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What is this app, add your DNIe, as valid as the physical DNI and what you can do or not do

April 2, 2026 by usatoday24

Starting April 2, 2026 Your DNIe in the MiDNI app is as valid as the physical one. This means that if they ask you for your ID from the Police to a hotel, they are obliged to accept if you show it to them through the app. That makes something that has always been in the background now become important, and that is why we are going to tell you everything you need to know about it. Let’s start with the concepts, telling you what the DNIe and the application MyDNI. We will also tell you how to link your DNI to your mobile with this application, how to change the DNI PIN if you do not remember it when registering it, and we will even remind you of our table on What you can do with MiDNI and what not. What is the digital DNI or DNIe The DNI is the National Identity Document, a card issued by the Spanish Police that serves to prove the identity of Spanish citizens. Our photo and our personal data appear on it. Over time, the DNI has evolved. In 2006, a chip was added, and this version was called Electronic DNI or DNIe, also known as digital DNI. Then, in 2015 came the DNI 3.0, which is the DNIe with NFC technology. Later came the current DNI 4.0, which has the particularity of being able to link the ID to the mobile with the app MyDNI. The DNIe is the name of the most modern versions of the DNIthose versions that already have an integrated chip. Currently, the DNIe is also the one that we can link to the mobile phone with the official application that we have mentioned, created by the Police for this. The DNIe chip allows you to carry out procedures online with a special reader capable of reading the chip. These procedures can range from the Income Tax return to Social Security applications, procedures with the city council or signing documents. It is an online identification method. The chip contains two certificates: Authentication certificate to identify you on websites and services Signature certificate to sign documents with legal validity What is MiDNI MyDNI is the name of the official application to carry your ID on your mobile. Its concept is the same as that of the app myDGTyou can carry an app that not only carries your ID identification, but also serves to carry out various procedures through it. This application allows you to identify yourself with the same validity as the physical document. Come on, it is an official substitute for the physical DNI, and it will help you in those cases where you can forget it. Because let’s be honest, nowadays it’s easier to forget your wallet at home than your cell phone. The app has been created by the Spanish National Policeand it is the only one that has legal validity as a substitute for the DNI. It works by linking the electronic DNI to it, so that you can carry it and show it to identify yourself wherever you want. When you use this application you will connect to the National Police servers to verify the data. With this, you can generate a QR code with which to identify yourself, and which will become invalid after a few minutes so that no one can use it for you. By scanning it, the Police will be able to verify that it is you. Of course, it is not perfect either, and will require you to have an internet connection to be able to function. Therefore, do not blindly trust it and try to also carry your physical ID with you. It is as valid as the physical ID Starting April 2, 2026, The MiDNI app is as valid as presenting the physical DNI. At least to do most of the procedures. Therefore, it doesn’t matter if you leave your wallet at home, if someone asks you for your ID to do a face-to-face transaction, you can show it through this application. However, you must remember that The DNI on your mobile is only equally valid if you use this app. If you show a photo of the document that you have on your cell phone or any other application other than that of the Police, it will not be valid. So be careful, because there are apps with similar names. What you can do with MiDNI What can you do with MiDNI? With this application you can prove your identity in person when you have an Internet connection to use it. It is exactly like identifying yourself with your ID, and not only if the Police ask you to, but also for other things. Here is a table with everything you can do and what you can’t do: What is the ID used for on the mobile? why the ID is not useful on the mobile Prove our identity in person when there is an internet connection. Prove identity in person when there is no internet connection. Establish any type of legal relationship in person. Prove our identity through the internet. Sign deeds before a notary in person. Use it for border crossing as an electronic travel document. Prove our identity in face-to-face procedures in the public administration. Prove our identity in other countries, with or without an internet connection. Carry out in-person administrative procedures in public or private Universities and Teaching Centers. Carry out telematic procedures that require authentication and/or electronic signature. Prove our majority in person. Exercise our right to vote. Open a bank account in person. Formalize insurance of any type in person. Check into a hotel in person. Rent a vehicle in person. Buy tickets or nominative tickets in person that require identification. In-person commercial transactions in which they ask us for a valid DNI or to prove our identity. Carry out access control to buildings in person. Access entertainment venues such as cinemas, theaters or concerts. Parcel collection. Withdrawal … Read more

What you can do with MiDNI and what things you cannot do with the Electronic DNI app on your mobile

April 1, 2026 by usatoday24

Let’s tell you what you can do and what you can’t do with the Electronic DNI on the mobile. As of April 2, 2026, the application of MyDNI It is mandatory acceptance. This means that It will have the same value as the physical DNI to identify you. In this way, if we have left our ID at home we will continue to be able to identify ourselves and prove our identity in person from our mobile phone. However, There are some things you can’t do with this system, and we are going to tell you them along with those that you can do. What you can do and what you can’t What is the ID used for on the mobile? why the ID is not useful on the mobile Prove our identity in person when there is an internet connection. Prove identity in person when there is no internet connection. Establish any type of legal relationship in person. Prove our identity through the internet. Sign deeds before a notary in person. Use it for border crossing as an electronic travel document. Prove our identity in face-to-face procedures in the public administration. Prove our identity in other countries, with or without an internet connection. Carry out in-person administrative procedures in public or private Universities and Teaching Centers. Carry out telematic procedures that require authentication and/or electronic signature. Prove our majority in person. Exercise our right to vote. Open a bank account in person. Formalize insurance of any type in person. Check into a hotel in person. Rent a vehicle in person. Buy tickets or nominative tickets in person that require identification. In-person commercial transactions in which they ask us for a valid DNI or to prove our identity. Carry out access control to buildings in person. Access entertainment venues such as cinemas, theaters or concerts. Parcel collection. Withdrawal of medications from pharmacies. As you can see in our table, the first thing to keep in mind is that to use the MiDNI app you will need an internet connection. It is an essential requirement, because if you do not have the connection you simply will not be able to access the DNI and you will not be able to show it. For the rest, the electronic DNI on the mobile phone basically serves to prove your identity in all face-to-face procedures. The idea is that teaching it is the same as showing the physical DNIwhich has exactly the same usefulness, and all establishments are obliged to accept it. There is one exception, and that is you cannot use MiDNI to vote. The idea is that it would be valid to prove our identity when voting in elections, but this implementation has been canceled for the moment. Come on, it’s still too early to know if it is 100% effective in identifying us, and to avoid problems, being able to use it to vote has been postponed. Otherwise, You cannot use it in online procedures either.for this you already have other methods like your digital certificateincluding the FNMT certificate and that of DNIe. You can’t use it in other countries either.neither to identify you within them nor to do so at border controls. The MiDNI app is a standard for Spain, but it is not valid outside our borders. In Xataka Basics | MiDNI and My DNI: why is there another app that is called like the official one and what are the differences

OpenAI’s big problem all these years has been a chronic lack of definition. Now he wants to solve it with a super app

March 20, 2026 by usatoday24

OpenAI spent much of 2025 announcing new features, not new models (that also), but new products. We saw him with his Sora 2 video generator or with ChatGPT Atlas browser. Now, the company recognizes that they were diversifying too much and their plan is… to launch another app. The super app. They have an exclusive Wall Street Journal that OpenAI is preparing a desktop tool that will unify the ChatGPT app, its Codex code platform and the Atlas browser. This super app will offer agentic capabilities, not only oriented to code, but also to productivity. This is aiming directly at the business field, a field in which its rival, Anthropic is quite ahead of him. Too many products. The company’s goal with this move is to simplify the experience and reduce fragmentation between products. Speaking to the Wall Street Journal, a company spokesperson assures that it will allow them to unify the different teams, which will be able to focus their efforts on one product instead of several. In an internal note, OpenAI explicitly acknowledges that they were spreading their efforts across too many apps and needed to simplify them. The change will be led by Fidji Simo, the head of apps at OpenAI, who recently brought the employees together to give them a message: “We cannot waste this moment because we are distracted by parallel projects.” And diversifying consumes many resources, both economic and computing capacity, and OpenAI is not to be wasted none of them. Without direction. OpenAI has the most used chatbot in the world, but what they don’t have is a clear product strategy. They have wanted to be too many things at once without a clear strategyand in addition, half-abandoned products have been left along the way. The Atlas browser is the best example of this. I had all the potential to be a serious alternative to Chrome which had not yet integrated Gemini. The reality is that, five months after its launch, ChatGPT Atlas is still exclusive for Mac and also has lost functions. Something similar happened with Sora 2: they got the viral moment they were looking for, but today the app remains exclusive for users in the US and Canada. Competition where it hurts most. While OpenAI launched its video memes or its browser, the competition moved forward with a much less flashy, but better thought-out plan. According to a Menlo Ventures reportin 2023 OpenAI had a 50% share in the enterprise segment, while Anthropic had only 12. In 2025 the tables turned: Anthropic had 32% and ChatGPT 25%. If we focus only on programmers, 42% prefer Claude and only 21% ChatGPT. ChatGPT still has many more users, but the vast majority are for personal use. Financially, business users are much more valuable because they have no qualms about paying for subscriptions that often exceed $200 per month. Image crisis. In case Anthropic was not eating enough toast, the image crisis caused by the agreement with the Pentagon. ChatGPT began to lose users at a worrying ratewhile Claude was placed in the top of most downloaded applications. What they were missing. Image | Amparo Babiloni, Xataka In Xataka | There was a time when ChatGPT was a magical and free tool. That time is about to end

In 1987 he had a problem displaying images on his Mac, so he created an app. Today it is the most used image editor in history

March 15, 2026 by usatoday24

Maybe with Nano Banana There are people who have banished Photoshop, but the image editor is the tool that has accompanied photography professionals for decades, almost on par with their camera. In fact, it achieved something only within the reach of very few technological products: becoming a verb and even enter the dictionary. We Photoshop an image and Google it on the internet. Like many other milestones, Photoshop was born by chance: It was the result of a screen that did not know how to show grays. In figures. In these almost 40 years of Photoshop’s life, the editor has been accumulating astronomical data of its progress. Its launch price in 1990 was $895. No joke, it would be equivalent to $2,100 today. It has never been a home software but a professional one. Adobe closed last year with record turnover of 23.77 billion dollars. In 2024 billing was of 21,510 million dollars, of which subscriptions represented 20,521 million dollars. In 2013 Adobe played all its cards on the subscription. Time has proven him right: in twelve years it went from 4,000 million annual billing to almost 24 billion in 2025. How it all started. It’s 1987 and Thomas Knoll was pursuing a doctorate at the University of Michigan in computer vision. Then he had a problem: his Mac Plus had a monochrome screen unable to display grayscale images, only pure black and white. So he wrote a few lines of code to fix it. He called it Display. His little program did the trick, but that was it: he had no intention of commercializing it. The one who did have a nose for the business was his brother John, who at that time worked at Industrial Light & Magic (George Lucas’ company in charge of making Star Wars special effects): convinced him to develop the entire program. Brothers and partners, they sold the license to Adobe Systems Incorporated in 1988. From layers to AI. Photoshop 1.0 would see the light of day in February 1990 as an editor that required only 2MB of RAM and an 8 MHz processor to run, the minimum specifications for a Mac. To put it in context: today Photoshop recommends 16GB of RAM, 8,000 times more. It included tools as iconic to its users as the lasso or the magic wand. But if there was a technical leap that made the difference, those were the very useful capes: they arrived in 1994 with Photoshop 3.0. Before layers, the editor was destructive: each change overwrote the original image. Almost 20 years later, another functional milestone would arrive: the arrival of AI with Generative Fillthat is, being able to add or delete objects with a prompt. Despite the controversy over authorship and the future of retouchingits numbers were incontestable: in April of last year it had already generated more than 22,000 million images since its launch, according to Adobe. The risky move to the subscription model. Before the tricky decision to include AI in its suite, Adobe made another risky move: in 2013 and when we had still succumbed in subscriptionocracyannounced that it would stop selling its Photoshop on a license forever and start renting it. At that time almost 50,000 customers signed a petition against of this decision and its shares fell 12%. Once again, time and pocketbooks seem to have proven them right: they have multiplied their income by six. In Xataka | 16 years ago a student from Barcelona was looking for an easy way to edit PDFs. The website he created is one of the most viewed on the internet In Xataka | 30 years ago he created a player for the university: today his app has more than 6 billion downloads and is still free and without ads Cover | University of Michigan

Apple Music will come to the app to offer the next step

March 12, 2026 by usatoday24

TikTok has become more than just a platform for short videos: for millions of people it is the place where they discover new music. Songs that appear in “Para ti” can go from being a viral fragment to becoming a global hit in a matter of hours. That role as a great musical showcase has redefined how songs are released and promoted in the industry. Apple Music seems to have taken note of that dynamic and is now committed to going one step beyond discovery. The novelty. “Play Full Song” seeks to shorten the journey between the moment someone discovers a song on TikTok and the moment they decide to listen to it in its entirety. From now on, Apple Music subscribers will see a dedicated button on their “For You” or sound details page, from which they can open an Apple Music player to listen to the full track. By tapping it, the user can play the track and continue listening to recommendations within the service. TikTok also adds that users will be able to save songs in “Your Music” and add them directly to their Apple Music lists. An agreement that goes through Apple Music. Although the button appears within TikTok, the complete playback is not done on the social network itself. The function uses MusicKit, Apple’s technology that allows you to integrate your catalog into other applications, so the song is played in Apple Music and listens are counted in that service. The important detail is that the integration is linked only to Apple Music. According to TechCrunchother streaming services, including Spotify, do not currently have an equivalent option to listen to full songs from TikTok. This integration does not appear in a vacuum. TikTok has been incorporating tools designed to connect the virality of its videos with streaming platforms for some time. One of them is “Add to music app”, a function that allows you to save songs discovered on TikTok directly to music services to listen to later. In parallel, the company has also explored other paths, such as its attempt to launch its own streaming service, an initiative that ended up closing. Since then, the strategy seems to focus on reinforcing its role as a discovery point that connects with other platforms. Music is also heard in community. The announcement also includes a feature called “Listening Party,” designed to bring artists and fans together for a shared listening session. During these sessions, fans can listen to songs in real time while interacting with each other and the artist themselves. TikTok describes the initiative as a new social way to experience music within the platform. Together, these tools aim at the same objective: reinforcing TikTok’s role as a meeting point between musical discovery, reproduction and direct relationship between artists and audience. Images | TikTok In Xataka | Netflix spends 17 billion on producing content and YouTube does it for free. And that’s why YouTube is winning the game

A startup from Malaga is the most used European AI app in the world according to Andreessen Horowitz. It’s called Freepik

March 10, 2026 by usatoday24

The venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz has prepared its already traditional ranking with the world’s top 100 end-user AI applications. There are many predictable ones in the top positions, but we are surprised because among the top 15 is none other than freepikthe platform created by the Malaga startup of the same name. Freepik in the world top. On the list we have many usual suspects (and some not so usual) in the top positions, but one of the big surprises on the list It is the Freepik platformwhich is ranked number 11 and is the only representative of our country in that ranking. But besides that, it is the first of all Europeans included on the list. This specific list is made with the number of unique monthly visits as a criterion. USA dominates. In that list the dominance of apps from American companies is clear, and only the Chinese one DeepSeek sneaks into the top 10 list. Here ChatGPT dominates the ranking with Gemini and Canva completing the podium, but it is surprising to see the relevance of Grok, ahead of Claude. And Google shines with its own light. Within the list, the presence of Google is also notable, which has four tools on that list: Gemini (in number 2 on the list), Google AI Studio (10), Google Labs (25) and the splendid NotebookLM (30). Most of these apps come from the US. Graphic: Xataka with Gemini. Data: Andreessen Horowitz. China tightens. It may seem that China’s role here is less relevant than it should be, but it must be taken into account that many Chinese startups focus on platforms and applications for the Chinese market. Even so, there are clear protagonists such as Capcut and Doubao (ByteDance), Qwen and Quark (Alibaba), Kimi, Kling, Cutout and of course the aforementioned DeepSeek. Europe has its protagonists. Freepik is the clear standout on this list among the European AI applications, but there are others that stand out and manage to make it onto the list such as Photoroom (France), Turboscribe and Veed (United Kingdom), Remove.bg/Kalleido (Austria) and another standout, ElevenLabs (based in London). An evolution towards hybrid apps. As Andreessen Horowitz points out, three years ago the distinction between “native AI” products and traditional software was clear. Today that barrier has disappeared, since massive tools like CapCutCanva or Notion have integrated generative AI as the core of their experience and revenue engine. They have taken advantage of their inertia, they have adapted and they have won. In mobile apps the ranking changes, and a lot. The most popular AI mobile apps in the world based on their number of active users each month is very different. Here Freepik disappears from the list, for example, and it is China that totally dominates with 22 of the 50 apps (44%). The US has 13 apps on the list (26%), while Europe only has four (8%) and other countries share the other 11 (22%). Here China benefits from its huge user base, who also very frequently use AI applications for all types of functions. ByteDance is especially eye-catching and has five apps on the list (CapCut, Doubao, Cici, Hypic and Gauth). Divergence of approaches. In general, all apps try to build user loyalty through their ecosystems and try to integrate more and more things so that one does not leave them. However, there are important approaches among some such as ChatGPT, very oriented towards being a “super app” for mass consumption, and Claude, from Anthropic, which focuses on professional and technical users. AI wants to be almost invisible. AI is no longer a destination, a website to go to, but is becoming part of the experience, a function integrated into the application. Thus, it now resides directly in the browser, in development environments or in office suites. In Xataka | The war between Anthropic and the Pentagon points to something terrifying: a new “Oppenheimer Moment”

Running clubs have become Gen Z’s favorite dating app

March 8, 2026 by usatoday24

Dawn breaks and the parks begin to fill with runners. The alarm clock has rang early, it’s time to lace up your sneakers and go out to add kilometers. At the end of the route, still with heavy breathing and sweat on the forehead, the modern ritual demands to open the phone. But the goal is no longer to swipe profiles on a dating app from the comfort of the couch, but to upload the workout to Strava accompanied by a selfie or a clever title. Those who do it know perfectly well that there is someone on the other side paying attention. As a young runner confessed In a report published by the magazine ellethe intention to be seen is undeniable: “One hundred percent. Whether it’s a long run or a pretty outfit, there have been times when I’ve thought: he’s going to see this.” This scene, which is repeated every morning and afternoon in any city in the world, illustrates a massive paradigm shift. In a world where love seemed to have been trapped in algorithms, paywalls and cold screens, Generation Z has decided to return to the streets, the asphalt and the sports clubs. At first glance, Strava is a tool purely technical: GPS maps, average paces and gradients. However, the data confirm a sociological phenomenon. According to the Year in Sport: Trend Report from 2025 issued by Strava itselfone in five Gen Z respondents said they have gone on a date with someone they met through a club running. The same document reveals that the creation of new clubs on the platform multiplied by 3.5 in the last year. The transition from miles to romance has its own mechanics. As the German edition of Runners Globalgive a Kudo (the equivalent of a “like” on Strava) has become the new super-like. Tyler Swartz, founder of the Endorphins running club, points out that “Having multiple points of contact with someone is a great way to build trust.” After a group run, following each other on the app allows you to stay on each other’s radar without the pressure of an exchange of phones. The platform itself has witnessed (and facilitated) this shift. When Strava introduced direct messages (DMs) at the end of 2023 Intended to “coordinate flings,” it took younger users just a couple of hours to turn it into a new avenue for flirting, coining icebreakers like, “At your pace or mine?” Unlike Tinder’s visual catalog, seduction here is behavioral. A report from Trail Info highlights that in this network “People observe before they speak.” Knowing that someone runs four times a week at 6 in the morning says much more about their lifestyle, their discipline and their perseverance than an empty 150-character biography. The collapse of dating apps and the search for the authentic This exodus towards asphalt cannot be understood without analyzing the collapse of the previous model. Young people are tired of swiping profiles. According to a survey of Forbesmore than 75% of Generation Z suffer from burnout by using dating apps, feeling like they are not making genuine connections. Even Spencer Rascoff, CEO of Match Group (parent of Tinder and Hinge), admitted that these applications They are perceived today as a “numbers game” that prioritizes metrics over experience. The financial consequences are palpable. Tinder has experienced a decline sustained in its paying users, falling below the 10 million barrier, dragging Match Group shares into a free fall from their 2021 highs. The exception to the rule, paradoxically, It’s Facebook Datingwhich is gaining traction among 18- to 29-year-olds, primarily because it is completely free compared to its competitors’ subscription models. In contrast, the social sports business is flourishing. A report of Financial Times details how Stravawhich closed the year with 180 million users worldwide, is preparing its IPO on Wall Street under the leadership of its new CEO, Michael Martin, with a valuation that already exceeded $2.2 billion in previous rounds. The British media Guardian frame this phenomenon in the rise of calls Hobby Apps (hobby apps). Platforms like Letterboxd (for movie buffs), Goodreads (for readers) or Strava itself are absorbing users who are fleeing the toxic public square of X (formerly Twitter) or TikTok. They are friendly spaces, strongly moderated by their own common interests, where the debate focuses on passions and not on cultural wars. All this has changed the rules of seduction. Today, asking for a face-to-face date terrifies a generation paralyzed by the fear of rejection. We live in what is defined as the “paradox of preparation”: 80% of Gen Z want to find true love, but only 55% feel ready for a relationship. They are terrified of “public failure”, preferring the eternal groping on Instagram or the soft launch (announce a couple ambiguously on social networks to avoid giving explanations if they break up). Serena Kerrigan, content creator, sums it up perfectly: the apps dating dan cringe (grima) because they feel “like a job interview.” In real life, traditional flirting is mutating into absolute pragmatism. In fact, a trend on the rise is the choremancing (the union of chore —task— and romance). New dates no longer consist of going to a candlelit dinner, but rather going to the supermarket together or assembling an Ikea piece of furniture. It’s the ultimate filter: seeing how the other person manages stress, logistics, and teamwork in the real world. In this context, running clubs fit perfectly. As one attendee relates for the magazine MensXPshowing up sweaty and out of breath instantly breaks the ice. There are no Instagram filters to help when you’re trying to catch your breath; the façade disappears and authenticity takes over. Wellbeing as a new rebellion: the natural ecosystem of Gen Z It is quite complex to decipher Generation Z (and even more so from the perspective of an editor millennial), but there is a common thread that explains everything: well-being has replaced the culture of the night. Strava’s annual report sheds devastating information for the traditional leisure … Read more

Google wants you to spend more time in its app store. So he’s going to turn it into TikTok

March 4, 2026 by usatoday24

At the end of 2023, Google warned: at some point the discovery of applications through short videos in the Play Store would be enhanced. A pilot test began in the United States under the name “Play Report”, giving maximum prominence to certain selected applications through short videos in vertical format. What began as a pilot test appears to have worked successfully. The company just announced a package of news that will come to Android and, among them, is this type of videos. The fact that. Google is going to introduce Google Play Shorts. Their name does not deceive: they are short format videos in which we will be shown the content and operation of the applications. As soon as we open the application, we will see them playing, so the first question we ask ourselves is whether it will be possible to eliminate its autoplay to save data. Because. Google is not hiding, it wants us to be able to check how an application works without having to leave the Play Store. Until now, if we wanted to consult about any app we used to close the store, look for information in another source, and return to download it. The objective of the Play Shorts is that we have enough hook with the video, and we go on to download the application directly. As. The videos will be integrated into the apps section itself, they will not have an independent section. Or, in other words, a priori they seem inevitable. We will open the Play Store and at the beginning we will have these Play Shorts. They will be integrated into the app files themselves but, to boost downloads, there will be an installation button in the video itself. When. “Soon.” The key here is that the function has come out of pilot testing and will soon arrive on Android. Over the next few weeks, and through a server update, these new ads will progressively appear. TikTokizing Play Store. While the European Union puts infinite scroll in the spotlightGoogle has just added it to its most used application. Once we enter Play Shorts, we can slide down to see more and more applications, a format identical to that of TikTok, YouTube Shorts and Instagram Reels. Image | Google In Xataka | The science of “doomscrolling”: how technology hacked psychology so we can’t let go of our phones

OpenAI had to choose between being the star app of the US army and its users. And the users have chosen for it

March 3, 2026 by usatoday24

Last Saturday there were 295% more uninstallations of the ChatGPT mobile app in the United States. Many users felt terrible that OpenAI reached a theoretically unethical agreement with the US Department of Defense to replace Anthropic, and they have punished it with a “Cancel ChatGPT” movement on social networks which has also had an impact on those uninstallations. what has happened. The consulting firm Sensor Tower, which monitors the status of mobile application stores, has indicated that the ChatGPT uninstall rate has increased by 295% on Saturday, February 28 compared to the previous day. Normally, the uninstall rate is around 9% from one day to the next, but that day it was clear that many users decided to get rid of the app at the same time. The reason is obvious. The Pentagon vs. Anthropic. The pentagon it had been months working with Claude, Anthropic’s AI, which was already used on classified documents. Anthropic had made it a condition not to use its AI for mass espionage and the development of autonomous weapons, but the Department of Defense (DoD, which many now call the “War Department”) wanted Anthropic remove those limitations. Anthropic refusedand that’s where OpenAI comes in. and opportunistic. Sam Altman first praised Anthropic’s stance. A few hours later he announced that they had reached an agreement with the DoD to replace Claude with ChatGPT. This has been widely criticized for OpenAI’s lack of ethics and opportunistic attitude, and led to a “ChatGPT cancellation” movement which has had an immediate impact on the downloads and uninstallations of this chatbot. Altman wants to clear things up. He OpenAI announcement It was unclear whether OpenAI actually imposed the same limits that Anthropic had imposed, but Altman soon announced that had added amendments to the agreement to avoid any confusion. Apparently they have been added protections against mass surveillancebut nothing is mentioned about the development of lethal autonomous weapons. Punishment for OpenAI. Not only has it been noticeably uninstalled, but in the opinions of the ChatGPT app many users have given a single star out of five in a very high proportion: those bad opinions grew by 775% on Saturday and then by 100% on Sunday according to Sensor Tower. Five-star reviews fell by 50%. Claude has overtaken ChatGPT in downloads as a result of the latest events with the Pentagon. Source: Appfigures. And Claude already surpasses it in downloads. Another consultancy that monitors the download market, appfiguresindicated that on Saturday Claude’s downloads surpassed those of ChatGPT in the US for the first time. In fact, Claude has become the most downloaded app in at least six countries outside the US: Belgium, Canada, Germany, Luxembourg, Norway and Switzerland. Streisand Effect. We are facing another case of Streisand effect: trying to censor certain information or a certain company ends up being counterproductive. The Pentagon tried to make Anthropic the bad guy, but what has happened is that the company is now seen as the great defender of ethics and “AI alignment.” This has made people perceive it as a more morally respectable option than ChatGPT. But Anthropic has problems. According to Reuters Several US government departments and agencies have made the switch to OpenAI and have begun to stop using Anthropic models for their work. That is already a problem for Anthropicbut even more so is the fact that their recent investment round, in which they raised 60,000 million dollars, could be in danger. If the DoD decides to label Anthropic a “supply chain risk,” its contracts and agreements with dozens of companies would be at risk, and its own future as a company would be at risk. It would be an extraordinary measure and it seems unlikely that the US would go to that point, but nothing is certain today. Image | Village Global In Xataka | The war between Anthropic and the Pentagon points to something terrifying: a new “Oppenheimer Moment”

Today its app has more than 6,000 million downloads and is still free and without ads

February 28, 2026 by usatoday24

There is software so good that it is difficult to believe that it is free because it constitutes an almost anachronistic technological rarity: an echo of that Internet that no longer exists, where valuable information ran through forums far from ruthless algorithms and the perennial interest in monetizing everything. VLC is probably the most extreme case: a free, ad-free, all-terrain player without a corporate owner that has been essential for anyone who watches videos for almost three decades. In figures. Some data that show the impressive evolution of the project in these 30 years: At CES 2025VLC announced two things: the arrival of AI subtitles and that the figure had risen to 6 billion downloads. In March 2024, the official download figure It was 5,000 million. Of those 6 billion downloads, 4.8 billion correspond to Windows. MacOS is much further away, with 380 million, according to data from the VideoLAN statistical system. The beginnings were difficult: in 2009 and after more than a decade of development, version 1.0.0 of VLC was published. A university project. VLC was born in 1996 at the École Centrale Paris, one of the great French technical schools. The VIA Centrale Réseaux computer club wanted to modernize the campus network, an outdated LAN that made any transfer very slow, but needed a technical argument to justify it. The solution was develop an application to broadcast and display network video that would consume enough bandwidth to make the update inevitable. More specifically, there were two programs: the VLS server (VideoLAN Server) and the VLC player client (VideoLAN Client). They were designed with a modular architecture to be able to adapt them to different operating systems without rewriting the entire code, something they would appreciate later. In 1998 they achieved the first successful broadcast and playback in MPEG-2 format. The liberation of being open source. In the beginning, VLC belonged to the university in a closed way, but the students struggled for years to convince the institution to release the project. In 2001, got it: Obtained the free and open source software license GNU General Public License. This decision was a turning point, a real catalyst for everyone from around the world to contribute, going from a university project to something in the community. Of course, when the Free Software Foundation published the new GPLv3, VLC did not update for a practical matter: I had too many collaborators and libraries to get the yes and along the way I would probably have worsened their compatibility. Goodbye to the Ecole. In 2009, VLC graduated from the École Centrale Paris and completely disassociated himself from the academic organization. Since then it has been managed by a non-profit organization, the VideoLAN Organization and which has one of the people who started the project as president, Jean-Baptiste Kempf. It was not a bed of roses. In 2010, VLC arrived on the Apple App Store, but a few months later He was removed due to problems with his license.. Its license at the time, GPLv2, required that the software be completely free of restrictions, something incompatible with Apple’s distribution conditions. The team had to relicense the VLC engine with a more permissive license (LGPL) compatible with App Store policies. Of course, it was a long and legally tortuous process (it required the consent of its authors). VLC finally returned to the Apple store in 2013. Advertising? No, thanks. VLC is free and has no ads by philosophy, as Kempf tells it in this video. For its co-creator, money can be a prison, a limitation if it becomes his main objective. In short: monetizing the most important thing means that the software and its users take a backseat. And there has been no shortage of offers. When we asked Jean Bastiste Kempf for these offers, he confirmed it to us: “We received several offers to buy VLC or to receive millions a year, but that meant adding some type of crapware either adware on users’ computers (changing the home page, inserting ads on web pages, toolbars, etc…), and we reject it. Basically, even if everyone does it, it’s making everyone’s life worse. It’s unethical, and we didn’t do it.” He summed up his philosophy in one sentence: “the search for money cannot be done at any price.” Your business model. The million dollar question if VLC does not have ads or charge a subscription or have premium payment options is: how does it make money? Essentially, in two ways: through donations from its users and with VideoLabsa business branch that has first class clients like Microsoft, Acer or Amazon. Despite its enormous volume of downloads, VLC maintains a light structure, since it is supported by a community of volunteers. In Xataka | 16 years ago a student from Barcelona was looking for an easy way to edit PDFs. The website he created is one of the most viewed on the internet Cover | Ibrahim Boran and By Axelle Manfrini (Wikipedia)

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