To help reduce the potential for malware, Android 14 will begin fully blocking the installation of apps that target outdated versions of Android.

For years now, the guidelines for the Google Play Store have ensured that Android developers keep their apps updated to use the latest features and safety measures of the Android platform. Just this month, the guidelines were updated, requiring newly listed Play Store apps to target Android 12 at a minimum.

Up to this point, these minimum API level requirements have only applied to apps that are intended for the Google Play Store. Should a developer wish to create an app for an older version, they can do so and simply ask their users to sideload the APK file manually. Similarly, if an Android app hasn’t been updated since the guidelines changed, the Play Store will continue serving the app to those who have installed it once before.

According to a newly posted code change, Android 14 is set to make API requirements stricter, entirely blocking the installation of outdated apps. This change would block users from sideloading specific APK files and also block app stores from installing those same apps.

Initially, Android 14 devices will only block apps that target especially old Android versions. Over time though, the plan is to increase the threshold to Android 6.0 (Marshmallow), with Google having a mechanism to “progressively ramp [it] up.” That said, it will likely still be up to each device maker to decide the threshold for outdated apps or whether to enable it at all.

You are observing step 1, intended to kill tens of thousands of older apps, because Google want to clear the field and prepare to next step.

We'll soon see that APK installation will become almost impossible.

Tech billionaire Bill Gates has warned Australia to prepare for the next pandemic, which could be man-made and far more brutal.

Mr Gates told the Lowy Institute think tank in Sydney on Monday that political leaders need to settle their differences and work together to prepare for the next virus.

He called for greater global cooperation, citing the Covid-19 pandemic as an example of how countries could improve their response if they worked together.

Tech billionaire Bill Gates has warned Australia to be prepared for the next pandemic, saying it will be man-made

He called for greater global cooperation, citing the Covid-19 pandemic as an example of how countries could improve their response if they worked together

“Compare the economic cost of preparing for the next to the cost of this, over $10 trillion in economic loss,” he said.

“With the pandemic, we were foolish not to have the tools, the practice and the global capacity to be on standby as we do with fire or earthquakes.”

https://canadatoday.news/ca/bill-gates-is-warning-australia-to-prepare-for-the-next-pandemic-which-could-be-man-made-and-far-more-brutal-than-covid-240853/

Directly desktop discrete graphics cards were sold 31.5% less than in the third quarter of 2021. NVIDIA was able to increase its share in the segment from 79% to 86% in a year, AMD fell from 21% to 10%, and Intel, acting as a newcomer, occupied 4% of the market in the third quarter of the outgoing year, which is not bad for a “debutant”. However, we should not forget that in the middle of the last decade of the last century, Intel Corporation was already selling its own discrete graphics solutions, so the current expansion was the first stage for it to return to the market. According to Jeon Peddie Research, for the entire GPU market, the third quarter was the most disastrous since the 2009 crisis.

https://repositorio.cepal.org/bitstream/handle/11362/48519/1/S2200946_en.pdf