Google

In a financial carom, Google has stood up to NVIDIA, leaving an unexpected winner in the crazy AI race: Larry Page

by

NVIDIA promised them very happy being the best-positioned AI chip manufacturer. At least it was until Google has started making chips. This new scenario has excited investors, who have rushed to buy Alphabet shares, making your price goes up up to 6.3% from one day to the next, and accumulating an advance of more than 75% since its August price. This increase in the value of Google’s parent company has also coincided with a dip in Oracle’s valuation, which has caused chaos on the podium of the world’s largest fortunes. according to Forbes. What AI gives you, AI takes away. A few months ago, Larry Ellison, founder of Oracle rose as the second largest fortune in the world, overtaking Mark Zuckerberg. His fortune reached 291.6 billion thanks to the good growth prospects posed by the construction of the data centers for AI. In fact, the Oracle founder’s fortune grew so much that he was close enough to the unattainable Elon Musk as to threaten its position on that list. Just as AI raised Larry Ellison to become the world’s second-largest fortune, AI he has taken that place away to hand it over to Larry Page, who reaches that position with a fortune of 261.5 billion dollars. Google rises, Oracle falls. He Google stock rally contrasts with the downturn suffered by the main architect of the cloud infrastructure in which AI lives, leaving up to 6.79% of its price in recent days. This decline has meant that Ellison’s fortune, with a strong influence of Oracle on its income balance, has suffered, falling to $256.7 billion, being displaced to third position. That same stock market momentum of Google has taken another founding partner, Sergei Brin, to fourth position, with a fortune of 242.4 billion dollars, while Alphabet shares brought the company closer to a market capitalization of almost 4 billion dollars. Mark Zuckerberg and Jeff Bezos didn’t even see it coming. The most pronounced falls in recent months have been those of Jeff Bezos and, above all, Mark Zuckerberg, who, accustomed to remaining in the Top 3 of the greatest fortunes, fall to fifth and sixth position in the ranking of Forbes. The decline in Mark Zuckerberg’s fortune is especially striking, due to the poor performance of Meta shares in recent weeks. Interestingly, Meta shares have broken their downward trend following Google’s announcement to get into the semiconductor business for AI and the rumors that Zuckerberg could change NVIDIA processors for the Tensor Processing Unit manufactured by Alphabet. Larry Page and Sergei Brin: same company, different fortunes. Although Page and Brin co-founded Google and share control of the company through their shares, both millionaires do not own exactly the same number of shares, and that detail makes a big difference in their assets. According to public statements of Alphabet before the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), between the two magnates they concentrate 87.9% of Alphabet’s class B shares, which grant 10 votes per title. However, the figures show that Page has just over 389 million shares, while Brin account with some 362.7 million of these shares, which makes Page the main beneficiary of the rally in the shares of the company they founded. Brin has been more generous with science. The key to this gap is that Sergei Brin has been much more active than Page in donating and selling part of his stake in Alphabet, and that has reduced his share package over time. Brin has been targeting large volumes of Alphabet and Tesla shares to research donations of treatment against Parkinson’s disease, bipolar disorder or autism, after being discovered a genetic mutation which made him prone to developing that disease. In Xataka | Larry Page and Sergey Brin founded Google and became millionaires. Now they are dedicated to collecting gigantic airplanes Image | Flickr (Fortune Global Forum, TED Conference)

Huawei lost to Google, Qualcomm and TSMC. What he didn’t lose was something more important: his reputation.

by

Last week were the Xataka Awards 2025. Stella Li, global vice president of BYD, took the Xataka Legend. He Galaxy S25 Ultra It swept the super high range. Freepik was crowned as best Spanish technology company. It was a night of proper names, drinks and conversations with readers. But There is a prize that, for those of us who spend a lot of time in Xatakaas workers or as readers, has a special weight. Not because of its glamour, but because of what it represents. The Community Award is not decided by any jury. There are no internal debates. You, the readers, decide with your votes. It is the device that you liked the most, without filters. In fact, it is the only one that is not delivered by any employee of the house, but rather by members of the community who represent it on stage. In the image that heads this article, three of them with Cristina Isidoro, PR Manager of Huawei in Spain, who collected the award. Because this year he won it Huawei Watch GT 6 Pro. And when I saw the result, I smiled slightly: it was more than just a reward for a well-made smartwatch. It was pure symbolism. Look at the historical list of winners of this award: Almost all, Chinese devices or devices with a Chinese soul that share a pattern: focus on value for money, practical innovation, and in some cases, arriving wanting to break molds. But among all of them, Huawei is the only one that did not arrive yesterday promising a lot for little. It is the only one that was already in the world elite, disputing the throne with Samsung and in fact about to snatch it awaybefore the United States decided to use it as a pawn in its trade war. Because Huawei has not conquered the perception of premium quality by offering more gigabytes for fewer euros. It conquered it by being, for years, simply a great option. He P20 Pro It was the first mobile phone with a triple camera that really worked. The Mate 20 Pro was an unapologetic technical beast compared to the high-end greats. Their MateBook laptops have been worthy rivals of the Surface. And their GT watches already stood out for batteries that lasted weeks when Apple asked for a charger every night. They weren’t cheap. They were good. And that difference, in the technology market, is abysmal. Then 2019 arrived. EntityList. American veto. Goodbye Google, goodbye Qualcomm, goodbye TSMC. Sales outside China plummeted and the Western narrative was unanimous: Huawei was dead. Without the Google ecosystem, without access to the supply chain, it was impossible to survive in this business. But no one explained to them that it was impossible. Instead of giving up, they built their own universe. HarmonyOS on more than a billion devices. Kirin Chips own, then Ascend for AI. Huawei Cloud growing in Asia, Africa and Latin America. They didn’t beg to go back to Google Play like we might perhaps have expected them to do. They simply built another entire ecosystem. Without one word higher than another. At the beginning of the month I was in China and was able to try several of their devices, including some that just left there. The premium feel is real. And something that we do have here, the GT 6 Pro, is not a gadget 150 euros that promises too much and falls halfway. It is a watch in the 400 euro range that performs very well. and the community of Xataka has passed sentence with his prize. That doesn’t happen by chance. Xiaomi shines in value for money. Realme and Oppo play there. Nothing has its aesthetic indie. But Huawei is the only Chinese brand that, when you mention it, the European consumer automatically thinks of “serious quality”, without the asterisks that others have. And she did it right after they tried to destroy her. The Huawei Watch GT 6 Pro is a great watch. But winning the 2025 Community Award means something else: It is the recognition of the only Chinese brand that has come out of the perception low cost without giving up its origin. It is the prize that, in a way, China had been pursuing for decades. Respect without conditions. And it has been won by a company that they tried to annihilate. Sometimes vetoes don’t kill. They forge legacies. Featured image | Xataka In Xataka | The LG OLED Signature AI T4 is the best television of the year for a simple reason: we are saying goodbye to the black monolith

Reopening nuclear power plants sounds very spectacular, but Google has a plan B in case it’s not enough: solar energy

by

Data centers for are insatiable monsters those who are responsible for them must feed. OpenAI, Meta, Microsoft, xAI, Anthropic and Google are burning money riding colossal data centers for training and management of artificial intelligence. But these installations are not expensive to set up: they are also expensive to maintain. They require a considerable amount of energy to functionand Google has just received a ‘shot’ of renewables. All thanks to a direct connection to the largest system in the United States. Renewables to power AI. Google and TotalEnergies have just signed a agreement of energy purchases for 15 years. The contract stipulates that the energy company will deliver 1.5 TWh of electricity from its Montpelier solar plant, in Ohio, to Google. The plant is still under construction and they estimate that it will have a capacity of 49 MW, but the most important thing is that it will be connected directly to the electricity system. PJM. It is the largest network operator in the United States. It covers 13 states and data centers are representing a relevant portion of the operator’s pie: in its last annual auction, the load of these facilities PJM capacity sale triggered at 7.3 billion dollars, 82% more. Astronomical needs. In the statement from TotalEnergies, the company that this agreement illustrates its ability to meet the growing energy demands of the major technology companies. The problem is that it is not enough. If we focus on Google, the consumption of its data centers was 30.8 million megawatt hours of electricity. The company has been focused on AI for years, but the recent ‘boom’ has made it double what its centers consumed in 2020 (14.4 million MWh). Currently, data centers are estimated to account for 95.8% of Google’s total electricity budget. But it’s not just Google: the International Energy Agency esteem that global data centers consumed 415 TWh last year, representing approximately 1.5% of global electricity consumption. It seems little put in percentage, but Spain consumed in 2024 231,808 GWh, or 231 TWh, in 2024. The data centers of a handful of companies alone consumed twice as much as an entire country. And the estimate is that this data center consumption will double by 2030, reaching 945 TWh. Renewables are not enough. Now, although renewables are a support for the total energy required by data centerssolar and wind power have two limitations: intermittency and variability. Generation depends on weather conditions and time of day, meaning it fluctuates dramatically even throughout the same day. This instability clashes head-on with the high reliability and availability requirements of data centers. These are installations that must operate continuously and cannot assume cuts or Unforeseeable drops in supplysince AI or cloud storage would suffer the consequences. These renewables require backup batteries, but it is complicated and expensive to have such a large number of batteries just to power data centers. Pulling the gas and looking at the nuclear. That’s where other sources come into play. On the one hand, nuclear. In October 2024, Google signed the world’s first corporate agreement to acquire nuclear energy from SMR reactors. The first will come into operation in 230 and it is expected that, together, they will be able to satisfy the technology company with 500 MW of capacity by 2035. On the other hand, natural gas. In October of this year, the Broadwing Energy Center project began, a new natural gas power plant that will have a capacity of 400 MW and is scheduled to come into play at the end of 2029. Decarbonization and pressure. And the big question is… doesn’t the use of gas for AI clash with the technology companies’ objectives of achieving decarbonization percentages for both 2030 and 2050? We have already seen that oil companies have been getting off the renewables bandwagon because they have seen that fossil fuels are still relevant in the technology industry, but in the case of Google, they rely on the fact that projects like the Broadwing Energy Center They will have CCS systems. This means that it will have carbon capture system that will be able to permanently “sequester” 90% of the emissions. It means burying the problem, literally, since the CO₂ will be stored a mile underground. In 2020, before the AI ​​boom, the company established the goal of operating with carbon-free energy 24 hours a day, seven days a week by 2030. It will be interesting to see how they plan to offset these emissions thanks to renewables, but the IAE estimates that the demand for data centers will not stop growing in the short term and that adds another problem: a increased pressure on the electrical grid which is added as another element to manage. Because the big underlying problem is that the demand for energy is growing at a faster rate than the capacity to generate new electricity, and it is something that has an impact on companies’ bills, but also in homes. Images | Unsplash, Google Data Center In Xataka | China does not have a spending problem with AI. What it has is a huge income gap compared to its main rival

Roman roads changed the world. And this Google Maps from 2,000 years ago allows you to explore them

by

What have the Romans given us? It’s not a question I ask myself when I can’t sleep, but the brilliant satire that Monty Python captured in ‘Brian’s life‘. He aqueductsewage, education, irrigation, health, wine, public baths… and roads. At its peak, it is estimated that The empire’s network expanded over 120,000 kilometersbut as excavation has been carried out, more and more remains of Roman roads have been found. On some occasions we have brought some “Google Maps” of the Roman Empirebut what we have in our hands today is the culmination of an anthological work that compiles some of the most important sources of the arteries of the empire and captures those roads is an impressive interactive map with almost 300,000 kilometers of roads. The tool is called itiner-eand it is something that can absorb us for hours and hours. The Google Maps of the Roman Empire If you have already taken a tour of the mapyou should know that it is a living element. As discoveries are made and the location of the tracks is determined, the team will update the map. But what we currently have is the result of more than five years of work carried out by a team with members from both the Autonomous University of Barcelona and the Aarhus University of Denmark. In it study published in Naturedetail that it is “the most detailed and complete digital data set of roads in the entire Roman Empire” published so far. In fact, it exceeds the known length of Roman roads by more than 100,000 km thanks to both greater coverage at the focus and better spatial precision. Previously, the Digital Atlas of Roman and Medieval Civilizations (DARMC) mapped 188,554.7 kilometers. To do this, the researchers identified both the most important routes and the paths of archaeological and historical sources, locating them using both historical and current topographic maps. The main sources have been the Antonine Itinerary and the Tabula Peutingeriana, but the “milestones” and settlements close to each other (for example, limits of the empire, such as those near Hadrian’s Wall) are what have allowed researchers to assume the existence of roads that connected them. Other sources include summaries of the Roman road network in specific regions, maps from the Mapping Past Societies, the Barrington Atlas or the Tabula Imperii Romani, among many others. As a result of this work, the new map includes 299,171 kilometers of roads (to connect a territory of more than four million square kilometers), and they are divided as follows: 103,478 kilometers of main roads, 34.6% of the total. 195,693 kilometers of secondary roads, 65.4% of the total. And it is not that more than 100,000 kilometers have been taken out of the bag, but that roads that previously crossed rivers or were simple straight lines, have now been drawn with greater precision, adapting to the topographical peculiarities of the terrain. Now, although the work is amazing and we can see by playing with the different layers of information that many of the main roads coincide with current roads, the researchers confess that “only” the location of 2.737% of the Roman roads is known with certainty. That is why the vast majority of itiner-e roads show the legend “hypothetical” or “conjecture”, just before detailing the record from which they took the data. This certainty depends on: Certainty: segments well documented in the sources, which have been digitized with high spatial precision. Guess: segments with lower spatial precision due to a lower level of documentation. Hypothetical: paths that are speculated to have existed, but for which there is insufficient evidence to classify them within one of the above groups. For example, roads in desert areas where the infrastructure was less fixed and where several parallel roads have been found. But beyond satisfying our curiosity, something we can do with this map is… play. The team has including a function that is still in beta status and allows you to explore the time these routes took. To do this, we have to select between several points and select between four modes of land transportation: On foot at a speed of 4 km/h. By oxcart at 2 km/2. In an animal like a donkey at 4.5 km/h. And on horseback at 6 km/h. We can also select maritime routes with speeds of 2.5 km/h downstream and 0.6 km/h upstream. In the end, that rebel group from ‘Life of Brian’ was quite right when it came to saying that one of the most important things the Romans had done for them had been the deployment of roads. Because they were fundamental to speed up transportation within the empire’s domains, and that work is noticeable even today. They were the foundations on which we build our roads and urban centers. It is something that becomes clear when we observe that the only place in the empire in which there was not such an important or meticulous deployment, such as Africa and the Middle East, where trade on wheels was abandoned in favor of camel caravans in the 4th-6th centuries, has consequences today. Images | itiner-e In Xataka | Forma Urbis Romae: the gigantic map of Ancient Rome conceived in 1901 and still unsurpassed today

Google has managed to integrate Apple’s AirDrop into Android. Without the help or permission of Apple

by

Google has announced that Quick Shareyour file transfer system on Android, now also works with Apple’s AirDrop. The users of a Pixel 10 They can send and receive files directly from iPhone, iPad and Mac without intermediaries or servers. Support is two-way and works when the Apple device activates “Everyone for 10 minutes” mode in AirDrop. The Pixel detects the iPhone as an available destination, the user accepts the transfer and the connection is established directly. Ta-da. The turn. Apple has not participated in the development. Google has confirmed that it has implemented this feature on its ownwithout your collaboration. “We have achieved it with our own implementation,” they said from Google. This contrasts with other recent interoperability advances between both platforms—messaging RCS or the unknown tracker alerts— where there was coordination. Between the lines. Google appears to have reverse engineered AWDL technology (Apple Wireless Direct Link) that underpins AirDrop. Although it is proprietary, it relies on open standards such as Bluetooth and Wi-Fi Direct, which makes it technically possible to implement unauthorized support. The company has developed the feature using Rust, a programming language considered more secure against vulnerabilities. It also hired NetSPI, an independent security firm, to validate the implementation. His assessment: the system is “notably more robust” than other solutions in the sector. The threat. Apple may end up blocking this functionality and in fact it is a very likely scenario given the history. In 2023 closed Beeper accessan app that allowed iMessage to be used on Android through reverse engineering. But the context has changed. Google is much bigger than Beeper. In addition, Apple now has greater regulatory pressure than then around anti-competitive practices, both in Europe and the United States. Yes, but. The current implementation only works in “Everyone for 10 minutes” mode. AirDropless convenient than the “Contacts Only” mode. Google has expressed its willingness to collaborate with Apple to enable that mode. The feature starts exclusively on the Pixel 10, although Google has promised to expand it to more Android devices. At stake. This move attacks one of the elements of Apple’s walled garden that most frustrates cross-platform users. If Google manages to maintain this operational compatibility, it erodes another barrier to change. If Apple takes it down, it reinforces the narrative of monopolistic practices just as regulators take a closer look. In the coming weeks we will surely hear about this case again. In Xataka | Privacy was Apple’s ace in the hole in the age of AI. Google just took it away Featured image | Google

A Google Pixel for less than 400 euros, an 85-inch Sony TV, offers on eReaders and more. Hunting Bargains

by

Once again we return with a new Bargain Hunting shortly before the arrival of the next Black Friday. The stores have started their respective campaigns with many offers on all types of devices and in this article we are going to review the five best we have found all week. Google Pixel 9a by 399 eurosa very reasonable price for a mid-range mobile that takes very good photos. Kindle Scribe by 360.48 eurosan eReader with a 10-inch screen that also serves to take notes. Mac mini M4 by 829.99 eurosa very small computer but so powerful that it is ideal for studying or working. Roborock Saros Z70 by 1,099 eurosa robot vacuum cleaner with an arm that can remove the socks it finds in the way. Sony Bravia 3 by 1,499 eurosa huge television with Dolby Vision and Atmos that we have rarely seen so cheap. Google Pixel 9a One of the best offers we have seen this week is the one Amazon has in the Google Pixel 9awhich has dropped to 399 eurosthe same price that we saw in its previous generation not many months ago. This Google mobile stands out in its mid-range for many reasons, the photography section being the most outstanding of them. It is also worth mentioning that it is quite compact (6.3 inches)its screen offers a 120 Hz refresh rate and its software will be updated for many years. The price could vary. We earn commission from these links Kindle Scribe Amazon is already dropping some offers prior to Black Friday and again we can find the Kindle Scribe (2024) of offer. By 360.48 euroswe talk about a Larger eReader than conventional (10.2 inches) which also serves to take notes thanks to its pencil. It includes 16 GB of internal storage that can store a huge assortment of digital books and its theoretical autonomy is up to 12 weeks of use. Kindle Scribe (2024 version) The price could vary. We earn commission from these links Mac mini M4 He Mac mini M4 He hasn’t received too many offers (at least not that juicy) in a while, but that’s over. By 829.99 eurosPowerplanet has one of the best prices we have seen on their configuration of 16 GB of unified memory and 512 GB internal storage. It is a powerful computer thanks to the M4 chip, it is very quiet and so small that it practically fits in the palm of your hand. It is aimed at study and work use and is the international version. Mac mini M4 (16GB, 512GB) The price could vary. We earn commission from these links Roborock Saros Z70 It will be an expensive robot vacuum cleaner, but Amazon right now has the Roborock Saros Z70 with a huge discount. By 1,099 euros (instead of 1,799 euros as other stores have), it is a model that undoubtedly stands out for his armwhich allows you to remove socks or other objects for efficient cleaning. In addition, it offers a power of 22,000 Pa, it is also capable of scrubbing, it includes a self-emptying base, its theoretical autonomy is up to 4 hours and it works with AlexaGoogle Home and Siri. The price could vary. We earn commission from these links Sony Bravia 3 If you have the possibility to make room for it and you are looking for a huge television to watch movies and series or play video games, the TV Sony Bravia 3 of 85 inches It has rarely been so cheap. By 1,499 euros at El Corte Inglés (on Amazon it is more expensive, but allows you to finance it in four interest-free payments), it is a model compatible with Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos which comes with Google TV OS and HDMI 2.1. Sony Bravia 3 (85 inches) The price could vary. We earn commission from these links Some of the links in this article are affiliated and may provide a benefit to Xataka. In case of non-availability, offers may vary. Images | Google, Amazon, Apple, Roborock, Sony In Xataka | The best mobile phones (2025), we have tested them and here are their analyzes In Xataka | Best televisions in quality price. Which one to buy and seven recommended 4K smart TVs

There are Google Pixel, Xiaomi phones and more at top prices

by

When he arrives Black Fridaywhoever does not run, flies. The best offers that appear during this month do not last long, so it is advisable to be attentive from the moment an attractive promotion begins. Since yesterday, we have available AliExpress 11.11the best promo in this marketplace. During these hours there are already many offers that have flown, but, as with your discount coupons, we still have several interesting ones available. Discount minimum purchase coupon 1 coupon 2 3 euros 15 euros XATAKAES03 ESAE03 5 euros 29 euros XATAKAES05 ESAE05 12 euros 69 euros XATAKAES12 ESAE12 20 euros 129 euros XATAKAES20 ESAE20 40 euros 249 euros XATAKAES40 ESAE40 60 euros 369 euros XATAKAES60 ESAE60 75 euros 469 euros XATAKAES75 ESAE75 85 euros 549 euros XATAKAES03ES85 ESAE85 This promo will be available until November 19, but the exciting offers that are still available will almost certainly not last until then. If you are looking for a new mobile phone, below we are going to talk about some that present right now a great price for everything they offer. POCO X7 Pro by 214.83 euros with the coupon XATAKAES40, a very interesting phone now that is close to 200 euros. Realme GT7 Pro by 474.32 euros with the coupon XATAKAES75, one of the best devices on the market in terms of autonomy. Vivo X200 Pro by 562.02 euros with the coupon XATAKAES75, ideal if you are looking for a mobile phone with a great camera. Google Pixel 10 by 569.89 euros with the coupon XATAKAES75, the most compact version of the Google flagship. Xiaomi Redmi Note 14 by 121.89 euros with the coupon ESAE05, an interesting mobile for the tightest budgets. POCO X7 Pro We start this time with the POCO X7 Proone of those mobile phones that undoubtedly stands out for its enormous quality-price. It was already launched when it arrived in stores for over 360 euros, but now it stands out more in this sense thanks to the offer we have available within 11.11 on AliExpress: we can get one per 214.83 euros with the coupon XATAKAES40. Despite its price, it offers great performance thanks to its MediaTek Dimensity 8400 Ultra chip. In addition, it has a 6,000 mAh battery with 90 W fast charging, a dual rear camera system that delivers and a large 6.67-inch AMOLED screen with 1.5K resolution and 120 Hz refresh rate. The price could vary. We earn commission from these links Realme GT7 Pro We now jump to Realme GT7 Proa device with high-end performance and brutal autonomy, but that does not skyrocket in price if we take advantage of this offer. At launch, its RRP was somewhat high, but now we have a great opportunity if we want to go for it: we can take one home for free. 474.32 euros with the coupon XATAKAES75. This Realme device comes with a Snapdragon 8 Elite inside, one of those processors that we know more than enough about everything it can offer. Its 6.78-inch screen, in addition to being compatible with Dolby Vision, offers a peak brightness of 6,000 nits. All without forgetting its huge 6,500 mAh battery with 120 W fast charging. Realme GT 7 Pro (12+256 GB) The price could vary. We earn commission from these links Vivo X200 Pro We have another very interesting option with the Vivo X200 Pro. This device, which has only been on the market for a few months, offers great value for money right now if we take into account its performance, its hardware and its camera system. AliExpress has it available right now for 562.02 euros with the coupon XATAKAES75. Just seeing the phone from behind makes us realize that its camera system stands out. It is made up of three sensors that will offer us very good results in all types of scenarios, something that we will also achieve with its front camera. In addition, it has a 6,000 mAh battery (with 90 W fast charging), Dimensity 9400 processor and a 6.78-inch screen with very good features. Vivo X200 Pro (12+256GB) The price could vary. We earn commission from these links Google Pixel 10 We now continue with one of the new Google phones for 2025. The Google Pixel 10 It is an ideal phone for those who seek to have the best Android experience and prefer a compact device. AliExpress has it available right now for 569.89 euros with the coupon XATAKAES75. This is a great price if we take into account the device it is and the time it has been available. It has a good triple camera system, a 6.3-inch OLED screen with very good peak brightness and a battery that is close to 5,000 mAh with 30 W fast charging. Google Pixel 10 (12+128 GB) The price could vary. We earn commission from these links Xiaomi Redmi Note 14 We close this selection of mobile phones with the cheapest on the list, ideal for all those undemanding users who want to spend little on their new mobile. We refer to the Xiaomi Redmi Note 14a device that, if we take into account the price it has right now, offers great value for money: it costs 121.89 euros with the coupon ESAE05. Despite going up just a little above 120 euros, it is a device that comes with a 6.67-inch screen with a refresh rate of 120 Hz, ideal for having a fluid experience. It does not have the most powerful chip on the market, but it does have one, the MediaTek Helio G99-Ultra, which is enough for daily use on social networks or apps like WhatsApp. In addition, its battery is 5,500 mAh and it has a camera system that works well in situations with good lighting. Xiaomi Redmi Note 14 (8+256GB) The price could vary. We earn commission from these links Some of the links in this article are affiliated and may provide a benefit to Xataka. In case of non-availability, offers may vary. Images | Xataka, Google, Xiaomi, Vivo, … Read more

Apple has a plan to fix Siri. One that aims to make Google even richer, according to Bloomberg

by

Apple Intelligence was introduced in 2024 with great promises. The main one, a Siri completely renewedmuch more capable and versatile. As it turned out, what they showed was a fictitious demo and the new Siri was delayed until 2026. Apple has lost the AI ​​raceat least in the first round, but they already have a plan to recover. One that involves delivering 1 billion a year to Google, all while they continue developing their own model. The agreement. Account Mark Gurman at Bloomberg that Apple is about to close a deal with Google worth $1 billion a year. This will allow them to use Gemini’s AI model to power their Siri assistant, especially in the planning and summary functions, which are what allow the assistant to execute more complex tasks. Apple has been evaluating other competitors such as OpenAI and Anthropic, but has finally settled on Google’s Gemini. The new Siri is expected to arrive in spring of next yearalthough nothing is confirmed. Conditions. The agreement does not involve integrating Gemini as an assistant in iPhones, but rather it will be integrated into Siri and will also do so from Apple’s private servers. This will separate user data from Google’s infrastructure. Furthermore, Gurman says that they are not going to publicize the agreement as they did when Google became Safari’s default search engine; in this case it will be a “behind the scenes” agreement. Temporary solution. Apple does not plan to use Google’s model forever as they are developing their own language model in parallel. We don’t know much about what it will be like, just that it will have 1 billion parameters and they hope to have it ready next year. Apple sources believe that it will have a level of quality similar to that of the Gemini, but for now there is nothing to prove it. Taking into account Apple’s AI stumbles We would not be surprised if the promise of its own model ends up being diluted. Additionally, the company has lost at least three key AI executives because Zuckerberg signed them for his superintelligence team. China. The agreement has a problem and that is that Google services are banned in China, so the new Siri would arrive with modifications to comply with this restriction. It is said that heThe Chinese version could have its own models and a local filter developed by Alibaba. China is a key market for Apple and the latest results do not leave them in a good place. That the new Siri arrives “captured” in China could have more negative consequences. Images | Wikipedia In Xataka | Apple has lost the throne it held for a decade. And the Chinese brands no longer even let it be second

The industry became obsessed with training AI models, while Google prepared its masterstroke: inference chips

by

In recent years, what was truly relevant was training AI models to make them better. Now that they have matured and training it no longer scales as noticeablywhat matters most is inference: that when we use AI chatbots they work quickly and efficiently. Google realized this change in focus, and has chips precisely prepared for it. Ironwood. This is the name of the new chips from Google’s famous family of Tensor Processing Units (TPUs). The company, which began developing them in 2015 and launched the first ones in 2018now obtains especially interesting fruits from all that effort: some really promising chips not for training AI models, but for us to use them faster and more efficiently than ever. Inference, inference, inference. These “TPUv7” will be available in the coming weeks and can be used to train AI models, but they are especially aimed at “serving” these models to users so that they can use them. It is the other big leg of AI chips, the really visible one: one thing is to train the models and quite another to “execute” them so that they respond to user requests. Efficiency and power by flag. The advance in the performance of these AI chips is enormous, at least according to Google. The company claims that Ironwood offers four times the performance of the previous generation in both training and inference, and is “the most powerful and energy-efficient custom silicon to date.” Google has already reached an agreement with Anthropic so that the latter has access up to one million TPUs to run Claude and serve it to its users. Google’s AI supercomputersand. These chips are the key components of the so-called AI Hypercomputer, an integrated supercomputing system that according to Google allows customers to reduce IT costs by 28% and a ROI of 353% in three years. Or what is the same: they promise that if you use these chips, the return on investment will be multiplied by more than four in that period. Almost 10,000 interconnected chips. The new Ironwoods are also equipped with the ability to be part of joining forces in a big way. It is possible to combine up to 9,216 of them in a single node or pod, which theoretically makes the bottlenecks of the most demanding models disappear. The size of this type of cluster is enormous, and allows for up to 1.77 Petabytes of shared HBM memory while these chips communicate with a bandwidth of 9.6 Tbps thanks to the so-called Inter-Chip Interconnect (ICI). More FLOPS than anyone. The company also claims that an “Ironwood pod” (a cluster with those 9,216 Ironwood TPUs) offers 118x more ExaFLOPS FP8 than its best competitor. FLOPS measure how many floating-point math operations these chips can solve per second, ensuring that basically any AI workload is going to run in record times. NVIDIA has more and more competition (and that’s a good thing). Google chips are a demonstration of the clear vocation of companies to avoid too many dependencies on third parties. Google has all the ingredients to do it, and its TPUv7 is proof of this. It’s not the only oneand many other AI companies have long sought to create their own chips. NVIDIA’s dominance remains clearbut the company has a small problem. In inference CUDA is no longer so vital. Once the AI ​​model has been trained, inference operates under different game rules than training. CUDA support remains a relevant factorbut its importance in inference is much less. Inference focuses on obtaining the fastest possible answer. Here the models are “compiled” and can run optimally on the target hardware. This may cause NVIDIA to lose relevance to alternatives like Google. In Xataka | When you’re OpenAI and you can’t buy enough GPUs, the solution is obvious: make your own

LineageOS 23 brings Android 16 to a wave of abandoned mobile phones, with more difficulties than ever. Google put a wall in the way

by

There is a feeling of betrayal that runs through the most veteran Android community. The reason is Google’s strategy, which has been closing a system that was born completely free: the development of AOSP (the source code of Android) now it’s more privateand the publication of the source code suffer delays that didn’t happen before. While many feel that “the soul of Android has disappeared”the community responds. And the biggest banner of that Open Source resistance has just been updated. In the image, Murena’s /e/ OS alternative ROM, which is based on the popular LineageOS Lifesaver for an abandoned mobile. The life cycle of an Android smartphone is usually not as long as the competition, although that is changing in recent times. From this premise, alternatives emerged such as LineageOS, which is actually the spiritual heir to the mythical CyanogenMod. For many users, it is the only way to have the latest version of Google’s OS and extend the useful life of their devices. LineageOS 23 expands. The LineageOS team has announced a new batch of devices that receive official support for LineageOS 23, its version based on Android 16. This update not only brings the news of Android 16, but also self-developed improvements. For example, “Catapult” and “Aperture 2.0”. The first is a new launcher for Android TV with a clear objective: replace the Google TV interface with a clean, fast and ad-free one. Instead, Aperture is the ROM’s camera app that has now been rewritten from the ground up with support for Ultra HDR and RAW capture. Google has changed the rules. The LineageOS team has confirmed on their official blog that this has been a complicated launch. As we have been saying, the more closed development of AOSP and the fact that Google no longer publishes the Pixel code with total transparency, has caused Google phones to no longer be as easy to support compared to those of any other manufacturer. Despite the difference with respect to the extinct Nexus, the Pixels have been the reference for Open Source development. That’s over too. Consequences. The change in strategy has materialized in delays to the Android 16 code: Google released Android 16 QPR1 for the Pixel (first quarterly update) but never published the source code on AOSP. For this reason, LineageOS has been forced to launch its version 23.0 based on the initial version of Android 16. In practice, ROM users do not currently receive news as notable as the Material 3 Expressive redesign. There are also uncertainty regarding security. Google has changed the way it releases system security patches. They are no longer monthly and complete; most corrections are now quarterly. For its part, the team behind LineageOS warns that this means that its ROM security patch levels could inevitably be delayed. The basis of Android “resistance” without Google. Despite all these difficulties, LineageOS continues to be one of the pillars of the “degoogleized” community. Not only is it an alternative view for the end user, but its AOSP code serves as the basis for privacy projects like the popular GrapheneOS either the European /e/ OS. Keeping LineageOS alive is keeping alive the possibility of an Android without Google in an increasingly controlled ecosystem. New devices. The latest batch of devices that join the official support of LineageOS 23 focuses, curiously, on the Google family and flagships from OnePlus and Xiaomi. Some of them are the Pixel 6, 7, 8 and 9 series, the OnePlus 13 or the Redmi Note 9 Pro 5G. They add to the long list of those that debuted when LineageOS 23 was released a few weeks ago. Cover image | Composition with LineageOS images and generated by Nano Banana In Xataka | Google believes it has the key to compete with Windows, Linux and macOS in laptops. That key is called Android

Log In

Forgot password?

Forgot password?

Enter your account data and we will send you a link to reset your password.

Your password reset link appears to be invalid or expired.

Log in

Privacy Policy

Add to Collection

No Collections

Here you'll find all collections you've created before.