TikTok has filed a federal lawsuit against Montana in response to a recently passed state law that would ban the popular video service in the state.
The lawsuit, filed Monday in the United States District Court for the District of Montana, is intended to “prevent the state of Montana from unlawfully banning TikTok,” lawyers for the app’s parent company, Bytedance wrote.
“Montana’s ban abridges freedom of speech in violation of the First Amendment, violates the U.S. Constitution in multiple other respects, and is preempted by federal law,” the attorneys said.
Last week, Montana became the first U.S. state to ban TikTok over allegations that the Chinese government can use the app for intelligence gathering operations. When the ban comes into effect on Jan. 1, 2024, Apple and Google’s app stores will not be legally allowed to offer TikTok to users in Montana, although it’s unclear how those companies will be able to implement the ban.
Montana governor Greg Gianforte described the ban as “important measure” intended to advance “our shared priority to protect Montanans from Chinese Communist Party surveillance.”
TikTok disputes Montana’s allegations that the Chinese government “could access data about TikTok users, and that TikTok exposes minors to harmful online content,” the lawsuit said.
“Yet the State cites nothing to support these allegations, and the State’s bare speculation ignores the reality that Plaintiff has not shared, and would not share, U.S. user data with the Chinese government, and has taken substantial measures to protect the privacy and security of TikTok users, including by storing all U.S. user data by default in the United States and by erecting safeguards to protect U.S. user data,” the attorneys added.
TikTok has been under fire from U.S. lawmakers over its alleged ties to the Chinese Government. Shou Zi Chew, TikTok’s CEO, withstood tough questioning from politicians in March, and attempted to assuage their concerns by highlighting the company’s work with U.S. tech giant Oracle to develop infrastructure in Texas intended to store and process people’s data in the country.
With the lawsuit, TikTok hopes that the court finds Montana’s ban “unconstitutional and preempted by federal law.”
Apple‘s annual developer conference on Monday lacked the splashy announcement that fans are used to seeing at WWDC. There was nothing like the Vision Pro reveal from 2023 or the Apple Intelligence announcement last year.
But there was an important software update that, later this year, will change the way all of Apple’s major devices, from iPhones and Mac laptops to Vision Pro virtual reality headsets, will look. It’s a new design language that runs across all of Apple’s operating systems. The company is calling it Liquid Glass.
For Apple, it’s the first significant redesign of its iPhone operating system since 2013, when the company announced iOS7. Apple says the lock screen will look like it’s made out of glass. Buttons will turn into little glass pills, fluidly sliding over glass rails. And there are new animations, including when answering a phone call.
The unveiling underwhelmed Wall Street, which sent the stock down 1.2% on the day. Investors are pressuring Apple to make big changes to its artificial intelligence strategy, pushing it to match the frontier models capabilities of rivals such as Google and OpenAI.
“Many of the AI features announced were more incremental in our view, and already available through competitor applications,” UBS analyst David Vogt wrote in a note on Monday. He has the equivalent of a hold rating on the stock.
Last year, Apple announced Apple Intelligence, its response to ChatGPT, complete with a demo of a “more personal” Siri that could intelligently parse through emails and messages to figure out the best time to make a restaurant reservation. Apple delayed the feature in March, had to pull ads that depicted it, and provided no update on timing on Monday.
“This work needed more time to meet our high quality bar,” Apple software chief Craig Federighi said on Monday. He restated the company’s “the coming year” timeline.
Liquid glass design
Apple’s focus at WWDC was on providing new features and animations across its software that are “delightful,” in CEO Tim Cook’s words.
The new design language is heavy on transparent buttons, sliders, and other interaction elements. Users will be able to spot it as soon as they upgrade their phones to the new iOS, which will be available for beta testing this summer.
Apple announces liquid glass during the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) on June 9, 2025 in Cupertino, California.
Justin Sullivan | Getty Images
Instead of hard, sharp corners in rectangular windows, Apple’s new design language has curved corners that match the device.
One reason Apple gave for rolling out the update now is that its computers and chips have become powerful enough to handle it. Apple said that its new look was directly inspired by the look of VisionOS, the company’s software for Vision Pro.
“Apple Silicon has become dramatically more powerful — enabling software, materials and experiences we once could only dream of,” Federighi said in a recorded video.
As with many Apple announcements, reactions are all over the map. Some people on social media were excited while others compared the update to the look of Windows Vista, which was released in 2007.
While Apple didn’t make many significant changes to the Siri experience, the company did introduce a few significant improvements and changes to its AI capabilities.
Apple also expanded its integration with OpenAI’s ChatGPT, integrating its image generation capabilities into an app that previously only used Apple’s technology.
When a user takes a screenshot on an iPhone, a new button will send the image to ChatGPT, which can summarize blocks of text in the image, or even decipher what’s happening.
One major improvement Apple is rolling out is in language translation.
During a phone call between two people who don’t speak the same language, the phone app can translate a sentence after it’s spoken and use an AI-generated voice to speak to the other party in the their language. Apple says the feature uses AI processed on the iPhone and doesn’t require a connection to a server.
New numbers
In some corners of the Apple fan universe, the most notable announcement on Monday may involve a simple number.
Since 2007, Apple had introduced a new version of its iOS every year. By 2024, Apple was on iOS 18. It’s a meaningful number for users who want to know if they have the latest Apple features, and some 82% of users with recent iPhones had upgraded to iOS 18 within a year.
Now, Apple is naming its operating systems for the iPhone and other devices after the year that they’ll be available for use by most consumers. In this case, it’s 2026.
In September, users will upgrade to iOS 26. Apple also has iPadOS 26, WatchOS 26, tvOS 26 and Vision OS 26.
The name change will simplify how to refer to the various operating systems, which had gotten confusing given that each device was on a different generation. It also keeps the pressure on Apple to keep rolling out an update every year, or else the number will make it clear that its software is outdated.
Microsoft ROG Xbox Ally and Ally X Handheld devices
Source: Xbox
Microsoft Xbox players will soon be able to take their favorite games anywhere with the launch of the new ROG Xbox Ally handhelds.
This is a first for Xbox, which has never released a handheld before.
The devices, developed in collaboration with ASUS, offer a full-screen Xbox experience meant for portable play.
Players will be able to access Xbox games, stream content, and play on the go with built-in support for cloud gaming.
“Players can look forward to an approachable gaming experience that travels with you wherever you go, featuring several new and first-of-their kind features on both devices,” Microsoft said in a press release.
The announcement follows last week’s debut of Nintendo‘s flagship Switch 2 and sets the stage for a new chapter in portable gaming.
U.S. data center operator Vantage has raised 720 million euros ($821.4 million) — the first of its kind deal in Europe.
The asset-backed securitization (ABS) deal, the first ever euro-denominated with data center assets on the continent, involves four data centers in Germany.
The company said it will be paying on average a 4.3% coupon on the bonds issued through the process.
In an ABS, Vantage raises money by using its data center infrastructure and future revenues from the facilities as collateral.
Vantage said it will use the funds primarily to pay off existing construction loans previously secured for the facilities.
“We believe the ABS market in particular is kind of best suited for our type of asset, which is real estate centric, high credit quality tenants, long term leases, something that is almost perfect for the ABS investor,” Sharif Metwalli, chief financial officer of Vantage Data Centers, told CNBC.
Vantage added that despite the large sum borrowed, the demand from investors exceeded the amount raised.
“So this transaction was actually pretty highly levered, frankly,” Rich Cosgray, senior vice president of global capital markets at Vantage Data Centers told CNBC. “It was higher leverage than our prior transaction and we had some investors that just weren’t comfortable at that leverage level.”
“Yet, despite that, we were basically two and four times oversubscribed on the respective financings, and we were able to tighten pricing pretty meaningfully through the marketing process,” Cosgray added.
The four facilities — two in Berlin and two in Frankfurt — have access to around 55 megawatts of power and “are fully leased to hyperscale customers,” the company said in a statement. The four facilities were valued at more than $1 billion earlier this year.
Last year, Vantage also raised £600 million through the first-ever securitization of a data center in Europe, the Middle East and Asia (EMEA). The deal involved two units from the company’s Cardiff campus with 148 megawatts of electricity power. Across the region, the company has 2,500 megawatts of data center capacity either operational or under development.
The transaction was led by Barclays Bank and Deutsche Bank as joint lead managers and Vantage was represented by the British law firm Clifford Chance.