Apple announces support for alternative app stores in the EU, charging no commission but instead an annual €0.50 Core Technology Fee per install per account
including sideloading John Voorhees / MacStories : Apple Details How It Plans to Comply with the EU's Digital Markets Act Siôn Geschwindt / TNW : Apple begrudgingly allows EU customers to use rival ap...
Apple plans to allow default third-party browsers, like Chrome, Edge, and Brave, and web engines in the EU with iOS 17.4, prompting Safari users on first launch
https://www.theverge.com/... Alessio Maffeis / @maffeis@mastodon.social : You might not like it, but #WebKit-only iOS is the only thing keeping Google from having complete control over the Web. — It...
Apple begins allowing game streaming apps and services globally, meaning that Xbox Cloud Gaming, GeForce Now, and others can be turned into full-featured apps
Starting today Apple is opening up its App Store to allow game streaming apps and services. This means that services …
Apple announces a reduced commission structure for apps in the EU, including a 17% commission, or 10% for small developers, plus 3% if the app uses Apple's IAP
Apple's response to the E.U.'s Digital Markets Act has arrived. Juli Clover / MacRumors : Apple will allow third-party apps to use the iPhone's NFC chip in the EU, letting third-party payment services...
Apple plans to “notarize” iOS apps distributed via third-party app stores; apps will need to meet basic platform requirements, like getting scanned for malware
But Only For EU Users Lawrence Matheson / The Mirror : Apple unveils sweeping plan to allow rival app stores on iPhones in EU Mark Anthony Ramirez / Laptop Mag : Apple launches an alternative marketpl...
Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney says Apple's “anticompetitive scheme rife with new junk fees” is illegal under the EU's DMA and an example of “malicious compliance”
or 20% of your sales I will never launch an app in Europe. [image] Tim Sweeney / @timsweeneyepic : Yes, Apple did. Because this scheme worked out so well for John Riccitiello. @dhh : Still trying to u...
Apple's €0.50 Core Technology Fee in the EU would lead to a free or freemium app with 2M annual “first installs” paying $540K+ a year even if no money is earned
App developers in the European Union who choose to opt in to Apple's new business terms must pay an €0.50 …
Some developers say Apple's new Core Technology Fee in the EU is eerily similar to the controversial Runtime Fee that Unity touted and withdrew after a backlash
Chris Kerr / Game Developer :
An interview with Netflix co-CEO Greg Peters on the lack of a Netflix app on the Apple Vision Pro, the WWE deal, content strategy, ads, competition, and more
I am pleased to welcome Netflix Co-CEO Greg Peters for a Stratechery Interview. Peters was named the co-CEO of Netflix …
Mysk: iPhone apps including Facebook, Instagram, Threads, TikTok, and X are skirting Apple's privacy rules to collect user data through push notifications
Security researchers say apps including Facebook, LinkedIn, TikTok, Twitter, and countless other use notifications as a loophole to skirt privacy protections.
An NSA letter to Sen. Ron Wyden reveals the agency buys logs related to Americans' domestic internet activities from commercial data brokers without warrants
The disclosure comes amid congressional scrutiny and a Federal Trade Commission crackdown on commercial data brokers.
Omdia: Nintendo plans to introduce a new Switch gaming console in 2024 with an 8" LCD screen; the current seven-year-old Switch has sold over 132M units
- The next console from Kyoto company to have 8-inch LCD — Seven-year-old Switch console has sold over 132 million units
Apple adds support for transcripts to the Podcasts app in iOS 17.4 beta and says transcripts will be generated automatically after an episode is published
Apple released the first developer beta of iOS 17.4 today, and there are a couple of changes to the Apple Podcasts app.
Epic Games plans to launch its Epic Games Store on the iPhone in the EU in 2024, which will include its popular game Fortnite
Epic Games plans to bring its Epic Games Store to the iPhone and the iPad under Apple's new alternative app store policy in the European Union, Epic Games announced today.
A look at browser-related iOS changes in the EU, including letting users choose one of the 12 most popular browsers in their country's App Store as the default
The raft of iOS changes Apple dropped in the European Union yesterday, as it prepares for enforcement of the bloc's Digital Markets Act …
Apple says anyone looking to develop an alternative app marketplace needs to submit a €1M “letter of credit” to “guarantee support for developers and customers”
Chance Miller / 9to5Mac : X: @timsweeneyepic and @dhh . Forums: r/apple X: Tim Sweeney / @timsweeneyepic : Under what possible theory of antitrust regulation is it acceptable for a monopoly to decide...
The US FTC opens a probe into investments by Microsoft in OpenAI and by Amazon and Google in Anthropic, to assess how the deals alter the competitive landscape
The agency plans to scrutinize Microsoft, Amazon and Google for their investments in the A.I. start-ups OpenAI and Anthropic.
Review of Honor's Magic V2 foldable, launching in UK and Europe for £1,700: very thin and durable but has a dated OS and processor, and software issues
It's thin and light enough to feel like a regular smartphone when folded. That's impressive. I just wish Honor's software were as svelte.
Source: Salesforce plans to lay off ~700 employees, or ~1% of its staff, after cutting 10% of its workforce in January 2023; the company has 1,000 open jobs
The layoffs, which will affect around 1% of its workforce, follow a 10% reduction last year — Salesforce is laying off around …
A profile of Israel-linked Predatory Sparrow, whose cyberattacks of Iranian civilian targets are some of the most aggressive offensive hacking incidents ever
From repeatedly crippling thousands of gas stations to setting a steel mill on fire, Predatory Sparrow's offensive hacking … Mastodon: @simontsui@infosec.exchange and @agreenberg@infosec.exchange X: @...
Cruise says the US DOJ and SEC are probing the company over an October 2023 incident where one of its autonomous vehicles hit and dragged a pedestrian 20 feet
Confirmation of the probe comes after an October incident where one of the cars dragged a pedestrian 20 feet
A federal judge sentences OneCoin lawyer Mark Scott to 10 years in prison for his role in laundering millions of dollars through the crypto scheme
A court convicted Mark Scott of two felony counts related to bank fraud and money laundering in November 2019. — Total views Total shares
A Cruise report finds its top executives' adversarial approach toward regulators led to a cascade of events that ended with a suspension of its autonomous fleet
and gruesome. William Gavin / The Messenger : GM's Cruise Targeted by Justice Department, SEC Inquiries Into Driverless Car Collision Andrew J. Hawkins / The Verge : Cruise wasn't hiding the pedestria...
Baidu partners with Samsung to integrate its Ernie chatbot into Galaxy S24 smartphones in China, allowing users to translate calls in real time and more
- Chinese tech giant Baidu will partner Samsung to integrate its Ernie chatbot capabilities into Galaxy S24 smartphones.
The George Carlin estate sues Dudesy, which released a comedy special featuring an AI-generated recreation of George Carlin, alleging copyright infringement
Winston Cho / The Hollywood Reporter :
Sources: Elon Musk's xAI is in talks to raise up to $6B from family offices in Hong Kong and sovereign wealth funds in the Middle East at a $20B valuation
Tesla chief targets $20bn valuation in bid to take on OpenAI — Elon Musk's xAI is in talks to raise up to $6bn …
Intel reports Q4 revenue up 10% YoY to $15.4B vs. $15.15B est., Data Center and AI down 10% YoY to $4B, and Q1 revenue guidance below estimates; INTC drops 10%+
Kif Leswing / CNBC :
Sources: Lightspeed Venture Partners seeks to sell stakes in 10 startups, worth ~$1B, to a private equity-style continuation fund, to let investors cash out
Venture capital firm plans to roll holdings into continuation fund as sector seeks ways to return cash to investors Mastodon: @quoll@mastodon.sdf.org . X: @carnage4life Mastodon: @quoll@mastodon.sdf.o...
OpenAI announces 25% to 50% lower GPT-3.5 Turbo prices, a GPT-4 Turbo preview model to reduce cases of “laziness”, improved text embedding models, and more
From these updates, embeddings seem like a big thing. … Forums: Msmash / Slashdot : OpenAI Drops Prices and Fixes ‘Lazy’ GPT-4 That Refused To Work
The UK CMA launches the first stage of its review of Vodafone and Three UK's merger, and sets March 22, 2024 as a deadline to decide for an in-depth probe
Katharine Gemmell / Bloomberg :
Google's web-based app development suite Project IDX adds an Android emulator, an iOS simulator, new project templates, and more
check out product updates from Project IDX to help you build with less friction. Speed up and simplify software development with Project IDX. Dive in 🚀 ↓ https://goo.gle/...
Some Beeper users lost access to iMessage on their Mac and were told by Apple access was revoked due to irregular activity; Beeper: ~3.5K users reported outages
Beeper Mini customers were using their Mac computers to connect to iPhone messaging on their Android phones. Mastodon: @lcruggeri@mastodon.uno and @digfish@masto.pt Mastodon: Luca Ruggeri / @lcruggeri...
Ola Group CEO Bhavish Aggarwal's Krutrim, which is building a multilingual LLM, raised a $50M “first round” led by Matrix Partners India at a $1B valuation
Manish Singh / TechCrunch :
Filing: 23andMe says hackers started breaking into users' accounts in April 2023 and continued through September; 23andMe became aware of the breach in October
It's unclear how many accounts were targeted, but hackers were successful breaking into 14,000 accounts, which in turn gave them access to personal data of 6.9 million customers. … Forums: r/cybersecu...
Florida and Alaska ban Binance.US from serving their residents, citing CZ's guilty plea; Arkansas, Illinois, and South Dakota made a deal with the exchange
Caitlin Ostroff / Wall Street Journal :
The US plans to sell about $117M worth of Bitcoin seized from Ryan Farace, a convicted drug trafficker who operated on the Silk Road dark web marketplace
Andrew Hayward / Decrypt :
In a supportive gesture to the industry, China approved 115 video games in January, the most in 18 months, after approving 105 titles in December
Ben Jiang / South China Morning Post :
Source: Sierra, an enterprise-focused AI startup co-founded by Bret Taylor, plans to raise $85M led by Sequoia at a ~$1B valuation; Taylor is on OpenAI's board
Katie Roof / Bloomberg :
Bastille, which uses hardware sensors for wireless monitoring to stop espionage in offices, raised a $44M Series C led by Goldman Sachs' venture arm
Sam Sabin / Axios :
LA County agrees to pay $5M to election software maker Konnech CEO Eugene Yu, who was wrongly arrested and charged in 2022 with mishandling voter data
Stuart A. Thompson / New York Times :
Study: kids aged 4 to 18 globally spent an average of 112 minutes daily on TikTok in 2023, up from 107 minutes YoY and 60% more than YouTube; 20% tried ChatGPT
Sources: chipmaking startup Cerebras is weighing an IPO as soon as this year at a valuation higher than the $4B it achieved for its $250M Series F in 2021
Bloomberg :
IBM's stock closes up 9.49%, at its highest level since June 2013, adding ~$20B to its market cap and up nearly 20% year-to-date, on strong AI services demand
Chibuike Oguh / Reuters :
Taiwan plans to spend ~$7.4M on the Trustworthy AI Dialogue Engine, or Taide, an LLM for businesses, banks, and other customers, to counter China's influence
Jennifer Creery / Bloomberg :
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