Epic and Google Reach Third-party App Store Peace

Plus, the new Nothing 4a Pro is out, and Tom was right about Anthropic.

Starring Tom Merritt and Jenn Cutter.

TOM: This is the Daily Tech News for Thursday March 5th, 2026. We tell you what you need to know, give you the important context, and help each other understand.

JENN: Today, have Epic and Google reached a final third-party peace? And, oh my gosh, Fortnite is headed back to the Play Store!

I’m Tom Merritt,

I’m Jenn Cutter.

TOM: Let’s start with what you need to know with the big story.

[[BIG STORY]]

• Android Developers Blog: A new era for choice and openness

• Google and Epic announce settlement to end app store antitrust case - Ars Technica

• Google embraces third party app stores and payments • The Register

• Epic, Google Settlement Would Let Rivals Access Play Store App Catalog - Bloomberg

• Google reportedly muzzles Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney until 2032

Google and Epic announced updates to their agreement on third-party apps and payment systems on Google’s version of Android.

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, must distribute third-party app stores. Epic and Google presented a negotiated settlement to Judge James Donato, who expressed an opinion in January that it seemed to benefit Epic more than other developers.

So the two companies went back to the drawing board, and today announced adjustments to their settlement, which they have submitted for Judge Donato’s approval.

Here’s what the proposed settlement includes:

• Developers will be allowed to steer users to other forms of payment than the Google Play Store’s built-in system.

• The 30% fee is gone, replaced by a complex menu that ranges from 5 to 20% for various situations. The one most people read about, ongoing subscriptions, will give Google 10%. That launches by June 30 in Europe, the UK, and the US, followed by the rest of the world.

• A somewhat vague system where, once a third-party app store is properly registered with Google, you can install it and download apps through a “more simplified installation flow” without having to go through the usual sideloading protocol. Epic will be part of this program. The implication is that the developers won’t need to register if they’re in a registered app store.

• Third-party app stores will be able to mirror the entire Google Play store catalog, something Judge Donato had originally ordered as a remedy before Epic and Google began making up their own settlement. Developers may opt out of this mirroring.

• Google plans to launch the Registered App system outside of the US while it waits for the US court to approve the settlement there.

• Epic will bring Fortnite back to the Google Play Store soon.

And the Verge’s Sean Hollister noted that the agreement states that “Epic believes that the Google and Android platform, with the changes in this term sheet, are procompetitive and a model for app store/platform operations, and will make good faith efforts to advocate for the same.” The agreement lasts for five years, during which Tim Sweeney can’t talk smack about Google’s Play Store.

JENN: DTNS is made possible by you the listener. Thanks to Philip Shane, Paul Boyer, and dlaser.

[[BREAK]]

[[BRIEFS]]

TOM: There’s more we need to know today, let’s get to the briefs.

• Nothing Phone 4a Pro hands-on: A premium design with a price to match the Pixel 10a

• Nothing’s new over-ear headphones can pump out the jams for five days on a single charge

JENN: Nothing announced the Phone 4a Pro and budget over-ear headphones called The Headphone (a).

The aluminium unibody phone is 7.95mm 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. Sales start March 27th.

As for the headphones, they’re available in four colors, promise 135 hours of battery life per charge, weigh 310 grams, and have adaptive noise cancellation. You can preorder these now for $200, shipping March 23rd for all but the yellow color, which doesn’t arrive until April.

• Nintendo Switch 2 Users Face Storage Shortage as Memory Crisis Bites - Bloomberg

TOM: Bloomberg’s Takashi Mochizuki has an interesting analysis of why the Nintendo Switch 2’s software sales have slowed. As of the end of December, the average number of games purchased per Switch 2 console was 2.18, while the original Switch had an average of 3.88 games at a comparable stage in its sales cycle in March 2018. Some of it is the game release schedule. Some of it is the economy. But Mochizuki notes that the Switch 2’s games take up more storage space, and the Switch 2 uses a new format for SD cards that is in limited supply. Nextorage, for example, has raised the price of its 256GB Switch 2-compatible microSD card by 30% since the Switch 2 launched in June.

• Ex-Blizzard Boss Blames Steam Machine For Sony’s Rumored Pivot Away From PC Ports | HotHardware

JENN: Former Blizzard president Mike Ybarra, now CEO of sports betting company Prize Picks, 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 that Sony sees Valve as a competitor in the console space and wants to prevent it from having access to Sony’s AAA titles.

• Anthropic chief back in talks with Pentagon about AI deal

• Anthropic is reportedly back in talks with the Defense Department

• Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei calls OpenAI’s messaging around military deal ‘straight up lies,’ report says | TechCrunch

• OpenAI’s Altman takes jabs at Anthropic at Morgan Stanley conference

TOM: Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei has resumed talks with the Under Secretary 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. Amodei reportedly told staff in a memo that the agreement could happen if Anthropic deleted a specific phrase about “analysis of bulk acquired data.” That’s the line Amodei says he is most worried about. He also said that OpenAI’s message hoping Anthropic could strike a deal similar to OpenAI’s was “just straight up lies.”

• ChatGPT Health Underestimates Medical Emergencies, Study Finds

• ChatGPT Health performance in a structured test of triage recommendations | Nature Medicine

JENN: 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 ChatGPT was at triage, which is straight up assessing how severe a patient’s condition is. 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 judgement.

• Scientists make a pocket-sized AI brain with help from monkey neurons : r/DailyTechNewsShow

• Scientists make a pocket-sized AI brain with help from monkey neurons : NPR

TOM: Thanks to cwbasden for letting us know about this one on the Subreddit. Research published in the journal Nature found that they could effectively model the human brain’s visual system with just 10,000 variables, something small enough to send in an email. The compact model also worked more like the human brain, giving a clue to how the actual brain works with so little material.

[[PROMO]]

JENN: If you have feedback about anything that gets brought up on the show… Get in touch with us on the socials. @DTNSshow on X, Instagram, Threads, Blue Sky, and Mastodon. For TikTok and YouTube, you can find us at Daily Tech News Show.

[[BREAK]]

TOM: And now, some quick headlines that are just good to know and might make you look smarter in the future.

• Jensen Huang says Nvidia is pulling back from OpenAI and Anthropic, but his explanation raises more questions than it answers : r/DailyTechNewsShow

• Jensen Huang says Nvidia is pulling back from OpenAI and Anthropic, but his explanation raises more questions than it answers | TechCrunch

JENN: Thanks to Motang for noting this one. Jensen Huang 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.

• Apple MacBook Neo Capped at 8 GB RAM by A18 Pro InFO-PoP Packaging | TechPowerUp

TOM: Tech PowerUp notes that Apple’s new MacBook Neo is capped at 8GB of RAM because the A18 Pro attaches the RAM directly above the SoC, using what’s called an Integrated Fan-Out Package on Package (InFO-PoP), which allows for faster memory access, but no room for expansion.

• Google Search rolls out Gemini’s Canvas in AI Mode to all US users | TechCrunch

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

• Apple Music introduces metadata tags to disclose AI-generated content - 9to5Mac

TOM: Apple will start labeling music with “Transparency Tags” that indicate if a “material portion” of the album art, the track, the composition or the music video, was generated by software.

• China vows to accelerate technological self-reliance, AI push

• China seeks to enhance rare earth advantages, take ‘extraordinary measures’ to achieve semiconductor breakthroughs — new five-year plan marks doubling down on technological self-reliance | Tom’s Hardware

JENN: In the latest draft of China’s 5-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.

• The Google Pixel 10a is out now for $499.

TOM: The Google Pixel 10a is out now for $499.

• OpenAI brings its Codex coding app to Windows

JENN: OpenAI has launched a standalone app for its Codex coding engine for Windows.

• Pokémon Pokopia is out today, but it already has its first limited-time event, with three cute Pokémon only available for a two-week window this month | Eurogamer.net

TOM: Life simulator Pokémon Pokopia is now out and has launched its first event.

• Europol-coordinated action disrupts Tycoon2FA phishing platform

JENN: Europol has disrupted one of the largest Phishing-as-a-Service platforms, Tycoon2FA, taking down 330 of its domains.

• Big tech companies agree to not ruin your electric bill with AI data centers

• Trump Says Tech Data-Center Pledge Will Lower Power Costs Over Time - Bloomberg

TOM: Amazon, Google, Meta, Microsoft, OpenAI, Oracle and xAI all signed a non-binding Ratepayer Protection Pledge to keep electricity rates from rising as a result of the building of new datacenters.

• Canada Says OpenAI CEO Altman Pledged to Toughen Safety Protocols - WSJ

JENN: 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.

• Pro-human AI declaration brings together unlikely group calling for trustworthy tech

TOM: Steve Bannon, Glenn Beck, Richard Branson, Ralph Nader, Susan Rice, and Nobel Prize-winning economist Daron Acemoglu are among those who signed a declaration of human rights for the AI age, which was released Wednesday by the Future of Life Institute aimed at keeping AI beneficial to humans.

• Meta will allow rival AI chatbots on WhatsApp in Europe, but for a fee | TechCrunch

JENN: 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.

[[HELPING EACH OTHER UNDERSTAND]]

JENN: We end every episode of DTNS with some shared perspectives. Today Andrew has a reason why you might need more RAM in your MacBook.

TOM: Andrew writes: I was of the same mindset as you about the Apple integrated RAM when I bought an M2 Mac mini with 16GB 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. 8 gigs is a surprisingly small context window - about 2 questions and their answers, sometimes only one cycle if you ask for code.

Thanks! Andrew from Colorado

[[DISCUSS]]

JENN: What are you thinking about? Got some insight into a story? Share it with us feedback@dailytechnewsshow.com

TOM: Thanks to Andrew for contributing to today’s show. And thank YOU for being along for Daily Tech News Show. You can keep us in business, by becoming a patron, atPatreon.com/dtns