A US judge has given Google one week to reduce friction in finding and installing third-party app stores on the Play Store after ruling the current process anticompetitive. The order stems from the company's 2025 settlement with Epic following the 2023 monopoly finding on app distribution.
Epic's lawyers reportedly demonstrated that entering the search term "store for apps" returned no results for app stores.
The company replaced the normal "Install" button with a "View" button on the only third-party app store listed on the Play Store, Aptoide.
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Aptoide is now the first third-party app store available for download directly inside Google Play in the US, following remedies from Epic's 2023 antitrust win against Google. The change eliminates sideloading warnings and gives users easier access to rival storefronts with up to 1.9 million apps and 295,000 games.
Google DeepMind, Meta, and Isomorphic Labs are investing $300 million in Biohub to build AI datasets for a virtual cell model. The funding is part of a $1.8 billion initiative that also includes contributions from the Department of Energy and National Institutes of Health.
A weekly tech recap highlighted Meta's GDPR data exports enabling an investigation, early Xiaomi 18 Pro benchmarks, a broad PS5 browser exploit, Google's Gemini 4 Argon claims, and OpenAI's persistent agents. The items show continued movement in device security, mobile hardware, and AI tooling.
Alphabet launched Gemini 4 Argon on Wednesday to select cybersecurity partners, claiming record results in software engineering and leadership in professional-task benchmarks. The phased rollout prioritizes defenders while the company scales safeguards against misuse and prompt injection.
Paramount settled an antitrust lawsuit with 12 states seeking to block its $110 billion acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery, clearing a key hurdle days before a costly ticking fee would have started. The deal includes commitments to 30+ films per year, an additional $1.5 billion in U.S. film production spending over 2025 levels, a News Editorial Independence Board for CNN and CBS, and penalties including Miramax divestiture for shortfalls.
