Month: April 2022

Enlarge / The Nook 10" HD. (credit: Barnes & Noble)

The great Google Play billing crackdown is finally here.

Developers selling digital goods inside their Android apps all need to switch to Google Play billing, or they will be locked out of the Play Store. This has technically always been the rule at Google Play, but it went mostly unenforced until Google gave developers a deadline of September 2021 to get on board. The company then delayed the transition by letting app developers request a six-month extension, which ran out on March 31. So it has been a few days now—what's different?

The Verge reports that Amazon and Barnes & Noble are both complying with Google's rules. Amazon can sell whatever physical products it wants on its own billing system, but the company's Audible division sells digital purchases, which means it's Google Play or the highway. Amazon has responded by pulling digital book purchases from the Android Audible app.

Enlarge / The Nook 10" HD. (credit: Barnes & Noble)

The great Google Play billing crackdown is finally here.

Developers selling digital goods inside their Android apps all need to switch to Google Play billing, or they will be locked out of the Play Store. This has technically always been the rule at Google Play, but it went mostly unenforced until Google gave developers a deadline of September 2021 to get on board. The company then delayed the transition by letting app developers request a six-month extension, which ran out on March 31. So it has been a few days now—what's different?

The Verge reports that Amazon and Barnes & Noble are both complying with Google's rules. Amazon can sell whatever physical products it wants on its own billing system, but the company's Audible division sells digital purchases, which means it's Google Play or the highway. Amazon has responded by pulling digital book purchases from the Android Audible app.

Enlarge / Tesla CEO Elon Musk at an opening event for Tesla's Gigafactory on March 22, 2022, in Gruenheide, southeast of Berlin. (credit: Getty Images | Patrick Pleul)

Elon Musk has purchased 9.2 percent of Twitter's stock, he revealed in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing on Monday. The Tesla and SpaceX CEO bought 73,486,938 Twitter shares on March 14, the filing said.

Musk's stake was worth $2.89 billion, based on Twitter's closing price on Friday, and "appears to make Mr. Musk Twitter's largest shareholder," The New York Times wrote. Musk's "holding is slightly larger than Vanguard's 8.8 percent at the end of last year, and it dwarfs the 2.3 percent stake of Jack Dorsey, Twitter's former chief executive."

Twitter's stock price was up over 28 percent today as of this writing. Based on today's rise, Musk "has made about $1.1 billion on his holding since mid-March," Bloomberg wrote.

Enlarge / World of Tanks will remain playable in Russia and Belarus even though developer Wargaming is leaving those countries.

Wargaming, the developer behind the massively popular military MMO World of Tanks and its spin-offs, has decided to close its offices in Russia and Belarus amid the ongoing invasion of Ukraine.

In an announcement on LinkedIn, the company cited a "strategic review of business operations worldwide" precipitating the move. That's not that surprising, as governmental and corporate sanctions have made it increasingly difficult for many international businesses to operate in Russia and Belarus in the first place.

But that doesn't mean the closings will be of immediate financial benefit to Wargaming. "The company will not profit from this process either today or going forward," Wargaming wrote. "Much to the contrary, we expect to suffer substantial losses as a direct result of this decision."