Four years ago on August 13, 2020, Epic Games released a hotfix for their popular game Fortnite on Android and iOS. The “hotfix” enabled a new purchasing options for VBUCKS (the in-game currency) that bypassed Google Play and App Store, meaning Epic Games would pay zero revenue share to Apple and Google. Both Apple and Google banned Fortnite as a result, and the game has been unavailable on iOS devices since then. Last week Epic Games, thanks to the Digital Markets Act (DMA), launched their Epic Games store on iOS in EU, which included not only Fortnite but also Fall Guys and Rocket League, as well as a new revenue sharing model where developers get to keep 88% of all revenue. It will be very exciting to see how many developers start to roll out their games on the Epic Games store in the EU to improve their revenue, and it will also be interesting to see if Apple will be forced to support third party app stores in other regions outside of the EU in the near future.
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THIS WEEK’S NEWS:
- Epic Games Launches Fortnite and Epic Games Store on iOS in the EU
- xAI Launches Grok-2 Beta for X Premium Subscribers
- Google Launches Gemini Live – Mobile Conversational AI with Voice Capabilities
- Anthropic Launches Prompt Caching With 90% Cost Reduction and 85% Lower Latency
- Apple Intelligence May Come to EU After All – for Mac Computers
- Waymo is Expanding Its Robotaxi Service Areas
- Universal Music and Meta Announce Collaboration for AI, Monetization and More
Epic Games Launches Fortnite and Epic Games Store on iOS in the EU
https://store.epicgames.com/en-US/news/epic-games-store-available-now-on-mobile
The News:
- Epic Games have launched their own Epic Games Store on Android and iOS, meaning you can now run Fortnite, Fall Guys and Rocket League Sideswipe on your Android device (worldwide) or iOS device (in the EU).
- This is the first time Fall Guys is available on mobile, and the download is free on the Epic Games Store.
- According to Epic Games this is made possible thanks to the Digital Markets Act, DMA.
- Also, according to Epic Games, “this is just the beginning”. Epic Games wants to make their store available to all game developers, and have announced an 88% / 12% revenue sharing model which is much more attractive than the 70% / 30% used by Apple.
My take: Finally some good news coming out of the Digital Markets Act in the EU. With Epic Games offering an 88% / 12% revenue split in the EU on iOS and worldwide on Android, it will be very interesting to see how many game developers will join in and launch their games on the Epic Games Store.
Read more:
- Learn How to Install the Epic Games Store on Android – YouTube
- Learn How to Install the Epic Games Store on iOS in the EU – YouTube
xAI Launches Grok-2 Beta for X Premium Subscribers
The News:
- Elon Musk’s xAI has released a beta version of Grok-2 that is available on the X platform. To use Grok-2 you need an X Premium subscription.
- Grok-2 surpasses OpenAI’s latest GPT-4o and Anthropic’s Claude 3.5 Sonnet in some tests, making it one of the best models available.
- Where Grok-1 was released as open source using the Apache 2.0 license in March 2024, Grok-1.5 and Grok-2 are both closed source with proprietary licenses. xAI does not disclose where their training data comes from.
- Grok-2 can also create images on the X platform where it uses the amazingly good FLUX.1 library by Black Forest Labs. According to several user tests there is not much censoring on the prompts, meaning you can ask it to generate images of “Donald Trump wearing a Nazi uniform” or “Barack Obama stabbing Joe Biden with a knife”.
My take: It seems xAI has very quickly caught up with the very best of current LLMs. Grok-2 can still not match Claude for programming (no other LLM is close), but we already know that Grok-3 is in training and that will be released at the end of this year. Myself I am already doing over 90% of all programming using Claude, and I am very much looking forward to see if it is the next generation coming later this year that will push us closer to 100%.
Read more:
Google Launches Gemini Live – Mobile Conversational AI with Voice Capabilities
https://blog.google/products/gemini/made-by-google-gemini-ai-updates
The News:
- Google has launched Gemini Live, a mobile conversational AI capable of “in-depth“ hands-free conversations and can speak in 10 different human-like voices.
- Users can interrupt and ask follow-up questions mid-response, mimicking natural conversation flow. Similar to Apple’s upcoming Intelligence features, Gemini integrates directly with Google to provide context-aware answers without switching apps.
- Gemini Live is now the default assistant on Google’s Pixel 9 and is available today to all Gemini Advanced subscribers on Android, with an iOS release planned “in the coming weeks”.
My take: The next generation of AI Voice Assistants are coming, and they will change how we use our mobile devices. The assistants can be interrupted, they have access to all your personal data, and can help you during the day in ways not previously possible. Myself I have never used Siri on my laptop or stationary computer, but maybe the new voice assistants will change that and we will soon also talk to our desktop computers, if we are used to it on our mobile devices?
Read more:
Anthropic Launches Prompt Caching With 90% Cost Reduction and 85% Lower Latency
https://www.anthropic.com/news/prompt-caching
The News:
- Anthropic has launched Prompt caching, which enables developers to cache frequently used contexts between API calls.
- With prompt caching you can provide Claude with more background knowledge and example outputs, reducing costs by up to 90% and latency by up to 85% for long prompts.
- One of the main uses of prompt caching is in situations where you want to send a large amount of prompt context once and then refer to that information repeatedly in subsequent requests. Examples include Conversational agents, Coding assistants and Large document processing.
My take: One of the first companies to integrate Claude prompt caching in their products is Notion, and more will follow. Prompt caching is an amazingly good feature, and other companies such as OpenAI will probably add it soon to their APIs.
Apple Intelligence May Come to EU After All – for Mac Computers
https://9to5mac.com/2024/08/06/apple-intelligence-may-come-to-eu-after-allbut-only-for-mac/
The News:
- Apple has updated the release notes for iOS 18.1 and macOS Sequoia 15.1, indicating that Apple Intelligence might be launching in EU for MacOS.
- Release notes for iOS 18.1 says: “Apple Intelligence is available on iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max. Apple Intelligence is not currently available in the EU or China.“
- Release notes for macOS 15.1 says: “Apple Intelligence is available on Macs with M1 and later. Apple Intelligence is not currently available in China.“
My take: The main reason for Apple not bringing Apple Intelligence to EU is due to uncertainties in the Digital Markets Act, DMA. The DMA does not however apply to macOS, so releasing Apple Intelligence in the EU for macOS makes sense.
Waymo is Expanding Its Robotaxi Service Areas
https://www.theverge.com/2024/8/6/24214454/waymo-robotaxi-expand-service-area-sf-la-map
The News:
- Waymo is expanding their robottaxi areas in San Fransisco and Los Angeles so they now cover the areas seen in light blue color in the images above.
- In San Fransisco, Waymo added 10 additional square miles for a total of 55 square mile coverage area.
My take: In the EU, the key discussion about robot taxis seems to focus on how to make sure they are 100% safe before even considering putting autonomous vehicles on public roads. Waymo is not 100% safe, but they are more safe than human drivers. Will that be enough for the EU to allow robot taxis on public roads? I don’t think so, which means the EU will risk falling behind several years when it comes to fully autonomous transports on public roads.
Universal Music and Meta Announce Collaboration for AI, Monetization and More
The News:
- Meta and Universal Music Group have announced an “expanded global, multi-year agreement that will further evolve the creative and commercial opportunities” for UMG artists and Universal Music Publishing Group songwriters across Meta’s network of platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, Horizon, Threads and, for the first time, WhatsApp.
- The companies will be working together to “address, among other things, unauthorized AI-generated content that could affect artists and songwriters.”
My take: This is all good news for music artists. Universal Music recently signed a new deal with TikTok which now means they have proper licensing coverage on all major social media platforms. The part about collaborating against unauthorized AI content is interesting, maybe they will work together in the current lawsuit between Universal, Sony and Warner against Udio and Suno?