ChatGPT 4 has been a bit fishy lately. Sometimes generative AI lacks the courage to complete certain tasks. OpenAI is aware of the chatbot's excessive laziness and provides an update to the Turbo model.
OpenAI has just announced the deployment of an update to GPT-4 Turbo, the supercharged version of ChatGPT 4. This iteration of the language model, trained on information through March 2023, has recently shown “laziness,” OpenAI points out in its blog post.
“This model performs tasks such as code generation more fully than the previous preview model and aims to reduce cases of “laziness” where the model fails to complete a task,” OpenAI explains on its website.
According to the start-up, many users noticed that the chatbot regularly failed to complete a task. It is a fairly common problem with GPT-4 since its introduction. ChatGPT randomly stops in the middle of a sentence or text. Note that this improvement only affects the Turbo version of GPT-4, which is only offered in preview. The standard version of GPT-4, which all ChatGPT Plus subscribers have access to, has not yet received the patch. Therefore, the AI may still be a bit sluggish in certain cases.
In the coming months, OpenAI also aims to improve the Turbo model's multimodal capabilities. The company will make GPT-4-Turbo available to all users the vision model This allows you to analyze images and answer questions about those images. This is an improved version of GPT-4 Vision, the model that adds multimodal capabilities to GPT-4.
Also Read: Here are 10 Best Personalized ChatGPT that you can try without any delay
Price reduction for GPT-3.5 Turbo
As part of this, OpenAI announced a price reduction for the GPT-3.5 Turbo API (Application Programming Interface), the tool that allows developers to use the model in their own creations. This is currently the most commonly used language model by developers. It is cheaper and faster than GPT-4 and has established itself as the industry standard.
Now developers can use GPT-3.5 Turbo a 50% reduced price for entries. With this drastic price cut, OpenAI is likely trying to stay competitive given the emergence of open source AI models. They are freely accessible to all Internet users and offer performance almost comparable to proprietary models from technology giants such as OpenAI or Google.
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In the chaos of the young universe about 10 billion years ago, the formation of stars and galaxies reached its peak. The environment is dense and violent collisions between galaxies result in aggregates with crude and strange shapes.
At least that's what the images from the Hubble Space Telescope suggested and confirmed the scenario favored by cosmologists. However, the scenario in question has just been shattered! Under the keen eyes of the James Webb Space Telescope (TSJW), launched two years ago, the merged galaxies in question turned out to be mostly beautiful and round as pancakes.
“Their disc-shaped structure was already present, but could not be discovered by Hubble,” explains Leonardo Ferreira, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Victoria and lead author of the paper published in the Astrophysical Journal. This challenges our understanding of galaxy mergers: either the disk reforms more easily [après la collision] Either that's what we thought, or we don't fully understand the role of these collisions in the evolution of galaxies. These are probably both hypotheses at the same time. »
Either way, the numbers speak for themselves: of 3,956 galaxies re-examined by the international team (the largest sample examined by the TSJW to date), more than 40% were rotating disks, just like the Milky Way. . This is ten times more than expected! Instead, astronomers assumed that these so-called spiral galaxies, with their delicate arms, were widespread in a quieter universe six billion years ago.
“We continue to study these galaxies to determine how many of them show traces of violent interactions by combing through the TSJW’s tons of public data,” the astronomer continues. At the same time, we are trying to figure out how our cosmological models differ from these new observations. »
A new light
The TSJW may be brand new, but it's not the first time it's shaken up dogma. A quick reminder: The light emitted by very distant objects is “stretched” towards infrared wavelengths by the expansion of the cosmos. By detecting infrared light with unprecedented sensitivity, the TSJW instruments can observe very distant and therefore very old galaxies. The TSJW therefore sheds light on the nature of primordial galaxies dating back to 13.5 billion years ago, shortly after the Big Bang.
These first galaxies also appear in a new light. In February 2023, an Australian team described in Nature the observation of primordial galaxies that are 10 to 100 times more massive than predicted by theory! And in late September, a Danish study published in Nature Astronomy reported that the latter contained four times lower levels of heavy elements than expected, a departure from the rule that applies to almost the entire cosmos. In short, with the arrival of the TSJW, certainties begin to falter.
“The astronomical community is discovering objects that challenge some of the current ideas about how galaxies form,” concludes Leonardo Ferreira. But that doesn't mean it's all wrong: we have puzzle pieces to put together the universe's timeline, still frames with timestamps [c’est-à-dire associées à un âge précis], but we are missing a lot of intermediate information. » Information that the TSJW is well on its way to providing.
They recreated the moon's soil, even though it is hostile to life, in the laboratory to grow chickpeas. The goal of their research is to one day feed astronauts during a long journey into space.
Published on January 26, 2024 2:49 p.m
Reading time: 3 minutes
Growing plants on the moon is a challenge. Illustrative photo. (PATRICK LEFEVRE / MAXPPP)
We talk, we dream of conquering space. NASA plans to send people back to the moon in 2026. Elon Musk has a longer-term goal of colonizing Mars with SpaceX. But it's all very complicated and very expensive. And astronauts, astronauts or cosmonauts have to eat. If the pizza chefs manage to slip through Parisian traffic jams, traversing the atmosphere presents different challenges.
>> A former Périgord chef prepared gourmet meals in space for Thomas Pesquet – France Bleu
Therefore, before thinking about interstellar travel, there is a need to learn how to produce food in space itself. For example, NASA grew lettuce and a tomato on the International Space Station. In fact, it disappeared for several months; astronaut Frank Rubio was even accused of eating it. But he had just lost it, it was found. With this chickpea experience, the cosmic menu can be enriched with a protein-rich food.
Very barren lunar soil
The two researchers, one at A&M in Texas, the other at the prestigious Brown University in Rhode Island, presented their work in a study titled “From Dust to Seed: The Story of a Chickpea lunar.” They haven't been to the moon yet. The experiment took place in the laboratory, they reproduced lunar soil. The problem with this soil is that it is not very fertile. Therefore, it was necessary to fix this problem
The solution was to mix the plant with vermicompost, a widely used fertilizer. This is the droppings of an earthworm called a dung worm. Another ingredient: an arbuscular mycorrhizal fungus. It helps the plant absorb nutrients from the soil. For 120 days, this set was watered and exposed to artificial light equivalent to that of the sun. Attempts with vermicompost and without fungus or vice versa have failed.
There is a risk of heavy metal contamination
Nobody has tried it yet. The researchers must ensure that the chickpeas obtained do not contain any heavy metals, such as those found in moon dust. Otherwise it would not be edible. But the mushroom they chose is theoretically able to absorb these heavy metals and thus avoid contamination of the plant.
Growth takes about 120 days, which is also a little longer than a traditional chickpea, but it's a first step. Humans won't be making a long journey into space any time soon anyway. So the team behind this experiment still has time to refine their research.
Managers at the Cinéma Princesse on Lafontaine Street in Rivière-du-Loup have invested more than $350,000 to improve the area's cinema experience.
Manager Martin Simard confirms that major repair work has been carried out in the main cinema hall in recent weeks. The configuration of the room was reviewed, the benches were changed and the facilities were modernized with the aim of significantly improving the customer experience.
Comments by Martin Simard
Pierre-André Charron, President of ProjecTech, has visited numerous cinemas around the world throughout his career. He praised the achievements of the Rivière-du-Loup facility, which was tasked with making technical improvements. According to him, moviegoers will not be disappointed and will be entitled to a significantly improved experience on their next visit to Princess Cinema.
Comments by Pierre-André Charron
If everything goes as planned, the main room of the Princess Cinema will be open to the public again next Friday.
ChatGPT was launched in late November 2022 and quickly surprised the world with its amazing performance. The text generation application was able to deceive many readers, even the most attentive ones, because they were unable to distinguish texts created by artificial intelligence (AI) from those written by a human. But how could what many thought was impossible yesterday become reality so quickly?
“The explanation for this rapid rise of artificial intelligence and ChatGPT can be viewed as a triangle, the three vertices of which are equally important. First, the computing power of computers has increased dramatically. Second, the amount of quality data for training neural networks has exploded. Thirdly, there have been several innovations in the architecture of neural networks,” explains Professor Nicolas Doyon.
Nicolas Doyon, professor in the Department of Mathematics and Statistics and researcher at the CERVO Research Center, explained the rise of AI and Chat GPT in his talk “The Mathematical Secrets of ChatGPT”. (Provided by Laval University)
At the invitation of the Continuing Education Department of the Faculty of Science and Technology to hold a general public conference on this topic, this professor from the Department of Mathematics and Statistics and researcher at the CERVO Research Center spoke about some milestones in the history of AI and certain scientific and mathematical principles popularized, on which the success of the famous computer application rests.
A champion chess machine
One of the greatest achievements in artificial intelligence dates back to 1996, when the computer Deep Blue managed to beat world chess champion Garry Kasparov. Deep Blue was programmed to create a tree of possibilities, assign a value to the final positions of the tree's various branches, and then determine the best possible move.
However, this approach, which worked well in chess, was less suitable for the game of Go, whose board forms a 19 x 19 grid – providing many more possibilities for moves than chess' 8 x 8 format. The tree of possibilities became too large even for a computer. “That’s why,” says Nicolas Doyon, “the researchers then said to themselves: ‘This doesn’t correspond to the way we think at all.’ How could we take inspiration from the way the human brain and neurons work to improve artificial intelligence? »»
Mimic neurons
By studying how human neurons work, we found that they do not respond to all messages they receive. A message must reach a minimum threshold for the neuron to emit a so-called action potential, which always has the same strength and shape regardless of the intensity of the original message. This action potential is passed on to the next neuron via a synapse. It's an all-or-nothing law.
However, synapses are not just used to transfer information from one neuron to another; Their plasticity would play a central role in learning. In fact, researchers have found that the connection strength of synapses changes over time. “Simply put: the more frequently a synapse is used, i.e. the more it transmits an action potential to the next neuron, the stronger it becomes.” Under the microscope we can clearly see that the dendritic spine, an area of the neuron, becomes larger, when a person learns. In short, by getting bigger and stronger, the synapse gradually changes the way we think,” explains the professor.
How can these biological facts be represented mathematically? “One way to transfer the all-or-nothing law into mathematics,” answers Nicolas Doyon, “is to use the Heaviside function.” In mathematics, functions often go continuously from 0 to 1. “The Heaviside function, on the other hand,” he explains, “is a function that has the value 0 until the input to the function reaches a certain threshold. Then suddenly it goes to 1.”
All or nothing can be represented mathematically by the Heaviside function. (Provided by Laval University)
“To illustrate the role of the synapses,” he adds, “we assign weights to the different inputs of the neuron.” From the graph, we can see that after determining the numerical values of the inputs, we assign these values to the weight of the Synapse, add the results of these multiplications to obtain a weighted sum, and finally we check whether this output value meets the required threshold, resulting in 0 or 1.
“To illustrate the role of synapses, we assign weights to the different inputs of the neuron,” explains Professor Nicolas Doyon. (Provided by Laval University)
Train the network
In recent years, artificial intelligence has made major breakthroughs thanks to the development of deep learning. “We now work with neural networks with several layers: an input layer, intermediate layers and an output layer. Between a neuron in one layer and a neuron in another layer there is a connection strength, also called synaptic weight, and as the network learns, each of these weights is adjusted,” notes Nicolas Doyon.
And how does the network learn? Through training, the researcher states. Consider the case of a neural network tasked with confirming whether the photo is that of a cat or a dog. We will assign a value of 0 to the cat and a value of 1 to the dog. To train the network, we will use thousands or even millions of images of these little creatures and examine the percentage of well-classified images. If the network does not give the correct answer, it did not get the correct output value because the synaptic weights were not well matched. We will therefore continue to adjust these weights until we achieve a very high success rate.
But how do I adjust the weights? “One of the things we use is the gradient descent method. To illustrate this, we can imagine a person trying to descend to the base of a mountain as quickly as possible. This is easy to imagine if there are only two inputs. On the x-axis we represent the success rate associated with different weights by which we multiplied the first entry, and on the y-axis we represent the success rate associated with different weights by which we multiplied the second entry. The error is displayed on the Z axis. Then it is possible to visualize the point where the error is smallest and try to adjust the weights so that they move in that direction,” explains Professor Doyon, who adds in the same breath that the principle, Although always the same, it is more difficult to visualize in reality when the number of parameters to be adjusted is in the millions or even billions.
We adjust the synaptic weights using the gradient descent method. (Provided by Laval University)
Math and reading at the heart of ChatGPT
The exact numbers are of course not disclosed publicly, but we can estimate that ChatGPT needs to adapt a network of 60 to 80 billion neurons, 96 layers and 175 billion weights. For comparison: there are around 85 billion neurons in the human brain. “The comparison remains a bit lame,” agrees Nicolas Doyon, “because our neurons are not quite similar to artificial neurons, but we are roughly in the same order of magnitude.”
When the computer application is asked to define itself, it responds: “ChatGPT uses a deep neural network structure. It is important to note that ChatGPT does not possess deep understanding or self-awareness. The answers are based solely on the statistical probabilities of the words or phrases.” To generate a text, ChatGPT calculates the probabilities that another word sequence will follow from a word sequence and then suggests the most likely sequence.
To achieve this, ChatGPT had to train billions of data points. The content of this reading is of course subject to confidentiality. However, it can be assumed that the network was trained on over 300 billion words. “If you read 300 words per page and one page per minute 24 hours a day, you would have to read for 1900 years to absorb that much information,” explains the mathematician, to get an idea of the scale of the problem, using the library as a basis for learning ChatGPT.
“If you read 300 words per page and one page per minute 24 hours a day, you would have to read for 1,900 years to absorb that much information.”
– Nicolas Doyon on the supposed 300 billion words that make up the ChatGPT training database
Between amazement and fear
ChatGPT's sometimes breathtaking performance captures the imagination of some who see the future as a science fiction movie where artificial intelligences dominate the world. However, it is not this scenario that worries those among scientists who would like to see greater regulation of AI development. Rather, their intention is to prevent certain slips associated with human use. They also want us to take the time to better understand and analyze the negative impacts of this technology.
“What could possibly go wrong? Apparently students can use ChatGPT to cheat. Plus, people can lose their jobs. Recently, striking writers in Hollywood called for limiting the use of AI in screenwriting,” recalls Nicolas Doyon.
In addition, the professor reveals, other problems are less obvious and more insidious. “For example,” he says, “AI in the area of facial recognition would more easily recognize white men than women or people who are visible minorities.” This fact is a little surprising since we imagine a neutral artificial intelligence. It can't be sexist or racist. But because the AI was likely trained on a database that contained more male and white faces, it inherited our mistakes.”
Another example the professor gives comes from DeepL, a translation application that uses the same principles as ChatGPT. “If we ask DeepL to translate “she reads” into Hungarian, he says, we get “ὄ olvassa.” If we ask him to translate the same Hungarian words into French, he will say “il lit”. For what? Since the database has a statistical bias, the male subject is more often found before the verb “read”.
The often hidden environmental problem should not be taken lightly. “People think that AI is virtual and has no impact on the environment. However, according to an article, ChatGPT drinks 500 ml of water every time you talk to him. This image was used to remind us that massive amounts of water are required to cool supercomputers. In addition to this resource, ChatGPT also requires a lot of energy. Some say that AI will soon use as much electricity as an entire country,” says Professor Doyon.
So what does the future of AI and ChatGPT look like? “I don’t know,” Professor Doyon answers humbly. “Are there things ChatGPT can never do? I have no answer. Every month we hear that Chat GPT has done something new. It is impossible to know where this will all end,” concludes the mathematician.
For an overview of Nicolas Doyon's work
Learn more about past and upcoming general public conferences organized by Continuing Education at the Faculty of Science and Engineering
Watch the conference “The Mathematical Secrets of ChatGPT”:
In the twilight of their existence, stars go unnoticed before releasing a cloud of gas and dust that earns them the nickname “old smokers,” according to astronomers who reported the discovery of these stars in the heart of the Milky Way on Friday.
• Also read: After historic mission, NASA's Mars helicopter will no longer fly
• Also read: Water vapor observed in the atmosphere of a small exoplanet
“These ancient stars sit still for years or decades before bursting out like clouds of smoke, completely unexpectedly,” explains Dante Minniti of Chile’s Andrés Bello University in a press release.
They are so pale and red “that sometimes we can't see them at all,” said this professor, co-author of the study published in the Monthly Notices of the British Royal Astronomical Society.
Their “singular” behavior has never been observed before, astrophysicist Philip Lucas, lead author of the study and professor at Britain's University of Hertfordshire, told AFP.
The international team of astronomers initially searched for young stars as part of a ten-year observation program and discovered numerous protostars (forming stars).
AFP
With the discovery of at least 21 “old smokers”, he also offered them a “nice surprise”, says Professor Lucas.
They are located at the center of the Milky Way, in a region called the stellar core disk, which is home to a large concentration of stars.
New species of red giant
The “old smokers” would be a new type of red giant star, stars at the end of their lives that reach large sizes and low surface temperatures at this stage.
“The surprising thing about this discovery is observing stars standing still without doing anything,” comments Professor Lucas. And then its apparent brightness suddenly decreased 40 to 100 times until it was almost undetectable to telescopes. A few years later and without warning, they return to their original brightness.
AFP
“Everything we have been able to learn about them suggests that these stars emit plumes of smoke (…) for reasons unknown to us,” said Professor Lucas.
These clouds, made up of gas and dust, would be responsible for the decrease in the star's luminosity and would obscure it from an observer's eyes.
Their activity occurs in a region of the galaxy rich in heavy elements, to which these stars may contribute.
“The matter ejected from old stars plays a key role in the life cycle of elements and contributes to the formation of new generations of stars and planets,” explains Professor Lucas. In this case, the matter emitted and distributed by the “old smokers” should enrich the interstellar medium in which new stars are formed.
But scientists don't yet have a definitive answer to this, emphasizes Professor Lucas. “So far we’re trying to figure out what would make the most sense.”
The question of whether to buy games physically or digitally has been hotly debated for 15 years. There are undoubtedly many arguments for and against both. On the physical side, there's the fact that you can actually own your games and do whatever you want with them, including reselling them, and they're generally a lot cheaper. The advantages of digital include, above all, greater convenience (both when purchasing and using it), the fact that it does not contain a data carrier that can be lost or broken, and that it is significantly more environmentally friendly than all means of transport and materials , packaging and intermediaries.
Regarding the physical, among other things, we note that a disc can actually disappear or break and your game no longer exists, that using it is more complicated than simply installing everything, that you cannot avoid a cheaper fully digital console buy, and that some titles simply don't physically exist. In the digital sector, the games are significantly more expensive and you don't own them. You will therefore never be able to sell a game that you have completed or that you do not like.
This last point was highlighted when Discovery and Sony recently announced that they would be removing video content that was actually purchased on the PlayStation Store. Of course, the number of users affected was quite small, but the agreements are designed in such a way that the games can be withdrawn at any time without you being able to do anything about it.
This is an announcement:
This happened, for example, during Stadia's recent bankruptcy. Anyone who had a large game collection lost everything. Google has handled the situation well with refunds, but what would happen if Steam closed? All your purchased games and save files would disappear. To my knowledge, only GOG is currently a major service where you actually own your games and can access them online without the company's launcher
This scares many players. The ability to continue playing your titles in the future is a major concern, although it's far from certain that the HDMI ports will work forever. It's already becoming difficult to use a Super Nintendo with an RGB cable on a flat screen TV, and who's to say that the TV of the future will even have jacks for cables in these wireless times? But there's still something particularly irritating about the idea of buying games for thousands of dollars, only to find out one morning that you've been banned from a service for questionable reasons or that a deal has gone sour, meaning the title you bought yesterday works suddenly not anymore. It's really about the big companies versus the small ones, and you know that in this case you've already clicked on your terms by agreeing to many agreements that you didn't read when you booted up your console and your games.
Plus, a title you bought at full price can be updated at any time in a way you really hate, meaning the developers are essentially destroying something you paid for. Can you imagine another scenario where we would agree to this? Buying an armchair that has been altered to be uncomfortable three months after purchase, your expensive frying pan that is suddenly no longer suitable for meat, or your Star Wars movie box with the original trilogy in its place replaced by the new ones, shabby editions crushed original form George Lucas. Our gaming rights are really limited and there's not much we can do about it. We approved all of this before we even started playing.
This is an announcement:
So should you buy the games physically? Not necessarily. Because the problem here is that physical discs these days often look more like tokens than something that actually contains a playable product. It's not uncommon for me to find that the new CD I put into my console to install a game isn't being used, but all the data is still downloading online. I have no doubt that in 20 years those who try to play a game from a CD after the servers are shut down will be deeply disappointed because in many cases the game will not work at all. The same goes for those who have downloaded games. Even if they often work offline, they still need to be checked from time to time. And without verifiable servers there will be no game. Switch owners in particular avoid these disappointments, but even there it is becoming increasingly common that when purchasing a physical copy, the game data is not included in whole or in part of the game, and I have to assume that the Switch 2 (which, according to rumors, still due to be released this year) will be more digital-friendly.
Also, Ubisoft recently commented on this physical vs. digital thing, casually saying that we gamers need to get used to not owning our games. And by and large we're there, but I think the parallels he draws with the films are wrong. Because even if I no longer own a VHS, DVD, or Blu-ray, it's not hard to get virtually any movie I want legally (although there are some exceptions) for a very low price. However, when it comes to games, we are talking about dedicated hardware that usually only works with a specific console. Microsoft was the best when it came to backwards compatibility, as the Xbox Series S/X allows you to play titles from the Xbox, Xbox 360 and Xbox One. But it is far from complete and there are several titles that are no longer available for a console at all and cannot be purchased digitally, as in the case of the Nintendo DSi, meaning that the downloaded copies that people have are the newest ones available. On the other hand, there is no art in watching the talented and beautiful Anita Ekberg in the 1960 film The Sweet Life. This film works just as well no matter what cinematic medium you use.
So games are a very special case, but the idea that game companies would run endless servers to satisfy the indescribably small number of gamers who want to download very old titles is obviously not realistic. Digital games may be ridiculously expensive, but they don't guarantee lifetime server support.
I think price is the biggest disadvantage of digital games. It's not really surprising that you have to pay $70 to buy a new game (the equivalent of a 90-minute tennis session and a trip to the cinema for two people) and considering the amount of entertainment the video offers, it's not really that surprising Games are and will remain cheap. However, $70 is complete madness when the CD costs around $50, as some electronics chains run a promotion on premieres and quickly drop their prices afterward.
The idea that a game should always be the cheapest online is unrealistic, but the difference is too big today and is only made possible by the fact that we are happy to pay for convenience and there are no competing online stores. Apple was fighting Epic to be the only vendor selling products for iOS, and similarly, there's no alternative on the Xbox Series S/X if you don't want to pay the price that Tekken 8 costs in digital at launch . Sony was even sued, accusing it of charging too high prices on the PlayStation Store. You can't check what another store is charging for the same digital game because there are no options, but you can when it comes to physical formats. And when you finish the game after a few weeks (mainly the single player titles and games you don't like), sell them on eBay or Facebook and get a few bucks back. This difference is so big that even I, who definitely prefer digital games, often buy physical games during promotions, and most of my digital games were purchased during sales.
Where am I going with this? Well, there are several advantages to physical and digital gaming, but there are also some really serious disadvantages, most of which come from the fact that we don't really own our games in the same way anymore. The retro wave that is overwhelming us today with outrageous prices for older titles is something that I don't think the current 25-year-old generation will see the day when the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series S/X go retro. In fact, I'm not sure a game in this format will still be playable in 20 years – but until then I'll be retired, drinking lemonade on the porch in a hopefully more peaceful world that understands that collaboration leads to better results for humans and animals as war. And I'll hopefully have some old video games that are worth at least a little money.
Unlike many of us who own old music CDs, perhaps records, comics, films and retro games, a generation is growing up that has none of these. They have access to everything through subscriptions, but have very, very little popular culture compared to slightly older generations. Is it a problem ? Maybe, maybe not, but it is clear that it will at least be very different.
EU Commissioner Thierry Breton welcomed “the ongoing changes” on Friday after Apple said it would bring its iPhones into line with new European rules, while warning that the EU would not hesitate to take action in the event of a breach.
• Also read: iPhone: A new feature to protect data in the event of theft
• Also read: At 40, Apple's Mac will take over AI or it won't
Apple on Thursday announced major changes to the iOS operating system that powers its famous mobile phones to comply with new Digital Markets Act (DMA) regulations.
These changes were made reluctantly under pressure from Brussels, as the Cupertino group had always shown its hostility towards the DMA.
The European Commission, which now takes on the role of the EU's digital policeman, must assess compliance with the new legislation, which comes into force at the beginning of March.
“Change is already underway,” Internal Market Commissioner Thierry Breton said in an interview with AFP about the Californian group’s announcements.
“More choice for consumers and more opportunities for small, innovative technology companies. “The DMA will open the doors of the Internet to competition so that digital markets are fair and open,” he emphasized.
“From March 7th, we will evaluate the companies' proposals taking into account the opinions of third parties. “If the proposed solutions are not good enough, we will not hesitate to take strong action,” he warned.
Specifically, the Apple brand announced that starting in March it would allow alternative app stores on its phones that would compete with its App Store.
It will also open up to contactless payment services other than the Apple Pay solution.
Choosing an alternative browser to Safari is also made easier by automatically opening a menu with competing solutions, whereas previously you had to go into the settings to make such a change.
These developments are accompanied by new pricing conditions for developers.
Apple denounces “risks”.
“The changes comply with the requirements of the European Union's Digital Markets Act while helping to protect EU users from the inevitable increased privacy and security threats that this regulation brings,” said Phil Schiller, vice president of marketing at Apple , quoted in a press release.
“Even with these guarantees in place, many risks remain,” says the Cupertino group, whose security is one of the main marketing arguments and which has never hidden its hostility towards the DMA. Apple also assumes that the new rules will lead to a “less intuitive user experience”.
“It's the same story as the ordinary charger: they make a big deal, but in the end they stick to it. If they are worried about security, it means they have not done their job well and the Commission can take action against them,” a senior European official told AFP on Friday.
Apple announced in September that it would integrate the “USB-C” universal charging port into its new iPhone range, a year in advance of complying with European legislation that the company has long fought against.
The apple brand has built its success on a closed ecosystem whose parameters it controls, a philosophy that is in direct contradiction to European competition rules. She always defended it with the security requirements and increased comfort for users.
The regulation of digital markets applies to Apple, but also to five other digital giants – Alphabet (Google), Amazon, Meta (Facebook, Instagram), Microsoft and the Chinese ByteDance (TikTok).
This law introduces stricter rules to curb anti-competitive practices in the EU. Companies that violate the regulations face fines of up to 20% of their global sales if they repeat their violations, and in the most serious cases even dismantling measures.
At the initiative of the text, Commissioners Thierry Breton and Margrethe Vestager hope to encourage the emergence of European start-ups and improve the services offered to consumers.
The DMA will make it possible to take action in advance against the abuse of a dominant market position. The EU's traditional competition rules had failed to bring the sector's giants into line, dragging the Commission into endless legal proceedings.
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