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It’s finally game over for Yuzu after the company responsible for the illegal Switch emulator conceded in court today (Monday, 4 March) over a dispute with Nintendo.
Tropic Haze, the company that created Yuzu, has been at the center of a very public case involving some of Nintendo’s flagship console games.
The culmination of this legal battle, which both parties agreed, will be $2.4 million in damages paid to Japan’s biggest console operator.
What is Yuzu?
Yuzu is “an open-source project that lets you play Switch games on your PC or mobile device. It supports many popular titles, such as Super Mario Odyssey, The Legend of Zelda, Pokemon Sword, and more,” according to the site’s description.
The “open-source” project however was taking licensed Nintendo games a week before their release like The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, and seeing them downloaded over 1 million times on the emulator. Nintendo was set on the warpath and wanted the emulator to cease.
As we reported last week, Yuzu was “facilitating piracy at a colossal scale” according to the original case that was filed late February in the United States District Court of Rhode Island.
Nintendo settles for destruction
In the case closure, documents found that “Yuzu executes code that decrypts Nintendo Switch video games (including component files) immediately before and during run time using unauthorized copies of the Nintendo Switch cryptographic keys. Yuzu is primarily designed to circumvent and play Nintendo Switch games.”
Today, the court saw Tropic Haze bend the knee to Nintendo and agree to not only a substantial fee but also the destruction of all materials pertaining to the emulator.
The court resolution called for the “destruction by deletion of all circumvention devices, including all copies of Yuzu, all circumvention tools used for developing or using Yuzu—such as TegraRcmGUI, Hekate, Atmosphère, Lockpick_RCM, NDDumpTool, nxDumpFuse, and TegraExplorer, and all copies of Nintendo cryptographic keys including the prod.keys, and all other electronic material within Defendant or its members’ custody, possession, or control that violate Nintendo’s rights under the DMCA or infringe copyrights owned or exclusively licensed by Nintendo.”
Nintendo also received the domain of Yuzu and all related materials in the closure of the case. Marking the end of Yuzu and all the related information that Tropic Haze had on the emulator. This also marks a substantial win for the console giant against piracy and sets a precedent for any other emulators that may adopt a similar approach.
Image credit: Photo by Juan Jimenez; Pexels
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The European Commission has fined Apple €1.8 billion (£1.5 billion) for streaming violations.  So,1,800,000,000 EUR is equal to 1,952,277,657 USD @ 1.08 US dollars to 1 Euro. Anyway you figure it, this is a significant fine. The reason is that the EU said it’s because the streaming service didn’t inform users of payment options outside the Apple app store.
Margrethe Vestager has said in the music market Apple has abused its dominant position for over a decade — and she ordered the music giant to remove all restrictions. Apple replies that it will appeal the decision and that there is no evidence that any consumers were harmed. Ms Vestager also said that Apple restricted “developers from informing consumers about alternative, cheaper music services outside of the Apple ecosystem, which is illegal under EU antitrust rules.”
The DMA — promoting competition
The DMA of the European Union aims to promote competition in the technology sector and attempt to weaken the market dominance of companies such as Apple and Google.
Ahead of the impending introduction of the Digital Markets Act (DMA), Apple said in January that it would permit users in the European Union to download apps from stores other than its own.
The Swedish music streaming provider Spotify filed a protest with the European Commission, citing dissatisfaction with both the restriction and Apple’s 30% fee, prompting the EU to take a closer look.
Apple said, “The decision was reached despite the Commission’s failure to uncover any credible evidence of consumer harm and ignores the realities of a market that is thriving, competitive, and growing fast.’
Spotify is the largest music streaming app in the world
Apple claims that “Spotify has the largest music streaming app in the world and has met with the EC [European Commission] more than 65 times during this investigation.” Previously, Spotify claimed that the EU restrictions helped Apple’s rival music streaming service — Apple Music.
Apple’s protracted legal spat with Fortnite developer Epic Games led to the introduction of US fees in the first place. The largest developers pay 30% to utilize this method, whereas smaller developers charge 15% or less, and 85% of developers pay nothing at all.
Apple pointed out, “The primary advocate for this decision, and the biggest beneficiary, is Spotify, a company based in Stockholm, Sweden.
Featured Image Credit: Sami Abdullah; Pexels
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Xbox Partner Preview will showcase upcoming titles over a 30-minute broadcast this month.
The Xbox newsroom says that the “format is all about sharing exciting games news from our talented studios from across the globe with no frills: just new game reveals, release date announcements, and fresh new gameplay from upcoming games, coupled with unique behind-the-scenes stories from developers on Xbox Wire.”
The event will be streamed on Wednesday, March 6 at 10 am PT/1 pm ET/6 pm GMT, across the console’s official YouTube and Twitch channels. Games studio’s such as Capcom and EA will display their newest games and trailers across the half hour.
Games on display
Tales of Kenzera: Zau — This Metroidvania title has been developed by Surgent Studios and published by EA. It follows the journey of Zau, who is voiced by Abubakar Salim of Assasin’s Creed: Origins fame.
According to the game’s page, it is a “poignant single-player story shaped by actor Abubakar Salim’s own experience with grief, discovering how love gives us the courage to press on after devastating loss. As Zau, you must face your own emotions to become a worthy Nganga: a spiritual healer.”

Kunitsu-Gami: Path of the Goddess — Capcom will be showing off more details of this action-strategy title that takes after previous works from the publisher, such as Ōkami and Shinsekai: Into the Depths.
So far, we have seen the announcement trailer from last year and the game’s page that says the title will uphold “Capcom’s legacy of original and innovative works. Explore an incredible world in which traditional Japanese aesthetics are brought to stunning life by the power of RE Engine. Witness an epic clash between the spirit realm and mortal man.”

First Berserker: Khazan — The action-role-play game shows off a wonderful art style influenced by anime and boasts a brutal combat system from the footage we have seen.
The game’s page on steam tells us that the player “will become Khazan, the great general of the Pell Los Empire, who overcame death, and sets out to reveal the incidents that led to his downfall and seek vengeance on his enemies.”

Those hoping to check out the showcase and learn more about the titles  can do so via the below links:
YouTube.com/Xbox
Regional Xbox channels around the world
Twitch.tv/Xbox
Twitch.tv/XboxASL
Image credit: Xbox.
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In a breakthrough that paved the way for unlimited carbon-free energy, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) engineers successfully tested a novel high-temperature superconducting magnet capable of generating a world-record 20-tesla magnetic field strength, a crucial milestone for enabling practical fusion power plants.
Nearly three years after achieving this test, MIT researchers have now published a comprehensive analysis validating their record-smashing superconducting magnet technology, a key step toward commercial reactors that could provide unlimited clean power
“Overnight, it basically changed the cost per watt of a fusion reactor by a factor of almost 40 in one day,” said Dennis Whyte, former director of MIT’s Plasma Science and Fusion Center. “Now fusion has a chance of being economical.”
At the heart of the breakthrough is a magnet made from a superconducting material called REBCO that can operate at a higher temperature of 20 kelvins, eliminating the need for complex insulation between conductor windings. This “no-insulation” design, proved highly stable and simplified fabrication.
But the rigorous testing process didn’t stop there. Over several additional runs, researchers deliberately pushed the magnet beyond its limits to induce a “quench” – an intentional overheating that simulates worst-case operating conditions. Remarkably, the vast majority of the magnet survived this induced failure with minimal damage.
“That test actually told us exactly the physics that was going on, and it told us which models were useful going forward,” said Zach Hartwig, who headed the engineering group behind the magnet development.
The comprehensive data validated the team’s computer modeling and design approach, paving the way for scaling up the technology for SPARC, the compact fusion device being built by CFS.
Both MIT and CFS credit their close collaboration, combining academic and private sector strengths, as key to achieving this leap in a short timeframe. The decades of expertise at MIT’s fusion facilities also provided crucial knowledge and capabilities.
“This goes to the heart of the institutional capabilities of a place like this,” Hartwig said. “We had the capability, the infrastructure, and the people to do these things under one roof.”
What is Fusion Power?
Fusion power aims to replicate the nuclear process that powers the sun – fusing light atomic nuclei to release tremendous amounts of energy. If harnessed on Earth, it could provide a virtually limitless, carbon-free energy source with low radioactive waste. But achieving the extreme temperatures and pressures for fusion has remained an elusive challenge despite decades of efforts. This latest magnet breakthrough brings that goal closer to reality.
Featured image: Ideogram
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Alphabet’s Google has been told by a United States District Judge that the company will have to face certain antitrust concerns in court.
The Judge for the Southern District of New York, Kevin Castel, would dismiss a number of cases put in front of him, as reports Reuters, but would uphold one key argument to continue.
Castel would address the cases he dismissed, stating that those advertising companies accusing Google of a monopoly “have not plausibly alleged antitrust standing in the markets for ad-buying tools used by large advertisers, but they plausibly allege antitrust standing as to injuries they purportedly suffered from anti-competitive practices in the ad-exchange market and the market for small advertisers’ buying tools.”
Google vs. news industry advertiser
The Judge would allow the case of Gannett, the largest news media publisher in the United States and the owner of USA Today, to continue.
Castel presided over a case updated in August last year, Gannett Co., Inc. v. Google LLC et al. This case informs Castel’s green light for Gannet to argue that Google fraudulently concealed the anticompetitive effects of some technology, but the news industry will have to prove this.
The news empire would say in the court filing that “online digital advertising is a $200 billion business — a nine-fold increase since 2009. Yet, despite the opportunity for publishers to produce more news content and earn more revenue, news publications’ advertising revenue has declined by nearly 70% over the same timeframe.”
Garnett would continue that publishers do not “see the growing ad spending because Google and its parent Alphabet unlawfully have acquired and maintain monopolies for the advertising technology (“ad tech”) tools that publishers and advertisers use to buy and sell online ad space.”
What are these tools?
Publisher ad servers are used as inventory management systems for a publisher to see their online display ad inventory available on desktops, mobile web, and mobile applications.
Garnett argues that a publisher’s ad server is at the mercy of two things linked to Google’s advertising exchange. The search giant operates an “ad exchange (AdX) (linked) to its publisher ad server (DFP). Today, Google permits publishers to clear transactions for impressions through AdX only if they also use DFP,” according to the news powerhouse.
Both the AdX and the DFP were rebranded under the banner of Google Ad Manager. This online toolkit allows websites to offer advertising space for sale and operates as an exchange that automatically matches advertisers with content publishers. Garnett alleges that this is “the dominant exchange and dominant buy-side software; Google is the most powerful buyer of that inventory.”
“The mechanics of Google’s conduct have evolved over time, but the result has remained the same: Google manipulates the process of real-time bidding to exclude rival exchanges, underpay for publisher inventory, and ultimately reduce the quality and quantity of online news,” the case filing would read.
Google has been at the front of monopolizing issues before
The search giant has been at the center of several high profile cases against them reportedly monopolizing the online advertising world. The U.S. Justice Department sued Google in January 2023 for having a stranglehold on digital advertising technologies “that website publishers depend on to sell ads and that advertisers rely on to buy ads and reach potential customers.”
So there is already a case ongoing that Castel has presided over and he has allowed the argument to continue. For the news agency to be successful in court, they must prove that Google is responsible for any wrongdoing in how it operates this ad exchange and if any of these processes harbour any unlawfully hidden processes.
Image credit: Photo by Cottonbros; Pexels
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