connections

The theme is suffixes. The four answers are ate, dom, hood and ship.

Don’t miss any of our unbiased tech content and lab-based reviews. Add CNET as a preferred Google source.

Technologies

Today’s NYT Strands Hints, Answers and Help for Jan. 25 #693

Here are hints and answers for the NYT Strands puzzle for Jan. 25, No. 693.

Looking for the most recent Strands answer? Click here for our daily Strands hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Wordle, Connections and Connections: Sports Edition puzzles.

Today’s NYT Strands puzzle was a bit tricky at first, although the answers are fairly short and simple. If you need hints and answers, read on.

I go into depth about the rules for Strands in this story.

If you’re looking for today’s Wordle, Connections and Mini Crossword answers, you can visit CNET’s NYT puzzle hints page.

Read more: NYT Connections Turns 1: These Are the 5 Toughest Puzzles So Far

Hint for today’s Strands puzzle

Today’s Strands theme is: The straight and narrow

If that doesn’t help you, here’s a clue: Not curved.

Clue words to unlock in-game hints

Your goal is to find hidden words that fit the puzzle’s theme. If you’re stuck, find any words you can. Every time you find three words of four letters or more, Strands will reveal one of the theme words. These are the words I used to get those hints but any words of four or more letters that you find will work:

KITE, KITES, CITE, CITES, LONG, NOTE, NOTES, PATE, PALE, BATE, SPOT, POTS, LION, LIONS, STEAK

Answers for today’s Strands puzzle

These are the answers that tie into the theme. The goal of the puzzle is to find them all, including the spangram, a theme word that reaches from one side of the puzzle to the other. When you have all of them (I originally thought there were always eight but learned that the number can vary), every letter on the board will be used. Here are the nonspangram answers:

CANE, POLE, POST, BATON, DOWEL, STAKE, PICKET

Today’s Strands spangram

Today’s Strands spangram is STICKYSITUATION. To find it, start with the S that’s the bottom letter in the far-left row, and wind straight up, one over and then straight down.

Don’t miss any of our unbiased tech content and lab-based reviews. Add CNET as a preferred Google source.

Technologies

Every iPhone 17E Rumor and Leak That I Found: Dynamic Island, MagSafe and More

Apple’s reportedly releasing a lower-priced iPhone 17, and it might offer notable improvements over last year’s iPhone 16E.

Key Takeaways:

Features: Apple might include MagSafe on the iPhone 17E.
Release date: Possibly as soon as February.
Price: There have been no leaks about price increases, which is good news at this point.
Design: Could get the Dynamic Island and look more like an iPhone 15.

Apple might be continuing its lower-cost iPhone line, with an iPhone 17E reportedly releasing early this year. If that’s true, the sequel to last year’s iPhone 16E has a lot of room to step up.

Some rumors point to improvements borrowed from Apple’s iPhone 15, such as Dynamic Island and MagSafe. If these are true, it could make the lower-cost iPhone 17E a compelling value option with fewer trade-offs needed to hit a lower price.

Apple’s $599 iPhone 16E was a bit of an oddity when it was released last year. It replaced Apple’s $429 iPhone SE, effectively retiring the older iPhone SE design that included a home button with Touch ID. Apple’s new «budget» device was a pricier amalgamation, featuring the body of an iPhone 14 with a display notch. It also had the USB-C port from the iPhone 15 and the A18 processor from the iPhone 16 to support Apple Intelligence features.

To save money, Apple scaled back on features by including only a single 48-megapixel main camera and omitting Apple’s MagSafe clip-on capability (though it kept standard wireless charging). While the iPhone 16E is a solid starter iPhone, I found these omissions to be confusing, especially given that Apple increased the price of this entry-level iPhone from $429 to $599.

An iPhone 17E could follow a playbook closer to Samsung’s Galaxy S25 FE. It would have many of the same features as the iPhone 16 and iPhone 17, like the smaller screen notch and an A19 processor, along with smaller stepbacks to the hardware that might be less noticeable.

Apple hasn’t confirmed whether an iPhone 17E exists yet, but we’re keeping an eye out. Here are the rumors we’ve heard so far, with features that could help or hinder the more budget-friendly iPhone 17E.

iPhone 17E release date: February 2026

The iPhone 17E could be announced as early as February, according to a Mashable report citing the Digital Chat Station Weibo account. The phone is said to be launching in the first half of the year. This would align with the iPhone 16E’s February 2025 announcement, establishing winter as Apple’s preferred launch window for cheaper iPhone models.

There are even rumors suggesting the base iPhone 18 will launch in the first half of 2027, but let’s not get too ahead of ourselves.

iPhone 17E design: Gets a Dynamic Island

One aspect that made the iPhone 16E stand out was Apple’s new design, which featured the iPhone 14’s body, a USB-C port and a single camera.

The iPhone 17E, however, will allegedly look more like 2023’s iPhone 15, with a smaller Dynamic Island cutout, according to the same Digital Chat Station Weibo post. The iPhone 17E is rumored to have a 6.1-inch display with a cutout, including dynamically sized notifications for timers and app alerts, such as Uber pickups.

This design is corroborated by the Smart Pikachu Weibo account, which also notes that the iPhone 17E will have a 60Hz refresh rate screen rather than the 120Hz one seen across the iPhone 17 line and the iPhone Air. It’d be nice to see a 17E with a 120Hz display, dubbed ProMotion by Apple. But this is one area that could be less noticeable to people coming from a former iPhone SE or an older base model like the iPhone 14.

While Apple’s ProMotion displays have been available on Pro models for years — as well as on almost every Android phone that costs $300 and more — the smoother animations and always-on displays it provides won’t be as noticeable when switching from a phone that never had them.

iPhone 17E features: MagSafe wireless charging

It baffled me that Apple didn’t include MagSafe with last year’s iPhone 16E. The feature, which allows for sticking magnetic accessories like chargers and wallets without a case, has been on most iPhone models since 2020. It felt like a strange omission, since Apple contributed MagSafe’s charging and magnetic profiles to the Qi2 standard, both of which are on Google’s Pixel 10 phones, HMD’s Skyline, and the upcoming Clicks Communicator.

The iPhone 17E is rumored to have a glass back that supports magnetic wireless charging — likely meaning the phone would gain the ability to magnetically attach to MagSafe and Qi2 accessories, according to a report in The Information spotted by 9to5Mac. This would be a major improvement for someone coming to this phone from an iPhone SE or the iPhone 11, both of which do support Qi wireless charging but do not include magnets for attaching accessories and cases.

While we would need more details, hopefully the inclusion of MagSafe also means the iPhone 17E’s wireless charging speed would increase to at least 15 watts, matching the iPhone 15.

iPhone 17E pricing

We’ll keep updating this story as more iPhone 17E rumors arrive. While there isn’t much regarding the pricing of the rumored phone, last year’s iPhone 16E starts at $599 for a 128GB model. I’m hoping the iPhone 17E starts at 256GB of storage, like the base iPhone 17. Apple still sells both the 16E and the iPhone 16 at 128GB, with the latter starting at $699.