criticism

The European Commission responds to Apple’s criticism and distances itself with its story about Siri AI

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Maybe the Apple Intelligence news convince us more or less, and maybe Siri AI still have a lot to prove when it hits devices. But there is a quite concrete reality for European users: if they have an iPhone or an iPad, they will not be able to try out one of Apple’s big bets to iOS 27 and iPadOS 27. The Cupertino company has placed the delay in the field of European regulation, but the story does not end there. What we have seen next is a direct clash between Apple and Brussels over control of AI assistants and the rules that should open them to competition. Brussels’ response. The European Commission has not accepted that reading. According to Reuterss, his spokesman Thomas Regnier said that “the decision not to launch Siri AI in the EU is Apple’s and Apple’s alone,” adding that there is nothing in the Digital Markets Law that prevents the company from introducing new products in the European Union. The message was even more direct when explaining what Apple had asked for during the conversations: to be exempt from its interoperability obligations for at least 18 months. “That is not an option,” Regnier concluded. What is DMA? It is likely that in recent years we have read these acronyms many times, but the DMA is better understood when a specific case appears on the table. The Digital Markets Law is a European competition law that seeks to prevent large platforms from closing access to services, applications and users. In the case of Siri AI, the debate focuses on interoperability: if Apple deploys its own artificial intelligence assistant, it must also allow third-party developers to offer alternative assistants within its ecosystem. Apple as gatekeeper. That framing helps to understand why Brussels does not present the case as a simple calendar decision. Thomas Regnier, quoted by The New York Timesrecalled that Apple is a “gatekeeper” and that “it cannot close the market.” The company itself explains in its documentation on the DMA that the European Commission designated it as such in relation to iOS, App Store and Safari on September 5, 2023, and with iPadOS on April 29, 2024. The bottom line, therefore, is not only when Siri AI arrives, but how the ecosystem opens up to services that compete with Siri AI. What changes for you if you are in Europe. The most visible consequence is simple: if you use an iPhone or iPad in the European Union, Siri AI will not be there when iOS 27 and iPadOS 27 arrive. Apple also leaves out watchOS 27, because the watch needs to be paired with an iPhone that has Siri AI. On Mac and Vision Pro, however, the company does plan to offer the new version of the assistant. What is left behind on mobile and tablet includes the app to review conversations, expanded Visual Intelligence, integrated writing tools and Siri mode in Camera. The proposal that Brussels did not accept. In his statementApple says it designed Trusted System Agent, an intermediary so that other virtual assistants could securely access the same features and capabilities as Siri AI on European devices. The company assures that it also proposed a gradual deployment of that solution over 18 months while it brought Siri AI to the European Union. The bottom of the pulse. Apple presents the delay as a consequence of the DMA and privacy and security risks that, according to the company, have not been recognized by European regulators. Brussels responds from another place: it maintains that the rule does not prevent launching new products in the European Union and that Apple has not found a solution compatible with its obligations. Images | Apple | Pascal Bullan In Xataka | The biggest sign that a foldable iPhone is coming went unnoticed at WWDC

“I think it’s the most valid criticism of AI right now, there is a lot of expense”

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The artificial intelligence race is causing large technology companies to squander enormous sums of money to have the best AI, the one that the most people use and, above all, the one that generates the most money (three concepts that are far from the same thing and, rather, let them tell Google). According to Goldman Sachs databig tech and their infrastructure providers have on their roadmap to spend more than a trillion dollars on chips, data centers and software. The million dollar question is: is there a return after that investment? The CEO of OpenAI, one of the companies in the fight and certainly one of the most interested (it does not have the muscle of veterans like Google, Meta or Microsoft), has already recognized it in an interview for CNBC: It is absolutely normal to worry about that spending on AI due to the waste and the uncertainty of when they will get their reward (if it ever arrives). Sam Altman’s statements. Asked about the doubts generated by AI, he responded bluntly that it is “the fairest criticism that can be made of AI at this moment.” And he added: “I know big things are happening, but I know there is a lot of waste.” He also put on the table the two questions that companies that adopt AI in their processes ask: how long do they have to wait for this change to be noticed in their income and how long for costs to be under control. Spoiler: taking into account the latest movements from Uber and Microsofttwo completely successful companies, things are looking bad. The most interesting thing about this display of honesty is where they come from. Altman is the person who has raised the most money for fund OpenAIone of the leading companies in the AI ​​sector but also one of the newcomers, a baby compared to mythical companies that have been dominating the technology for decades. That Altman talks about waste is a before and after in the industry’s discourse. Why is it important. Until now, the ROI of AI has been a concept on the lips of skeptical analysts, economists and people who disbelieve this boom who point directly to a bubble about to burst. But Altman has integrated it into his corporate discourse and that represents a paradigm shift: it is no longer a critical position from outside the sector, it is that the most influential company verbalizes it to users and investors. As we mentioned in the intro, Goldman Sachs already considered this same question back in 2024 with its “Gen AI: Too Much Spend, Too Little Benefit?”. Economist and 2024 Nobel Prize winner Daron Acemoglu of MIT published a study called “The Simple Macroeconomics of AI” where he estimated that the real impact of AI on economic productivity in the next decade would be a paltry (especially if we take into account the speeches and investments) of just 0.5%. Context. That in this phase of expansion and training of AI It is not profitable it is no secretbut this is both an economic and a technical problem. With data in hand, there are reasons to worry. This recent Cast AI report It includes the analysis of 23,000 computing clusters, revealing that the average utilization of GPUs is only 5%. That is, 95% of the most expensive and advanced hardware on the market (those highly sought-after NVIDIA graphics cards) is operating well below its capacity. Part of the explanation lies in FOMO: explains Venture Beat that there are many companies acquiring AI chips not because they need them right now, but out of fear of running out of them in the future. The phenomenon is not new, we already saw it during the pandemic with semiconductors (and on a domestic scale, with toilet paper). There is someone who wins. In this story of companies investing to win the AI ​​race and other companies adopting it to modernize, there is someone who is winning from the first minute: NVIDIA bills the same whether its chips work at 5% or 100%. And he is breaking all his records. In 2024 record revenues of $60.9 billion (126% more than the previous year) thanks to this excessive demand for data centers. The large cloud providers, the holy trinity composed of Amazon, Microsoft and Google (the three occupy 70% of the market, according to Synergy data) bill the same regardless of whether the client is achieving results. According to Synergy Research Groupthe global cloud infrastructure market will exceed $330 billion in 2024. The underlying problem is incentives: those who have the most weight in the pace of investment in AI are precisely those who lose the least, hence no one is taking measures against waste. Yes, but. Making a catastrophic reading of Altman’s statements would be a mistake and in fact, the CEO of OpenAI himself expressed his confidence “the industry will solve it quickly.” After all, in that initial phase it is normal to incur losses and if not, tell Netflix with streaming. Current waste may simply be the cost of setting up infrastructure whose value will be realized later. Even the Goldman Sachs report acknowledges that bubbles take time to burst, meaning there is room for AI to deliver on its promises. Of course, a good part of the current artificial intelligence expenditure is linked to GPUs with specific architectures that could become obsolete in the face of more efficient models or specific architectures. In Xataka | The problem is not spending a lot of tokens, it’s that most of them are being wasted In Xataka | Anthropic has moved ahead of OpenAI in its race to go public. This is very bad news for Sam Altman Cover | TechCrunch (CC BY 2.0) and Giorgio Trovato

Nvidia reacts to criticism of DLSS 5 from players and press

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Nvidia introduced DLSS 5 at GTC 2026 as its biggest graphics advancement since ray tracing. In a matter of hourstechnology became the biggest meme generator of the year and turned the entire gaming community against it. After the criticism, the CEO of Nvidia has come to justify the company’s decisions. Spoiler: the situation has not improved. Almost unanimous rejection. Nvidia presented DLSS 5 at GTC 2026 as an evolution that goes beyond upscaling traditional. The system analyzes the color and motion vectors of each frame and applies an AI model to generate photorealistic lighting and materials anchored to the game’s original 3D data. However, a good part of the community and professionals industry called DLSS 5 “AI slop.” The examples used by Nvidia as a demonstration have been the spearhead of these problems: Grace Ashcroft from ‘Resident Evil Requiem’ with more pronounced cheekbones, fuller lips and uniform skin, or characters from ‘Starfield’ who gain facial resolution but at the cost of aesthetic coherence… A fundamental error that came from assuming that “more photorealistic” is equivalent to “better”, when decades of video game design point in a direction that is, at the very least, complementary. Nvidia’s response. Jensen Huang responded to the controversy during a question session in GTC 2026 itself, in what was the CEO’s first public reaction to the general unrest. His words left no room for ambiguity: “Well, first of all, people are completely wrong.” Their technical argument was that, according to Huang, DLSS 5 combines developer-created geometry and textures with generative AI, leaving control in the hands of art teams. Developers can adjust the model to fit the intended art direction, rather than handing that process over entirely to AI. The manager insisted that It’s not about post-processing at the frame level.but rather generative control at the geometry level, what Nvidia calls “content-controlled generative AI”, adding generative capacity over the game’s existing geometry without altering artistic control. Huang added that studios can also explore stylized or non-photorealistic results depending on the type of game they want to build, and that players who don’t want to activate DLSS 5 they can just ignore it and continue with current scaling techniques. Bethesda supported that position. The study clarified that what was shown was a very preliminary version. Calculation errors. There were those who pointed out that the presentation of DLSS 5 in the middle of a keynote mostly dedicated to the cloud and enterprise AI, before an audience already extremely polarized with AI, turns Huang’s statements into ammunition that will be repeated until Nvidia manages to convincingly explain what DLSS 5 is and why gamers and developers need it. Comparisons have been read to Apple’s “Antennagate” (when the company’s response to criticism was perceived as arrogance): being right and communicating it poorly is like not being right. What’s behind. PC Gamer also points to a deeper debate: if it was previously possible to modify the graphical style of a game through adjustments or mods, hardware-assisted generative AI represents a shortcut controlled by large technology companies that could radically transform how artistic authorship is perceived in video games. It remains to be resolved whether when games arrive that have integrated DLSS 5 from the beginning and with a defined artistic direction they will change that perception. There it will be detected, without a doubt, who in this entire battle was really wrong. In Xataka | NVIDIA is going to spend $4 billion on photonics companies. He is preparing for what is coming

There is a lot of criticism of Cruzcampo in half of Spain, but it is one of the few breweries that are growing right now

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Heineken has announced an epoch-making global adjustment: up to 6,000 jobs will disappear amid a series of drastic cuts and a simplification of the structure around the world. All over the world? No, a village populated by irreducible Sevillians still and always resists the crisis in the sector. Despite the alcohol crisis and the general joke, Cruzcampo endures. The question is why. A market in recession. The beer market he is not living his best moment in Spain: per capita consumption fell from 55.5 liters to 52.8 in 2024. And, in fact, if it holds up it is thanks to the 90 million tourists who visit us every year. This is very clear when we see what is happening in the mass consumption sector: the sum of inflation and the boom of private labels (or distributor) has meant that, for the first time, commercial brands do not reach 70%. Faced with this, Heineken Spain is going like a shot. Cruzcampo (and the rest of the group’s brands) have managed to fight very well on several fronts: they have been leaders in share gain in the food channel (a growth of 0.8 in 2024), but they have also managed to position themselves in the premium sector (under the idea that they do not sell beer, but moments). Furthermore, we must not forget that Spain is one of the markets where the sin and 0’0 have the greatest power with up to 14% of total consumption. And, in that context, Cruzcampo is one of the greats: the first beer with lemon (one without for all intents and purposes) was the shandy of the brand and it came out, pay attention to the fact, in 1986. And not only that: Cruzcampo has become international. In the United Kingdom the figures are clear: Sevillian beer managed to find its way into one of every four bars and nine of every 10 supermarkets (always according to Heineken itself). It is not the only one, of course: Mahou or Estrella Galicia are in the same play. And the results are clear: imports of Spanish beer into the UK have grown by 155% in ten years. He who laughs last laughs best. Because we already know that Cruzcampo has become a meme and there is half of Spain that prides itself on rejecting it on an identity level. And yet, at the brand level Cruzcampo already appeared as the only Spanish one that rose slightly in value in a Brand Finance ranking. Something is happening under the radar: it is the spearhead of a group that is gaining momentum because it is growing right where it needs to grow. Image | Adam Jones In Xataka | A German abbey had been producing one of the oldest beers in the world since 1050. Now it has had to be sold

‘Eriksholm’ is a game with 93% of positive criticism in Steam and crazy graphics. And yet it has crashed

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Doing video games is not easy. Not only is it a complex development that does not end when the game arrives in Steam, but having an operational and functional video game is only part of the film. It is useless to have a good idea, good production values and eager if the title does not reach who has to get: the players. And if not, tell them to ‘Eriksholm: The Stolen Dream‘. Eriksholm. This is the first title of the Swedish study River End Games (although its creative director comes from says). Roughlyit is a narrative video game with isometric perspective and stealth as the main protagonist. There are no skill trees, level ups or such things to which current games have accustomed us. We control a character and we have to travel the city of Eriksholm without seeing us. Could it be said that it is a puzzle game that is resolved stealth? It could be said. Eriksholm: The Stolen Dream | Valve Altísimos production values. The Swedish study can boast of having done a sensational job in terms of graphics. ‘Eriksholm’ has some of the most spectacular kinematics and facial captures that we have seen for a long time, an outstanding visual quality and amazing animations. This, which is a delight for the eyes, surely plays against the title for a simple reason: the investment. The general norm is that having such powerful graphics is synonymous with having made a strong investment. Investment that in triple A games with great studies can be profitable at the same time, but ‘Erikslhom’ is not precisely that. It is the first game of a new studio and, in addition, it is very niche: it has an isometric perspective type RTS, it is based on stealth, it is short (like 12 hours, more or less), it is barely rejugable and costs 40 euros in Steam. Eriksholm: The Stolen Dream | Valve But I loved it. That is the worst drink. Despite its disastrous release in terms of figures, the game has reaped excellent criticism. In Steam, he has 363 reviews, the majority very positive, and the specialized press has put it through the clouds. That is something that many indies cannot say. The negative criticisms, on the other hand, agree that the narrative falls from the second section of the game, which can be repetitive and that, above all, it takes a long time to start. Be that as it may, despite the reception of the press and most users, ‘Eriksholm’ has not managed to overcome The 500 simultaneous players on the day of its launch. At the time these lines are written there are 106 people playing in Steam, to which the console and Epic Games players should be added. Eriksholm: The Stolen Dream | Valve In the background. Erikslhom’s case puts a very raw reality on the table: the world of video games is voracious. Video games are increasingly expensive to produce and Its price, therefore, is also higher. The budget to buy them, however, has not grown at the same rate and the amount that can be dedicated to experimenting and trying new things is very limited. And what does that translate? In which the player is sure, betting on the great franchises he knows and that, generally, propose games that are a well (‘Call of Duty’, ‘EA Sports FC’, etc.). Despite the overwhelming rhythm of video game launches, the reality is that Steam’s average player Just play four different video games a year. Cover image | Eriksholm: The Stolen Dream in Steam In Xataka | The milling of a programmer made a fateful mistake of this classic video game into a congratulation message

Nvidia tries to placate the criticism of the distribution of the GeForce RTX 50. Your answer is not entirely convincing

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Several weeks after its launch it is still very difficult to find in the stores a family graphics card GeForce RTX 50 with a price aligned with its official cost. The easiest model to get with a price Similar to the marked by Nvidia It is the GeForce RTX 5070but the others or have an important extra cost or are not available. In this scenario it is understandable that users who have decided to get one of these graphics cards are disappointed. Many of you have clearly expressed it in The comments of our articlesand forums dedicated to PC hardware are full of users They complain due to the low availability of the new NVIDIA graphics cards. Given the circumstances, the company led by Jensen Huang has been forced to face with the purpose of appeasing players and trying to explain what is happening. This is Nvidia’s response As we can see in the graphics that we publish on the cover of this article, Nvidia says that during the first five weeks after the launch has distributed twice the graphics cards of the GeForce RTX 50 family that on its day of the range GeForce RTX 40. However, this explanation deserves a calm analysis. And, as they point out in Tom’s hardware and Redditthis comparison does not scrupulously reflect what is happening. During the first five weeks of the launch of the GeForce RTX 40, only the RTX 4090 was available Jarred Walton, one of Tom’s hardware editors, explains very well: During the first five weeks after the launch of the GeForce RTX 40, only the RTX 4090. This graphics card arrived on October 12, 2022, and the RTX 4080 landed on November 16, just five weeks later. All users know that RTX 4090 is not an adequate graphic solution for a wide range of players or for its price or for their benefits. However, during the first five weeks after the launch of the GeForce RTX 50 family, the four graphics cards that are currently available: the RTX 5090, the RTX 5080, the RTX 5070 TI and the RTX 5070 arrived. The first two landed together on January 30, 2025, while the GeForce RTX 5070 TI arrived on February 20. Finally, the GeForce RTX 5070 appeared almost at the end of this period: on March 5. If we have all this present it is reasonable to conclude that the comparison made by Nvidia It is not balanced. Not even accepting the possibility that this company has added the RTX 4080 to the figure of the GeForce RTX 40 family. Hopefully both availability and prices are normalized as soon as possible for the good of users. Image | Nvidia More information | Tom’s hardware In Xataka | If Nvidia lived only from PC GPUs, she would be about to die of success. And US tariffs don’t help

Javier Aguirre could not avoid criticism against some of his players for the defeat against River Plate

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However Javier Aguirre He did not want to blame the players for the 2-0 defeat against River Plate, finally in the press conference after the game at the Monumental stadium in Buenos Aires he ended up acknowledging that several players do not have the level to wear the national t-shirt “It is the law of life, football does not forgive you, you have to be there to always improve and we saw that for some it is not enough, I drew conclusions from what I saw, I’m happy for the tour, not for the result, I hoped we could fight more, but that was what it was for us,” said Vasco about the lack of football level of some players. However, Aguirre also said that several players showed the opposite and although he did not want to name names, he stated that three or four earned their repetition in other games for the Mexico team: “I do not want to give names so as not to affect the other players, But there are three or four who earned their repetition.” The future plans of the Mexican national team Regarding when Mexico’s next game will be before facing the Nations League semifinal match against Canada next March, the Tricolor coach said that the director of the national teams Duilio Davino already has the requests. “I already told Duilio all the requests, he put them together in a calendar that has not reached where it should go, The plan is made, I was delighted to come to this type of environment, today many players grew up and I told them to continue competing in their teams, I did not guarantee that they would be able to return, but I told them that it was not a shame, that this is football “, Vasco explained in the face of the uncertainty that reigns in the Mexican team. About the performance against River, the coach. from Mexico said that: “Individually I rescued several players who did not hide and who were not affected by the environment, but collectively you cannot rescue much, But it was budgeted to see each player in this type of environment.” Finally he explained that there were no excuses for the defeat: “There are no justifications for the defeat, neither the grass, nor the referee, it is my fault for not foreseeing some things“That’s a lesson for me, but River is a team designed for great things, it’s a world-class team, its achievements are obvious, I came here to compete and this was wonderful and a way to grow.” Continue reading:– The Mexican team is the target of ridicule from Argentine fans– The Mexican anthem is booed by River Plate fans– River Plate defeats Mexico 2-0 in a poor display by the Tricolor

The private firefighters that the rich in Los Angeles hire to save their properties from fires (and the criticism that this generates)

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Image source, Getty Images photo caption, The fires in Los Angeles have required all the resources of firefighters. Item information Author, Dario M. Brooks Author’s title, BBC News World January 18, 2025 In the midst of the emergency in Los Angeles, a request for help placed in X by a businessman uncovered a controversy a few days ago. Keith Wasserman, a CEO of an investment firm, wrote on the social network: “Does anyone have contacts with private firefighters to protect our house in Pacific Palisades? We need to act quickly. All the neighboring houses are on fire. We will pay any amount. Thank you” . Your house in Pacific Palisadesone of the neighborhoods where wealthy people live and which has been one of the most affected by the fireswas under threat of fire. Shortly afterward it was learned that it was consumed by flames. But Wasserman’s request for help from private firefighters generated a lot of criticism, from those who rejected the availability of resources to fight fires to the highest bidder, to those who considered it unethical to send workers to risk their lives. “So you’re suggesting that potentially vital (even ‘private’) resources be diverted to save your house because you’re rich while tens of thousands of people are trying to evacuate?” questioned a user identified as Renny. “The nerve is incredible… His family is evacuated and he tries to hire private firefighters to risk their lives to save a house that is probably insured,” wrote Sam Vance in another response to Wasserman’s message, who after criticism deactivated your account. However, what Wasserman was requesting is a private fire response service known for several years in Los Angeles and other parts vulnerable to this type of emergency in the United States. In fact, in that same city in 2018 another controversy arose after Kim Kardashian and her then-husband, Kanye West, hired a private fire service to protect their home in Calabasas from a forest fire. Kardashian then defended herself against the criticism, pointing out that the out-of-pocket hire not only saved her $50 million mansion, but helped her neighbors. Image source, Getty Images photo caption, Private fire control services primarily do preventive work. Specialists point out that private hiring of firefighters is more unusual than the current emergency makes it seem. The firms regularly serve businesses, insurance companies and, in the least cases, small clients. This is confirmed by Deborah Miley, director of the National Wildland Fire Fighting Association, which represents more than 300 private firefighting firms. Miley explained to the newspaper The New York Times that almost half (42%) of the firefighters in the United States are hired by this type of company. Joe Torres, from the private services company All-Risk Shield, explains to BBC Mundo that this is his case. “It’s usually an annual subscription. We do a lot of property preparation work long before any fire hits,” he explains. Although the law prohibits these companies from interfering with emergency operations, there are some that can offer their resources on their own. What do private firefighters offer? The firms, of various sizes, have tankers of different capacities, as well as fire crews and experts in protecting buildings against fires, forestry or other types. Regularly retired firefighters join the ranks of these companies. They use their own resources, including water, since they are prohibited from connecting to public service hydrants. In California, a law to regulate these services that emerged in 2018 – after the Kardashian and West controversy – even prohibits these services from having vehicles that look like red emergency vehicles, or that interfere with public operations. In the current emergency in Los Angeles, some private firefighters have been seen guarding residences in wealthy neighborhoods. According to reports, prices vary: from those who offer their services for US$2,000 per hour, to those who guard a property for between US$10,000 and US$14,000 per day. photo caption, The BBC saw several private services guarding residences in the Brentwood neighborhood of Los Angeles. Emma Vardy, a BBC reporter sent to cover the California emergency, found tankers from private companies doing preventive surveillance in the Brentwood neighborhood. “These can only be paid for by the very, very rich,” Vardy said. “There is a small army ready to protect these homes of very, very rich people. People have questioned how ethical this is while there are schools and homes of ordinary people that have been destroyed. And with public fire services in crisis,” he reported from that neighborhood, which still did not have an imminent threat of fire. But the current emergency has put many in the city in a difficult situation. More than 12,000 structures – including homes and businesses – have been consumed by the fire that has devastated some 16,000 hectares, between natural areas and neighborhoods such as Palisades, Eaton or Altadena. Unlike Wasserman, other businessmen have managed to save their properties. The case of real estate developer Rick Caruso has been cited in various media, as he hired a service that traveled from the neighboring states of Arizona and Oregon to protect his residence and a small shopping center in Pacific Palisades. Image source, Getty Images photo caption, Private services offer teams with trucks of different capacity and number of rescuers. BBC Mundo requested comments from the Los Angeles authorities about the private fire operation, but at the time of publication of this article it had not received a response. David Acuña, one of the spokespersons for the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, explained to CBS News, a BBC partner in the US, that private firefighters do not respond to emergencies in general. “We do not want nor are we going to delegate to private firefighters the operations that we have to carry out with complex coordination,” he said. To provide help or not? When hired, employees of these private companies prepare property in an area vulnerable to wildfires with controls on the ground: clearing vegetation or flammable materials that cause flames to reach … Read more

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