chosen

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

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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”

has chosen the most risky

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17:01 this Friday, February 27. That was the deadline that the United States gave Anthropic to grant full powers to the Pentagon about the use of your AI. It is your software that is fully integrated with Palantir and the Department of Defense systems, but the US believes it has a problem: Anthropic has tied its AI to some moral rules that shouldn’t exist. So this week Defense sent them a message: either they give them an AI without restrictions or there will be consequences. And Anthropic has answered with a resounding “no.” Monumental friction. Here we are not facing a conflict between companies: it is a company against its Government. Anthropic offered its AI to the Pentagon for integration into its systems. He did it at a symbolic price: one dollar. The Pentagon accepted and the response was a $200 million contract. The Department of Defense began integrate Anthropic AI into your systemswith everything that entails: full access to documents that no one outside the Pentagon can access. The US also wants be a field toolbut there is a problem: that AI is ‘programmed’ so that it cannot be used for mass surveillance of American citizens, for the development of weapons or for the use of autonomous weapons. This is precisely what the Pentagon wants to do. The Secretary of Defense sent a message to Anthropic: or they give them AI without limits or they make them a Huawei. These are my principles. We imagine that they have been some intense days, but Dario Amodei, CEO of the company, has answered on its blog. His opening sentence is powerful: “I deeply believe in the existential importance of using AI to defend the United States and other democracies to defeat our autocratic adversaries.” Good start to what seems to be a statement in which he gives in, but… no. After a review of what they have “given up” so that their AI is in the Department of Defense systems and criticize that the US removes the tasting from the Defense Production Act of 1950 to terrorize an Anthropic that will go public this year, the resolution is firm: “we cannot agree in good conscience to the request.” The company is clear that its AI can be very helpful to the Government, but it continues to oppose, mainly, two specific uses: Mass espionage because AI can put together complete databases of anyone’s life. The use of autonomous weapons that cannot be trusted for decision making, since they do not have the judgment that a professional soldier does (or that a professional soldier should have). An AI does not question, has no remorse, does not wonder if it is right or wrong or if the goal is a false positive. An AI… executes. We have breastfed for you. In the statement, Amodei launches almost a plea, a “with everything I have given you,” stating that this commitment to the leadership of the United States has been against the interests of the company itself. They point out that they have given up “several hundred million dollars to prevent Claude from being used in companies linked to the Chinese Communist Party” and that this cost some attacks by China, with some of their companies trying to abuse Claude. And it is an open letter, a declaration of intent that has been endorsed by competitors’ employees. For 219 from Google and another 65 from OpenAI. Many have given their names, many others have signed anonymously, but all with the same goal: to reject the Department of Defense’s demands to use their models for mass surveillance and “autonomously kill people without human supervision.” “In any case, these threats do not change our position: we cannot in good conscience agree to your request” There is no middle ground. No matter how nice and romantic the statement from Google and OpenAI employees sounds, the reality is different. They are challenging the Government, a Government that is continually demonstrating that it is going to execute whatever they want (there is ICE, the climate movements, the departure of the WHO, tariffs or threats to partners and allies). And the problem is that Anthropic has a lot to lose, much more than that $200 million that is pocket change in the context of AI investments. If they give in, it would mean taking a step back in an almost founding aspect of the company. If they do not give in, they become the “prestige brand” of AI. They demonstrate that they have the model that today’s most technologically advanced army needs and that they are untouchable, at least as long as a United States that is already moving towards alternatives such as Google, X and OpenAI finds an alternative. But they run the risk of, as we said, being blacklisted by the US. The Government has threatened to condemn Anthropic to being a company that poses a “supply chain risk”. As Amodei points out in the statement, it is a label reserved for the country’s adversaries and has never been applied to an American company. It would put Anthropic in the same bag as Huawei and other Chinese companies and would prevent the rest of the American partners from making deals with them. But, even if they do not give in, the US can take over AI by force with the letter of the Defense Production Act. Through this decree, if they consider that this tool is necessary and essential for national security, it does not matter what Amodei says. On the roof of the Pentagon. That’s where the ball is right now, and time is running out. As we said before, it is not an operation between companies, it is not a fight between politicians: it is a company that is being threatened by its own country. A threat that is a “give this to us by fair means or we will take it from you by bad means”. In any case, we have to wait to see how … Read more

Mexico knows that the future lies in technological sovereignty and has already chosen its “Silicon Valley: Jalisco and Sonora

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Mexico has undertaken the adventure of technological sovereignty. With her arrival to the presidency, Claudia Sheinbaum set the modest goal of “continuing to make Mexico the best country in the world.” To this end, he presented the ‘Mexico Plan‘, a roadmap to attract investment and develop industries such as biotechnology, electric cars or that of semiconductors. And the foundations for that ambitious chip manufacturing plan are already being built with a single idea in mind. Technological sovereignty. Kutsari. Silicon is extracted from sand and this is precisely what ‘kutsari’ means in Purépecha. It is also the name of Kutsari Project that seeks to stop importing a large part of the semiconductors that Mexico needs for the products it already manufactures. Puebla, Jalisco and Sonora are the three locations chosen to develop a plan that only pursues one objective: to stop being a country that assembles chips to become one that designs, manufactures and sells them. Jalisco moves. Since the project was announced, steps have been taken to get it started, and as we read in MillenniumJalisco has not wasted time. One of the poles of Kutsari will be the Cinvestav -Center for Research and Advanced Studies-. The reason is that it is the only institution in the country that has an agreement with Intel to generate integrated circuits in 16 nanometer lithography. Jalisco was already a semiconductor manufacturing point at the end of the last century and the Intel Design Center is located in the same area. That is why Jalisco has already been nicknamed the ‘Silicon Valley of Latin America’, a ‘hub’ in which different technology companies are settling, especially those dedicated to semiconductors, and which is bringing foreign investment. According to Pablo Lemusgovernor of Jalisco, if Mexico’s economy grew by 0.5%, due to that investment Jalisco’s grew by 4%. Sonora winks at the US. Another of the axes in this objective of technological sovereignty is Sonora. Recently, it signed an agreement to locate the Semiconductor Research and Development Center at the University of Sonora. Apart from being another thinking mind in the semiconductor strategy, Sonora has an advantage: the Mexico-US Trade Corridor, which seeks greater investment and regional connectivity. In the end, Sonora and Jalisco are taking steps in the same direction: investment, consolidation of already established infrastructures, construction of new buildings and strengthening agreements to attract talent. Goal: 2028. As they say, things in the palace move slowly, and currently both states are in a phase that we could classify as pre-production. They are preparing the ground in parallel, making advances in design, but also in talent and the ecosystem to create the chip production chain. Let’s remember the importance of having all this tied up (and the closer, the better), since it is one of the secrets behind the leadership of the Taiwanese TSMC. Once everything is ready, the manufacturing phase will begin, and in this sense, we also have to talk about the state of Puebla. In the municipality of Cholula will locate one of Mexico’s semiconductor production plants, one that will take advantage of all that knowledge developed by Jalisco and Sonora and that, it is expected, will begin producing chips by 2028 with an eye toward commercialization by 2029. Competence. It seems like a long time, but it is really a very short period to shape an industry as complex as semiconductors. But, obviously, you have to start somewhere and the latest advances in the Kutsari project show that Mexico remains determined to achieve a certain sovereignty in the chip segment. Now, we will see how far Mexico’s aspirations go and if its production is sufficient to satisfy the global market or it has to “settle” for the domestic market. The reason is that the component crisis of 2020 and the current RAM crisis It is teaching us something: you cannot depend on one country or a handful of companies. And there, Vietnam, India and China are strengthening for break technological hegemony which is currently in the hands of a few. This implies greater competition, but if Mexico’s plans go well, it also represents an opportunity that should not be missed. Image | ASML (edited) In Xataka | There is a global race to gain hegemony of critical minerals. And Mexico has just taken a key step

A third of the planet’s ships depend on a single Norwegian company. And they have chosen Alicante for their global expansion

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In the world of shipping, there is a silent giant whose technology is responsible for ensuring that a third of the world’s fleet is not lost at ocean or collided in port. This is Kongsberg, the Norwegian conglomerate controlled mostly by its State, which has turned the province of Alicante into an indispensable piece of its global chess board. Today, more than 30,000 ships they are capable of plowing the seas thanks to systems that are managed, maintained and repaired from offices located between La Vila Joiosa and the NOBO business center in the capital of Alicante. A strategic divorce to conquer the stock market. The news that has shaken the foundations of the industry this year is the segregation of the matrix. According to the company itselfKongsberg Gruppen ASA has decided to split into two independent entities to gain agility: on the one hand, the Defense and “Discovery” division (fishing and research); and on the other, Kongsberg Maritime, the jewel in the crown dedicated to navigation systems, which will begin trading separately on the Oslo Stock Exchange on April 23, 2026. This financial independence is backed by solid figures on Spanish soil. According to the newspaper The Informationthe Spanish subsidiary invoiced a total of 31.7 million euros in 2024, with a profit of more than five million. It is not surprising that Lisa Edvardsen Haugan, future CEO of the new independent company, claim that they are “unitarily positioned for value creation in the global maritime sector.” Why Alicante and not Vigo or Algeciras? The story of how a Nordic power ended up installing its nerve center in the province of Alicante has a component that is as human as it is strategic. In 1995, the company was looking for a headquarters in Spain. Although ports like Vigo or Barcelona seemed logical options, the executive in charge of the expansion opted for the coast of Alicante. The reason was the existence of a historical and consolidated colony of Norwegians in municipalities such as La Vila Joiosa or Altea. However, what began as a small delegation for the fishing sector—under the name Simrad Spain— has mutated into something much more ambitious. After the purchase of the maritime division of Rolls-Royce, the structure became too small. Today, the move of Kongsberg Maritime to the NOBO business center in the capital of Alicante responds to a need to attract talent. Miguel Ángel González, general director in Spain, points out that this change seeks to increase the attractiveness of the firm to retain engineers and software developers, in addition to reducing emissions due to staff travel by 30%. The brain of the autonomous boat. Alicante is not a simple administrative office; It is one of the only three resource hubs that the group has on the planet, along with Poland and Norway itself, capable of serving ships around the world thanks to its strategic position between the Atlantic and the Mediterranean. As explained by the company itselfnaval autonomy is not new — they have been developing Dynamic Positioning Systems (DPS) for 40 years that allow a ship to remain stationary at an exact point in the ocean without using anchors — but now the technology has reached a “critical mass.” Yara Birkeland: The world now look in amazement to the world’s first fully electric, autonomous and zero-emission container ship, developed by Kongsberg together with YARA. Reach Remote: This is a series of unmanned surface vessels (USV) that are controlled from a remote center. According to senior designer Erik Leendersthis allows a single captain to control several ships at once from dry land. The “Jewel in the Crown”: The DPS system is what allows that Sasemar (Maritime Rescue) oil platforms or rescue ships operate with extreme safety on the high seas. The horizon. The future of navigation involves electric motors that generate your own energy with the rotation of the propellers. To manage this complex flow of data, the firm Kognifai has launchedan Artificial Intelligence platform that optimizes ship operations. Although the technology is ready, the company’s technical report warns that the biggest current challenge is not engineering, but legislation. As the firm warnswe are in “uncharted territory” and the IMO still needs to define the rules for these ships without humans. What was born in 1995 as a fishing office in La Vila has become in 2026 the command post from which Norway and Alicante dictate the rules of the future of global trade by sea. Image | Kongsberg Xataka | The ships of the oil “ghost fleet” turn off their GPS to avoid being detected. Malaysia is going to hunt them with drones

In 1978 Christopher Reeve was chosen to play ‘Superman’. He got so beaten up that he literally couldn’t fit into the suit.

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In the mid-seventies, superman He wasn’t just a character: he was DC’s goose that laid the golden eggs and a bet that could make or sink the first great modern superhero blockbuster. Producers Alexander and Ilya Salkind wanted a “serious” and grandiose film, far from the tone camp from the sixties Batmanbut they also knew that any setback would be a historic embarrassment. Too big to fail. In that scenario, DC, suspicious, imposed conditions of the strictest and he monitored the project as if it were a surgical operation, because the underlying problem was not to make a film: it was to make it with a guy in tights and a red cape and get the public to I will look at him with respectnot like a meme. Two years of casting. Thus, the search for superman perfect became the great bottleneck: it began in 1975 and continued until February 1977with hundreds of tests and a growing sense of desperation. There was, as usually happens in any great production, a star wish list that seemed more a festival poster than an audition: Robert Redford, Paul Newman, Warren Beatty, Clint Eastwood, Steve McQueen, Burt Reynolds, Charles Bronson, James Caan, or even Nick Nolte. In fact, there were many more, in addition to proposals that today they sound delirious by pure marketing logic, as think of Muhammad Ali or even in people outside of interpretation. It turns out that each option failed for something (if it wasn’t cost, it was age, image, accent or fit in general) and the message was clear: without Superman, there was no movie. The definitive twist. In the midst of that chaos, Christopher Reeve arrived from the New York theater as an answer that did not fit the cliché of the “big name” that the producers were looking for, but did fit the essence of the character. The casting director was pushing his candidacy against the team’s inertia, until he was finally given a real opportunity. When Richard Donner, the film’s director, saw it, the trial was as clear as it is uncomfortable: Reeve had the height, the face and the aura to be Superman… but he was also too young and too thin (“a stick”were the director’s words) to fill a suit that required visible strength, not just presence. Even so, in that test (between nerves, the heat of the spotlight and a still ungainly appearance) something that no one could copy became evident: the potential to make Clark Kent and Superman credible in the same person. The actor before opting for his role in Superman Stop being a “stick”. Reeve got the role with an unspoken demand which was actually an ultimatum: he had to physically become Superman, and do it quickly. The producers even suggested use fake muscles under the suit to “trick” the camera, a typical solution in the cinema of the time, but he refused, because he understood that credibility was not built with filler, but with transformation. The movie needed the body to say “superhero” before the character even spoke, and Reeve assumed that the job was not just to act well, but to look impossible without falling into excess. Darth Vader as trainer. Here comes the anecdote that seems invented by an advertising department: the man inside the Darth Vader suit, David Prowse, also a bodybuilder and instructor, was the one who was in charge of sculpting to Superman. Donner called it like someone activating a emergency plan: “we have a Superman” and we have to build him against the clock. Prowse trained Reeve for weeks with a routine focused on gain mass and functional strengthsolid enough to withstand flight harnesses, exhausting days and the symbolic weight of the character. And in the process a perfect story was born to sell the film: the most intimidating physical villain of the moment molding the definitive hero of the decade. The “obsessive” transformation. The method was so simple as brutal: eat a lot, train thoroughly and not allow yourself to lose weight even for a single day. Reeve put himself on a high-protein diet, with four meals a day, shakes and vitamins, and with an almost paranoid discipline: skipping a meal meant going backwards, and going back was a disaster. The idea he repeated was very clear: the actor’s inner work is useless if the exterior does not support the fantasy, because Superman cannot “seem” weak, even if he is vulnerable on the inside. And the most interesting thing is that that physical strength also changed him. the psychology of paper: The stronger he became, the more natural the character’s calm authority came to him. Too “handsome”. The result was so extremely effective that it became a continuity problem: Reeve continued to gain muscle during filming and there came a point where It was not the same body of the first scenes. The production had to redo shots already filmed because the superman of one day did not fit with the Superman of weeks later, and the suit, designed for a “before”, began to behave like a shell that was too small. The ironic twist is that at first they wanted to put fake muscles under the uniform and, after the transformation, the opposite happened: They were able to remove the additions to the suit because they were no longer needed, and the film was left with what it had always needed from the beginning, a Superman with real muscle, without tricks or cardboard. The myth that remained. Over time, Reeve’s physique has been compared with the hypertrophied standards of today’s superheroes, but at the time it was quite an event: his change from “tall, skinny actor” to muscular icon It was part of Superman’s own story even before of the premiere. The important thing was not to compete with modern mountains of biceps, but to build an exact illusion: that this guy could be the most powerful on the planet and yet the most human when he looked at Lois … Read more

The alliance with Google and Gemini makes it clear what tactic Apple has chosen for its future: the parasite strategy

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Let’s do a little memory. It was the summer of the year 102 BC. C. and Consul Gaius Mariusde facto ruler of Rome, was facing the invasion of the Germanic tribes of the Teutons and the Ambrones, who three years earlier had annihilated several legions of the Republic in the battle of Arausio. Marius, camped and with abundant provisions, saw how the Teutons did not stop provoking him and his soldiers. The Germanic tribes, superior in number, mocked them and tried to force an immediate battle, but Marius flatly refused. He punished soldiers who responded to provocations, let his troops despair, and endured humiliation by simply following and observing the enemy. He made his troops go up to the palisades in turns and observe the Teutons, their weapons, their movements, their shouts. Forced them to get used to them and to make them go from something scary to something familiar. But all Mario was doing was choosing the battle that was really worth fighting. The Teutons tried to cross the Alps and Marius and his legions followed them until Aquae Sextiae. There, in an advantageous position and highly motivated—among other things, by thirst—the Romans ended up annihilating the Ambroni first, and then the Teutons. Mario didn’t care that they laughed at him, that they provoked him and that his own soldiers distrusted him. He achieved a historic victory that prevented a potential invasion by those and other Germanic tribes. And he did it with a simple tactic: choose the battles to fight. Which is, at least on the surface, what Apple seems to be doing. The parasite strategy For years Apple has boasted of controlling every element of its ecosystem, both hardware and software. And if there was something that he didn’t control, he worked to do it, as we are seeing with the iPhone or the Mac, increasingly less dependent on third-party chips and technologies. However, the alliance with Google and Gemini breaks that trend and represents a disturbing implicit recognition: in the generative AI race, Apple is not only not in the lead, but it seems to have decided to stop running. At least it doesn’t do it like its rivals do. While Google, Microsoft, Meta, xAI or Amazon do not stop investing billions in chips, new AI models and above all new data centers, Apple has not wanted to enter into those battles. He didn’t care about the provocations or that the industry and the media distrusted (we distrusted) that strategy. Apple has gone about its business, and has barely launched new features in an absolutely explosive segment. Its Apple Intelligence platform is comparatively much lower than those of rivalsyour Private Cloud Compute It’s an interesting idea but at the moment without a clear impact and Siri delay last year was the definitive sign that Apple I had missed the AI ​​train. And it is better not to talk about economic investment: its competitors are betting everything on AI while Apple’s capex remains almost symbolic compared to that of others. That has made many of us doubt the future of an Apple that seems to “move on from AI.” But be careful, because Tim Cook may just be adopting that same Mario tactic of choosing which battles to fight. They may not believe it makes sense to spend those billions of dollars developing a foundational model right now, and they may not believe in the need to create their own data centers either. In fact, Apple has been applying the parasite strategy: in those segments in which he did not dominate or was not strong, he delegated: Cloud infrastructure: Apple has never been strong in the cloud and has delegated to other platforms to which it has paid large sums of money for years. Searches: We have the clearest example of this strategy in internet searches. The multi-million dollar alliance with Google has been offering both companies a perfect solution in this area for years That agreement with Google in the search segment now has its sequel with the historic agreement to use Gemini as a fundamental pillar of the reinvention of Siri. Apple’s voice assistant will make use of Google’s AI models and will thus become a critical component of the functioning of its ecosystem. It is an alliance with extraordinary implications and that once again confirms that parasite strategy in which the ultimate goal is clear: achieve benefits without taking risks. Apple as a wrapper for AI In fact, here Apple is once again taking advantage of its leading role in the mobility market—especially in the US—once again. While other companies like Google and OpenAI spend fortunes on servers and energy, Apple it is limited to being the elegant packaging. They provide the screen, the local processor and the user’s trust. Google puts the brain that runs in the cloud. It is (theoretically) a win-win. But it is also the recognition of a pragmatic defeat. Giving in to that reality—we don’t have a foundational AI model, we don’t have cloud infrastructure, we don’t have data centers—is also a tactic that can end up winning the game. AI aims to become a commodityin something that will be accessible to everything and everyone and that loses its differentiating characteristics in the eyes of the consumer. It will be something generic, interchangeable and basic, and what may matter then is not the AI, but how it is distributed and provided. And Apple is changing from being a company that invents all its tools to becoming a company that is the largest distributor of services in the world. They certify it the more than 2.35 billion active devices with their different operating systems around the world, which can clearly become – if they are not already – the gateway to AI for millions of people. This parasite strategy allows Apple to turn that theoretical defeat into a potential victory. Apple is the mandatory tollnot only for billions of users, but for companies like Google, which seems to have … Read more

Europe had chosen the electric car as the only solution for the future. Germany is about to knock him down

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There is no official confirmation. It should arrive on December 10, but there is already a first warning that it is possible that the communication will be delayed until January 2026. “For good reasons,” the political leaders assure us. The same people in charge who already advance the guidelines that the review of the 2035 objectives will follow: allowing cars with combustion engines to remain alive. A preview. This is what Apostolos Tzitzikostas, European Commissioner for Transport, gave to the German newspaper Handelsblatt. Like almost everything in this life, neither the time nor the place chosen is coincidental. In this interview, the European official points out that in the European Commission “we are open to all technologies”, which already suggests that this ban on selling combustion engines in 2035 is close to falling. In the absence of knowing all the specific and official details, what it does say is that “the role of zero-emission fuels (known as efuels) and with low emissions and advanced biofuels.” And this is where some doubts arise. Why does an electric car have less autonomy than advertised? No emissions? What the European Union has to resolve is to what extent it is willing to open its hand. The efuels or synthetic fuels They have been sold as an alternative solution because, it is assumed, they do not generate CO2 emissions. When the car burns said fuel it does generate these emissions but they are neutral because the same or greater amount of CO2 is trapped in their production. The European Union has already opened the door to this possibility changing the wording of the ban. We went from talking about banning combustion engines that produced emissions to combustion engines that were not carbon neutral. The difference is subtle but key because with the burning of any fuel (including hydrogen) polluting emissions beyond CO2 are produced, such as NOx or the dangerous ones fine particles which, in both cases, are harmful to humans. “Low emissions”. Now the European Commissioner also speaks of “low-emission fuels.” It remains to be known what these low emissions are and in what quantities they will be allowed. And the alternative that was put on the table was to allow the sale of combustion engines as long as they were associated with highly electrified options. This would lead, for example, to extended range electric. Cars with long electric ranges but that, in essence, are plug-in hybrids because they have a gasoline tank for emergency use. One of the latest proposals is that the car itself, through software, cape the power when a specific number of kilometers has been traveled without recharging the vehicle. Another technically viable possibility is to geofence the cities. That is, using the vehicle’s navigator, the car always moves in completely electric mode when passing through a city or especially sensitive areas of it (hospitals, schools…). This alternative has been contemplated by some plug-in hybrids for years, like BMW’s. And why all this? Because, according to Tzitzikostas, Europe is risking part of its industrial and economic future. “We want to maintain our objectives, but we must take into account all the latest geopolitical events. We must try not to jeopardize our competitiveness and, at the same time, help European industry maintain its technological advantage,” he points out in the interview. In reaching this conclusion it seems that German pressures have had their effect. “Chancellor Merz’s letter has been very well received,” he told the German media. And Germany has been pushing for some time to go back in the face of the “all electric” that seemed decided for Europe. The German industry is facing one of the worst crises in its history and it is estimated that, in just the last two years, about 55,000 jobs have been lost. When will it be official? The idea is that in December we should already know what will happen to this ban in 2035. In recent days the idea had gained strength that it would be December 10 when the European Commission would confirm all these details but the person in charge of transport has already announced that it is possible that this communication will be delayed until January 2026. Photo | Sophie Jonas and Angelo Abear In Xataka | The Government presents the Auto Plus Plan to forget MOVES III: direct aid for the purchase of electric cars with doubts to clear up

“I told Musk not to donate his money, it would end up in organizations chosen by Bill Gates”

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Peter Thiel is one of the most influential and controversial names in the technology world, known both for his business success with projects such as PayPal or Palantir, and for his unconventional ideas. about education either religion. Recently, Thiel has generated a lot of debate after Reuters had access to recordings of a series of private conferences in which he warned Elon Musk about where his fortune could end up if he donated it to the wrong people. Peter Thiel and his influence in Silicon Valley. Peter Thiel is a key figure in Silicon Valley, being one of the founding members of the so-called “PayPal mafia“, a group of businessmen who revolutionized technology and currently accumulate great economic and political power. Their role as mentor and investment partner of other majors in the sector, like Mark Zuckerberghas allowed him to control venture capital funds that drive many decisive companies in the San Francisco Bay Area. One of the figures with whom Thiel has had a particularly complex relationship is Elon Musk, with whom he founded the company PayPal. In transcripts seen by Reuters of Thiel’s private talks, he explained how he warned Musk against donating his fortune to Bill Gates through The Giving Pledgean agreement by which millionaires agree to donate a large part of their assets to social causes. Thiel told his audience: “I told (Elon Musk) that his money would end up in the hands of organizations selected by Bill Gates.” In response to this message, the millionaire said that Musk responded: “What am I supposed to do, give it to my children? It would be worse to give it to Bill Gates,” is recorded in the leaked transcripts. Then Musk ruled out Gates. A few years ago, Bill Gates and Elon Musk held a series of meetings in which Gates proposed a series of impact investments in which the founder of Space X could be interested in investing philanthropically through the Gates Foundation. Within the framework of this approach, the founder and his son Rory They even visited the Tesla factory in Austin. However, when Musk’s donation commitment seemed to come to fruition, the South African millionaire suddenly changed his mind and he sent Gates away in bad waysblaming him for how incoherent that someone who claims to fight against climate change would have short positions (at losses) of a company like Tesla, which worked to reduce fossil fuels. From that moment, the relationship between Musk and Gates they have been like water and oil. Thiel’s story in which he advised Musk to distance himself from Gates, and the abrupt breakdown of philanthropic talks with the Microsoft founder could be related. The fear of global power and the figure of the “Antichrist”. According what was published by Guardianthe transcripts also revealed other concerns of Thiel, who in his workshops warned about the risk of the emergence of a figure of global power, which he figuratively called “Antichrist”, who could emerge from the dominance growing of artificial intelligence. According to Thiel, this entity, which represents a form of power, could be presented as a solution to face global crises such as the climate change or nuclear threatsbut in reality it would end up limiting individual freedoms and promoting a uniformity of thought. As and as pointed out Fortunethis concern is based on his personal interpretation of the biblical text and what he considers the danger of developing science without a solid ethical basiswhich could generate a global system that demands obedience in exchange for order and security. Technology will set you free. Peter Thiel argues that large technological fortunes should not be donated to charitable causes, but rather, in his words, “large technological fortunes should be used to protect human freedom” from the risk of a centralized global system that controls the flow of capital and innovation. The millionaire warns that, if governments and international institutions control investments and innovation, could curb creativity and human potential under the pretext of global security. The Twitter purchase on the part of Elon Musk, his involvement in the Trump campaign and his subsequent role in DOGEshow that Thiel’s words have influenced Musk to reconsider his commitments and think about how to protect the legacy of his fortune in the face of these concerns. In Xataka | Some millionaires didn’t like the ideology of universities, so they created their own university: an “Anti-Woke” Image | Flickr (Gage Skidmore, Statsministerens kontor)

The great fortunes in Spain had dodged the heritage tax for decades. In 2023 99% have chosen to pay it

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According to him last report Of the Tax Agency, the collection of the Patrimony Tax in Spain marked an important rebound in 2023, with an increase of 58% compared to the previous year, reaching 1,970.7 million euros, compared to the 1,250 million that were collected in 2022. This significant increase is not exclusively due to the boom in the number of Millionaires in Spainbut to Reactivation of the Patrimony Tax in several autonomous communities that previously or totally bonus it. Thus, the number of statements and payments has increased significantly after modifying the fiscal rules that affect To the great fortunes. Taxpayers and declarants. According to data of Tax Agency, in the last decade the number of taxpayers who declare to have assets exceeding 30 million euros has passed from 471 in 2013 to 865 in 2023. During this period the number of declarants with high assets has increased by different stages, with notable increases between 2018 and 2019 and then between 2020 and 2021. At the same time, the total statement of the Patrimony Tax descended slightly in 2023, standing at 228,575 compared to 230,365 of the previous year. It should be noted that being a declarant of this tax does not imply being a taxpayer, since sometimes the declarants are exempt from paying that tax since an exempt minimum of 700,000 euros is established (in most communities) and that exist Deductions in habitual home or certain business goods. 99% of millionaires pay the assets tax. The Finance data suggest that, with a lower number of declarants, it was possible to increase the annual collection in 2023, increasing the number of those who had to pay this tax. In 2022, the number of declarants with assets above 30 million euros was 852, of which only 235 (27.6%) paid the assets tax for living in communities that did not bonate this tax. In 2023, of the 865 declarants with more than 30 million euros, 853 pay this tax, which implies that almost 99% of the great fortunes already pay tax for their assets. THE KEY: TEMPORARY TAX OF SOLIDARITY OF THE GREAT FORTS. The increase in collection at 720.7 million euros between 2022 and 2023 is due to the elimination of bonuses to assets that applied communities such as Madrid and Andalusia that in 2022 allowed to pay Little or nothing of this tax. With the entry into force of the Temporary Tax of Solidarity of the Great Fortures in 2023, the State applied a rule that, with the excuse of Avoid double impositionI could tax with this tax those assets that were not taxed by the Patrimony Tax. Being especially exposed those communities that had this bonus tax. The communities were not going to give up that income. With this maneuver, the State could directly raise what autonomies insisted on bonus. Given this new scenario, communities such as Andalusia or Madrid, which applied 100% bonus in this tax, lost the “Fiscal advantage” for great fortunes With respect to their neighboring communities and if they did not collect it, they would lose those income that would also be collected for the state coffers. The Community of Madrid, for example, He went from raising Zero euros in 2022 to enter 613.7 million in 2023 of 10,659 declarants who did not pay for this tax before. Andalusia also increased its income In 20.79 million euros Thanks to this measure that allows homogenizing the Taxation to great fortunes throughout the country through the coexistence of the state tax and the autonomic, preventing that Great heritages are exempt Thanks to regional bonuses. As evidence of this rebalancing in the collection, the Tax Agency ensures that the entry by the Temporary Solidarity Tax of the great fortunes of 2023 was only 35 million euros, compared to the 630 million euros that collected in 2022, when the autonomies bonus the assets tax. In Xataka | How much money Amancio Ortega has: how the fortune of the richest man in Spain is distributed Image | Unspash (Shane)

Four astronauts were chosen in 2023 to see parts never seen from the moon. The wait is coming to an end

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After A long delayNASA’s Orion ship is practically ready for the first human flight to lunar orbit in more than half a century. American astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch and Canadian Jeremy Hansen are the four chosen to see the moon from an unprecedented perspective. What they don’t have yet: a definitive date. The Artemis II mission flight plan The first Crewing Mission of the Artemis program It is the equivalent of Apollo 8 in the new lunar race. Artemis II is not a mission of alunage, but an overflow of the moon with the crew as a novelty of the system. His main objective It is validating that the Orion ship and its rocket, the Space Launch System (SLS), are safe to transport astronauts to deep space. The flight plan of about 10 days begins with a takeoff from Florida and two laps to the earth. The first orbit will last just 90 minutes. The second, much more elliptical, will be extended for almost 24 hours, leading to the crew at an altitude of more than 74,000 km to test the life support systems before flying to the moon. With all verified systems, the Orion Ship Service Module, a Contribution of the European Space Agencywill turn on its engine for a translunar injection that will drive the crew on a four -day trajectory to the moon. The four astronauts will pass about 7,400 km from the hidden face of the moon, traveling farther from the earth than any human being before them. From that point, they will see the moon in the foreground and our planet as a small blue marble to almost 400,000 km away. Thanks to a “free return” trajectory, the severity of the earth and the moon will be responsible for attracting the Orion ship back home without the need for large motor lit, a trip of another four days that will culminate with a meritorious with parachute in the Pacific Ocean. Along the way, They will beat the highest speed that has ever reached The human being. Four astronauts waiting since 2023 In April 2023, NASA He presented the world The four astronauts selected for the Artemis II mission. On the part of NASA, a veteran trio will travel that includes Commander Reid Wiseman and the pilot Victor Glover (both with experience at the International Space Station), as well as the Mission Specialist Christina Koch (the woman who holds the longest space flight record). On the part of the Canadian space agency, which is NASA’s first partner to participate in a manned mission of the Artemis program, the Mission Specialist Jeremy Hansen will go, for whom Artemis II supposes his first trip to space. When these four astronauts were selected, Artemis II was scheduled by the end of 2024. The objective date is not before April 2026. The main reason for the delay is the Thermal shield of the Orion shipthat he did not behave in the expected way in his debut mission. While Artemis I was declared a success, the inspection of the Orion capsule after his return in 2022 revealed something disturbing: the thermal shield had lost great pieces of its protective material. After months of research, NASA identified the cause in December 2024: During the reentry, the gases generated within the ablative material of the shield could not escape correctly, accumulating pressure and causing some parts to detach. Artemis I was a mission without crew, but the phenomenon was not foreseen in the models of their engineers. This problem, together with other technical challenges in the battery and circuits of the life support, led NASA to Read the calendar a couple of timesdelaying Artemis II as of September 2025 and, subsequently, to the current date of April 2026. Everything is already perfectly rehearsed Far from being bored at home, the last days have been a frenzy of trials for the four astronauts. In early August, their costumes entered and entered together in its Orion capsule. Within the ship, already loaded with fuel, they connected to the life support systems and communications, simulating the conditions of the launch day. A few days later, the Orion capsule was transferred to the assembly building Where on August 27 they finished installing the launch abortion system, an escape tower designed to move away the rocket crew in case of emergency. That type of emergencies is also rehearsed. In June 2025, NASA and the United States Department of Defense They made large -scale rescue drills On the Florida coast. Helicopters, rescue paratroopers and recovery equipment practiced how to extract the crew of the capsule in the sea in the worst stage. In Houston, the mission control center has also released facilities. On August 15, the New Orion Mission Evaluation Rooma space where dozens of NASA engineers and its international partners will monitor each data of the ship during the flight. A few days later, they were already doing complete simulations from the new room. Although the main objective is technical, Artemis II will also be a scientific mission. The crew can see the moon from a unique perspective that no one has seen before with their own eyes. And for that reason he has received Intensive geological formation To make the most of the overflow. Although they will not step on the moon, they could be the first humans to see with their own eyes certain regions of the hidden face, such as the Eastern basin. And they have the important task of photographing impact craters and old lava flows, describing textures and colors to help scientists on land to plan the Artemis III mission, the first one that will step on the moon since 1972. If China He doesn’t get it before. Images | POT In Xataka | When the first human being stepped on the moon we all believed that he had abandoned the “earth.” We were wrong

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