The rise of Android: We chart the rise of Google's operating system, which had a little help from Oracle

4/8/21 8:00PM

Copy, paste, lawsuit

‍This week the US Supreme Court ruled in favor of Google in its 10-year legal battle against software giant Oracle, which had accused Google of copying around 12,000 lines of code during Google's development of Android — its mobile operating system software.

The code in question was from Oracle's Java application programming interface, and Oracle was hoping that it might be owed up to $9 billion in compensation, as Android went on to become the dominant operating system for mobile phones around the world. The Supreme Court saw things differently and ruled 6 to 2 that Google's use of the code counted as "fair use" under US copyright law.

The rise of Android

‍Back in 2009 making hardware (the smartphones themselves) was already enough of a challenge, and many manufacturers were loathe to either pay up for operating software, or invest a huge chunk of money in building their own. Google's master move was to make Android free and open source, allowing companies to build and customize on top of the Android OS, at no cost.

That model meant that, slowly but surely, pretty much every manufacturer except Apple abandoned their own operating systems in favor of Android, and at the latest count Android is the OS of choice for more than 70% of the mobile smartphone market according to data from StatCounter.

Android might be (mostly) free at the point of use, but it's a huge revenue generator for Google. The Google Play Store is the official app store for Android devices, and it's very likely a big chunk of the $21bn of revenue that Google reported as "other revenues" in 2020. On top of that you can add on all the revenue from Google Search, YouTube and other Google apps that usually come pre-loaded on Android devices.

Chris Stokel-Walker

Bot bias

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Prediction markets have, predictably, been given a boost by the summer of sports

Major platforms like Kalshi and Polymarket have seen huge upticks in users of late, thanks in no small part to what’s felt like a recent sporting smorgasbord, with major competitions across hockey, basketball, and soccer soaking up fans’ time (and spending, clearly) at the outset of summer.

While gaming industry groups may not like it, there’s been a huge change in the methods people are using to put money on the big games, with everyone from fortunate NYC bar owners, to a far less fortunate Spanish supporter, turning to prediction markets to try and turn their sports know-how into cold, hard cash.

According to a new report from Adam Blacker for apptopia, that shift might have been even more seismic than imagined in the wake of the NBA and NHL finals and around the 2026 World Cup kicking off.

2026 World Cup Reverses Seasonal Lull for Sports Betting Apps

According to a new report from Adam Blacker for apptopia, that shift might have been even more seismic than imagined in the wake of the NBA and NHL finals and around the 2026 World Cup kicking off.

South by Southwest Conference and Festivals

Gold Tesla Cybercabs are piling up, but they’re not picking up passengers yet

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TAKING ACCOUNTS

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Britain announces social media ban for under-16s starting early 2027

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Anthropic pulls Fable and Mythos access worldwide after Trump administration bars their use by foreign nationals

Only days after releasing two versions of its next-gen AI model, Anthropic has disabled them for users worldwide.

Anthropic says it received a Friday night order from the Trump administration to suspend access to the models for any foreign national (anywhere in the world) — a group that included some Anthropic employees. In response, the company turned off access to everyone.

Last week, the company released to the public its much-anticipated Claude Fable 5 model (and its restricted version Claude Mythos 5, which is still being tested with trusted partners). Anthropic said in a blog post announcing the action that officials cited national security concerns with the new models, while offering few specific details.

The post said that the government gave the company “verbal evidence of a potential narrow, non-universal jailbreak” of the public Fable 5 model. A jailbreak is a means by which users can evade restrictions built into the code to unlock prohibited functionality. Anthropic downplayed the significance of the attack, and said other major models, such as OpenAI’s GPT-5.5, could also be affected by the technique described.

Fears of these first Mythos-class models being misused are running high, after Anthropic warned the cybersecurity world in May that the advanced cyber capabilities of Mythos have rapidly discovered thousands of vulnerabilities in ubiquitous software, leading to the decision to restrict the full version of the model to a close group of trusted partners for testing.

This morning, Axios reported that Anthropic technical staff have flown to Washington to meet with White House officials to resolve the issue.

The Wall Street Journal is reporting that the Trump administration’s decision to take action against Anthropic was prompted by discussions that Amazon CEO Andy Jassy had with officials, including Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent. According to the report, Amazon researchers said they had been able to evade some of Fable 5’s security restrictions using specific prompts. Amazon is a major investor in Anthropic.

Anthropic is currently suing the US government to fight the Pentagon’s blacklisting of the company on national security grounds.

Statement on the US government directive to suspend access to Fable 5 and Mythos 5