Tech This Week: TikTok banned in NZ and UK, OPPO launches Find N2 Flip and more

New Zealand and the UK are the latest to ban TikTok in government devices. OPPO has launched its latest foldable smartphone, the Find N2 Flip. Meanwhile, in the world of artificial intelligence, OpenAI has unveiled its highly anticipated GPT-4.

Here are all the big headlines in the world of tech from the past week.

OpenAI, the creator of chatbot sensation ChatGPT, has released its newest large language model (LLM), GPT-4. The new improved AI model will come with more impressive features, including the ability to parse and understand images. The Microsoft-backed company will be slowly releasing the features first to those on a waitlist and those who subscribed to ChatGPT Plus. Meanwhile, Microsoft announced its Microsoft 365 Copilot AI assistant for Microsoft Office. The Copilot AI will be based on GPT-4.

Despite being the world’s most downloaded app in 2022, TikTok is under the pressure of bans in several countries. The app has now been banned from government devices in the UK and New Zealand, following bans from Belgium, Denmark, European Union, Canada and the US over the past few weeks. The app is also at risk of being banned from the US wholesale if the company doesn’t part ways with its Chinese owner. Read more.

Samsung expanded its A-series line-up in India with Galaxy A54 5G and the Galaxy A34 5G. Samsung Galaxy A54 5G will be starting from Rs 38,999 for the 8GB + 128GB variant and the Samsung Galaxy A34 5G retails for a starting price of Rs 30,999 for the 8GB + 128GB variant. Both devices will be going on sale from March 28. Read more.

Facebook-parent Meta Platforms announced that it would be cutting down its workforce by 10,000. This is the second wave of layoffs, with the company already having let go of 11,000 workers earlier. The company will not fill 5,000 open positions for now. Read more.

The social media platform Reddit was inaccessible to thousands of users after a major outage. Although Reddit is back up now, what led to it is unclear. This is the second major outage in a month that the website has experienced. On February 15, Reddit also suffered a major outage, blocking access to the home feed and preventing comments, awards, and karma from appearing or processing correctly. Read more.

Poco has launched a new X series smartphone in India, the Poco X5 5G. The phone comes with a 6.67-inch Full HD+ Super AMOLED screen with a 120Hz refresh rate, 240Hz touch sampling rate, and 1200 nits of peak brightness. The smartphone starts at a price of Rs 19,999 for the base variant. Read more.

OPPO has launched its new foldable flagship at a starting price of Rs 89,999. Coming in Astral Black and Moonlit Purple colour tones, the smartphone went on sale on March 17. The foldable runs on a MediaTek Dimensity 9000+ processor with 8GB RAM and 256GB of storage, with a 6.8-inch AMOLED panel with a refresh rate of 120Hz for its main display. Read more.