The European Bizum will soon be a reality. It is very bad news for VISA and Matercard

Europe will have its pan-European mobile payment system. Although we all thought that we would have a unique and universal Bizum For EU countries, what will happen will be a little different, but just as effective and probably better: long live interoperability. European Bizums connect. As indicated in CincoDíasBizum and the rest of the European platforms that imitated those free transfer functions easily accessible from mobile phones have finally joined forces. all friends. That was the last obstaclebecause all of them wanted to become the unique and universal Bizum. That would have forced the rest of the platforms to say goodbye to make way for that single platform, but instead what will happen is that the different platforms will be interoperable. The agreement includes 130 million connected users. Thanks to this interoperability project, 130 million EU (and Norwegian) citizens will be able to use this system. Not only that: the interoperable platform will be prepared to accept those from other European countries such as Switzerland or even others from markets not belonging to the euro zone. The key is in SPL. This interoperability can be achieved thanks to the so-called Standard Proxy Lookup (SPL), a “directory” service at the European level managed by the European Payments Council (EPC). This service allows banks to check which IBAN corresponds to each telephone number. Everything runs on the SEPA Instant Transfer infrastructureand thanks to new EU regulations, these transfers will soon be mandatory free or will have the same cost as a standard transfer, eliminating the traditional abusive commissions for immediate transfers. In 2026, personal payments. The technical implementation will begin in the coming months, and it is expected that before the end of the year a Spaniard with Bizum will be able to send money to a German with Wero and vice versa in a transparent and simple way. In theory, the operation of the system will not change for users, who will simply have to enter the recipient’s mobile number, regardless of the EU country, so that the transfer is carried out instantly. Shops in 2027. These personal payments with the European Bizum will end up giving rise to the other great option of the system: payments in electronic stores and points of sale. This option will arrive a little later, in 2027, and will undoubtedly be the great spearhead of these platforms against the two fierce competitors that dominated this segment. Setback for Visa and Mastercard. This agreement allows the European Union to have an internal payment system that will allow it to reduce its dependence on the systems that have been the de facto industry standard for decades, those offered by Visa and Mastercard. And a measure of the banks for the banks. European banks are also strengthening their position regarding the digital euro project that the European Central Bank (ECB) is preparing. This currency will in the future allow European citizens to have deposits in central banks without intervention by private banks. That, of course, took power away from these entities, but with this European Bizum they reinforce their role. Another step towards European digital sovereignty. For decades Europe has delegated all its digital systems to companies, especially from the US, and this project confirms an increasingly strong trend: that of European digital sovereignty. When processing payments within a European banking network, citizens’ consumption data does not go to US servers (as happens when using Visa, Mastercard, Apple or Google). And you can use Bizum without a bank card. This agreement does not prevent the platforms from continuing to evolve and improve on their own. This is what Bizum intends to do, which will launch Bizum Pay this year to pay directly in stores with the current account and without the need for a bank card. This will allow us to avoid dependence on Google Pay or Apple Pay, for example, on our mobile phones. It will first offer this option in shops in Spain, and in 2027, in line with the objective of that interoperable European Bizum, in shops in the EU. In Xataka | The Treasury confirms it: payments for dinner and gifts to your friends through Bizum do not go to the Tax Agency

In a chaotic 2025 of cancellations and delays, Renfe does have good news: record number of travelers

Renfe has had one of its most chaotic years in 2025. The company has had to face more competition than ever, it has suffered delays due to its own trains and infrastructure, it has seen Talgo trains crack or how fires blocked its most profitable line. And, despite everything, he has achieved a new record. 37.3 million. They are the people who have traveled on AVE and long-distance Renfe trains. And in 2025 the company has managed to move more people than ever on these trains. The figure is 6% higher than that achieved a year ago when it added 35.2 million trips. According to data provided by the Ministry of Transport and Sustainable Mobility, the bulk of these trips are made up of the AVE, which has set a new record with 21.5 million trips. That’s a million more travelers than last year. Although AVLO is the company that has had the best performance, growing from 4.55 million in 2024 to 6.2 million travelers in 2025. Where? According to Transport, the corridor that continues to receive the most passengers is the Madrid-Barcelona route ending in Figueres. In total, Renfe has attracted 8.1 million passengers to this corridor. The figure is almost identical to last year’s. The Levante and Mediterranean corridor (which connects Madrid with the Valencian Community and Murcia) is where the impact on passenger growth has been felt most. Here, trips have increased from 5.5 million to 7.7 million. Andalusia has also experienced growth from 6.9 million travelers to 7.2 million. Although the corridor that has added the most passengers is the Madrid-Castilla y León-Galicia one. Adding its routes and the connection with Asturias has gone from 2.5 million travelers in 2024 to 4.6 million. Doubts. What Renfe leaves up in the air is how much passenger volume has been lost on other lines. In his statement It is not explained, for example, how many passengers there are in the Extremadura corridor. And if the data is well transmitted, there are lines that have had to lose the number of passengers. The text mentions, as we said, an increase of 2.1 million passengers in the sum of high-speed and long-distance lines. However, there is talk of increases of 2.2 million passengers in the Mediterranean corridor, 2.1 million in the northwest area and 300,000 more passengers in Andalusia, without mentioning the inevitable drops in passengers on other lines. A chaotic year. Although it is the year in which it has moved the most passengers, 2025 has been a chaotic year for Renfe, marked by the following milestones: And some good things. In addition to increasing the number of travelers, 2025 has also had some good things for Renfe. To begin with, it has been confirmation that the train can fight the plane as long as high-speed trains work with guarantee. And the fact is that Madrid-Galicia has made the airlines retreat. The company, Renfe points out, continues to be the most used in all corridors (although it is not specified that it is the one that works the most frequencies) and its travelers will be able to benefit from the new flat rate ticket of 60 euros to take all medium and long distance trains and that is pending the addition, potentially, of municipal or regional public transport. Furthermore, and although this is not so good for Renfe but for the user, travelers we should be able to receive refunds partial or total delays of more than 15 minutes this year. Photo | Xataka In Xataka | Renfe is obliged to compensate for delays of more than 15 minutes starting January 1. The Government wants to prevent it

Scientists have investigated what happens to your brain when you play video games. And they have surprising news

There is something strangely comforting about dissonance. Sometimes, while I’m fighting with a crochet hook trying to make a scarf not end up looking like a dish towel, I like to put the TV channel in the background. TacticalGramma. Michelle is 59 years old, she is a proud grandmother and, while I clumsily count wool stitches, she is annihilating entire squads in Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 with a precision that any teenager would want for themselves. The scene has that visual irony: technology has not come to isolate us in a basement, but to rescue our neurons from rust. For decades, the social narrative sold us that video games “rot” the brain; Today, science is beginning to suggest that, if you want to reach 60 with good mental agility, perhaps you should take control. The brain clock. A study published by Nature has managed to compare the health of neural connections with the person’s actual age—what is known as brain clocks. The team led by Carlos Coronel-Oliveros has discovered that players who are experts in strategy titles like StarCraft II They have a mental structure that is much more resistant to the passage of time. On average, the brains of these players function with the agility of someone four years younger, according to a statistical estimate based on neuroimaging models. An efficiency phenomenon that neuroscience calls Brain Age Gap (BAG). When Sudoku is no longer enough. While classic brain games are isolated and repetitive tasks, an action video game forces the brain to manage an avalanche of information in real time. This level of constant demand—planning movements, reacting to attacks, and filtering out distractions simultaneously—forces neurons to reorganize. To reach this conclusion, the research team used research techniques whole-brain modelingcombining fMRI with machine learning algorithms capable of detecting subtle patterns in connectivity. The results showed more efficient integration in the so-called “frontoparietal hubs”, key regions for attention and executive function that are usually among the first to deteriorate with age. Changes in brain hardware. This apparent rejuvenation has a physical reflection in the structure of the brain. Science has found that, just as a muscle develops with exercise, certain key areas of players become denser and more robust. Studies in Scientific Reports and Translational Psychiatry reveal that those who regularly play action titles have more “gray matter” in regions responsible for coordination, attention and making quick decisions. It is as if the brain had expanded its information highways to react sooner and better to each stimulus. But the most useful change is the refinement of our visual “filter.” Research in PLOS ONE show that the players They develop a superior ability to ignore unnecessary noise. It’s not that they see more, it’s that their brain has learned to process only the information that really matters to win the game, optimizing the energy expenditure of the visual cortex. The ‘learning to learn’ factor. What is truly significant is not being more precise within the game, but the impact on the ability to continue learning. A study in Communications Biology showed that video game training Action speeds up the speed at which people learn new tasks, even when they are unrelated to the game. As they explain psychologists Daphne Bavelier and C. Shawn Green, these games train the brain’s attentional control. The result is improved cognitive adaptation, valuable in an ever-changing technological world. But experts still debate the degree of “far transfer”—that is, the extent to which being a keyboard whiz makes you better at managing a real crisis or a complex spreadsheet. When the benefit runs out. Even so, it is advisable to lower your enthusiasm. Most of these studies they are correlational: they do not allow us to state with certainty whether playing transforms the brain or whether certain already “agile” brain profiles are more inclined to enjoy video games. Furthermore, the effects vary depending on age and life context. Side B is not minor either. Researchers warn that excessive exposure can cause cognitive fatigue and sleep disturbances. The World Health Organization recognizes the video game disorder as a real problem when gambling becomes a compulsive behavior. The neural benefit depends on the balance that if the challenge stops being stimulating and becomes automatic or addictive, the protective effect disappears. Not just any game will do. Another key point is that not all video games produce the same effects. The strongest benefits are seen in action and real-time strategy games, which require quick decisions and multitasking. As experts point outonce a game stops being difficult and becomes mechanical, brain plasticity stagnates. Speed ​​and time pressure seem to be essential ingredients for keeping machinery in shape. There is something hopeful about seeing someone like TacticalGramma master a digital environment. The science doesn’t say that video games are a panacea, but it does suggest that brain aging doesn’t have to be a one-way path to decline. Perhaps the secret to a healthier brain is not in a pill, but in our ability to continue to face what is difficult and accept the frustration of constant learning. For now, I’m going to leave crocheting for a while. Image | freepik Xataka | The art of self-deception: why our brain defends our mistakes even if it knows we are wrong

In the midst of the RAM memory crisis, Samsung takes a leap with its HBM4 memory. It does not imply good news for the pocket

We are in full RAM price crisis. The industry is a cake that three large producers share and the data centers and the artificial intelligence They want to eat the whole cake. Samsung is one of the companies that manufactures memory for consumption and data centersand will soon begin mass production of its latest broadband memory chips: the HBM4. Don’t throw the bells in the air too soon. HBM4. This technology represents a crucial advance in stacked memories. Its density allows double the bandwidth, key to transmitting more data per second, but they are also up to 40% more energy efficient than HBM3. In short: they consume less energy and have fewer bottlenecks, which translates into an improvement in data processing. Industry sources point out that Samsung will use the 10-nanometer D1c manufacturing process for the matrix of these HBM4 memorieswith an internal structure of 4 nm. It’s a more advanced process than the 12-nanometer D1b from its main rival, SK Hynix. In addition, it will achieve a data transfer speed of 11.7 Gbps compared to 9-10 Gbps of the current standard. Hello Nvidia. South Korean media they point that these new Samsung HBM4 modules they would have passed Nvidia certification testing and will be in february when the company starts mass manufacturing them. Where will they end up? Some to Nvidia’s new AI acceleration system, called Vera Rubinothers at the heart of Google’s seventh-generation TPUs. After these reports, the company’s shares they went up 5.3% in the Seoul market. The enemy at home. In statements To South Korean media, Samsung representatives have commented that they feel quite confident with a new product that will clear up doubts about the company’s ability to supply the demanding needs of data centers. The fifth-generation HBM3E memories were a bottleneck for the company, so major players in the AI ​​industry looked next door: SK Hynix. Also South Korean, she is the second leg of memory chip manufacturing. The third is the American Micron Technology, a considerable distance from the two South Koreans. A year ago we already told that SK Hynix had achieved enormous efficiency in the DRAM stacking process to create these HBM memories, which allowed it to be 8.8 times more efficient than Samsung or Micron and, therefore, produce more modules for an industry that never stops asking. Meanwhile, the two South Koreans were in a race for the development of the new generation HBM4, and Samsung seems to have struck the first blow. Of course, it is estimated that Hynix will also begin mass production of these new memories on the same dates. And the consumer… what? Well nothing. If you were expecting good news related to the price of RAM, it must be said that no improvements are expected. These HBM4 modules will go to Nvidia, but we recently commented that OpenAI had reached an agreement with Samsung and SK Hynix to supply with 900,000 wafers per month. It is the volume equivalent to 39% of the estimated global capacity… and only for one company. Translation? Bottleneck in the market, a manufacturing speed that may not meet that demand and more bad news for the user. We have seen that Micron has abandoned its Crucial brand for consumers in favor of RAM for data centers, and that Samsung and SK Hynix are focused on HBM4 memories en masse, although they are not used in consumer devices, implies that this is where they will focus on this lucrative AI market. In short: Samsung may be dominating the new generation of memories, but 2026 seems difficult for anyone who wants to build a PC, expand RAM of yours, buy a new mobile or even wait for good news from the Steam Machine. Image | TSMC, Google In Xataka | RAM has become so, so expensive that there are manufacturers selling computers in an unprecedented way: “pre-assembled”

They have dismantled the latest Huawei phones and what they have found is bad news for the US: 57%

May 2019, this was the date the United States declared that Huawei was “a threat to national security”thus becoming the first major victim of the trade war against China. Without being able to use American technology, the company was mortally wounded, or that’s what we believed so. Today, Huawei has not only achieved return to the top of mobile phones in Chinahas also become the banner of technological independence. 57%. It is the percentage of Chinese-made components that we can find in the Huawei Mate 70 Ultra launched in 2024 and the Huawei Pura 80 Ultra launched this same year. They tell it in Nikkei Asia where, in collaboration with the Japanese firm Fomalhaut Techno Solutionshave disassembled both models to analyze the internal components. It is the result of six years of efforts to become independent despite the vetoes. The turning point. The US veto forced Huawei to look for alternatives and create new national supply chains. In 2020, the percentage of Chinese components in Huawei flagships was only 19% and in 2023 it increased to 32%. Reaching 57% in 2024 represents a jump of 23 points, which is said to be early. The countries where most of the components that Huawei managed to supply came from were Japan, the United States and South Korea. Processor. It is the Kirin 9020, the first manufactured entirely in China and most critical component of all. It is a 7nm chip manufactured by SMIC. To achieve the 7 nanometer process they would have used multi-pattern techniquesquite a technical feat considering that they do not have access to the newer machines, but rather have done so by “tweaking” old ASML machines. More components. There are more key parts that have managed to be manufactured entirely in China, such as the RAM memory, which is produced by ChangXin Memory Technologies, or the storage, produced by Yangtze Memory Technologies. For OLED screens, almost all the components are Chinese, specifically from the company BOE Technology Group. Challenges. The 2019 veto was a near-death blow for Huawei; sales fell dramatically and there were moments when we had serious doubts about its continuity, until it began to resurface. Being able to manufacture critical components in China is an enormous achievement, but there is a reality and that is that, technologically, Huawei is several years behind. To put it in context, the Kirin 9020 that they launched in 2024 is at the level of the Snapdragon 855 or the A12 Bionic launched in 2018. The challenge now is to manage to cut positions and Huawei is already doing it. The Huawei Mate 80 Pro mounts the Kirin 9030which has managed to cross the 7nm barrier and reach 5nm. Furthermore, recent leaks indicate that They have managed to copy an ASML SVU machine which would allow them to go even further, although at the moment it is not ready to produce commercial chips. Image | Xataka In Xataka | Huawei is coming back. And not everyone is prepared for what is coming

We have been lowering the toilet lid all our lives for hygiene. Science has bad news: it is not enough

Every time we flush the toilet, a small invisible “rash” occurs in the bathroom. It is not a literary exaggeration: science calls it ‘toilet plume’, or toilet plume: a phenomenon by which a Water discharge launches thousands of microscopic particles into the air loaded with everything you just deposited in the cup. A piece of advice. For years, it’s been pretty simple: lower the lid before pressing the toilet button. However, recent research suggests that this gesture, although useful, is not the definitive shield we thought. A microscopic volcano. When the water enters the cup with force to clean the residue that we have deposited, the impact generates bioaerosols. These droplets are so light that they can remain suspended in the air for minutes or even hours, something that can be quite dangerous for those people who have low defenses. A biological cocktail. According to the scientific reviews that have been done on the matter, the invisible clouds we are talking about are real cocktails with numerous biological agents. For example, bacteria such as Escherichia coli, Salmonella, Shigella and Clostridium. This is something that is magnified when we say that in a single gram of feces there can be up to 1,000,000,000,000 viral particles. And this is something that is magnified in public bathrooms, as scientific studies have shown that bacteria are not only found near the toilet, but also on the floors and sinks, confirming that pollution does not remain stagnant in the air. The myth of the cover. A priori, lowering the lid should be a clear solution to prevent bacteria from escaping, and although it helps a little, the reality is that it is not perfect. According to science, Lowering the lid reduces the dispersion of visible droplets by 30 to 60%being a substantial improvement to prevent heavier particles from landing even on the toothbrush. However, there is a design problem: the gap between the cup and the seat. The finest aerosols (particles less than 1 µm) are expelled under pressure through these slots. In experiments with viruses such as MS2, it has been proven that up to 57% of aerosols manage to escape even with the lid closed. And once outside, their size allows them to avoid many conventional air filters. It’s not just disgust. As microbiologist Raúl Rivas explainsthis is not just a debate about aesthetic hygiene. Flushing the toilet without lowering the lid releases many viruses and bacteria that may even be resistant to antibiotics. But this is something that is greatly amplified in public bathroomswhere ventilation is poor and where there are a large number of people per day. Here there is a high concentration of particles that, due to their small size, can be inhaled or deposited on the surfaces we touch such as the doorknob or the paper dispenser. What should be done. Science doesn’t say to stop lowering the cap, as it’s still best for larger droplets, but it suggests it’s not enough. That is why the tips that we can apply especially in the domestic sphere are the following: The summary is quite clear: the toilet is a very efficient microbicidal aerosol generator, and lowering the lid is the first step although it does not replace good hygiene and ventilation. Images | Giorgio Trovato CDC In Xataka | We have been believing that bacteria are a weapon against tumors for 150 years. And finally we have discovered how

Astronomical RAM prices are bad news for everyone, but especially for Apple

RAM memory prices have skyrocketed between 100% and 400% in just six months. 32 GB kits that cost $95 in the summer now cost $400. There are stores in the United States that They have removed the prices from the shelves and communicate them at the checkout, as if it were lobster on Christmas Eve. Why is it important. RAM prices have skyrocketed between 100% and 400% in just a few months. Samsung and SK Hynix have committed 40% of all global production to Stargate, OpenAI’s infrastructure. The three manufacturers that control 93% of the market prioritize servers over consumption. TrendForce has predicted that Entry-level smartphones will return to 4 GB of RAM in 2026. Budget laptops will stay stuck at 8 GB. For the first time in decades, specifications are not improving but going backwards. The paradox. The scarcity is caused by AI, but that same scarcity is going to undermine our ability to use local AI. Data centers take up all the memory to train huge models, but users won’t be able to run those models on their computers because much-needed RAM has exploded, so we’ll have the same, or less. Main loser. Apple has the most to lose in this scenario. Meta, Google and Microsoft can use the cloud for their models as they have been doing until now, but Apple has been betting heavily on local AI for two years as a great differentiator: models that run on your device, privacy by design and processing without depending on servers. The entire narrative of Apple Intelligence It is built on having enough RAM and local computing power. The iPhones They have been increasing their RAM precisely to run Apple Intelligence smoothly, closing the RAM gap between base and Pro models. Macs with Apple Silicon They have normalized 16 GB, after many years stuck at 8 GB, as the base in all models. The impossible dilemma. Apple has financial muscle and preferential contracts that allow it to get memory when others cannot. But that doesn’t solve your fundamental problem: you have two options and neither are good. You can maintain specifications and raise prices, but there is a limit to what the market will tolerate. Or you can start cutting RAM, but that means compromising just the competitive advantage you’ve been selling for two years. Between the lines. Other manufacturers can adapt by lowering specifications without breaking their value proposition too much. Samsung can put 6 GB in a mid-range Galaxy and still function the same: its AI depends on the Google cloud. But Apple has committed to an architecture that requires powerful devices in the user’s hands. And those devices are now much more expensive to manufacture. Private Cloud Computing It is a help, but it does not change the local narrative. The unexpected turn. Apple Intelligence may end up being much more expensive than Apple had planned. Not because the technology is expensive, but because the raw materials to execute it have become a scarce commodity. Apple is probably the company best positioned to weather this crisis due to its purchasing power (as we already saw with the semiconductor crisis due to the pandemic), but it is also the one that has the most to lose strategically. Apple chose a different path than its competitors precisely when that path was about to become prohibitively expensive. Cloud AI scales with servers you can rent or expand. Local AI scales only if each user has powerful hardware, and that hardware just got wildly expensive. In summary. For the first time in years, Apple does not control the key variables of its strategy. You can pay more than anyone else for memory, but you can’t change the fact that only three companies manufacture it or that those companies prefer to sell to OpenAI and company rather than to mobile and laptop manufacturers for the consumer market. The era of cheap memory is over, and among its many consequences is also the economic viability of Apple’s great differentiating bet. In Xataka | The RAM crisis is so extreme that it has achieved what seemed unthinkable: Apple’s memories are “cheap” Featured image | Georgiy Lyamin

There are people investigating whether AIs are better hackers than human hackers. And we don’t have very nice news

The technology companies do not stop talking about AGIalthough there are many doubts that it is so close how they want to sell us. General artificial intelligence is one that will be capable of surpassing humans in all facets of knowledge. We don’t know if it will be able to surpass us in everything, but there is already a niche in which it is overtaking us: hacking. The experiment. It was carried out by Stanford University researchers and we have known him through a Wall Street Journal report. What they did was develop a hacking bot called Artemis whose objective is to scan the network in search of possible bugs or vulnerabilities through which it can sneak in. They released Artemis into the university’s own engineering network and confronted her with ten pentestersprofessional hackers who are dedicated to simulating attacks to find bugs and then correct them. The bot had a ‘kill switch’ so it could be turned off at any time if things got complicated and the human hackers had instructions to force and test, but without actually penetrating the network. The results. To the surprise of its creators, Artemis achieved excellent results, outperforming nine of the ten human hackers. The bot managed to find bugs much faster than its competitors and, above all, at a much lower price. It is estimated that a pentester charges between $2,000 and $2,500 per day, while Artemis only “charges” $60 per hour. Another “look”. Artemis didn’t do everything right. At least 18% of his bug reports were false positives and he also ignored a very obvious bug on a website that human hackers saw the first time. Instead, he detected a bug that no human had detected. The reason is that the failure was on a website that did not work in Chrome or Firefox, the browsers used by hackers. Artemis is not a person and does not use browsers, but instead used a program and was able to read the website, finding the bug. AI and hacking. The Cybercriminals have been using AI for some time to make malware more effective. Recently Anthropic discovered that a Chinese hacking group was using Claude Code for a large-scale espionage campaign. What is striking is that Claude functioned as an agent who was in charge of the entire attack cycle, not just a part of the process. AI to do good. AI is lowering the barrier to entry for developing attacks, but it can also be used for protection. Research such as that from Stanford shows that AI can also be used to test insecure systems, find bugs and thus be able to patch them. The problem that arises is where the role of professionals such as pentesters will be if AI ends up doing its job for much less money. Image | Sora Shimazaki, Pexels In Xataka | Agents are the great promise of AI. They also aim to become the new favorite weapon of cybercriminals

Google changed the news to summaries made with AI. Now the European Commission has something to tell you

In March of this year an earthquake shook European publishing houses. The reason was that Google implemented AI Overviews in your search engine. This means that, where links to media news previously appeared, a summary made with AI now appears, with the detriment that this entails for the media, which in some cases They have lost up to 50% of traffic. Now the European Commission has taken action on the matter. What has happened? The European Commission has formally opened a new antitrust investigation against Google. The reason this time is the use of content from media outlets and YouTube creators to feed their AI summaries, all without compensating the creators. The investigation will try to elucidate whether Google is distorting competition by placing unfair rules on the media, while its access to content (especially in the case of YouTube) displaces other competitors of AI companies. In the words of Teresa Ribera, Executive Vice President for a Clean, Fair and Competitive Transition at the European Commission: “AI is bringing remarkable innovation and many benefits to people and businesses across Europe, but this progress cannot come at the expense of the fundamental principles of our societies. That is why we are investigating whether Google has imposed unfair conditions on publishers and content creators, while putting developers of rival AI models at a disadvantage, in breach of EU competition rules.” Why is it important. The research involves questioning the model that Google has built around its generative AI, but it also calls into question the entire problem of the use of foreign content by these tools. Opens the door to reconfiguring the AI ​​market, imposing limits and compensation for original content creators The impact. As we said, the arrival of AI summaries has had a huge impact on media traffic. If readers receive the response without having to make a single click, that traffic is lost and not only that: it is unrecoverable. The worst thing is that to give that answer, Google drinks from the information published by those same media. In the case of YouTube, creators are required to accept a clause so that their content can be used for different purposes, including train your AI. Consequences. The investigation has just begun and there is no set date for its conclusion, which could take years. They will study whether Google has violated the article 102 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the EU and the article 54 of the Agreement on the European Economic Area, which prohibit the abuse of a dominant position. If Google is eventually found to have breached these rules, the Commission could force them to take measures to comply with the law, such as compensating creators, allowing them to opt out of having their content appear in summaries, or even removing summaries across the EU, in addition to a possible fine. And now they go… It is not the first time that Google has faced monopoly accusations in the EU. In fact, it is the technology company that accumulates the highest fines. The highest was 4.3 billion for abuse of dominant position with Androidfollowed by 2,950 million for their abuse in the advertising market. He also had to pay 2,420 million for Google Shopping and 1,490 million for AdSense. Images | UnsplashEuropean Commission In Xataka | The EU has spent years fiercely fighting monopolies. Teresa Ribera has other plans for telecos

One of the biggest wine critics is French and has toured China. There is no good news for French wine

TO Michel Bettane he likes wine. In fact, it is more than a hobby: he has developed a career around it, until it became one of the wine critics most influential in the world. For two decades he worked at ‘La Revue du vin de France’, a prestigious magazine that covers current events in the wine industry, until he decided to become independent and, together with a colleague from the magazine, founded the Betanne and Desseauve Guide. Bettane is one of the most authoritative voices worldwide in terms of wines and one with weight within the sector. He recently completed a tour of China in which has tasted more than 300 premium Chinese wines and its conclusion is as resounding as it is hurtful to French pride. The chinese wines They are superior to many of those found in France. And this guy doesn’t try cheap wines, but rather high-end ones. Chinese wines >> French wines These incendiary statements came after the sixth edition of the Bettane + Desseauve Wine Tasting in China. Held in Beijing and Shangri-La (Yunnan), the critic and five other international wine experts tasted more than 300 premium wines produced in China. Bettane has indicated that China is experimenting an “amazing awakening of the terroir”, and it is something that is not out of place if we take into account the international position of the country’s industry. If just 15 years ago it was a desert, now They are sneaking into the conversation like a power. The strategy of the Chinese industry is not to attack in quantity, but in quality, and for this there are wineries that have studied in the most powerful wine and wine regions in Europe to learn and then apply that knowledge to their field. Taking advantage of the particularities of each of its regions, there are wines that are becoming some of the most sought-after without having a French surname. Bettane stated that what has impressed him most is the technical precision when controlling the grape ripening and fermentation processes. “We found almost no wine with serious defects”he assured, adding that “the overall strength of the production standard is, in fact, higher than what we often find in our annual tastings in France.” It looks like a Scottish castle, but it’s a Chinese winery Above all, he highlighted two wine regions: Ningxia and Yunnan. We have already talked about Ningxia recently in Xatakaa very complicated area in winter for which they have developed a technique that consists of burying the vines so that the snow does not affect them. Those responsible have “copied” Bordeauxand it is something that catches the critic’s attention. The other is Yunnan, one that, he says, left him speechless. Especially for a white wine, a ‘Shangri-La Chardonnay‘ which, for Bettane, “can play in the league of the world’s great whites”. A wine strategy modeled on that of smartphones The interesting thing is something that the critic comments about the change in strategy of the Chinese producers, and it is something similar to what has happened in the technological world, especially with the smartphone industry. At first, as happened with Ningxia producers, they dedicated themselves to “copying” Bordeaux, but now Bettane has seen how are beginning to experiment and discover synergies between the grapes, the land and its climatic conditions instead of simply continuing to imitate the European model. As I say, it is similar to what happens with the mobile phone industry and, specifically, with an Apple with which all Chinese brands are compared at any given time. When Apple presents a new feature for the iPhone, we begin to see a rapid adaptation of Chinese mobile phones to include those features, while adding some new functions. The iPhone dynamic island and his twin in other brandsvisual elements in the operating system or the photo button (which existed long before Apple integrated it, but the influence of the apple brand is what it is) are three examples. For Bettane, the possibilities that China’s vast territory offers when it comes to creating and perfecting grape varieties are “unlimited.” And if you read me from France or are a lover of La Mancha wine and right now your fist is clenched… at least we have the cheese left. That, at the moment, has no Asian rival. Images | WBC, Treaty Port In Xataka | If the question is what is the future of wine, more and more Bordeaux wineries are clear about it: non-alcoholic wine

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