News publishers group asks Apple to lower its App Store fees for them

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A publisher's group representing the likes of the New York Times, The Economist, the Washington Post, NPR, Conde Nast, etc. is hoping to cut down its 30% "Apple tax" to 15%. The request comes a week after Epic's legal battle with Apple began over this cut Apple (and Google) get from in-app purchases. But the trade organization Digital Content Next got the idea from Amazon. Documents released as part of a Congressional antitrust hearing in the US with CEOs from Facebook, Amazon, Apple and Google-owner Alphabet revealed that Apple takes 15% from Amazon's App Store revenue for Prime Video instead of the standard 30%.

Digital Content Next's CEO Jason Kint wrote in an open letter to Apple CEO Tim Cook, asking about the conditions its members need to meet to qualify for the same arrangement. Because right now, nearly a third of every newspaper subscription sold through an iOS device goes to Apple. Cook said during the hearing that this deal was open to any developer that meets the conditions. 

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Epic Games to host #FreeFortnite Cup on Aug. 23

With Fortnite currently banned from the Apple App Store and Epic Games on the verge of losing access to its Apple developer accounts, the developer is holding a special #FreeFortnite Cup on Sunday, August 23, for "one more Victory Royale with friends across all platforms."

Epic will be offering a host of prizes during the event ranging from an in-game outfit, physical "Free Fortnite" hat, to non-Apple hardware, including Alienware laptops, Samsung Galaxy Tab S7 tablets, OnePlus 8 phones, and Xbox One X and Nintendo Switch gaming systems.

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Fossil Gen 5 smartwatches get new sleep tracking, fitness features

Fossil updates its Gen 5 Wear OS smartwatches with many new features, even without Google's help. The wearables get new functions that aren't part of standard Wear OS, including sleep and VO2 max tracking. The latter helps with tracking your overall cardio fitness level. 

The update improves activity tracking, promising better real-time fitness tracking (like heart rate, pace, distance, steps, and calories) at half the power consumption. Fossil achieves this by offloading the tasks to the QCC1110 co-processor.

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Zoom to support Facebook, Amazon, Google smart displays this year

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Zoom is bringing its video conferencing app to smart displays this year. The company will start rolling it out to Facebook Portal first in September, with Amazon Echo Show and Google Nest Hub Max getting support before the year ends. 

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