digital

The hell of Autofirma has its days numbered. Paterna has just introduced the digital DNI in his administration

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“Paterna takes another step in the digital transformation of its municipal services,” says its mayorJuan A. Sagredo, very proud. The municipality located in the Huerta region of Valencia has just announced that it will be one of the first places in Spain to incorporate the digital DNI into citizen services, “allowing residents to identify themselves quickly, safely and comfortably through the official MiDNI application”. And what does this mean? If you have done online procedures with the public administration you can get an idea. A journey through the desert: you open the website of the ministry on duty, choose the Cl@ve system and the page falls. You reload, opt for Autosign, but your operating system decides that today is not a good day to cooperate. You try in Safari and it doesn’t work, you jump to Chrome and Java error. You desperately install Firefox and, when you finally get the program to start, the Cl@ve mobile app does not read the QR code because the camera plugin fails. Or something falls. Or the session expires due to inactivity. It makes you want to throw your laptop out the window and register yourself in a cave. The Spanish digital bureaucracy, theoretically designed to make our lives easier, sometimes trips over itself and transforms into a hostile labyrinth. No wonder the mayor of Paterna celebrates that his administrations integrate the new digital ID in their municipal management systems. It’s common sense. From Self-Signature to the simplicity of the QR code Although the current problems are not security, they do sometimes involve zero usability scenarios. Citizens do not need advanced military-grade cryptography to request a travel certificate, but for the system to work first time, when the urgency of check-in prevails. The new digital DNI, framed in the project of the European Digital Identity Wallet o Digital Wallet and based on the eIDAS 2.0 regulationpromises to rewrite some things. For example, you do not carry real photos or encrypted documents, but rather a biometric authentication system is used that eliminates intermediaries. To understand how it changes at the digital, face-to-face level of life, this is the summary: Procedure The old system (Cl@ve / Autofirma) The new system (Digital DNI) Access Requires passwords, temporary SMS pins that expire, or third-party apps that constantly crash. Facial recognition (FaceID) or fingerprint directly on your mobile phone. Document signing It requires installing local programs like Autofirma, updating Java, and dealing with browser compatibility. Instant digital signature by reading a QR code on the screen. Security Exposed to phishing attacks via SMS or theft of traditional access keys. End-to-end encryption supported by European Union standards. Improvements for the residents of Paterna And what does this mean? Well, translated into day-to-day life, into direct usefulness for the average citizen. From now on, carrying out transactions at the town hall requires just three taps on the phone screen. Instant registrationFor example. Request, download and present the registration certificate immediately for any urgent procedure. Payment of fees (without obstacles). Settle local taxes, fines or sports activity fees without going through payment gateways from the last century. General instances: present official writings addressed to the council using only the biometrics of the smartphone. The council has modified its positions in the Citizen Information and Attention Service (SIAC) and has implemented QR code readers compatible with MiDNI. Mayor Sagredo highlighted that the priority objective of this measure is to democratize digital access. “We want an administration that solves problems, not creates them.” What is clear is that digital sovereignty does not consist of filling public offices with computers. It is rather a matter of giving back lost time to citizens. How to prepare for the digital DNI And, by the way, for anyone who wants to start using this technology, follow these three basic steps: First of all, make sure your smartphone has NFC technology (the same one you use to pay with your mobile) and that you have activated biometric security systems (fingerprint or facial recognition). It is almost certain that it will incorporate it (and the vast majority of iPhones and Android phones from 2018 onwards come with it as standard). Get the physical DNIe. To download and configure the digital DNI in your virtual wallet for the first time, you will need your physical DNI (version 3.0 or 4.0) and its corresponding PIN number. If you lost it, you can restore it at any National Police station, at an automatic terminal without an appointment. Download the official application. Of course, only access the Spanish Government applications intended for the Digital Wallet in the official markets (Google Play Store either Apple App Store) to avoid impersonation fraud. Images | Own capture / Ayto de Paerna In Xataka | Spain wanted to make my DNI the basic identification to vote in the elections: it has just suspended it

Finally, Toledo has its transportation app. It only took a decade of digital stumbles and analog queues

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Yurni is the new official application of urban transportation in Toledo. It has just been presented by the city council and goes hand in hand with the Ruiz Group with a concrete promise. If you search for them in the Google Play Store or the Apple store and you read “Yurni Linares” it is because, in fact, the application began offering service in the town of Jaén. Now it arrives at the mecca of Corpus Christi with the intention of resolving past problems, putting an end to COPI’s ordeal, allowing the card to be recharged from the mobile phone and offering reliable schedules in real time. Third time’s the charm. Yurni arrives with functions that should be obvious in 2026: consult real time and theoretical arrival time, plan routes according to transfers and duration, recharge entitlements, buy QR tickets and manage a virtual wallet without having to type the card number each time. In fact, the idea of ​​the service is to integrate recharging along with metrics such as calories burned or CO₂ saved on each trip. Before the launch, about 150 people tested it—including ONCE users—and the average rating rose from 4.5 out of ten for the previous app to 7.9, a sign that at least the interface and stability are no longer the recurring joke at the stop. Because there were days where not a single marquee met the estimate. It is estimated between 80,000 and 90,000 downloads. From ‘Toledo Bus’ to COPI. Yurni started in 2017, when GMV developed the Bus Toledo app for Unauto and the City Council, integrated into the Operation Assistance System. It was, de facto, the one used by any Toledoan who did not opt ​​for Google Maps or Apple Maps. Taking advantage of the onboard GPS and information panels at stops, the application worked at times. The City Council insists that this time the tool has been “validated by users.” So “I don’t know when the bus passes” should now be resolved with a glance which, in the process, corrects the trend of ghost schedules and poorly communicated incidents that led to constant complaints, whether you were waiting in Zocodover, in the Santa María de Benquerencia industrial estate, coming from Azucaica or waiting on the Paseo de la Rosa in Santa Bárbara. New urban offer. In 2024, the city launched COPI Toledo, developed by Vanwardia in collaboration with Unauto and Grupo Ruizpresented as a comprehensive urban mobility solution with real-time information and plans to integrate other modes of transportation on a single platform. And how does it work? Like almost all of them: as soon as you open the app it is linked to a phone number – although you can use it without login -, you receive an SMS and an associated account is created. You can ask it to launch alerts for route and schedule changes and the application will ask for geolocation permissions to recommend closer stops. The rest is as simple as entering the destination and receiving an estimated arrival time. Toledo grows; its roads, no. Toledo has been suffering from worrying traffic congestion for years. In addition to the constant works in the town, there have been blockages in the roundabouts attached to the new University Hospital, delaying the arrival of students to their homes by up to an hour every midday. But the numbers are clear: during 2025, Toledo set historic figures of more than 1.6 million overnight stays and almost 1 million travelers in the first eleven months, beating 2024 which was already a record year in itself. Toledo is, in addition to the fifth Spanish province where tourism is growing the most, a city on the rise: 86,070 inhabitants as of January 1, 2023 at almost 100,000 currentwith a certain concentration in usually more unpopulated areas—Valparaíso, La Legua and Los Cigarrales de Vistahermosa—. However, the diagnosis of the Sustainable Urban Mobility Plan indicated that only 7% of internal journeys in Toledo city are made by urban bus, which promotes congestion. The mismatch between supply and demand is estimated as the main cause. The most serious shortcomings occur in the industrial estate, Vía Tarpeya and peripheral urbanizations such as San Bernardo, where you have to walk several kilometers to reach an urban stop. Very irregular management. During the last two years, local media They have documented general dissatisfaction with the poor functioning of the app. The Unauto manager acknowledged that they had rushed the launch, forcing them to update the app just three months later to make the schedules more visible. In December 202025, a server outage left both the application and the card recharge website out of service, forcing us to return to the physical ticket or payment on board with a bank card. In that cycle of technological promises, the nominative cards experienced their own battle of Las Navas de Tolosa: at the beginning of 2026, the local government of PP and Vox decided to maintain the bonus of the 40% on the ticket only for registered votersforcing the creation of a special card for them, while the rest were left with the state’s 20%. The bus pass for those not registered rose from 0.38 to 0.51 euros per trip and the general monthly payment went from 20.40 to 27.20 euros, with the explicit message that aid should be concentrated on “the neighbors.” Unexpected consequences. For example, it is no longer possible to tick for someone else. Because in addition to requesting copies of the DNI and, in the case of minors, family books or other documents, photos have been requested that have never been inserted into the new cards. FACUA described the process as “illegal and abusive” due to the transfer of data to a private company. And, after the complaint, the City Council and the dealership rectified allowing the form and sending by email, but thousands of people still had to go through the small Unauto office, collapsing it right in the middle of the operation after Easter. In the … Read more

Sony has just set a date for the end of video games in physical format. At the same time it announces the closure of digital stores

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The main players in the video game industry have been looking for years to find out how to migrate from physical Blu-Ray to digital format and they already have the answer: Sony has just set the date for the death of the physical format in video games. In a brief releasethe Japanese company has announced that January 2028 will be the turning point and that all the games that come out later for its consoles will arrive only in digital format. Curiously, at the same time that they dropped that bomb, the Japanese they threw another: the closure of the PlayStation Store for PS3 and PS Vita. Definitely not the best news to start July if you are a video game lover (and you like to own what you pay for). We go in parts because it has chicha. The end of physical games on PlayStation consoles “As consumer preferences and the broader entertainment industry continue to shift from physical to digital discs, production of physical game discs for all new games released on PlayStation consoles will be discontinued beginning in January 2028. After this date, new games will be available on the PlayStation Store and at retailers in digital formats only.” Thus begins the statement from a company that continues to claim that this is a “natural direction” to adapt to consumer trends. They argue that “the overall preference for digital media significantly outweighs physical discs” and comment that they are doing gamers a favor because this decision will “allow us to align more closely with how the majority of our community prefers to access and play games today.” This news comes just a few days after we learned that a generational game like ‘GTA VI’ will not have a physical edition (at least at launch) and follows the trend of Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo that, in recent years, have invested heavily in the move to digital. There are consoles without a reader, a PS5 Pro whose reader was sold separately or a Nintendo that has launched Game Key Cards. It is undeniable that the convenience of the digital format was winning the battle. Recent estimates have put this on the table in major markets such as the United States, but the physical format has something that the digital format cannot offer: belonging. Because digital games (except those from stores like GOG) do not belong to whoever pays for them. They are user licenses, which means that today we can pay 80 euros for one, but if tomorrow whoever decides that that license is no longer valid, they can delete it. Even if you had it installed on the machine (tell that to ‘The Crew’ users). Some physical games were also paperweights that required an additional download, but the only way to own a video game was to buy a physical version that came complete on disk. With this movement, Sony gives an important blow to the possession of the product for which you have paid, but it completely destroys the second hand that is so important to access that cultural product called a video game. Sony won the PS4 generation with, among other things, that argument: the loan of video games and the free circulation of discs. And not that long ago. Because Sony announcing that it will stop “printing” discs is just that, a brutal blow to video games in physical format. Sony, along with Panasonic, was the main manufacturer of Blu-Ray discs, the one with the production chain and to which the rest of the companies have to send their games to capture them on the disc. And in the statement the company does not say: “we are going to stop manufacturing discs of our games”, but rather the “production of physical discs that will end in January 2028 for new games released on PlayStation consoles”, in general. In development…

In a new chapter of “you never buy anything digital, you only rent it,” PlayStation Store will remove another batch of content

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When we buy something in a digital store, the word “buy” has more tricks than it seems. We pay, we receive a confirmation, we see the content in our library and we get used to thinking that it is already part of ours. The problem is that, in many services, that feeling of ownership It rests on a much less solid structure: an active account, terms of use, servers and licensing agreements that can change over time. This framework has just had a very specific translation in PlayStation Store Spain. On an official page of its legal sectionPlayStation advises that, starting September 1, 2026, users will no longer be able to access previously purchased StudioCanal content and that this content will be removed from its video library. The company attributes the measure to its content licensing agreements, a brief formulation but sufficient to understand the scope of the notice. The notice does not remain a generic note: PlayStation accompanies the communication with an extensive list of affected titles. It doesn’t make much sense to reproduce it in full here, but it is worth emphasizing that recognizable movies and series appearfrom ‘Paddington’ and ‘Paddington 2’ to ‘Moonlight’, ‘Carol’, ‘Source Code’, ‘Train to Busan’, ‘The Imitation Game’ or ‘Terminator 2’. If you want to check case by case what content is included, You can check the complete list on the official website.. The measure does not only affect Spain. PlayStation too has published an equivalent notice for the United Kingdomwhere the date of September 1, 2026 and the withdrawal of previously purchased StudioCanal content are repeated. The context helps to understand why we talk about purchases made in the past. PlayStation Store stopped offering movie rentals and purchases and TV content on August 31, 2021. At that time, the company explained that users could continue to access content they had already purchased for on-demand playback. The current notice changes the plane of the conversation: it is not about a store that stops selling, but about a previous video library that loses part of its content. When buying doesn’t always mean owning The key is in a distinction that the user does not always keep in mind when pressing the buy button. In many digital services, what is acquired is not an autonomous copy, but an access license associated with an account and subject to conditions of use. That doesn’t make every digital purchase useless, nor does it mean that everything will disappear, but it does mark the real limit of ownership. The work can be in our library and still depend on agreements that are negotiated far from us. PlayStation is not a strange exception within the digital market. Amazon Prime Video warns in its conditions that purchased content may no longer be available for download or streaming due to licensing restrictions or other reasons; Apple also considers that a purchase may not be available for redownload or access from your services if you lose rights to that content; and in video games, Steam and Nintendo talk openly licensed, not sold software. The names, devices and stores change, but the pattern repeats itself: we pay for access within an ecosystem that we do not fully control. The comparison with the PC from years ago helps to understand the change. We bought a game like ‘Age of Empires’, we put the disk in, we installed it and we could play without a store having to continue authorizing each step. The Internet connection could be used for patches, online games or later improvements, but the core was in our hands. The border between physical and digital has become more blurred. There are still discs that contain complete games and allow you to install without relying on an initial download, but the format no longer always offers that guarantee. The case of ‘GTA VI’ pushes the debate to the center: Rockstar points out that the physical version announced for launch will carry a download code inside the box, without a disc, and which can be used to preload the game before its release. For those who bought physically looking for distance from the digital store, the message is difficult to ignore. What happens with StudioCanal on the PlayStation Store works as a reminder of a reality that we usually accept without looking at it too much. In digital, paying for a movie, a song or a video game does not always mean keeping a copy under our control. Sometimes we buy access, and that access lives within a system of licenses, accounts and services that can change. Images | PlayStation | StudioCanal In Xataka | Online games have made their preservation complicated. The solution may be what this video game has done

The European Union presents its digital sovereignty plan to compete with the US technologically. It’s a wonderful utopia

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The European commission just announced the European Technological Sovereignty Package. The objective is to reduce European dependence on foreign suppliers of both hardware and software solutions, and to achieve this the plan is simple: ensure that European companies can compete with North American companies. And precisely there lies the problem. For a European cloud. The entire focus of this initiative is on drastically reducing the exposure of the Old Continent to cloud services controlled by American companies. The concern generated by the CLOUD Act and the current geopolitical situation has caused the EU to try to migrate at least part of its critical services to local nodes so that this data always remain under European jurisdiction. The regulation trap. The great Achilles heel of this strategy is once again the way of trying to solve the problem. The European Union is a superpower regulatingbut it is a secondary actor in the field of creation and innovation. Both the US and China do not stop investing billions of dollars from the private sector to develop new AI chips or models. Meanwhile, Brussels responds with AI surveillance agencies and bureaucratic obstacles to the companies it precisely wants to try to promote. Hello Linux. In the document published by the EC, an open source strategy is repeatedly mentioned as an essential weapon to avoid dependence on foreign suppliers. Operating systems such as Linux and developments with this philosophy can undoubtedly provide a basic pillar to be able to develop competitive projects, and of course there are already movements that aim to replace proprietary solutions such as Microsoft Office with open source solutions such as LibreOffice. reality is harsh. The harsh economic and technological reality is that in many segments Europe does not have companies that can compete with the technological giants of the US. One of these segments is precisely that of cloud infrastructure: Amazon, Microsoft and Google dominate this market imperially, and although the intention is to change to “sovereign” clouds; The question is, which one? It is true that there are some companies such as OVH (France) or T-Systems (Germany) that have their own infrastructure, but they are still far from their American rivals. Worrying precedents. In 2020 Europe launched the GAIA-X projecta large cloud platform that was theoretically going to make it possible to face the three large hyperscalers in the US. Dozens of companies were going to get involved in an ambitious project that six years later is in a state that is difficult to define: the official website publishes news frequently and there is a specification and code which, for example, talk about GAIA-X 3.0 ‘Danube’, but it does not seem that at the moment this platform is being used in a practical way. The money comes, but from outside. And while the EU becomes entangled in regulation and ethical debates, the projects that should theoretically boost that digital sovereignty are weakening it. Investment in data centers in Europe is a good example: practically all those that want to be built They are simply delegations of large US technology companies. A wonderful utopia. Digital sovereignty is a logical objective as the world is currently moving, but in the EU they seem to confuse priorities once again. That sovereignty is not gained by prohibiting or regulating foreign technology. You win by making yours so competitive that the rest of the world has no choice but to use it. That requires a lot of work and a lot, a lot of capital investment. Not even the European Court of Auditors trusts for something like this to come to fruition. Image | Rafael Garcin In Xataka | The European Union knows that the US has stopped being a reliable partner: its new agreement with India aims to compensate for it

Brussels has just fined Temu the largest fine in its history with the Digital Services Law: 200 million euros

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This Thursday, the European Commission sanctioned the Chinese e-commerce platform with the largest fine imposed so far under the Digital Services Law. Brussels considers that Temu has not been able to detect or stop the sale of dangerous items reaching European consumers, from chargers to baby toys. What exactly happened. Brussels accuses Temu of “not having identified, analyzed or evaluated with due diligence the systemic risks” derived from offering illegal products on its website, ensuring that this practice entails “potential harm” to EU users. This violates the Digital Services Act (DSA), the European regulation that forces large platforms to monitor what circulates through their services. The 200 million exceed the 120 that prevailed over the social network last December, so far the highest penalty under this regulation. No filters. The Commission maintains that this is not a specific case of defective products, but rather a failure in the platform’s own security system. In the words of the Executive“the evidence collected indicates that European consumers are very likely to encounter illegal items in Temu.” The problem, therefore, would not be in a specific seller, but in the company’s inability to filter what it sells. In detail. The research has been supported by several sources. The main one was a “secret shopping” exercise commissioned from an independent contractor, who has carried out laboratory tests on items chosen at random. The results, according to Brusselswere worrying in three categories: Electric chargers: a very high percentage did not pass basic safety tests, with the risk of short circuits and burns. Toys and objects for babies: Many presented medium or high severity hazards, either because they contained chemicals above legal limits or because of the risk of suffocation due to detached parts. Jeweler’s: Irregularities were also detected. According to the statement, these data were compared with customs controls of the Member States and with the European market surveillance database (ICSMS). The three routes, according to the Commission, showed “high or very high” percentages of non-compliant products, although the organization has decided not to publish the exact figures. Product bombing. In addition to the products, Brussels focuses on the technology of the platform. The Commission criticizes that Temu did not evaluate how the design of its own service (recommendation systems and promotional campaigns run by affiliated influencers) could be amplifying the dissemination of these articles. Furthermore, according to the agency, the company based its 2024 risk assessment on generic information from the sector and not on evidence on its own website, ignoring external studies (such as reports from consumer associations in Denmark and Finland) that already warned of the problem. What Brussels says. “Temu’s risk assessment underestimates specific risks, lacks detail, is not based on solid evidence and is not comprehensive,” counted the vice president of the Commission responsible for Technological Sovereignty, Henna Virkkunen. The Finnish commissioner insists that these analyzes “are not mere bureaucratic procedures”, but the backbone of the DSA. How much does the fine weigh? Although the figure is relatively large, represents only 0.38% of Temu’s estimated turnover for 2025 (calculated at around €53 billion), very far from the 6% limit allowed by regulations. The Commission justifies this moderation because the sanction is “proportionate” to other aspects that remain under investigation. The situation has been brewing since 2024based on complaints from the European Consumer Organization (BEUC) and 17 of its national associations. And now what. Temu has three months to pay and until August 28 of this year to submit a “corrective action plan.” That document will then be reviewed by the European Committee for Digital Services, which will have one month to issue a response. After that, the Commission will have another month to set the final decision and on what date the fine will be applied. If the company does not correct course, it is exposed to periodic fines (daily, weekly or monthly) until it complies. The company can appeal to the European courts, but Brussels has already warned that the fine is final and does not intend to lower it even if the company corrects its behavior. Cover image | François Genon and own assembly In Xataka | Europe is already cherishing what was always a dream: the industrial manufacturing of qubits for quantum machines

US supermarkets want to use digital price tags. Great idea for them, terrible for customers.

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Supermarket price tags want to live his particular revolution. The traditional ones, which normally show the price on a sheet of paper, cardboard or plastic, are in danger, because companies in the sector have a great idea: replace them with electronic ink digital screens that can be updated from a central server in a matter of seconds. It seems like a great idea, but consumers are clear that what it is is a nightmare for their pockets. The advancement of ESL/DSL labels. The technology that wants to replace traditional labels is the so-called Electronic Shelf Labels (ESL) or Digital Shelf Labels (DSL), which are nothing more than electronic ink screens that can be managed instantly from a central server. Walmart, the largest retail chain in the world, is leading this transition and aims implement them in 100% of its establishments in the US before the end of 2026. The argument. This company explains that the measure seeks to reduce operating costs, and that any modification will always require validation by a human agent. Amanda Bailey, who leads a team at a Walmart store in West Chester (Ohio, USA) estimated that the time spent changing prices on products in the store had been reduced by 75% thanks to DSL, and with that time they can serve customers better. Consumers, against. A recent survey from the consulting firm GBAO Strategies reveals that consumers do not share Walmart’s optimism. According to the participants’ data, 65% are convinced that supermarkets will use this technology to make shopping carts more expensive. Only 3% believe that it will serve to make it cheaper. The idea is not bad. ESL tags are ultra-low power devices that connect to the premises’ Wi-Fi or Bluetooth infrastructure. Theoretically, the idea is very reasonable, because in addition to reducing price management times, it eliminates cashier errors, reduces paper waste, and allows offers from the physical store to be instantly synchronized with those on the website. But be careful. However, these labels also open the door to disturbing scenarios, such as the application of dynamic pricing. Cold drinks can suddenly cost more if it’s very hot outside, or from price adjustments based on inventory. There is even talk of more sophisticated AI algorithms and already patented by Walmart capable of managing a customer profile in real time to adjust the price of the product based on what the data ensures that they are willing to pay. Surveillance pricing. The industry talks about personalized prices, but consumer associations have dubbed the phenomenon “surveillance pricing” )”surveillance prices”, in a literal translation). The concept is simple, forceful and disturbing: the supermarket monitors the user’s purchase history and their geolocation through the mobile app in addition to other parameters such as the level of aisle traffic to squeeze its profit margin. If there is an electronic tag, I’m leaving. The rejection of these labels is clear in the aforementioned survey: 68% of them fear that these “surveillance prices” will increase the cost of living. 58% indicated that they would avoid buying in stores that implement this type of digital price tags. 67% demand a law that completely prohibits this technology. The reaction is not strange: in April inflation rose to 3.8% in the US (annualized data) while salaries only rose 3.6%. It is the first time that salaries have failed to keep up with inflation, according to CBS News. In Spain the situation is paradoxical. In December 2025 the salaries agreed in the agreement they had grown 3.49% compared to the previous year, while the average inflation until that month was 2.7% (very moderate due to low electricity and fuel). That seems like good news, but 1) two out of every three workers They do not have a salary review clause and 2) the price of food has become more expensive by 37% in the last five years and things are getting worse. The ghost of Uber, Wendy’s and Ticketmaster. We already know this story, because in the past they have already arisen various controversies with dynamic prices. Image | E Ink In Xataka | If you want to anticipate how your shopping basket will rise, you just have to look at what is happening to toilet paper.

clone yourself with AI digital twins

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A unique group of senior Silicon Valley executives is using so-called AI “digital twins” to delegate part of their daily responsibilities. Meta already warned more than a month ago that they were preparing an AI version of Mark Zuckerberg so that employees could talk to their CEO, but little by little more cases have appeared. The concept is disturbing: an AI system analyzes how they speak, write and even how they think based on the history of emails, speeches and articles. From there, the digital clone He is capable of answering subordinates’ questions, writing proposals in his own style and even, in the most advanced cases, creating video avatars that give lectures in several languages ​​simultaneously. The example of Reid Hoffman. This executive, co-founder of LinkedIn and partner at Greylock Partners, is a clear reference in this trend. His clone, which he called Reid AI, was trained with 22 years of his own content (books, podcasts, articles) to provide it with all the necessary information. The concept of digital twin, by the way, had already been used in the technological field, but with another approach quite distinct. The one on the screen is not me, it is my digital twin. Since it began using it, this digital twin has given more than 75 presentations. In fact, in one of them this AI clone was presented to the public in French, Chinese and Hindi from a giant screen. The executive highlights that “I only speak one language, my AI speaks 74, ensuring that your AI digital twin saves you 50% of the time in the weeks in which you deploy it. For Hoffman, in a decade any company with more than 50 employees will assign trained virtual twins to its managers and middle managers. Not just for speeches. These types of bots are also getting fully involved in the area of ​​human resources and internal management tasks. Bala Sathyanarayanan, HR director at the multinational packaging company Greif, uses the so-called Balabot. This chatbot has interacted with more than 3,300 employees to resolve complex questions, such as motivating underperforming workers. Barriers. As in the case of Hoffman, this manager made use of public appearances and documents, but not those private and more sensitive ones: “He does not ingest my private email or confidential files,” he assured. in WSJ. The tool works so well, says Sathyanarayanan, that some company managers claim that several employees have redirected their careers thanks to the advice of their boss’s clone. But. These digital twins however have some problems. Kelly Monahan former director at Upworkhad to turn off his Digital Kelly clone live at a conference when she began “stuttering and repeating the same phrase on a loop” in front of 200 hoteliers. Hoffman also admitted that his AI sometimes goes completely deadpan after telling a joke, for example, breaking empathy with the audience. The lack of specific data is also another obstacle: Red AI was asked what his favorite ice cream was and he answered “vanilla” because he didn’t know the answer: Hoffman’s is chocolate. Rejection among employees. There is a clear enemy in this trend, and it is the rejection of employee templates. Analyst Josh Bersin attempted to integrate digital twins of employees so that AI could compose business emails by imitating their respective styles. The workers rebelled: “No one wanted to put their entire email history into the system.” Skepticism persists among them, but some claim have turned your digital clone into a daily assistant to prepare meetings or analyze market trends. What happens if you get fired. There is a dilemma more typical of an episode of ‘Black Mirror’ than our present. If an AI becomes brilliant at its job after absorbing all the accumulated experience and knowledge, can you take it with you on a pendrive if you change jobs? Lawyer Paul Jurcys explains that it is likely that in the near future companies will have to financially compensate departing employees so that they leave their digital twin and database behind. First I clone you, then I fire you? There is an uncomfortable question when talking about this topic: will companies create digital clones for the sole purpose of replace human workers and thus save their salaries? Gartner analysts already warn that doing so without transparent communication and without the employee’s explicit consent will cause notable social rejection. There are also doubts about what happens if that digital twin makes a serious mistake: whose responsibility is it, the human employee or the company that has integrated that virtual clone? You take your double, but not what you learned. Kelly Monahan lived this situation upon leaving the company. The employee retains the rights to his or her image, voice, and personal experience, but the company retains the proprietary data of the business that the AI ​​managed to capture during that stage. After leaving the company, Upwork deleted her digital twin, but she ended up retraining a “virtual double” independently with data from her next book to use in her next stage as an independent consultant. Image | Meta, Wikimedia Commons (Anthony Quintano) In Xataka | How to create a character in ChatGPT and Gemini to use it in all the images you make with artificial intelligence

China generated half of the digital viewing of the last World Cup. There is one month left until 2026 and it is still not clear if they will issue it

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Less than five weeks before the whistle that will kick off the opening match of this year’s World Cup, FIFA has signed broadcast contracts with more than 175 countries. China and India, with almost three billion inhabitants, are not among them. It is the unpleasant fruit of a price war over broadcast rights that pits the largest football organization in the world against the two most populated markets on the planet. What is at stake. The mbiggest World Cup in historywhich is said soon: 48 teams, 104 matches to be played in USACanada and Mexico between June 11 and July 19. FIFA is selling it as the most watched and broadcast event of all time. If they manage to resolve the conflicts with the two countries with the largest number of inhabitants on the planet, of course. According to data from FIFA itselfChina generated 49.8% of all viewing hours on digital and social platforms during the Qatar 2022 World Cup. Half of global digital consumption. More: India added 32 million digital viewers in the final alone. They are two very important markets that should not be ignored. Why is this happening? Part of the explanation is in the schedules. The tournament is held in North America, which means that the highest-rated matches will start at 3:00 a.m. in Beijing and Shanghai, and at 12:30 a.m. in New Delhi. These are schedules that destroy the advertising market: there is not enough audience beyond the fans, and advertisers are reluctant to pay the very high rates for the events. And without substantial advertising revenue, networks cannot support the tens of millions of dollars that broadcasts cost. India: bidding war. JioStar, India’s largest media conglomerate (the result of the merger between Viacom18 and Disney Star), even offered $20 million for the rights. And FIFA rejected the offer: it wanted 100 million dollars for a package that would also include the rights to the 2030 World Cup. According to local mediaFIFA would have lowered its price to around 35 million, although the negotiation is still not closed. China: crazy prices. ApparentlyFIFA would have demanded between 250 and 300 million dollars for the rights in the Chinese market, a figure that CCTV (the only broadcaster authorized by law to negotiate these rights) would not be willing to even remotely match. Its budget is around 60-80 million dollars, according to the same sources. FIFA may be willing to go down to between 120 and 150 million, but it is still double what CCTV wants to pay. On social networks, fans protest the difference in numbers between China and India. They are their traditions and they must be respected. CCTV has broadcast the World Cup without missing a single edition since Argentina 1978. Previously, agreements were closed with enough notice to launch promotional campaigns and attract sponsors, but this time there is no agreement, and the tournament starts in five weeks. For example, In the 2018 and 2022 World Cups, CCTV had the rights closed months in advance. And to this is added an extra problem: journalists from the country have had difficulties obtaining visas to cover the World Cup, which would reduce the quality of the broadcasts and, consequently, weaken the attractiveness for Chinese sponsors (which, as is easy to imagine, are among the main sponsors of the tournament). High tension. What we have right now are two millionaire forces pulling the rope in different directions: both want the highest profitability, knowing that time is an absolutely essential variable, because each week without a signed deal is equivalent to advertising and sponsorships that disappear. Not to mention the exasperation of millions of fans, who are now turning Asia into a sea of ​​nail-biting fans. And not in the penalty shootout, precisely. In Xataka | You will only be able to get to the World Cup stadiums in the USA and Mexico by car. And they are going to charge you 300 dollars to park it

Meta will surpass Google in digital advertising for the first time in history

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That Google is the queen of online advertising is one of the great constants of the Internet, but everything indicates that the reign is approaching its end. If the predictions come true, for the first time in history, Meta will be the company that generates the most advertising revenue. Projections. At the moment the surprise has not occurred, but the projections of the advertising analysis firm Emarketer are clear: Meta is going to snatch the throne of online advertising from Google in 2026. Specifically, they project that Meta will earn 243.46 billion dollars from advertising, while Google will earn 239.54 billion. Why is it important. Google’s dominance in the online advertising market was absolute. In fact, that domain has been in the regulators’ crosshairs for years and It has become very expensive for Google. Meta’s surprise, although not by a huge difference, is confirmation that the internet has been reconfigured with social networks and that the cake is much more distributed. Considering that Google has built its empire on the foundation of online advertising, it is even more relevant. The Meta Boost: AI. Meta has a portfolio of products with millions of users such as Instagram, Facebook, Threads and WhatsApp. According to Emarketer, the company has been “incredibly patient” in building solid usage habits in its user base before introducing ads. But what has caused this acceleration has been the integration of AI in content recommendation systems. This has allowed them to increase the viewing time of Reels by 30%, which translates into more advertising and therefore more income, specifically they are expected to reach the 50,000 million only with Reels. Goal Advantage+. It is the suite with AI that Meta offers advertisers. In addition to offering the platform to advertise, Meta also provides a ton of tools ranging from advertising actions to the creation of the ads themselves with generative audio, text and video AI. According to the brand’s results, revenue from video generation reached $10 billion in the last quarter of 2025. It was seen coming. It is not something that happened overnight, but rather The change has been in the works for years.. The displacement of searches was moving to other specialized platforms such as Amazon, Instagram or TikTok. With the emergence of AI, the landscape has become even more fragmented: with chatbots that provide answers to many user queries without us going through the classic search engine. Google is no longer the ‘default’ when doing a search, especially for younger generations who prefer audiovisual content. OpenAI enters the business. A few days ago we talked about OpenAI’s ambitious plans for its newly launched advertising business. The company hopes that, by 2030, they will have generated $100 billion with ads on ChatGPT, that’s nothing. It is still a much smaller amount than those managed by Meta or Google in a year, but it is enough for the impact to be noticeable. With social networks the exodus of searches began and perhaps we are facing the second great displacement. Time will tell. Image | Xataka, with Gemini In Xataka | The US has just opened a new wound in the Google empire: the justice system declares part of its advertising business illegal

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