Epic and Google Reach Third-party App Store Peace - DTNS 5219

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0:48Jenn Cutter: If you've used Babbel, you would. Babbel's conversation-based technique teaches you useful words and phrases to get you speaking quickly about the things you actually talk about in the real world. With lessons handcrafted by over 200 language experts and voiced by real native speakers, Babbel is like having a private tutor in your pocket. Start speaking with Babbel today. Get up to 55 % off your Babbel subscription right now at babbel.com slash acast. Spelled B-A-B-B-E-L dot com slash acast. Rules and restrictions may apply.

1:22Tom Merritt: Youth mental health is a complex challenge that requires comprehensive solutions. We must strengthen after-school programs. We must make digital literacy tools available in our schools. We must work with mental health professionals to support children. And we must empower mentors, educators, and parents to keep kids happy. Learn more about our commitment to finding lasting solutions at empowerourfuturecoalition.com slash solutions. Paid for by the coalition to empower our future.

1:53Jenn Cutter: With almost half a million customers and over a trillion dollars of secure payments, Bill isn't new to intelligent finance. It's the proven way to simplify bill pay and maximize cash flow. Want to learn more? Visit Bill.com slash proven for a special offer.

2:17Jenn Cutter: this is the daily tech news for thursday march 5th 2026 we tell you what you need to know give you some important context and try to help each other understand today have epic and google reached

2:29Tom Merritt: a final third-party piece and oh my gosh fortnite is back or at least heading back to the play store

2:36Jenn Cutter: If the peace holds, folks.

2:38Tom Merritt: We'll find out.

2:40Jenn Cutter: I'm Tom Merritt. I'm Jen Cutter. Let's start with what you need to know with that big story. So yeah, this has been going on for a while, but for those of you who have either forgotten or never knew, Google and Epic have been fighting over the third-party app store since 2020. And they announced updates to their agreement on third-party apps and payment systems on Google's version of Android today, March 5th. Now, this is a response to multiple court cases around the world, but most prominently, the 2023 decision in a lawsuit brought by Epic that Google had abused its market position. And as one remedy determined by the judge in 2024, Google must distribute third-party app stores.

3:27Jenn Cutter: Now, Epic and Google decided they didn't exactly like the remedies that Judge Donato had given them. So they created their own settlement and said, hey, Epic's the one that brought the case. If we agree on this, this is cool, right? And Judge James Donato said, I don't know. I'm a little skeptical. This agreement seems to benefit Epic more than it would other developers. And you know what I am? I'm a judge. So I'm here to make sure that the law is applied for all. Maybe go back and look at this again. So the two companies went back to the drawing board and today announced adjustments to their settlement, which they have now submitted again for Judge Donato's approval.

4:08Jenn Cutter: And it seems like all the people that have been following this court case feel like it's probably going to pass this time. Here's what the proposed settlement includes. Developers will be allowed to steer users to other forms of payment than Google Play Store's built-in system. That hasn't changed from the original settlement. The 30 % fee though is gone. Google Play has been reducing that fee for a while. There's now a complex menu that ranges from 5 % to 20 % for various situations. But the one most people will read about is ongoing subscriptions. And that will now give Google 10 % of your ongoing subscription.

4:46Jenn Cutter: That will launch by June 30th in Europe, the UK, and the US, followed by the rest of the world. And then, yeah, you have 5 % fees for people in third-party app stores. In certain cases, there's some one-time fees. I'm not gonna bore you by going through that entire list right here, but it's essentially lower fees than developers had to pay in the past. Now, there is also a somewhat vague system in place where once a third-party app store is properly registered with Google, you can install it and download apps through what Google calls or what the agreement calls a more simplified installation flow.

5:22Jenn Cutter: We think that means you're not have to go through the usual side loading protocol with all the warnings and everything, but we don't have the details on that. However, Epic says it will be part of this program. And Epic has been, you know, very stringent about this being easy. So if Epic's agreed to it, it's probably going to be easy. And the implication is that developers wouldn't need to register with Google if they're in a registered app store. Also, third-party app stores will be able to mirror the entire Google Play Store catalog. That will give those third-party app stores a good running start.

5:57Jenn Cutter: It's something that Judge Donato had originally ordered as a remedy before Epic and Google began making up their own settlement. It was not in the previous settlement, but it's back in this one, probably a nod to Judge Donato saying, okay, we're going to give you something. If you're a developer and you're like, hey, I'm in the Google Play Store, I don't want to be in third-party app stores, You can opt out of that. Google also plans to launch the registered app system outside the U.S. before it gets court approval. It doesn't need U.S. court approval to launch this in U.K., Australia, et cetera.

6:29Jenn Cutter: So it's just going to go ahead and do it. And then once it gets U.S. court approval, it'll launch it in the U.S. Epic, as we said, will bring Fortnite back to the Google Play store soon. They didn't even say when this is approved. They just said we're bringing this back soon. But The Verge's Sean Hollister noted that the agreement says the following, quote, Epic believes that the Google and Android platform with the changes in this term sheet are pro competitive and a model for App Store platform operations and will make good faith efforts to advocate for the same. In other words, Tim Sweeney can't talk smack about the Google Play Store for the five years that this agreement stipulates.

7:14Jenn Cutter: So there you go. Those are all the rules of the road if this gets agreed to. Jen, what do you think as a person who plays games?

7:22Tom Merritt: I will get back to like the meat of the issue in a second. But like for that last little bit in my brain, I'm playing like pick your favorite clip of somebody doing maniacal laughter for a Wow. Because I he would be in my top five CEOs that should just in general stop posting. So we'll see how long this lasts, by the way, if other people have their top five CEOs who maybe shouldn't be on social media. Feedback at Daily Tech News show dot com. I want to hear it.

7:52Jenn Cutter: Yeah, well, I mean, he could talk smack about other companies. Yeah, I don't think he even talks back about Google, just not the Google Play Store. But we'll see. We'll see. That might be a tall order for Tibbs when you.

8:04Tom Merritt: Yeah, but it still sounds like in this new agreement, should it pass, that Epic still got kind of everything that they wanted and needed. The simplification of the Fortnite process and also just being back in the regular Play Store. That brings all the kids who have like parental controls who will hopefully still be allowed back in. And then adults will have their own way to pick and choose. and the fees. I think the fees are a good compromise. Have you seen how complicated the menu system is or do you know any developers have been through it?

8:39Jenn Cutter: Things of like, okay, if you're in the Google Play Store, you pay this amount. If you're in the Google Play Store and a third-party app store, you pay this amount. If you're only selling your app once, then you pay this amount. If you're selling it with in-app purchases, you pay the, that's why I didn't want to run through all of those. But honestly, if you know your use case and you're like, well, I do this and I want to be able to do that, it won't be hard to figure out like, okay, now I'll be paying 10%. There's also a difference, like the 20 % only applies to existing installations. New installations are all 15 % or less, depending on the case.

9:13Tom Merritt: Yeah. And like Judge Sinano has been really on it. Like this whole case, I've been very impressed because like not all judges are big on the technical thing, but like this guy's clearly used a phone before. So I would be struggling to be able to give any kind of example of, oh, like this won't work. They'll send this back. I really do think this goes through and pretty quickly. Yeah.

9:36Jenn Cutter: Everybody seems to agree that we're just waiting for the slightly slow wheels of justice to go. Yes, that sounds great. We'll approve it. And I think giving that mirroring of the Play Store as a bone probably really does help push it over the line.

9:51Tom Merritt: Yeah, because like that finally makes it a viable third party store because now you can be like, yeah, I don't want the Play Store at all. I'm going to use this and have, I don't know, 90 percent depending on how many Play Store devs opt out. I think like the biggest thing for the third party stores is are those stores going to be able to meet all the obligations that they need to meet across the world for, you know, age gating, for tracking, for all that stuff? That would be more onerous for, say, smaller managers than Google. Yeah.

10:21Jenn Cutter: And I'm tempted to say that's not Google's problem, but the registration of the app stores means that it is somewhat on. Yeah, exactly.

10:28Tom Merritt: No, Google gets to let that go.

10:31Jenn Cutter: Yeah, yeah.

10:32Tom Merritt: That'll be good. So we have DTNS, us, being made possible by you, the listener. Thanks to Philip Shane, Paul Boyer, and DLaser.

10:42Jenn Cutter: Yay!

10:47Tom Merritt: This episode is brought to you by Capital One. Capital One's tech team isn't just talking about multi-agentic AI. They already deployed one. It's called Chat Concierge and it's simplifying car shopping. Using self-reflection and layered reasoning with live API checks, it doesn't just help buyers find a car they love. It helps schedule a test drive, get pre-approved for financing, and estimate trade-in value. Advanced, intuitive, and deployed. That's how they stack. That's technology at Capital One. Youth mental health is a complex challenge that requires comprehensive solutions. We must strengthen after-school programs.

11:24Tom Merritt: We must make digital literacy tools available in our schools. We must work with mental health professionals to support children. And we must empower mentors, educators, and parents to keep kids happy. Learn more about our commitment to finding lasting solutions at empowerourfuturecoalition.com slash solutions. Paid for by the Coalition to empower our future. Parles-tu français? Hablas espagnol? Parle italiano?

11:51Jenn Cutter: If you've used Babbel, you would. Babbel's conversation-based technique teaches you useful words and phrases to get you speaking quickly about the things you actually talk about in the real world. With lessons handcrafted by over 200 language experts and voiced by real native speakers, Babbel is like having a private tutor in your pocket. Start speaking with Babbel today. Get up to 55 % off your Babbel subscription right now at babbel.com slash acast. Spelled B-A-B-B-E-L dot com slash acast. Rules and restrictions may apply.

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13:02Jenn Cutter: All right, there's more we need to know today. Let's get to the briefs.

13:06Tom Merritt: Nothing announced the Phone 4A Pro and budget over-ear headphones called the Headphone. The aluminum unibody phone is 7.95 millimeters thick, has a 6.83 inch 144 hertz display that is 66 % brighter than the previous model. It also has an oblong clear camera bump that includes the glyph matrix of 137 LEDs to display things like time. The camera can do 140x zoom with faster autofocus. It can also capture super slow 120fps video at full HD and shoot up to 30 Ultra XDR images in a row. It's a touch more expensive than the non-pro version at$499 sale start March 27th. As for the headphones, and I love over-the-year headphones, so I'm kind of stoked.

13:59Tom Merritt: They're available in four colors, promise 135 hours of battery life per charge, weigh 310 grams, and have adaptive noise cancellation. You can pre-order these now for$200, shipping March 23rd for all but the yellow color, which doesn't arrive until April.

14:17Jenn Cutter: Yeah, for over-the-ear noise cancellation,$200 is a pretty decent price. And, you know, comparable headphones are usually in the$300 plus range. I don't love nothing's naming conventions. I get that they're fun, but calling these the headphone parentheses A, end parentheses, is just hard to communicate. You're going to say headphone A, why put the, anyway, I'm an old man yelling at a cloud now, but they're nice headphones. And the Nothing Phone 4A Pro, really, really good high-end mid-range, I guess. Medium high, medium well. I don't know how exactly to describe it, but it is a premium over the previous Phone 4A.

15:07Jenn Cutter: It's definitely an upgrade over the 3A Pro and at a decent price,$499. dollars, getting a little bit lost in the wash of Mobile World Congress announcements, the Apple announcements, and as we're going to talk about later, the launch of the Pixel 10a, which is probably the closest comp to the nothing for a or phone for a as well. Yeah.

15:32Tom Merritt: Yeah. Nothing's name convention is fun. And when you always start with like nothing announced, like all I need is like a company called nobody and be like, so today nobody announced this and that in your brain. you're like, I'm doing this wrong. I'm doing this wrong, but no, it is. Nothing's better than Huawei.

15:49Jenn Cutter: Wait, that doesn't mean what I thought of.

15:50Tom Merritt: Oh no. Yeah. The, the marketing and PR people must be having fun with that, but I'm just yay. More over the ear headphones that they look kind of funky too, which, which is a nice change because sometimes you want a little bit of style and not just, I mean, it's still big old blocks, but they're stylish, big old blocks. Yeah.

16:07Jenn Cutter: But not just plain old black. Right. Which, you know, Yes, is only what I buy personally, but don't be like me, folks. Bust out of your bubble a little bit. All right. Bloomberg's Takashi Mochizuki has an interesting analysis of why the Nintendo Switch 2 software sales have slowed. Thought we'd run this by Jen because I think you might have a good insight on this. As of the end of December, the average number of games purchased per Switch 2 console was 20, I'm sorry, 2.18, 2.18 games per console. Obviously, nobody buys 0.18 of a game, but on average, it's less than three, closer to two. While the original Switch had an average of 3.88 games purchased per console at a comparable stage in its sales cycle.

16:53Jenn Cutter: That would have been back in March 2018. Now, some of this is the game release schedule. Some of it is the economy and just people not wanting to spend as much money. But Mochizuki notes that the Switch 2's games take up more storage space, meaning you're more likely to want to use an SD card to store your games. And the Switch 2 uses a new format for SD cards that is in limited supply. Not to mention that there is a problem getting storage of any kind right now because it's all being bought up for data centers. Here's an example that they used in the Bloomberg article. Nex Storage has raised its price of the 256 gigabyte Switch 2 compatible micro SD card by 30 % since the Switch 2 launched in June.

17:40Jenn Cutter: So the premise of this article, Jen, is that people are saying, you know, if that game is pretty big, I already have enough games. I don't want to buy an SD card, which could double the price of the game, you know, so I might not buy the game.

17:54Tom Merritt: I had planned to buy one of these cards when I bought Switch 2. And this was back when it launched last year. And I looked at that price and noped out. Also, they were in short supply because people smarter than me bought them first. They bought them before they had the Switch 2. So they're ready to go. So I would have had to pay a premium and EB Games were like, yeah, no, we're out. We have nothing. Call us in like four months. That's how behind they were in Canada for ordering these to my local store. Also, the Switch 2, in terms of storage, the Switch 2 can do more than the Switch to fill that storage.

18:30Tom Merritt: So to use Fortnite as an example, because I am that weirdo who also plays Fortnite on Switch, you can do screenshots, but you couldn't do video because Fortnite used everything the original Switch could do. There was no way to save game clips using the system tools. Now, I can save clips of literally everything, including Fortnite. That takes up a lot of space. Now, for moving that thing, you can use the older SD cards. You can use older SD cards, just not for Switch 2 specific games and stuff. I don't know if I want to blame the size on this, but I'm more inclined to blame the economy. We're going to talk about a particular game that I'm super stoked about later in the show.

19:15Tom Merritt: That game is$99.99 Canadian, and it just hurts. I'm going to buy it anyway. But it has like knowing that games are going to be guaranteed over$100 for anything first or second big party, like not just indie stuff. Yeah, it has slowed down my gaming purchases across all consoles, frankly.

19:36Jenn Cutter: Yeah, I think that's fair. And taking what you're saying into account, I would call the SD card part of this a chilling effect. Maybe not a cause, but just sort of something that is a little or maybe a headwind is better. Like it's something that's not everybody's going to run into. They may not get to buying more than two games just because they can't afford it or don't want to afford it. But it is the sort of thing when you do like, well, maybe I will buy it. Like, oh, but I need to buy an SD card and that's$80 now. I know that the SD cards that Nintendo makes, they obtained from Samsung and are basically subsidizing to keep the price down.

20:14Jenn Cutter: So if you can find those, those aren't as expensive, but it's hard to find those. and retail stores make less money off those because of that subsidization. So the retail stores are less motivated to keep them in stock when they can make more money off of other stuff.

20:28Tom Merritt: Also, I want to talk about game keys because ordinarily when you buy a physical copy of a game, you have that game. Now, if you buy a game key, you still have to download the whole thing. Right. And if you're playing older games from the Switch to the Switch 2, you have to do this very silly like digital game card switching and it's a pain and a lot of people don't do it. So for people with both systems, they'll still buy Switch games or Switch versions of games and just play it on the Switch.

20:54Jenn Cutter: Yeah. And before you get to the idea of having to buy an SD card, just the idea that I have to manage storage. I can't just save my game and not think about it. I have to think, oh, did I put it on the right SD card? Have I got the right SD card in there? Can I pull it out right now? A lot of people are like, you know what? Forget it. I just don't even do that. Mm-hmm.

21:13Tom Merritt: Former Blizzard president Mike Ibarra, now CEO of sports betting company PrizePix, says he believes the reports that Sony may pull back from PC platform compatibility for its games is due to the announcement of the Steam machine. He believes Sony sees Valve as a competitor in the console space and wants to prevent it from having access to Sony's AAA titles.

21:36Jenn Cutter: I don't know why Ibarra felt the need to weigh in on this, except that, you know, he does know the space and somebody asked him. I think that it is another one of those complex multiple reasons situations. Obviously, the idea that Microsoft would have a console, an Xbox console that could play PC games, probably spooks Sony a little bit, even if we don't know if that's actually going to happen or not. But it borrows not wrong. The Steam Machine is right there. And Sony probably does look at Valve and say, well, we don't want to help them out too much. Yeah.

22:10Tom Merritt: The games industry seem to have been trending for a while to timed exclusives. Like, yes, we will have this only here for now. And then, like, everyone can have it, like, sometimes two, three years later, which felt like a good compromise. And now everyone's just trying to, like, focus on their own house.

22:26Jenn Cutter: Yeah, yeah, yeah. The winds keep blowing back and forth. I think we're ratcheting towards cross-platform compatibility, but it may take us quite a while to get there. Two steps forward, one step back keeps happening over and over. And this is one of those one step back sort of situations. I have been trying to make sure that I get across the fact that while the U.S. government has threatened a lot of things against Anthropic, they haven't actually done them yet. And even though some companies are just like, I don't want to get the U.S. government mad at me, so I'm going to act as if they've done them, this story today justifies me continuing to remind you, like, I'm not just being pedantic.

23:10Jenn Cutter: Maybe there's still a different way that this gets resolved. Anthropic CEO Dario Amode has resumed talks with the Undersecretary of Defense for Research and Engineering, Emil Michael, in an attempt to prevent the department from following through on its promise to cancel Anthropic's contract and declare it a supply chain risk, which would be very damaging to its business. Amode reportedly told staff in a memo that the agreement could have happened last week if Anthropic deleted a specific phrase about analysis of bulk acquired data. And that's the line he's most worried about. That's probably what they're discussing.

23:45Jenn Cutter: They're trying to find a way to agree on that without either one of them giving up what they want. He also said that OpenAI's message, hoping Anthropic could strike a similar deal to OpenAI, was, quote, just straight up lies. So definitely Amode and Altman don't like each other too much. And Amode isn't afraid to hide it. But I was pleased to see that they are back at the bargaining table with the Department of Defense. Uh, and I think like so many things in this administration, there's a lot of things said and a lot of things threatened and a lot of people get very upset about what is going to happen.

24:24Jenn Cutter: And then those things don't happen. Doesn't happen all the time. This might be one of those cases where it does not.

24:29Tom Merritt: Like I said, some people maybe shouldn't post.

24:34Jenn Cutter: I don't think that applies here. I think this is intentional. This is like, we are going to force Anthropic back to the bargaining table by posting, by threatening. This is not an unwise posting. This is an intentional strategy, at least that seems to be maybe what it is.

24:51Tom Merritt: Yeah. And OpenAI grabbed a ton of headlines by Altman's post, but that's what Altman does. That is how he negotiates things even outside of his company.

25:02Jenn Cutter: Yeah, I do think there are some cross purposes with Altman. I think he, I doubt he has a whole lot of love lost for Anthropic, but as you can see when in his go rounds with Elon Musk, who they also don't love each other, he tries to have at least a publicly rational face. And I think he's trying to do that with Anthropic and also is honestly concerned about the damage to the industry if this were to happen and become a precedent. The supply chain risk is no joke and he doesn't want that. So I think that part may be sincere. Clearly, he is not pure of motivation. You're right about that.

25:39Tom Merritt: Scientists from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York published a study in the journal Nature Medicine, which tested how good chat GPT was at triage, which is just straight up assessing how severe a patient's condition is. If you've ever been in a hospital, you have been through triage. The study used 60 clinician authored vignettes. They found ChatGPT underestimated severity in 52 % of the most extreme emergency cases. The system did well at textbook cases, but failed in nuanced cases requiring more clinical judgment.

26:12Jenn Cutter: Yeah, I think a lot of people are going to see that 52 % number and think, oh, ChatGPT is bad at diagnosing things. And it's not as bad as it looks there. So I do want to get that across there. It's 52 % of the most extreme emergency cases. And if you read the Nature post, the article, they basically say there's a bell curve and at the ends it's not very good. But it's decent in the middle. So take that for what you will and decide how you feel about it. But I think it is clear that you probably shouldn't only be relying on ChatGPT or any LLM, frankly, until they continue to improve. They are better than they used to be at this sort of thing.

26:54Jenn Cutter: But as I've said over and over, they're good as a diagnostic assistance versus a final word.

27:02Tom Merritt: Yeah. And again, because it's the extreme edge cases, I am a lot more sympathetic. I have been someone who got told they had a brain tumor who did not. It was just a misreading of a scan and symptoms. I do not have a tumor. I'd like to hopefully keep that going throughout my life.

27:18Jenn Cutter: Very glad to hear that.

27:18Tom Merritt: But yeah, like one, I wouldn't have asked an LLM about it. But two, yeah, edge cases are edge cases. And that's why you have doctors and second opinions.

27:28Jenn Cutter: Yeah. And I think it's just, you know, good to repeat. If you've got a real medical concern, talk to a doctor. You can use ChatGPT to prepare you to talk to the doctor, but don't ask the ChatGPT if you should talk to the doctor yet. Just go with your gut and talk to you. uh big thanks to cw bazden for letting us know about this next one on our subreddit uh research published also in the journal nature this time just the plain old nature uh found that they could effectively model the human brain's visual system with just 10 000 variables that would be something small enough to send in an email and this compact model also worked more like the human brain which is giving them some clues to how the actual brain works with so little material that's not an insult to you humans.

28:15Jenn Cutter: It just means like we kind of do a lot with not a lot of matter up there. And nobody has really understood why. And this could point the way to helping understand that.

28:25Tom Merritt: I love brain stuff. Brain stuff is fascinating. Discoveries are good.

28:29Jenn Cutter: This is definitely one I've sent to Dr. Nikki, and maybe we can get a little expanded analysis of it in the future. So.

28:36Tom Merritt: Well, if anyone knows brains, I can't wait for that one.

28:39Jenn Cutter: Yeah.

28:40Tom Merritt: So if you, you out there have any feedback about anything that gets brought up on the show, please get in touch with us on these socials. At DTNS show on X, Instagram, Threads, Blue Sky and Mastodon. And for TikTok and YouTube, you can find us at Daily Tech News Show.

29:03Tom Merritt: This episode is brought to you by Capital One. Capital One's tech team isn't just talking about multi-agentic AI. They already deployed one. It's called Chat Concierge and it's simplifying car shopping. Using self-reflection and layered reasoning with live API checks, it doesn't just help buyers find a car they love. It helps schedule a test drive, get pre-approved for financing, and estimate trade-in value. Advanced, intuitive, and deployed. That's how they stack. That's technology at Capital One. Youth mental health is a complex challenge that requires comprehensive solutions. We must strengthen after-school programs.

29:40Tom Merritt: We must make digital literacy tools available in our schools. We must work with mental health professionals to support children. And we must empower mentors, educators, and parents to keep kids happy. Learn more about our commitment to finding lasting solutions at empowerourfuturecoalition.com slash solutions. Paid for by the Coalition to Empower Our Future.

30:05Jenn Cutter: Now some quick headlines that are just good things to know. This is going to make you look smart.

30:11Tom Merritt: Thanks to Motang for noting this one. Jensen Wong told a Morgan Stanley conference that it has likely made its last investments in OpenAI as the company gets close to going public later this year.

30:24Jenn Cutter: If you were complaining about the 8 gigabyte RAM cap on Apple's new MacBook Neo, Tech Power Up notes that because they're using the A18 Pro chip, not an M series chip, the A18 Pro attaches the RAM directly above the system on a chip using what's called an integrated fan out package on package or info pop. That's pretty good to know that allows for faster memory access, but does not allow room for expansion.

30:52Tom Merritt: Google has added its workplace project planning tool Canvas, which can draft documents and create custom tools, to AI mode in search.

31:03Jenn Cutter: Apple will start labeling music with transparency tags. There's four of them that can indicate if a material portion of either the album art, the track itself, the composition, or the music video was generated by software.

31:19Tom Merritt: In the latest draft of China's five-year economic plan, it pledges to boost development of semiconductors, aerospace, AI, and robotics, while taking better advantage of its position in refining rare earths.

31:32Jenn Cutter: Ah, good old communist five-year plan. I'm glad to see they're still kicking. Google Pixel 10a is out now for$499. Mentioned that earlier in the show, just a reminder. It also kind of got lost in all of the stuff this week, but you can go buy one now.

31:48Tom Merritt: OpenAI has launched a standalone app for its Codex coding engine for Windows.

31:54Jenn Cutter: Hey, Jen, Life Simulator Pokemon Pocopia is now out and launched its first event. I know you're excited.

32:01Tom Merritt: I am. When it was first announced, I'm like, oh, that's cute. And then I found out that the team behind Dragon Quest Builders 2 was behind it. And that went to a day one. If you have never played that game, if you ever see it on sale, it is the most heartwarming, wonderful controls, like beautifully game. So to get more of that with Pokemon, which is also like the original, like 151 Pokemon for the most part, I'm like, yep, here's my money. This was aimed at me.

32:28Jenn Cutter: You have a zero day vulnerability to Pokemon Pokemon.

32:31Tom Merritt: Yes, I'm willing to spend$99.99 before tax on this. Europol has disrupted one of the largest fishing as a service platforms, Tycoon to FA, taking down 330 of its domains.

32:47Jenn Cutter: Amazon, Google, Meta, Microsoft, OpenAI, Oracle, and XAI have all signed a non-binding ratepayer protection pledge that they say they will do their darndest to keep electricity rates from rising as a result of building out all those new data centers.

33:04Tom Merritt: Canada's artificial intelligence minister, Evan Solomon, says OpenAI has agreed to take immediate steps to strengthen safety protocols around when to notify law enforcement of potentially dangerous interactions with ChatGPT.

33:18Jenn Cutter: Also, signing things, Steve Bannon, Glenn Beck, Richard Branson, Ralph Nader, Susan Rice, and Nobel Prize winning economist Darren Asimoglu are among those who signed a Declaration of Human Rights for the AI Age, which was released Wednesday by the Future of Life Institute, an institute aimed at keeping AI beneficial to humans.

33:40Tom Merritt: And Meta will allow AI companies to offer their chatbots on WhatsApp for a fee through its business API for the next 12 months in Europe.

33:49Jenn Cutter: Yeah, you know, while they figure the rest of it out and try to find a legal loophole so they don't have to continue to do that.

33:56Tom Merritt: Yeah, it's 12 months, so they've got time. We end every episode of DTNS with some shared perspectives. Today, Andrew has a reason why you might need more RAM in your MacBook.

34:07Jenn Cutter: Yeah, because we were talking earlier this week about how, like, you know, you look at the RAM limitations on Macs and you have to realize that they use RAM more efficiently. So maybe you don't need it. Andrew says, I was of the same mindset as you about the Apple integrated RAM when I bought an M2 Mac Mini with 16 gigabytes a couple of years ago. And while I've never had a problem with daily workloads on it, you only get about half of that available for running an LLM inference. Eight gigs is a surprisingly small context window about two questions and their answers, sometimes only one cycle if you ask for code.

34:41Jenn Cutter: Thanks, Andrew from Colorado. The new NPU parts of the M chips do help some with that, but he's not wrong. If you're doing on-device running of models, that is something to keep in mind. You might need to upgrade that RAM and it gets real expensive really fast.

34:58Tom Merritt: Yeah, Andrew, that is fantastic because I'm so old school. It didn't dawn on me that like, oh, right, this is what people are using their computers at home for these days. And I was like, yeah, you're going to hit that pretty hard where I'm always thinking like, yeah, renders are going to take some time. Yeah.

35:12Jenn Cutter: And all those people want to buy a Mac mini and run, you know, OpenClaw on it. They need a little bit extra RAM.

35:19Tom Merritt: So what are you thinking about? Do you have some insight into a story? Do you have some use cases that I've never thought of before? Please share it with us at feedback at dailytechnewshow.com.

35:30Jenn Cutter: Yeah, thank you, Andrew. for contributing to today's show. Thank you listening for being along for Daily Tech News Show. That's only redundant if you are, Andrew. You can keep us in business by becoming a patron. Do it right now. Patreon.com slash DTNS.

35:47Tom Merritt: The DTNS family of podcasts. Helping each other understand.

35:53Jenn Cutter: Diamond Club hopes you have enjoyed this program.

36:04Tom Merritt: Youth mental health is a complex challenge that requires comprehensive solutions. We must strengthen after-school programs. We must make digital literacy tools available in our schools. We must work with mental health professionals to support children. And we must empower mentors, educators, and parents to keep kids happy. Learn more about our commitment to finding lasting solutions at empowerourfuturecoalition.com slash solutions. Paid for by the coalition to empower our future.

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