The Morning After: EU reveals six tech giants that’ll be hit by its new competition laws
The European Union has confirmed the first six tech gatekeepers that must follow the rules of its Digital Markets Act (DMA). The names of these companies should be pretty familiar: Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, ByteDance, Meta and Microsoft.
The DMA stipulates that gatekeepers can’t favor their own services over rivals’ offerings and can’t keep users locked into their own ecosystems. They have to let third-party entities interoperate with their services in certain situations too. Of course, these incredibly rich companies aren’t going quietly: Microsoft and Apple have already argued that, despite meeting the thresholds the European Commission laid out, Bing, Edge, Microsoft Advertising and iMessage don’t qualify as gateways and shouldn’t have to comply with the new act.
Apple will likely feel this most. Recent reports suggest the company may allow third-party app stores and sideloading in iOS 17. We’ll have to wait for Apple’s fall iPhone event, which is next week. But spare a thought for iPhone rival Samsung, which wasn’t designated as a gatekeeper. Do you think its execs have FOMO?
– Mat Smith
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The 360-degree simulator is now offline
Google has revealed its upcoming Pixel 8 Pro again, just like every other Pixel model. This time, the leak comes via Google’s own 360-degree simulator, which lets you see the device from every angle, with little yellow dots showing different sensors and ports. It doesn’t list any specs, but we already have a good idea about those thanks to other leaks. The Pixel 8 Pro’s camera array should include a 50-megapixel main camera that lets in 50 percent more light. Expect to hear all the official specs in early October.
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‘Heart on my Sleeve’ may be eligible for songwriting honors.
The person behind an AI-generated song that went viral earlier this year has submitted the track for Grammy Awards consideration. The Recording Academy has stated that such works aren’t eligible for certain gongs. However, Ghostwriter, the pseudonymous person behind “Heart on My Sleeve,” has submitted the track in the best rap song and song of the year categories, according to Variety. Those are songwriting honors, and the Academy has suggested songs mostly written by flesh and blood could still make it – even if the recording is largely AI-generated. It seems there’s one major roadblock as things stand, though. For a song to be eligible for a Grammy, it needs to have “general distribution” across the US through the likes of brick-and-mortar stores, online retailers and streaming services.
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The developers say they’ve crammed their big ideas into the game already.
Nintendo
Bad news: “There are no plans for additional content,” Tears of the Kingdom producer Eiji Aonuma told Famitsu. The team behind the Switch hit said this is because they already shoved all of their major gameplay ideas into the base game. Tears of the Kingdom director Hidemaro Fujibayashi said his team is pondering what its “next fun experience” may look like. However, that won’t be motorcycles in TotK.
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