U.S. tightens restrictions on Huawei access to chips, Android updates

The U.S. Commerce Department will make it even more difficult for Huawei to access tech products and software produced and created by U.S. tech companies. According to the Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS), Huawei and another 38 affiliates of the company have been added to the Entity List, which imposes restrictions on licensing agreements and hardware exports. The new rules not only makes it harder for Huawei to obtain chips for its devices and Android updates through Google, but ends the Temporary General License (TGL) extended to the company in early 2019. The increased sanctions on Huawei have put a strain on the company, causing a shortage of necessary processor chips, according to the Associated Press.  Without a lift in sanctions, the company will be unable to produce its own Kirin chipsets. The addition of the newly banned Huawei affiliates brings the total number of blacklisted Huawei affiliates to 152, and will include computing offices in Chile, Morocco, South Africa, France, Germany, The Netherlands, Russia, Switzerland, Berlin, Cairo, Bangkok, Istanbul, Dubai, and Beijing. “Huawei and its foreign affiliates have extended their efforts to obtain advanced semiconductors developed or produced from U.S. software and technology in order to fulfill the policy objectives of the Chinese Communist Party. As we have restricted its access to U.S. technology, Huawei and its affiliates have worked through third parties to harness U.S. technology in a manner that undermines U.S. national security and foreign policy interests. This multipronged action demonstrates our continuing commitment to impede Huawei’s ability to do so,” said U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross in a statement on Monday. This isn’t the Trump administration’s first time placing pressure on China’s tech industry. While the recent extension on the ban of Bytedance has given TikTok an extra 60 days to fight President Donald Trump’s executive order, the new ban on affiliates only lessens Huawei’s chances of success. Huawei’s trouble with tech acquisition first appeared in 2019, when the Trump administration banned U.S. companies from selling to Huawei without government permission. With the ban firmly in place until 2021 and new export rules choking any back doorways for Huawei to receive aid, the company is facing hard times ahead. If you’d been thinking of buying an Audi, now might be the time.  The German brand, owned by the Volkswagen Group, has announced it would halt shipments to the U.S. in the wake of President Donald Trump’s 25% tariffs on all imported vehicles.
Audi is currently holding cars that arrived after the tariffs took effect, on April 3, in U.S. ports. But it still has around 37,000 vehicles in its U.S. inventory, which should be able to meet demand for about two months, according to Reuters.
Automakers on average hold enough cars to meet U.S. demand for about three months, according to Cox Automotive.
Audi should be particularly affected by the tariffs: The Q5, its best-selling model in the U.S., is produced in Mexico, while other models, such as the A3, A4, and A6 are produced in Germany.
Holding shipments is obviously a temporary measure to buy time for Audi and parent company Volkswagen. If tariffs stay in place, vehicle prices would likely have to go up accordingly, unless some production is shifted to the U.S. Volkswagen already has a plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and is planning a new plant in South Carolina. That latter plant, however, isn’t expected to be operational until 2027 and is currently dedicated to building electric vehicles for VW’s Scout Motors brand.
Other global automakers have also taken drastic measures in response to Trump’s tariffs. Jaguar Land Rover on April 5 said it is pausing shipments of its its UK-made cars to the United States this month. The British sports-luxury vehicle maker noted that the U.S. market accounts for nearly a quarter of its global sales, led by the likes of Range Rover Sports, Defenders, and Jaguar F-PACE.
And on April 3, Nissan, the biggest Japanese vehicle exporter to the United States, announced it will stop taking new U.S. orders for two Mexican-built Infiniti SUVs, the QX50 and QX55. In an iconic scene from the 2002 sci-fi film Minority Report, on-the-run Agent John Anderton, played by Tom Cruise, struggles to walk through a mall as he’s targeted by a multitude of personalized ads from the likes of Lexus, Guinness and American Express, everytime hidden detectors identify his eyes.
It was clearly meant as a warning about a not-so-desirable dystopian future.
Yet, 23 years later that future is at least partlially here in the online world and threatens to spread to other areas of daily life which are increasingly ‘connected’, such as the inside of cars. And the new testing grounds, according to online security researcher Jane Manchun Wong, might very well be automated-driving vehicles, such as Waymo’s robotaxis.
On X, Wong unveiled an unreleased version of Waymo’s privacy policy that suggests the California-based company is preparing to use data from its robotaxis, including interior cameras, to train generative AI models and to offer targetted ads.
“Waymo may share data to improve and analyze its functionality and to tailor products, services, ads, and offers to your interests,” the Waymo’s unreleased privacy statement reads. “You can opt out of sharing your information with third parties, unless it’s necessary to the functioning of the service.”
Asked for comments about the unreleased app update, Waymo told The Verge that it contained “placeholder text that doesn’t accurately reflect the feature’s purpose”.
Waymo’s AI-models “are not designed to use this data to identify individual people, and there are no plans to use this data for targeted ads,” spokesperson Julia Ilina said.
Waymo’s robotaxis, which are operating on the streets of San Francisco, Los Angeles, Phoenix and Austin, do contain onboard cameras that monitor riders. But Ilina says these are mainly used to train AI models for safety, finding lost items, check that in-car rules are followed, and to improve the service.
The new feature is still under development and offers riders an opportunity to opt out of data collection, Ilina says.
But as we all get used to ads targeting based on everything that’s somehow connected to the web, it seems a once-distant vision of the future may be just around the corner. The iPad Fold, as it’s being touted, could arrive as soon as next year. A new report suggests that the first folding iPad could be on track to land in 2026.