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Good morning, especially for the Emerging Tech Brew empire. As of today, we have a second writer: Hayden Field. She’s had stints at Protocol and Entrepreneur Magazine and her work has appeared in Wired UK, MIT Tech Review, and OneZero.
In today’s edition:
 Epic and Apple update
 Palantir IPO
🌪 Disaster response AI
 A surprise
—Ryan Duffy
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Epic
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It’s been ten days since Epic Games went to bat against the mobile marketplace duopoly. Where does the Nineteen Eighty-Fortnite situation stand now?
Epic held the #FreeFortnite cup yesterday, a last hurrah for iOS players. The game doled out virtual and IRL prizes, and explained how users could switch from iOS to Android, PC, or console alternatives.
In court, we haven’t reached reconciliation
Epic and Apple are still litigating the App Store battle.
Last week, Apple asked a judge to swat down Epic’s request for a temporary restraining order that would restore iOS Fortnite on Epic’s terms. Apple said that Epic’s problem was self-inflicted and could be fixed if it updated Fortnite to follow its rules.
- Apple contends that Epic requested a special App Store deal. Epic CEO Tim Sweeney denied that, tweeting June email correspondence with Apple.
Expect more legalese throughout the week
On Friday, Apple is set to revoke Epic’s access to developer tools. That could affect anyone using Epic’s Unreal Engine, a popular tool among game developers and filmmakers.
Yesterday, Epic filed a new motion saying that losing its developer privileges could reverberate among a wider group of game makers. Microsoft, an Unreal Engine user, filed a statement in support of Epic.
- “Ensuring that Epic has access to the latest Apple technology is the right thing for game developers and gamers,” Xbox chief Phil Spencer tweeted.
A story of leverage
As the sole proprietor of the App Store walled garden, Apple determines the rules. Epic breached them, so Fortnite is out.
- Epic’s crusade hasn’t worried investors. Apple’s market cap passed $2 trillion last week, then added another $100 billion.
- As of send time, Apple is worth roughly 123 Epics.
Epic has leverage, too—it’s rallying end users and developers against Apple. An unusual coalition of big names—Spotify, Match Group, Facebook, Microsoft—has lined up behind Epic in one way or another.
Big picture: If Apple pulls iOS support for Unreal Engine, it may affect a wide swath of digital world builders and game developers.
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Cory Doctorow / Flickr
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Founded in 2003, Palantir Technologies is one of Silicon Valley’s oldest unicorns. Like many of those unicorns, the data analytics startup has yet to turn a profit.
In July, it confidentially filed an S-1 to go public—TechCrunch got its hands on screenshots of the document.
$$$: Palantir pulled in $742 million in 2019, a roughly 25% increase in revenue over 2018. In both years, the startup recorded a net loss of roughly $580 million (or net cash outflow, as WeWork likes to say).
IPO: The company will go public via direct listing—a route that Slack and Spotify also took—and create three tiers of stock. The founders will retain 49.999999% voting control in perpetuity. Yes, that many 9s.
Clients: Palantir had 125 customers in the first half of 2020. Many of them are government clients. The startup’s work with some government customers (including ICE) has generated controversy.
Big picture: Due to its losses and difficulties attracting corporate customers, Palantir may not be able to attain the same P/E ratio as other newly public software companies.
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SPONSORED BY ELECTRIC
There’s Nothing Cooler Than This IT Support
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And we mean that literally. Because if your company has between 20 and 2,000 employees and you can make decisions about IT, simply set up a meeting with Electric and they’ll give you a free Yeti cooler.
That means you can stop worrying about keeping your company secure AND keeping your drinks cool on a piping hot summer day.
But just who is Electric and why is taking some time to speak with them worth it (besides the Yeti)? They’re the IT experts who are reinventing how businesses manage their IT security, support, and devices.
They’ll streamline all those difficult, time-consuming IT processes that you need, but don’t want to deal with.
And we cannot overstate this; they’re cool. And they give you cool stuff. Just for having a chill meeting.
Get the coolest IT support around with Electric.
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Francis Scialabba
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Last week, the Department of Energy and Microsoft said they were partnering to create AI tools for disaster response. The DOE has created the First Five Consortium, which refers to the critical importance of how first responders make decisions in the first five minutes after a disaster strikes.
Microsoft and the DOE, along with the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and the Pentagon’s Joint AI Center, will apply AI tools to:
- Wildfire prediction and fire line containment (which is especially timely at the moment)
- Damage assessment
- Search and rescue
- Natural disasters
This is an area where deep learning could excel
Why? We have ample amounts of weather sensors and data. Deep learning models, which improve with scale, can use that data to make predictions or find patterns.
As multiple natural disasters unfold across the U.S., improving modeling and responses is a necessity. AI won’t be a perfect predictor. But with accelerating climate change, the more tools we have, the better.
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Francis Scialabba
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...time remaining: 1 day.
Over the last two months, I’ve been working on a project that we’re excited to launch tomorrow. Spoiler alert: It’s not a newsletter. But the non-newsletter will be as interesting as any Bits & Bytes section you’d normally see here.
Emerging Tech Brew will never be the same. Tune in tomorrow to see what we’re launching next. Follow along on our Twitter and Instagram, too.
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Gitee is emerging as a Chinese open-source alternative to GitHub.
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The Census Bureau confirms that U.S. e-commerce penetration is experiencing a hockey-stick growth rate this year.
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TikTok is suing the Trump Administration. WeChat users are also suing the White House to overturn an executive order banning transactions with the superapp.
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Mark Zuckerberg raised concerns about TikTok and other Chinese internet companies in meetings with U.S. senators last year, the WSJ reports.
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Ant Group, the Chinese fintech firm behind Alipay, is eyeing a $225 billion valuation ahead of dual listings in Shanghai and Hong Kong. The company pulled in $3.5 billion in profit in H1 2020.
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Monday: Y Combinator Summer Demo Day runs through tomorrow; Advancing Vertical Farming Summit runs through Wednesday; 2020 Republican National Convention begins.
Tuesday: China breaks down new five-year plan; TSMC hosts virtual conference; Earnings (Salesforce, HPE, Best Buy); Toronto International Film Festival schedule announced.
Wednesday: The American Institute in Taiwan hosts 5G forum.
Thursday: Earnings (HP, Box).
Friday: Neuralink progress update; Earnings (HP, VMWare).
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For a throwback: Today is the 25th anniversary of the release of the Windows 95 operating system. You’ve probably seen a video of the launch party. If you haven’t, it’s a must-watch.
For a new docuseries: Netflix’s High Score looks back at the select histories of retro game makers.
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Catch up on the top Emerging Tech Brew stories from the past few editions:
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Written by
@ryanfduffy
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