Image: The White House / Protocol
Trump’s TikTok shakedown

Good morning! This Tuesday, Trump has an … unusual demand if Microsoft buys TikTok, BlackBerry gets into contact tracing, and Airplane Mode solves everything.
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Satya Nadella got to add a new threat to his list of potential TikTok deal breakers Tuesday: The president asking for a slice of the sale price.
On Monday morning, it seemed like Microsoft was just trying to buy TikTok, and had until Sept. 15 to make a deal work. Trump had briefly thrown a wrench into discussions when he indicated he didn't want a deal to happen, though later seemed to support it. But then! Trump got out another wrench, and this one's a doozy.
Arguably, we're between uncharted territory and total fantasyland at this stage. There's now officially no twist that I wouldn't believe. The U.S government nationalizes TikTok and makes @realdonaldtrump the only user? Larry Ellison, Peter Thiel and Palmer Luckey get together and buy it, and make Jared Kushner CEO? Facebook buys it, shuts it down, and calls it a day?
But there is another possible path here: Microsoft could buy a chunk of TikTok, and other U.S. investors could buy the rest.
Sept. 15 is 42 days away. There will be more talk, more demands, more kooky ideas about how the government and the economy work between now and then. I'd still bet on a deal getting done one way or another, but you have to wonder when one side or both is just going to get sick of the chaos and walk away.
And, as Protocol's Emily Birnbaum writes, even if the deal does get done, it's hardly the end of Microsoft's government-related headaches. Not even close.
Mike Murphy writes: The future of secure communications may well be up in the air. Like, way up. Honeywell and the Canadian Space Agency have tasked Loft Orbital, a satellite startup that aims to democratize companies' access to space, with sending devices up to test satellite-based quantum key distribution.
Loft Orbital's thing is essentially Space as a Service, and CEO Pierre-Damien Vaujour said that "flying a quantum key distribution unit is definitely on the more complex end of things" the company does.
Loft has built its custom platform with standardized connectors that theoretically allow any company to put their technology into space on one of the company's 200-pound, washing-machine sized satellites. Most satellite projects can take about 5 years and around $100 million to develop, Vaujour said, whereas Loft can get something into space in around 9 months for a fraction of the cost. "You can think of Loft as the AWS of space," he said.
Side note: Are these the kinds of things we're going to be hearing now? "The AWS of X," and "the X of space?" They definitely are, aren't they.
Shakeel Hashim writes: Last week, Canada released a COVID contact-tracing app in Ontario, with plans to roll it out nationwide. And it did so with the help of Canada's favorite old smartphone giant: home-grown hero BlackBerry.
Canada took a "privacy first" approach with its app, Tatsis explained, which underpinned its decision to use the Google-Apple APIs. "This decentralized model, I think, really does account for privacy very well," she said, pointing to the lack of personal information collected and the absence of any GPS features.
Tatsis' team also looked at what she called the "integrity" of the data. "You want to make sure you're guarding against the ability for, for instance, false information to flood the system," Tatsis explained. A hacker that falsely marked certain IDs as positive test cases could tell people they've been exposed to COVID when they haven't, rendering the whole system useless.
BlackBerry wasn't the only Canadian tech company working on the app: Shopify helped early on to build its framework. But it's particularly poignant for the former smartphone giant to now be helping with an app that's designed to be installed by millions. Tatsis, who's been with the company for 19 years, agreed: "It's kind of neat."
Qualtrics' Work Different free virtual event, on August 12, will explore how successful organizations like Atlassian, Microsoft, the NBA, and many others are listening to and taking action on the feedback from their customers and employees to create a "new better" for their business. Register now at Qualtrics.com.
A huge group of powerful CEOs, led by Howard Schultz, urged Congress to do more to help small businesses recover:
Jason Calacanis has a very Silicon Valley plan for the school year:
Hermann Hauser, who helped spin out Arm in the first place, said selling it to Nvidia is a terrible idea:
Building AI that's "like the real world" isn't good enough, Jigsaw's Yasmin Green said:
Facebook leased 730,000 square feet of office space in the Farley Building in New York, part of a real-estate spree that could house more than 12,000 employees. So much for remote-first, I guess?
Tommy Francois is out at Ubisoft. Business Insider reported that Francois, the company's VP of editorial and creative services, was fired after an internal investigation into sexual harassment allegations.
Harsha Jalihal is MongoDB's new people officer. She'll run HR for the company, after stints at Unilever and Cognizant.
Nicole Booth is Notarize's new EVP of public affairs. She comes from Quicken Loans, and has long experience working with the government and tech worlds.
There's something comforting about the fact that tech-support advice is always the same, even if you're on board the Crew Dragon spaceship. The craft is controlled in part by iPads, and when Bob Behnken couldn't get an app to load, NASA's best and brightest gave him the only instruction that always works: toggle Airplane Mode. And, as a bonus, AirDrop figured prominently in the solution! That's one small step for a screenshot, one giant leap for simple solutions to dumb tech problems.
Qualtrics' Work Different free virtual event, on August 12, will explore how successful organizations like Atlassian, Microsoft, the NBA, and many others are listening to and taking action on the feedback from their customers and employees to create a "new better" for their business. Register now at Qualtrics.com.
Today's Source Code was written by David Pierce, with help from Shakeel Hashim. Thoughts, questions, tips? Send them to david@protocol.com, or our tips line, tips@protocol.com. Enjoy your day, see you tomorrow.
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