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Apple to debut dedicated gaming app within days of Switch 2's arrival
Apple to debut dedicated gaming app within days of Switch 2's arrival

Toronto Sun

time27-05-2025

  • Business
  • Toronto Sun

Apple to debut dedicated gaming app within days of Switch 2's arrival

Published May 27, 2025 • 3 minute read The Apple iPhone 16 plus during an event at Apple Park campus in Cupertino, California, US, on Monday, Sept. 9, 2024. Apple Inc. introduced the latest version of its flagship device, the iPhone 16, betting it can entice consumers with modest hardware upgrades and AI technology that's still on the horizon. Photographer: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg Photo by David Paul Morris / Bloomberg (Bloomberg) — Apple Inc. is planning a dedicated app for video games on its devices, seeking to sell gamers and developers on the idea that it's a leader in the market. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. THIS CONTENT IS RESERVED FOR SUBSCRIBERS ONLY Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada. Unlimited online access to articles from across Canada with one account. Get exclusive access to the Toronto Sun ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition that you can share, download and comment on. Enjoy insights and behind-the-scenes analysis from our award-winning journalists. Support local journalists and the next generation of journalists. Daily puzzles including the New York Times Crossword. SUBSCRIBE TO UNLOCK MORE ARTICLES Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada. Unlimited online access to articles from across Canada with one account. Get exclusive access to the Toronto Sun ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition that you can share, download and comment on. Enjoy insights and behind-the-scenes analysis from our award-winning journalists. Support local journalists and the next generation of journalists. Daily puzzles including the New York Times Crossword. REGISTER / SIGN IN TO UNLOCK MORE ARTICLES Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience. Access articles from across Canada with one account. Share your thoughts and join the conversation in the comments. Enjoy additional articles per month. Get email updates from your favourite authors. THIS ARTICLE IS FREE TO READ REGISTER TO UNLOCK. Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience. Access articles from across Canada with one account Share your thoughts and join the conversation in the comments Enjoy additional articles per month Get email updates from your favourite authors Don't have an account? Create Account The company will preinstall the app on the iPhone, iPad, Mac and Apple TV set-top box later this year, according to people with knowledge of the matter. The software will serve as a launcher for titles and centralize in-game achievements, leaderboards, communications and other activity, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the plans haven't been announced. The move is meant to enhance the experience on Apple devices at a time when gamers have plenty of alternatives, including cloud services and consoles. Nintendo Co. is preparing to roll out its much-anticipated Switch 2 device just days before Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference on June 9, when the new app will be introduced. The new app will feature editorial content from Apple about new titles, offer access to the App Store's game section and promote Arcade, the company's $6.99-a-month subscription offering. And it will replace Game Center, an existing social network dedicated to this category that debuted in 2010 but never gathered serious momentum. Your noon-hour look at what's happening in Toronto and beyond. By signing up you consent to receive the above newsletter from Postmedia Network Inc. Please try again This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. Apple is also planning a Mac version of the app that can tap into games downloaded outside of the App Store. A spokesperson for Cupertino, California-based Apple declined to comment. 9to5Mac reported last year that the company was working on a new games app for a future software update. As part of its gaming push, Apple has acquired RAC7 Games, a two-person studio behind the popular Sneaky Sasquatch title. The move was previously reported by Digital Trends. By market share, the iPhone remains one of the world's most used devices for gaming — a category that has been central to the App Store since 2008. In recent years, developers have added high-end games like Resident Evil, Death Stranding and Assassin's Creed. About two-thirds of Apple's App Store revenue currently comes from games and in-app purchases. That includes tokens, levels and other upgrades bought within the titles themselves. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. The Mac platform has made strides in recent years as well. Speedier chips have allowed better graphics, and the company released tools that make it easier for developers to port existing games over to the Mac. But Apple isn't generally seen as a gaming giant, and many developers and players say that the Mac in particular leaves a lot to be desired compared with Windows computers. While the new app will likely make Apple products easier to use for gaming — and make the category more prominent — testers of the software say it probably won't change the perception among players and makers of high-end titles. The app is one of several features planned for the next version of iOS, which will be released to users in September — around the same time as the next iPhone lineup. Apple is also planning a revamped user interface code-named Solarium, which will make the interface more cohesive across different devices and more similar to the Vision Pro's operating system. Other new features include AI-powered battery management and health capabilities, a revamped Translate app, and live translation of conversations via AirPods and the Siri voice assistant. The company is also expected to announce a new bidirectional Arabic and English keyboard, a virtual calligraphy pen for Apple Pencil users and a new system for syncing hotel Wi-Fi login details across devices. The Vision Pro, for its part, is getting a new eye-scrolling feature. World Toronto & GTA Toronto Maple Leafs World World

Google decided against offering publishers options in AI search
Google decided against offering publishers options in AI search

Toronto Sun

time20-05-2025

  • Business
  • Toronto Sun

Google decided against offering publishers options in AI search

Published May 20, 2025 • 5 minute read Signage at the the Google headquarters in Mountain View, California, US, on Thursday, Oct. 10, 2024. Alphabet Inc. is scheduled to release earnings figures on October 24. Photographer David Paul Morris/Bloomberg Bloomberg RSS (Bloomberg) — While using web site data to build a Google Search topped with artificial intelligence-generated answers, an Alphabet Inc. executive acknowledged in an internal document that there was an alternative way to do things: They could ask web publishers for permission, or let them directly opt out of being included. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. THIS CONTENT IS RESERVED FOR SUBSCRIBERS ONLY Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada. Unlimited online access to articles from across Canada with one account. Get exclusive access to the Toronto Sun ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition that you can share, download and comment on. Enjoy insights and behind-the-scenes analysis from our award-winning journalists. Support local journalists and the next generation of journalists. Daily puzzles including the New York Times Crossword. SUBSCRIBE TO UNLOCK MORE ARTICLES Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada. Unlimited online access to articles from across Canada with one account. Get exclusive access to the Toronto Sun ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition that you can share, download and comment on. Enjoy insights and behind-the-scenes analysis from our award-winning journalists. Support local journalists and the next generation of journalists. Daily puzzles including the New York Times Crossword. REGISTER / SIGN IN TO UNLOCK MORE ARTICLES Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience. Access articles from across Canada with one account. Share your thoughts and join the conversation in the comments. Enjoy additional articles per month. Get email updates from your favourite authors. THIS ARTICLE IS FREE TO READ REGISTER TO UNLOCK. Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience. Access articles from across Canada with one account Share your thoughts and join the conversation in the comments Enjoy additional articles per month Get email updates from your favourite authors Don't have an account? Create Account But giving publishers a choice would make training AI models in search too complicated, the company concludes in the document, which was unearthed in the company's search antitrust trial. It said Google had a 'hard red line' and would require all publishers who wanted their content to show up in the search page to also be used to feed AI features. Instead of giving options, Google decided to 'silently update,' with 'no public announcement' about how they were using publishers' data, according to the document, written by Chetna Bindra, a product management executive at Google Search. 'Do what we say, say what we do, but carefully.' Site owners that rely on traffic can't afford to skip listing on Google, which still holds more than 90% of the search market, making it a gateway to the modern web. Many have reluctantly let Google use their content to power search AI features, like AI Overviews, which provides AI-generated responses for some queries — despite the fact that the feature often eats into their traffic. By answering questions directly, AI Overviews obviates the need for users to click on links, depriving sites of opportunities to make money by showing ads and selling products. Your noon-hour look at what's happening in Toronto and beyond. By signing up you consent to receive the above newsletter from Postmedia Network Inc. Please try again This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. The Google document displayed in court shows the company recognized from the beginning the possibility of giving publishers more control, said Paul Bannister, the chief strategy officer at Raptive, which represents online creators. 'It's a little bit damning,' he said. 'It pretty clearly shows that they knew there was a range of options and they pretty much chose the most conservative, most protective of them — the option that didn't give publishers any controls at all.' Google was recently on trial in Washington as a federal judge mulled what steps the tech giant must take to restore competition in online search. Judge Amit Mehta, who presided over the hearings, is now considering a set of remedies proposed by antitrust enforcers aimed at curbing Google's market dominance. The final day of testimony was May 9, with closing arguments set for later this month. A ruling on the proposed remedies is expected in August. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. Among the options discussed in internal company slides, Google listed the possibility of 'SGE-only opt-outs' — which would have let publishers opt out of having their content used in some generative AI features in Google Search, without disappearing from the search engine itself. One item under discussion would have allowed publishers to 'choose to opt their content out of being displayed within' AI Overviews, though their data 'would still be used for training purposes.' Another, which Google presented as the most extreme, would have let publishers 'opt out of their data being used for grounding' — a process in which Google and other AI companies anchor their models in real-world sources, with the aim of preventing AI from making up information and making its responses more accurate. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. Google ultimately chose to give publishers no new options. The presentation advised introducing 'no new controls BUT reposition publicly' to point publishers toward an existing opt-out called 'no snippet,' that allows publishers to be exempt from AI Overviews and other search features. Choosing this option also causes summaries of their website to disappear from the search page, making people unlikely to click on the link. 'Publishers have always controlled how their content is made available to Google as AI models have been built into Search for many years, helping surface relevant sites and driving traffic to them,' a Google spokesperson said in a statement in response to questions about the trial exhibit from Bloomberg. 'This document is an early-stage list of options in an evolving space and doesn't reflect feasibility or actual decisions.' They added that Google continually updates its product documentation for search online. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. In the year since AI Overviews launched, traffic to some publishers' sites has dropped precipitously. Even more significant to publishers in the long run is advancing the development of models that produce something good enough to replace their content, said Brooke Hartley Moy, chief executive officer of Infactory, an AI startup that works with publishers. 'If Google's models get to a point where the human element of content is diminished, then they've kind of signed their own death warrant,' Hartley Moy said of publishers. RECOMMENDED VIDEO As publishers search for new revenue streams, allowing their content to be used for retrieval augmented generation, or RAG — a technique in which AI models refer back to specific sources to provide more accurate responses — has emerged as a promising contender, Hartley Moy said. That's what makes Google's move to take RAG off the negotiating table so significant, she said. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. 'RAG doesn't exist without publishers,' Hartley Moy said. 'To me, this is a strategy in ensuring that Google has full market power, and the publishers lose one of their key chips in the negotiation.' Under questioning by Google lawyer Kenneth Smurzynski, Liz Reid, the company's head of search, testified that creating multiple opt-outs for different products and models would be challenging. 'That would mean if Search has multiple GenAI features on the page, which it can easily do, each of those would be required to have a separate model powering it. But we don't build separate models for those,' Reid said, according to court transcripts of the trial testimony on May 6. 'And so by saying a publisher could be like, 'I want to be in this feature but not that feature,' it doesn't work,' she continued. 'Because then we would essentially have to say, every single feature on the page needs a different model.' This would be very costly not only because of the significant investment in hardware and chips that it would require, Reid said, but also because it would be a challenge to ensure the different AI models operated efficiently and delivered fast responses. 'It adds enormous complexity,' she testified.

Ford will raise the sticker price on cars imported from Mexico. It just said it didn't expect significant US price hikes
Ford will raise the sticker price on cars imported from Mexico. It just said it didn't expect significant US price hikes

Yahoo

time07-05-2025

  • Automotive
  • Yahoo

Ford will raise the sticker price on cars imported from Mexico. It just said it didn't expect significant US price hikes

A Ford Mach-E at a Ford dealership in Colma, California. - David Paul Morris/Bloomberg/Getty Images Ford is hiking the sticker prices for the three US models it imports from Mexico by up to $2,000 each, just days after executives said they didn't expect significant increases in industrywide car prices this year. The price increase was disclosed in a memo sent to Ford dealerships, first reported by Reuters but confirmed by Ford. Ford said the manufacturer's suggested retail price (MSRP), also known as the 'sticker price,' would increase between $600 to $2,000 per vehicle, depending on the features. Ford said the price hike doesn't apply to vehicles currently on the lot, but will apply to those built after May 2, which start arriving at dealerships in several weeks. 'This is our usual mid-year pricing actions combined with some tariffs we are facing,' Ford spokesman Said Deep told CNN. 'We have not passed on the full cost of tariffs to our customers. Our approach throughout this evolving situation continues to be doing what's right for our customers – and our business.' Since April 3, imported vehicles have faced a tariff of up to 25%. Most of the major automakers import some of their US vehicles from foreign plants, including those in Mexico. Ford assembles three US models in Mexico: the Ford Mustang Mach-E electric vehicle, the Maverick midsize pickup and the Bronco Sport, an entry-level SUV. Those models accounted for about 17% of Ford's first quarter US sales. Despite the tariff on car imports, and an additional tariff on imported parts raising the cost of production, most automakers have been slow to announce price increases pegged to import taxes. Ford said last week it would continue to offer customers the promotional 'employee pricing' through July 4. Ford says it has a sufficient inventory of vehicles built and imported before tariffs took effect to handle purchases through that date. The price hike does not mean customers will necessarily pay $2,000 more per vehicle. Retail prices are set across millions of individual negotiations between buyers and dealers, although the MSRP is typically a starting point. During a media briefing Monday, Ford CFO Sherry House would not comment on Ford's own pricing plans , but said she didn't expect new car pricing in the United States to increase significantly. Ford itself said it expects the tariffs will cost it about $1.5 billion through the rest of this year. 'We now expect industry pricing related to tariffs (to increase) about 1% to 1.5% in the second half,' she said. For more CNN news and newsletters create an account at

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