Good Morning! Emulation enthusiasts of Yuzu face a major setback as Yuzu settles with Nintendo for $2.4M, effectively shuttering the emulator. Meta accelerates Android updates for its apps fourfold, embracing Google's new Readiness Program. Anthropic unveils its Claude 3 AI models, claiming best-in-class performance rivaling GPT-4 and Google Gemini.  

— Forrest Knight & Meghanadh Vasireddy

Emulation World Shaken by Yuzu's $2.4M Deal with Nintendo

Context: Yuzu was a popular emulator for running Nintendo Switch games on PCs and other devices. However, Nintendo filed a lawsuit alleging Yuzu violated anti-circumvention laws like the DMCA by enabling piracy.

The Settlement:

• Yuzu team agreed to pay Nintendo $2.4 million to settle the lawsuit

• A permanent injunction forces the destruction of all Yuzu code

• Developers are banned from distributing or working on Yuzu under a different name

Nintendo claimed Yuzu allowed widespread piracy of Switch games and enabled leaked copies of major titles like Tears of the Kingdom before release.

While Nintendo lost previous emulation lawsuits in the late 90s (vs Bleem!, VGS), the DMCA now grants more protections against circumventing access controls. With the legal precedent unclear, Yuzu opted to settle to avoid a costly legal battle.

Wider Impact: The fallout extends beyond Yuzu itself. The team is also discontinuing support for the Citra 3DS emulator under the same injunction. As other major emulators like Ryujinx could draw Nintendo's scrutiny, the emulation community braces for further IP enforcement actions by Nintendo.

Read More Here

How Meta Sped Up Android Updates by 4X

Last year, Meta (formerly Facebook) significantly accelerated the process of updating its major Android apps like Messenger, Instagram, and Facebook to support new Android releases. For Android 12, it took 7-9 months, but for Android 14, they cut this timeline down to just 1-2 months.

The Key: Android Readiness Program

• The driving force was Meta's new "Android OS Readiness Program" which emphasized early testing against Android beta releases.

• By compiling their apps against each beta version and running automated tests, Meta could proactively identify potential issues well before the final Android 14 release.

Meta also revamped their internal tooling and processes. They automated the SDK release process, reducing deployment time from 3 weeks to under 3 hours. This allowed individual app teams to rapidly access the latest SDKs for testing new OS features.

Meta's efforts paid off for end-users as well:

• Early Android 14 adoption enabled a "smooth day-one experience" when upgrading

• It allowed robust privacy controls

• Integration of new features like Ultra HDR image support in Instagram

Google lauded Meta's approach as a "blueprint for success" that other Android developers should emulate, especially with Android 15 developer previews now underway.

Read More Here

Anthropic Releases New Claude 3 AI Models - Their Best Yet

The AI race is heating up, with companies vying to develop and market the most powerful language models. Anthropic, a startup backed by tech giants like Google and Amazon, has thrown its hat into the ring with the release of Claude 3.

Claude 3 is a suite of large language models, including:

• Claude 3 Haiku (example): The smallest and fastest model, designed for quick tasks like content moderation.

• Claude 3 Sonnet (example): A mid-sized model that balances intelligence and speed, suitable for data processing, recommendation systems, and code generation.

• Claude 3 Opus (example): The flagship model with advanced reasoning capabilities, tailored for open-ended analysis, research, and understanding complex visuals like diagrams.

According to Anthropic, the powerful Opus model achieves best-in-class performance across various benchmarks, surpassing competitors like GPT-4 and Google's Gemini. All three models support multimodal inputs, including text and images.

A key feature of the Claude 3 family is improved safety behaviors. The models demonstrate better recognition of potential harms while refusing fewer benign prompts compared to previous generations.

In terms of availability and pricing, Sonnet and Opus are available now through cloud providers like Amazon and Google. Pricing ranges from $1 to $15 per million tokens, depending on the model size. The snappy Haiku version is "coming soon."

Read More Here

🔥 More Notes

• Qualcomm Launches First True 'App Store' For AI With 75 Free Models

• Apple Gives Developers More Insight Into App Performance With Over 50 New Analytics Reports

• The Windows 11 Android app dream is dead

Youtube Spotlight

We’re already using AI more than we realize

Artificial intelligence (AI) is all around us these days - in smartwatches, streaming service recommendations, and many other common technologies. However, lots of people don't realize just how much they interact with AI every single day. As AI like deep learning and machine learning become more and more important in various areas like healthcare, jobs, and law enforcement, it has a big potential impact on major parts of our lives.

Was this forwarded to you? Sign Up Here