10 things in tech you need to know today

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1. Trump issued two executive orders aimed at Chinese-owned apps, barring US companies from doing business with TikTok parent company ByteDance and messaging app WeChat. The order, which is set to go into effect in 45 days, claims TikTok "continues to threaten the national security, foreign policy, and economy of the United States."
2. Mark Zuckerberg tells Facebook employees he's "really worried" about a possible TikTok ban. "It's a really bad long-term precedent, and that it needs to be handled with the utmost care and gravity whatever the solution is," Zuckerberg reportedly said. 
3. Zuckerberg's net worth ballooned above $100 billion for the first time ever. Zuckerberg, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, and Microsoft cofounder Bill Gates are now the only three people in the world to be worth more than $100 billion, per Bloomberg.
4. The first app using Apple and Google's COVID-19 contact tracing tech in the US is about to launch. Apple and Google's contact tracing tech has seen slow adoption since it was first rolled out in May, but the companies now say 20 states have expressed interest.
5. Twitter is adding labels to the accounts of state-affiliated media and government officials. The labels impact the accounts of US officials like Secretary of State Mike Pompeo but do not affect personal accounts of heads of state such as that of President Donald Trump.
6. TikTok is setting up a new $500 million data center in Ireland. The data center is slated to open in early 2022, and will house user data from TikTok's European users.
7. Google deleted 2,500 YouTube accounts with ties to China to combat disinformation on the platform as the 2020 election draws closer. News of the removal comes as relations between China and the US grow increasingly tense.
8. UK fintech startup Starling Bank tripled its customer deposits in 9 months and says it plans to break even by 2021 despite the COVID-19 pandemic. Starling, which famously shunned VC funding after it was founded in 2014, grew customer deposits from £1.01 billion ($1.33 billion) in November 2019 to more than £3 billion ($3.9 billion) at the end of July. 
9. Google is quietly killing the Pixel 4 smartphone it launched less than a year ago ahead of the Pixel 5's release. Google also plans to launch two more smartphones in the fall: the Pixel 4a 5G and the Pixel 5.
10. Google's first foldable Pixel phone is reportedly coming late next year, according to a leaked internal document. The foldable device is codenamed "passport."

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