digital

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

clone humans using digital avatars

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Big tech companies are clear that, to promote their AI services, need content creators. At the same time, a good part of content creation goes through influencers created with AI. In case we thought that the loop couldn’t be solved, there are companies obsessed with achieving another goal: that content creators can create their own content creators… with AI. Heygen. If you’re not into the world of digital avatars, Heygen may not sound familiar to you, but the Los Angeles-based company is reliving the ChatGPT moment, but with avatars. Founded in 2020 as MovioLab, with Joshua Xu as CEO and a valuation of more than $500 million, Heygen competes head-to-head with giants like runway e ElevenLabs in the generative video space. Avatar V. Heygen has been obsessed with creating the best avatar model for years. And this week they published what, according to them, is the most advanced model in the world, Avatar V. They have data to support it, since as the company shows in a 30 page paperthe company has solved micro-expressions, gestures and lip synchronization (especially at the rhythm level) better than the rest. There is a real war between American and Chinese companies over digital avatars. a real war. As the paper shows, Heygen is not alone. Kling AI, Veo 3, OmniHuman, Seedance… Some of the most relevant companies worldwide are betting on the generation of avatars. And it’s not a random whim. Heygen has more than 40,000 companies paying for corporate video generation using avatars. The barrier to entry is falling lower and lower, the savings compared to productions with influencers are quantifiable, and production times are compressed from weeks to minutes. The key is to offer the most competitive model and an interface that works at the drop of a hat. What’s coming. Currently, avatars work with a handicap: their latency. The direction set by the paper is clear: solve this problem to achieve an avatar connected to LLMs in order to maintain conversations in real time (meetings, interviews, conferences…). The avatar industry is still emerging, but winning it is essential for a goal that AI Big Tech wants in the future: for AI to stop being a chatbot and become as close to a person as possible. In Xataka | How to create a character in ChatGPT and Gemini to use it in all the images you make with artificial intelligence

They are not more taxes, they are updating them in the new digital economy

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On March 12, it was published in the Official State Gazette the resolution which approves the general guidelines of the Annual Tax and Customs Control Plan of 2026. The text does not announce any new taxes, any additional fees and any direct obligations for the average citizen. What it does do is much more relevant for the fiscal control of Spaniards: the Treasury is updating the digital economy that citizens were already using. The Tax Agency has expanded the amount of information it receives on how money moves in the digital economy: mobile payments, neobank accounts and Fintech platforms or sales on second-hand platforms. The difference is not what you will pay in taxes, but how much the treasury now knows about your income and the new ways to receive it. ​New financial information. The most important novelty of Plan 2026 is not regulatory, but informative, and has raised a lot of controversy even before coming into force. Starting this year, the Tax Agency will have information every month on the ownership of bank accounts and also on the income obtained by businessmen and professionals who use any collection management system through POS cards and payments associated with mobile phone numbers. This directly includes payments through Bizum. That is, the Treasury now equates Bizum to credit cards. What has changed is which platforms are now required to report to the Treasury. Previously, this duty fell mainly on traditional banking entities. But the economy it is becoming more digital and neobanking, Fintech and digital payment systems platforms have increasingly become most common among Spaniards. Therefore, the Treasury has now extended that obligation also to companies in the new digital economy. All of them must periodically report data on certain professional profiles or important financial movements, which gives the Treasury a much more complete and updated view of money flows that were previously off its radar. Neobanks under the radar. The Plan dedicates a specific section to controlling the activity of digital financial entities, or neobanks. The BOE text recognizes that these entities, which offer services through technological platforms in many cases without physical presence in Spain, have transformed the banking landscape and pose challenges for tax control. The concrete response of the plan is that the checks will be focused on those taxpayers in which improper use of neobank accounts is detected to hide income or assets abroad. The objective declared by the Treasury is to improve the traceability of operations in a digital and cross-border environment, without implying any direct restriction or penalty for the user for the simple fact of having an account in one of these neobanks such as Revolut. or N26. Wallapop and the DAC7: selling online leaves a tax trail. Electronic commerce and sales platforms are another priority objective of the 2026 Annual Tax and Customs Control Plan. The BOE itself states that the operations carried out through these platforms sale of items between individualslike Wallapop or Vinted, have grown by double digits between 2020 and 2025, and that its trading volumes have doubled in that period. This growth is precisely what justifies the Treasury pay more attention to what happens in them. The tool that makes this control possible is the European DAC7 directivewhich forces platforms like Wallapop to communicate to the Treasury the income that their sellers obtain from selling products, providing services or renting goods through these apps. With that information, the treasury can compare the income that a person declares with what the platform has reported, and open an investigation if the numbers do not add up. ​Individual or professional: the distinction that changes everything. The new Treasury measures are aimed at controlling fraud by obtaining more information from the platforms that move money. That does not mean that the platform must send information about all its users. You should only do it from those to use them professionally or who, although they are not professionals, have a very intensive activity (hidden economy). If you use Wallapop to sell your bicycle or Vinted to get rid of clothes that you no longer wear, this measure does not affect you. However, if you have a clothing store and sell through this platform without declaring income, the Treasury will knock on your door. The same happens with payment platforms. If you use Bizum to pay your share of dinner to a friend (or have it paid for you), Treasury will not receive information about these movements between individuals. On the other hand, for self-employed professionals and companies the scenario has changed. The Tax Agency will receive the data on what they charge by card or Bizum. This allows you to compare that income with what you declare in the quarterly VAT more efficiently and quickly than before. In Xataka | Income Simulator 2025: how to use it to know if the declaration you make in 2026 will pay or return Image | Revolut

How to create an excel with artificial intelligence where you can add the expenses of your digital purchase receipts

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Let’s explain to you how to create a spreadsheet with your expenses using artificial intelligence. Specifically, what we are going to do is put all your purchase receipts in a folder, and have the AI ​​read them, extract the totals, write them down in the spreadsheet and then add the total. It seems complex, but it is easier than it seems. For our example we are going to use the PDF tickets that are sent to you by email when you configure the Mercadona digital ticketalthough you can also use photographs of tickets. For the spreadsheet we are going to use LibreOffice, as it is a free and open source alternative to Office. To carry out the actions we will use Claude Coworkthe AI ​​assistant of Claude that can do actions on your computer. The negative part is that To use this tool you must have a paid account in this artificial intelligence chat, but the positive part is how much you can later do with it. There are workflow tools that allow you to automate this and do it online, but we are going to start by explaining this simpler method because it is all local, within your computer, and sharing less data with third parties. Make preparations first It is important to be organized when carrying out this task. Therefore, what we are going to do is go to the file explorer on our computer and create a folder. In my case I have called it Tickets. Inside, we will create a subfolder where you can put the digital tickets which we will call “Ticket PDFs”, and then the spreadsheet file which we will call “Total Purchases”. We will also create the basic structure of the spreadsheetso that it will then be easier for us to describe to the AI ​​what we want. On this sheet I have included the date, the total of the ticket, and then a column to add the link to the PDF file for each one. Here, you will be able to customize this as you need. Now simply Put the tickets in PDF inside the folder that we have created to store the tickets. You can do this by hand with the ones you have, and then update it with the ones that arrive later, because we will also tell you how to ask the AI ​​to update everything. This technique has many variants. For example, adding a specific column in the spreadsheet you can also add the name of the supermarket in order to manage the expenses of several of them, or make a different sheet for each one within the same file. You can make things as complex as you want. Now ask AI to do the work for you Now it’s time to get to work. Let’s open the Claude application on the computer and choose the option cowork. Here, the first thing will be click on the option Work in a folder. When you do this, you will have to choose the folder where you have included the subfolder with the PDFs and where you have created the spreadsheet file. This way the AI ​​will work only within this space without touching the rest of the files on the computer. Once you have done this, tap write a prompt asking it what you want it to dowhich in this case is asking it to read the PDFs with the tickets, extract the information and put it in the place you want within your spreadsheet. I have used this prompt, where I also specify the columns where each content goes: I want you to analyze the content of all the PDFs in the “Ticket PDFs” folder. These are purchase tickets. In all of them, I want you to extract both the date of the ticket and the total you have spent and put them in the “Date” and “Total (€)” columns of the “Total purchases.ods” file. Within this file, I also want you to create a link in the PDF Link column that, when clicked, opens the PDF file it belongs to. This prompt You can modify it depending on what your spreadsheet is like.but always specifying in which column each item goes, or on which page of the spreadsheet if you have created one for each supermarket. You can even make a sheet for the totals, and ultimately ask them to use any of Excel functions or the program you are going to use. Now, you have to wait a few minutes for Claude to process your request and complete the task. When you do, you will be able to enter the file you created before, and you will see that it has updated it. You can make changes to the file for font size or whatever you want, and Claude will then take that into account. You can also tell the AI ​​if it has done something wrong, such as not including links, so it can correct and add it. Now, you can ask him to do extra work like adding a column below with the total. And then, When you add more files you can ask it to update the file reviewing the new PDFs that you have added and adding the missing ones to the list. And that’s it. With all this you will have a spreadsheet that you can update every time you add more tickets. You can also ask him to do it by reading the content of photos, and other tickets that you also have in PDF. In Xataka Basics | Claude: 23 functions and some tricks to get the most out of this artificial intelligence

validates the digital professional card as an accreditation document to practice

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The highest judicial authority in Mexico has settled a debate that generated some confusion among workers, employers and even institutions: What happens with the digital professional card. Recently have ruled in favor of its validity when presented as the only document, being as valid as the physical one. Below these lines we tell you all the details. Why does it matter? On January 15, the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation (SCJN) resolved the Contradiction of Criteria 164/2025 and confirmed that the electronic professional card has full legal validity to accredit the beginning of a profession in Mexico. For years it has been a confusing situation in work environments and institutions, even generating unjustified rejections in hiring processes, labor procedures and records. And there were employers and institutions that required physical support out of habit or ignorance, without any legal support to do so. What exactly does the resolution say? The full court established Three points that should be clear: First: the digital ID does not need a photograph or signature to have legal effects, because its function is not to identify a person, but to prove that they are authorized to practice their profession. Second: the electronic format issued by the General Directorate of Professions of the Ministry of Public Education (SEP) meets all current legal requirements, since the regulations at no time impose mandatory physical characteristics for this document. Third: no public or private institution can require the paper version as a condition for hiring or recognizing a professional. Doing so has no legal basis. What this document does not do. However, the SCJN also explained an important nuance that may lead to confusion: the professional ID, whether digital or physical, It is not an official ID. It does not prove identity, only that the person is authorized to start a profession. This means that for procedures that require identification as a person (opening a bank account, voting, signing contracts before a notary…) it will continue to be necessary to present a separate identity document. How to verify its authenticity. If an employer or institution needs to verify that an ID is legitimate, the official mechanism is to consult the ID number directly in the National Registry of Professionalsthe system of the General Directorate of Professions. There is no need to request an additional physical document or request photographs. What changes in practice. For professionals, the ruling eliminates that confusion that has existed for years, since the ID downloaded from the SEP platform It has exactly the same legal weight as any printed version. For recent graduates, it simplifies accreditation procedures and eliminates unnecessary costs and management times. For employers and institutions, the SCJN resolution clarifies doubts and turns the digital document into a mandatory recognition, not an option. Rejecting it or conditioning a contract on having to present the format on paper no longer has legal protection. In Xataka | Mexico has the most powerful dubbing industry in Latin America. And now it has a serious problem: AI

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