Bytes: What’s new in tech

Snapchat’s $3 million teen

Teens are discovering ways to “strike internet gold” on Snapchat, said Taylor Lorenz in The New York Times. In November, Snapchat introduced Spotlight, a blatantly TikTok-inspired section devoted to short videos. Spotlight promotes “the same things that are popular on TikTok,” namely “dancing videos, prank videos, challenges, and tutorials.” To build up content, Snapchat is enticing video makers with outsize bonuses. Cam Casey, “a TikTok star with over 7 million followers,” decided to try posting one of his TikTok videos, a science experiment with an exploding Coca-Cola bottle, on Snapchat. When it proved popular, he started adding more videos—as many as 120 in a day. In less than three months, he’s been “paid nearly $3 million by the company for content that went viral.”

Advertising right under your fingers

Your remote control has become the latest battleground in the streaming wars, said Janko Roettgers in Protocol.com. Ever since “Netflix first partnered with makers of streaming devices and smart TVs to add a dedicated Netflix button to their remote controls,” in 2011, such shortcuts have become “ubiquitous—and are multiplying.” Vizio’s 2021 remote, for instance, features seven branded shortcuts. Streaming services have long paid roughly “$1 per remote to put their brand closer to a consumer’s fingertips.” Now, though, the battle for clicker space is intensifying, especially since TV makers like LG and Samsung also want to “feature dedicated buttons for their own ad-supported streaming services.” Another emerging battleground: the microphone. The remotes for LG’s newest smart TVs will include both an Alexa button and a separate Google Assistant button.

China sanctions create chip gap

A worldwide chip shortage has forced several major automakers to idle assembly lines, said Ben Klayman and Stephen Nellis in Reuters .com. Car manufacturers such as Ford,

Subaru, and Toyota rely on chips to power everything from driver-assistance programs to brake systems, which pits them against “the sprawling consumer electronics industry” for supplies. Their supply problems have “been exacerbated by the Trump administration’s actions” in the China trade war. One key factor: When the White House banned Huawei from buying chips made with American technology, the Chinese telecoms giant “stockpiled chips to keep building what products it could.”