director

The horror movie of the summer is ‘Backrooms’, and its origin is so surprising that there is a rumor that its director is not real

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‘Backrooms’ premieres today in the United States (it arrives in Spain on June 5). The film, produced by the unstoppable indie A24is expected to be the horror bomb of the summer (hand in hand with the already tremendous ‘Obsession’, which is putting its hand in the face of ‘The Mandalorian and Grogu‘). It has 87% positive reviews on Rotten Tomatoes and is expected to open between $45 and $50 million, which would be the biggest debut in the studio’s history. Of course, it faces an unexpected controversy: there are those who say that its director, the very young Kane Parsons, has not really directed the film. What has happened? Days before the premiere, this unexpected rumor has circulated online: a more experienced director would have been working from the shadows. Osgood Perkins, producer of the project and director of the great ‘Longlegs‘. Mark Duplass, who stars in the film alongside Chiwetel Ejiofor, Renate Reinsve and Finn Bennett, responded in X: “I don’t remember seeing you on set. When I was there, Kane was 100% in control. More than many directors three times his age.” The origin of ‘Backrooms’. As we already explained in detailon May 12, 2019, an anonymous user posted on /x/, the paranormal board on 4chan, a photograph without a signature or context. It looked like a kind of abandoned office: yellowish carpet and walls, fluorescent lighting… It was ridiculously disturbing. The next day someone added a description that spoke of “not clipping out of reality” (a term taken from a glitch of video games in which the player falls into a geometric void beyond the mapping), and ending up trapped in a space that extends infinitely. The backrooms They are an extreme version of what the internet calls liminal spaces: hotel hallways at three in the morning, empty waiting rooms, closed shopping centers, underground parking lots without cars… Recognizable places but stripped of their function and of the people who normally inhabit them. Just like has been explainedthese types of environments activate the same response as the phenomenon of uncanny valleybut applied to physical places. The brain identifies these spaces as known and at the same time does not know how to read them logically. Jump to the cinema. Kane Parsons was 16 years old when he posted his The Backrooms (Found Footage): nine minutes in first person with a VHS filter, in which someone was chased by a strange presence in one of these spaces. The series that followed this first video, full of secret research institutes and dimensional experiments in the eighties, exceeded 197 million views. A24 bought the rights a year later. Youth, divine treasure. One of the apparent hooks of the A24 film, the extreme youth of its director, has worked against it. The press has underlined Parsons’ youthand some conspiracy theorists consider it to be a marketing strategy. In reality, what this talks about is the current situation in Hollywood, which has produced franchised cinema for two decades in which the director is, fundamentally, a technical executor under the creative supervision of the studio. The system of great sagas has normalized the idea that a good film cannot come from the criteria of a single person, a young person without credentials. We viewers are distrustful because that is what the industrial cinema of recent years has taught us. The explanation. Parsons was born in 2005, the year YouTube launched. “YouTube, more than a cultural reference for me, has been the way I know how to do everything I know how to do,” declared. Parsons doesn’t have the kind of resume that the traditional production circuit demands, but rather his only credential is a massive audience of followers who have been reacting to his work in real time for three years. And that is capable of arousing the suspicions of anyone who is buried by the industrial machine logic of modern Hollywood. In Xataka | When a town found a dead whale on its beaches, it decided to dynamite it. 55 years later they still celebrate it

There are those who want the V-16 beacon to be optional. The director of the DGT has a message: “There is no going back”

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126 days. That is how long the V-16 beacon has been mandatory in our country. A period in which, due to the DGT’s own unclear information, it is not clear whether the agents are fining or not for not having it in the car. What is certain is that there are still those who doubt its effectiveness and try to get the triangles to return. For them, Pere Navarro has a message. “There is no mark behind”. The statements are from Pere Navarro, director of the DGT, who in the forum Pedestrians and road safety organized in A Coruña and in which the city council and the Galician Federation of Municipalities and Provinces have participated has assured the following collected by Motorpassion: “(The beacon) is here to stay, there is no going back. It is an important safety element and is mandatory. And it also serves to avoid accidents” The director of the DGT has thus tried to settle a controversy that continues to rage despite the fact that since last January 1 This signaling element is mandatory, replacing the classic emergency triangles. Because? Pere Navarro’s response obeys the amendment that Vox has registered in Congress to try to reverse the use of the connected V-16 beacon. Or, at least, significantly modify its use. The intention of the political group is that the V-16 beacon is only an optional addition to the emergency triangles but that the latter are the ones that are really mandatory. Vox also searches end connectivity of the device, a focus of controversy despite the fact that the signaling object cannot be identified with the driver who activates it. “Everything is advantages”. For his part, Navarro is clear about it and has made it known in the forum: “everything is an advantage.” In words collected by elDiario.eyesthe director of the DGT defends that not getting out of the car in the event of a breakdown before signaling the danger is a step forward. Let us remember that From 2023 it is mandatory to stay in the car in the event of a breakdown unless the driver and passengers have access to a safe place to wait for emergency or help services. Navarro has also pointed out that “we should be proud” of the use of the beacon, after the European Commission confirmed that it is an object fully in line with European law although at first it was doubted how it was implemented. Surrounded by controversy. Since the connected V-16 beacon project was launched, the DGT has had to face all kinds of controversies. Various associations have questioned its effectivenessproducts were sold that have been invalidated by lack connectivity and along the way we have seen it flourish a very lucrative business to companies based in China. Furthermore, it is also not clear whether an agent would fine us or not if we do not have it. In a press conference, the Minister of the Interior Fernando Grande-Marlaska pointed out that was not going to be fined for a “reasonable” period of time but it was never determined what time window that definition includes. However, we know that just a few days after the new signaling system became mandatory there were already agents who fined the drivers. In Xataka | “We have not done it well”: the DGT assumes that something has failed in the arrival of the V-16 beacons

If the question is what differentiates Samsung from its competition, Charlie Bae, Samsung’s product director, is clear: ecosystem

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The television market is more contested than ever and traditional brands they no longer monopolize sales like they used to. As happens in other areas such as the automotive or smartphones, Chinese manufacturers They have stopped competing only on price and now they also do it in benefits. Hisense reached the second place worldwide in the premium segment with a share of 24% in the third quarter of 2024. TCL, for his partsurpassed Samsung in the television segment of 80 inches or more during that same period: it maintained a share of 23% compared to Samsung’s 19%. Both Chinese brands arrived at CES 2026 presenting their own technologies based on the evolution of its MiniLED panels:Hisense with your RGB MiniLED evo capable of exceeding 110% of the BT.2020 standard, and TCL with its SQD MiniLED as an alternative to OLED. The war is no longer about inches or prices. Now the dispute it’s in the quality. In this context of reconfiguration in the mid- and high-end market, we have had the opportunity to speak with Charlie Baeresponsible for Samsung’s television division in Europe. From volume to value: Samsung’s new scenario When asked about Samsung’s two decades of leadership in the global TV market, Bae doesn’t resort to triumphalism. Aware of the change that is occurring in the market, his reading is more nuanced, almost concerned about what is coming. “The market is transforming: it is going from being driven by volume to being driven by value,” he explains. “Due to the current economic situation, people are more conscious of what they spend. During COVID they spent a lot on changing their televisions, but now, when they consider renewing their TV, they are more cautious and think about the practical side.” That consumer caution is, in Bae’s opinion, both a challenge and an opportunity. A buyer who thinks twice is not necessarily a lost buyer; He is a buyer who can be convinced with solid arguments. And Samsung wants to be the brand that gives it to them. One of Bae’s most compelling arguments in his defense against Chinese rivals is not technological, but mathematical. According to the Samsung manager, a cheap television lasts on average between three and five years. A Samsung television, he tells us, lasts more than seven or eight years on average. “Think about it like this: if your TV lasts three or four years, you can only watch one World Cup. With Samsung, you can watch two.” Added to this is the commitment of seven years of system updates operational. “Even if you bought your TV last year, you’ll still be able to use the new AI features we launch. We want people to buy with the peace of mind that their TV is a long-term investment,” says Bae. Samsung’s response to competitive pressure with Chinese brands has a key piece: artificial intelligence. “15 years ago we introduced the Smart TV and no one imagined that it would become the standard. Today no one conceives of a television without applications, without being able to watch what they want when they want. That change led us to AI. Without a doubt the era of ‘AI TV’ will continue to develop over the next five years,” he concludes. However, Bae is careful to separate the hype widespread surrounding this technology of the actual content. “Previously, AI focused on optimizing the image and sound quality of the television,” he admits. “But now it’s visible and you can ask the TV questions about recommendations, travel plans, anything. The TV is something you can talk to, not just something you watch.” According to the manager, what differentiates Samsung products is that they apply this technology in a way that is useful to users, using as an example the Football Mode with AI included in their televisions, which allows something hitherto unthinkable: silencing the noise of the stands in a football match, without turning off the sound of the commentators. “If you’re watching the game at night and don’t want to turn up the volume, you can simply mute the stands and still hear the commentary clearly,” explains Bae. Beyond AI: OLED, MiniLED and MicroRGB In addition to the revolution in sales, television display technologies have stepped on the accelerator with the democratization of MiniLED panels for mid-range televisions, the gloss enhancement and color volume What QD-OLEDs offer or the new generation of MicroRGB screens. In this sense, Bae rejects the idea of ​​a screen technology that monopolizes the entire television market. “Technology continues to evolve, and I do not think that a single one is going to dominate the market. We do not focus on a single technology; we work on all of them in parallel, because each one responds to different user needs,” says Samsung’s product director. Samsung, its manager assures, works on all fronts: from the transparent Micro LED exhibited at CES to the 130 inch Micro RGBpassing through the high-brightness OLED. But also in formats that no one expected. In fact, Bae not only assures that Samsung will continue developing its catalog to offer different screen technologies, it is also committed to the flexibility of screen sizes and formats. All this in a context of televisions with increasingly larger diagonals, and living rooms with increasingly less square meters. “There are consumers who prefer small screens. We have The Movingstylea 27-inch touch screen that you can move around the house. In Europe, the number of single-person households is growing and homes are getting smaller, so you may be interested in a small, portable screen, not one with many inches,” insists the executive. In addition to the new panel technologies that are arriving in the brands’ catalogues, Samsung also highlights the arrival of other innovations that contribute to improving the visual experience, such as Glare Free technology, the anti-reflective system developed by Samsung that eliminates reflections and glare from windows and lights on the television screen. “Spain is a country with a lot of sun, so if you are … Read more

“Citizen surveillance and autonomous weapons deserved more deliberation” OpenAI robotics director resigns

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A week ago we were just saying that “A dead king, a king“: Anthropic passage to pure ostracism after being considered a “risk to the supply chain” of the United States practically overlapped with the announcement of the US Defense Administration agreement with OpenAI in record time. Behind the scenes: the reasons for the no from the company led by Dario Amodei and the unknown of the terms of that agreement that installs ChatGPT on the Pentagon computers. A few days later, Caitlin Kalinowski says goodbye at his position at OpenAI, citing the military use of artificial intelligence as the reason. The resignation. Caitlin Kalinowski, head of the OpenAI robotics team since November 2024, announced her departure from the company a few hours ago in publications from X and from LinkedIn. He makes it clear that his decision is about principles and not people and expresses respect for Sam Altman and the team. In his brief statement there are two lines that, in his opinion, the company did not think about enough internally: The surveillance of American citizens without judicial supervision. Autonomous weapons capable of firing without human supervision. Tap to go to the post Context. The resignation occurs in the midst of Anthropic’s departure from the Pentagon (the transition will last six months), the entry of OpenAI and in the midst of a debate about how far AI companies should go in their collaboration with the US military establishment: Anthropic stood before the Pentagon drawing strict lines on domestic surveillance and autonomous weapons. OpenAI reached an agreement with the Department of Defense to deploy its models on a classified government network in a move that has been interpreted as opportunistic. According to the company led by Altman, the agreement excludes domestic surveillance and autonomous weapons, but the damage to its reputation had already been done: thousands of people uninstalled ChatGPT by way of cancellation. Why it is important. The goodbye of Caitlin Kalinowski is the first public and nominative resignation from a senior position at OpenAI motivated by ethical disagreements over the military use of AI explicitly. And this sets a precedent in the industry insofar as it exposes the internal fracture in the most influential company in the sector, placing OpenAI in a delicate situation before those who use its tools, its staff and also before society. And finally, it makes more clear than ever the need to legislate on artificial intelligence and its civil and military uses. Maybe Europe is behind in the AI ​​battlebut a long time ago he set about the arduous task of establish a regulatory framework. Which Kalinowski does not say. In the comments of her post on Kalinowski does not say it clearly, but when an agreement of this magnitude has already been signed and its CEO makes it publicthere is no room for much maneuver from within: resigning with a public statement like yours is one of the few pressure maneuvers left to exert. Consequences. For OpenAI, the pressure is growing and it faces more departures and more cancellations if it does not clearly show what its red lines are in a credible and verifiable way: the militarization of AI is something we are experiencing in real time. For the AI ​​industry, it is more fuel on the fire of the self-regulation debate. And Anthropic gains reputation, although in the short term it has lost an important agreement and its new status may put its existence in check. In Xataka | The US has decided to shoot itself in the foot and destroy one of the best AI companies in the country In Xataka | Sam Altman says he’s terrified of a world where AI companies believe themselves to be more powerful than the government. It’s just what you’re building Cover | Caitlin Kalinowski

The new director of Comic-Con Málaga does not come from fandom, but from a sector that can solve last year’s problems

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The first international edition of San Diego Comic-Con broke sales records of tickets and attracted almost 100,000 people to Malaga. The organization, however, received abundant criticism: capacity to the limit, queues that lasted hours and more than 550 complaints accumulated by consumer associations. Now comes a change of direction and, with it, a new opportunity to prove that pop culture’s biggest event can work outside of California. The first Comic-Con outside the US The mere news that Málaga would host the first international edition generated an expectation which translated into instant sales: three of the four days of the event were sold out in less than 24 hours at 50 euros per day. And there were still no guests. When these they started to advertise (Arnold Schwarzenegger, Antonio Banderas, Elle Fanning, Jared Leto or the composer of ‘Final Fantasy’ Nobuo Uematsu, among more than thirty international guests) the first criticisms intensified: it was not an event for fans, like its original namesake, but rather oriented completely to the mainstream. Some figures. The official statement announcing the first plans for 2027 takes stock of last year and speaks of 95,784 attendees over four days, with an economic impact of 44.3 million euros and the participation of more than 110 exhibitors and brands such as Disney, Nintendo, Lego and Bandai Namco. Here we find the first discrepancies with the past: the Malaga City Council announced at the time that attendance had been greater than 120,000 people (thus exceeding the 30,000 daily visitors admitted to the Trade Fair Palace). 25,000 visitors difference in the information that the organization does not explain now, nor is there any mention of the more than 550 consultations accumulated by Facua and OCU to file claims. Changes in the organization. Implicitly admitting that there are issues to improve, a change has also been communicated to the front of the event. Fernando Piquer assumes general management, replacing Javier Barberá. His profile is striking: founder and CEO of Movistar Riders, one of the most recognized esports teams in Spain, and responsible for the Global Strategy of Movistar KOI before this new assignment, he has no previous connection with the world of comics or fandom, which has already generated the first criticism. However, his choice makes sense: large esports festivals have served in the last decade as a laboratory for managing massive events, with young audiences, a festive atmosphere and large numbers of people in closed venues. These are events used to digitally managing massive influxes: digital accreditation systems, capacity control by zones, staggered time slots, computerized queue management, all of this is applied today to entertainment fairs. The question remains for the 2026 edition about content and guests, but a good team should solve that problem. Possible solutions. Massive and comparable events such as Gamescom in Cologne or Paris Games Week have incorporated ticket systems by time slots, official apps that show crowd saturation maps divided into pavilions, and there are organizational teams dedicated exclusively to managing access flows. It is also worth reviewing the prohibitions on bringing water and food to the event, given the saturation that occurred at the food stalls and fountains. They are technical problems that have been identified and that can be solved: the next step should be announcements in that direction, especially considering that criticism of the event in terms of organization was widespread. In Xataka | “We are taking the industry towards 3D”: the creator of ‘DOOM’ has a full-time job and that is explaining ‘DOOM’ to you

The director of Sirat criticizes commercial cinema. But meanwhile, four out of ten directors film once a decade

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Oliver Laxe’s statements comparing commercial cinema to “bimbo bread”, especially pointing out the contradiction of making films for Netflix. have generated an unexpected controversy in the Spanish audiovisual sector, relativizing the extraordinary career of ‘Sirat’. The film not only got five statuettes at the European Film Awardsbut it has also received eleven Goya nominations and two Oscar nominations. The debate arises at a significant moment: a study by the European Audiovisual Observatory reveals that four out of every ten European directors and screenwriters who released a feature film in 2015 did not sign another one during the following ten years. A complicated metaphor. Oliver Laxe conceded an interview with The World in which offered his diagnosis on the crisis of youth attendance at the theaters: “It is our fault and our responsibility that young people do not go to the cinemas. They have been given fodder, bimbo bread and their palates are accustomed to sugar and processed foods.” The food metaphor did not stop there. Laxe went on to argue that when these viewers are offered “a rye bread or a pure cereal,” the palate is not prepared, although he insisted that “the sensitivity is there.” The filmmaker, whose film has exceeded three million euros at the Spanish box office and has attracted precisely a young audience, closed his reasoning with a resounding statement: “Having very political proclamations, but then making a movie with Netflix seems like a pure contradiction to me that nullifies your speech.” The accounts don’t work out. The answer did not take long to materialize. Jota Linares, a filmmaker from Cádiz who has often filmed for Netflix, replied in the SER questioning Laxe’s analysis. Linares challenged the simplification of the problem: “I will tell you what allows me to continue maintaining political ideas and express them freely despite having directed series and films for Netflix: my social class.” And he added: “I assure you that, due to my social class, I would be incapable of supporting myself by making only auteur films spaced over time for about two or three years. It doesn’t work out for me, although I see that it does for you.” Finally, he concluded that “you don’t hack the system from within with a six million euro movie with thirty publicists working at your feet. No, dear Oliver. That’s being at the top of the mainstream.” ‘Sirat’s’ money. The contrast between both positions reveals broader tensions in the sector. Laxe speaks from a relatively privileged position, since his film had the financial backing of Movistar Plus+ and is now enjoying an international campaign that has taken him to the Oscars. Linares, for his part, represents a silent majority of filmmakers who fight to get each new opportunity. Precariousness as a backdrop. The debate takes on a more urgent dimension when confronted with the data that published El País based on the study of the European Audiovisual Observatory. The research, which analyzes the careers of 38,762 professionals, covering some 30,000 projects, provides revealing figures: 40% of those who released a feature film in theaters during 2015 did not sign another film again in the entire subsequent decade. At the same time, more than half of the films released each year are debut films. The report’s conclusions leave no room for doubt: there is “an impressive turnover and great precariousness.” Cinema versus television. The document also shows a growing separation between film and television. Only 11% of directors and scriptwriters worked in both formats between 2015 and 2024, dismantling the idea of ​​fluid transfer between screens. On television and platforms, 85% of screenwriters and 91% of directors active in 2015 continued working later, compared to the 60% that disappear from theatrical cinema. “The majority survive poorly. Those who endure have family financial support behind them,” explained director Cristina Andreu in 2021. Little seems to have changed since then. Structural contradiction. Can the industry demand “rye bread”, as Laxe says he does, when the system expels 40% of its creators after a film? Is it fair to hold the public responsible for having a palate “accustomed to processed” in an ecosystem where professional continuity is more the exception than the norm? Laxe himself acknowledges that ‘Sirat’ was considered “a suicide” during the search for financing. If even an ultimately successful project faced that initial diagnosis, what happens to proposals from filmmakers without a safety net? The tension between the discourse of cinematic quality and the precarious reality of European production raises uncomfortable questions about who can afford to cultivate discerning palates. When, furthermore, the system itself does not guarantee anything. In Xataka | Many agree that ‘Stranger Things 5’ lowers the quality of the series. But that doesn’t change Netflix’s ambitious plans.

The director of the DGT says that in the future cars will not enter cities. It’s more of a wish than a reality

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Today is January 14, 2026 but, really, it doesn’t matter when you read this: Pere Navarro, director of the DGT, is once again in the news for some controversial statements. We could have titled this article that way, in fact, because the truth is that every time the Director of Traffic speaks at an event broadcast by the media there is something to scratch. This time it was at an event organized by Europa Press where Navarro showed off this particular superpower. There, he has assured the following: “We are all day with emissions, yes emissions, no such and such. Don’t look, you don’t go to the city center with electric, diesel or gasoline. Let’s not make a mistake. You go with public transportation and if you’re in a hurry, taxi, Uber or Cabify” They are literal words. There is no possible misinterpretation or audio cuts to take the message out of context. You can check it yourself in the tweet that accompanies this article. Click on the image to go to the original tweet The words clearly point to an ambition: to get the car out of the city center. It doesn’t matter if it’s gasoline, diesel or electric. There is a goal and that goal is vehicle sharing and public transportation. We could put our hands on our heads. We could say that they want to prohibit us from moving where the elites want. Of course, there will be those who relate this to 15 minute cities. However, we have been hearing similar messages for so long and the measures to be taken have been so lukewarm that, without fear of being wrong, I say: calm down. Once again, the same old thing This is not the first time, far from it, that we have heard this type of message from the director of the DGT. For two years, news and articles have been recurring that point to supposed prohibitions on using our cars if they are only occupied by one person. One of the most repeated formulas is found in these words from Navarro himself at an event called Global Mobility Call held in Madrid in 2024: “The future of traffic will be shared or it will not be (…) we must make a collective change in mentality that allows us to encourage high vehicle occupancy, because we cannot afford to move 1,500 kg every day to move a single person. Increasing vehicle occupancy is a challenge and a necessity” Navarro too has come to be described as “luxury” moving a single person in a vehicle. And in November he insisted again in that it doesn’t matter if the car is electric or not because the future of cities depends on public transport. However, the DGT has not taken any action that points in this direction nor is there anything on the table to debate it. The closest thing is the creation of a Bus-HOV lane at the entrance to Madrid where cars with two or more people traveling inside are rewarded. And that in 2019 it was also advocated from the DGT magazine for a city “with more pedestrians and fewer cars.” The statements have also been used to fill the network with articles pointing out that we will not be able to enter the center of our cities by car, linking them with the creation of low-emission zones. But the truth is that these low-emission zones have a very limited scope. In some of them, such as Madrid or Barcelonavehicles without a label are prevented from entering, but either there are exceptions or they allow all cars with a label to enter the very center of the city. It is true that sometimes you are forced to park in a parking lot but the passage, if our car has at least label Bit is open. Despite many statements by the DGT, the truth is that the efforts to reduce or not reduce traffic in cities go through the municipal corporations of each place. A context that has led to turning the issue of urban mobility into a political weapon. To the point of defending that traffic jams can be “a hallmark” of a city. The comparison between Madrid and Barcelona are two good examples. In the capital, the Popular Party won an election by ensuring that it was going to lift all circulation restrictions, something he didn’t do and that, in fact, he maintained to eliminate all unmarked cars (regardless of whether the driver lives in Madrid or not) from the city. Barcelona en Comú promoted a completely different way of understanding the city in Barcelona, ​​betting on pedestrianization, reduction of lanes in the city center and the creation of what are known as Superilles. It has also been promoted to be more aggressive and fence off the entrance to the city from the most polluting vehicles. Two different approaches that, however, have given a very similar result. And the measures against the car have been very lukewarm. In both cities, if the vehicle has an environmental label it can circulate inside, just taking into account a series of obligations that, in practice, barely change our daily lives. In Madrid, the idea of ​​preventing unlabeled cars from being banned was finally scrapped (as long as they are registered in Madrid). And prohibiting entry to city centers with cars is not something that is catching on in Europe either. Yes, the main cities have restrictions and barriers that discourage its use, but in all of them you can continue to travel to the city center by car. In London you want reduce traffic with tollsin Paris punishing street parking and in Berlin you are also forced to drive with certain modern vehicles. Be that as it may, the only certainty is that total prohibitions do not come and if citizens end up leaving their cars aside in the cities it is because they have been transversal jobs in different areas and sustained over timewith investments … Read more

“Being a gossip” is enough reason for dismissal for the director of a bank branch

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They say that curiosity killed the cat, and if that curiosity belongs to the director of a CaixaBank office, it is most likely that her position is in danger. As an example of this, the person in charge of an office of that entity in a small town in Gerona who was fired for “gossiping” about the bank details of people in her town. The courts called it fraud and breach of trust. The case reached the Superior Court of Justice of Catalonia, which confirmed that the disciplinary dismissal It was completely justified. Curiosity killed the cat. As detailed in the sentence issued By the Catalan Superior Court of Justice, in November 2023, CaixaBank detected anomalous accesses to its customer database. The director of the Les Preses (Gerona) office had been accessing clients’ banking information without apparent justification. An internal audit revealed the magnitude of the problem: between November 3, 2022 and December 11, 2023, management had made inquiries about 170 different clients on 210 different days. The most serious thing was the pattern since of those 170 clients consulted, 84 were family members or people in their close circle, and 121 lived in the same town where the director lived. The searches were done mainly by first and last name, something very unusual in banking operations normal in which the user’s ID is used to avoid confusion between users with identical first and last names. The explanations that did not convince anyone. When the audit investigated the accesses, the director tried to justify herself. First he said it was common to review customer accounts at other offices to confirm that cash transfers between users had been completed correctly. He then stated that some customers had asked him for help because they had had access problems from the application of the mobile. But as more information became known, those excuses began to lose foundation. The bank confirmed before the court that the majority of those 170 clients had connected through the mobile application on the same day that the director consulted their accounts, which showed that they did not need its intervention. Without arguments, all he was left with was the truth: she was a gossip. Finally, the worker admitted that she had consulted this data because of “xafardería”, a Catalan term that means simple curiosity or gossip. She acknowledged that she had not done so at the clients’ request nor was she looking for specific information, but rather motivated by curiosity to know the payments and financial movements of her family, friends and neighbors. He also assured that I had not shared that information with nobody. However, this confession was not enough to save him from the consequences: immediate disciplinary dismissal. There was abuse of trust and the TSJC confirmed it. CaixaBank did not hesitate to act when the conclusions of the internal investigation were known. On January 31, 2024, he was notified of his disciplinary dismissal on the grounds that his actions constituted a “very serious breach of contractual good faith, fraud and abuse of trust”, in accordance with the provisions of article 54.2.d) of the Workers’ Statute and article 76.4 of the current Collective Agreement for savings banks and financial entities. The Social Court number 1 of Figueras supported this decision on July 26, 2024. The worker tried to appeal to the Superior Court of Justice of Catalonia, but the court rejected all her arguments. The court concluded that “there is no justification” for these consultations and that the conduct “contradicted the code of ethics and the confidentiality regulations that must govern a business as sensitive as banking.” The sentence left no room for doubt, declaring the dismissal proper and definitive. A lesson in trust and responsibility. As and how they stand out in the specialized environment Economist & Juristthis case leaves important lessons about how access to sensitive information in a financial institution is a privilege that carries responsibility. The director had received training on data protection and the code of ethics, so she was fully aware of the rules she was breaking. His position in the office gave him access to private data of hundreds of people, and used that access to sensitive information to satisfy simple curiosity. Due to the recurrence of the consultations, the courts understood that this was not an isolated case, but rather a deliberate pattern of conduct that violated the trust placed in it by the entity and its clients. In Xataka | The EU has once again taken a look at the Spanish labor market and has once again reminded Spain of something: firing is too cheap Image | Unsplash (Rodrigo Rodrigues)

private astronaut Jared Isaacman will be its new director

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Space has once again been a question of power, and NASA is once again at the center of the spotlight. While China officially maintains that will reach the Moon with astronauts in 2030 and lists concrete advances in its manned program, the United States faces a replacement at the head of its space agency after a turbulent year. It is not a simple name change in the organizational chart: it is the confirmation that the lunar race has entered a phase in which leadership, the calendar and today’s decisions weigh a lot. The United States Senate just confirmed to Jared Isaacman as NASA’s new administrator, ending a long and unusual process even by Washington standards. The vote went ahead with 67 votes in favor against 30 votes against, according to C-SPAN, and clears up an uncertainty that had weighed on the agency’s management for months. With this confirmation, NASA leaves behind a stage marked by interim management and once again has a ratified manager. New command at NASA and a lunar race that once again sets the course Jared Isaacman doesn’t fit the traditional mold of NASA administrators. Founder of payments company Shift4, private pilot and astronauthis name became known for commanding two commercial manned missions aboard SpaceX’s Crew Dragon, Inspiration4 in 2021 and Polaris Dawn in 2024. This journey, halfway between the private sector and direct experience in flight, explains why its arrival is interpreted as a sign of continuity in the agency’s growing openness to commercial actors. The process started more than a year ago, when Donald Trump announced his intention to place him at the head of NASAbut it was interrupted on May 31, cwhen the White House withdrew his nomination. Months later, with meetings between the two and in a context of growing frustration within the administration over the performance of the acting administrator, according to industry sources cited by SpaceNews, Trump announced on November 4 his decision to re-nominate him. Jared Isaacman All this comes as China reaffirms its goal of landing astronauts on the Moon by 2030 and listed a chain of tests already carried out and others in preparation. The program includes tests of the Lanyue module, validations of the Long March-10 rocket and the Mengzhou spacecraft, in addition to the development of extravehicular suits and a manned lunar rover, within a schedule that the organization itself describes as demanding. Space Launch System From Washington, this Chinese advance has been translated into an increasingly explicit message. Sean Duffy, Secretary of Transportation and acting administrator of NASA during the interim period, publicly congratulated Isaacman upon his confirmation and framed his arrival as part of a clear political objective. “I wish Jared success as he begins his tenure and leads NASA as we return to the Moon in 2028 and defeat China,” he wrote in a post. In his appearance before the Senate, Isaacman made it clear that the lunar calendar is not a secondary issue for NASA. Given doubts about the accumulated delays in the Artemis program, he warned that any additional delay could have strategic consequences. “There is no doubt that the top priority in the short term is returning American astronauts to the Moon,” statedemphasizing that postponing that objective opens the door for the United States to lose the initiative. Images | NASA | SpaceX In Xataka | We have filled the Earth’s orbit with satellites. And now the risk of a catastrophic collision is very high

The director of the DGT proposes a grace period with the V16 beacons

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On January 1, 2026, it becomes mandatory to carry the V16 beacon connected in the car. Pere Navarro, general director of Traffic, has shed some light regarding the DGT’s decision on the device. And a few days ago confirmed that the agents will act flexibly during the first months, prioritizing information about the sanction. The statements come just after the DGT itself has recognized communication failures of this measure. The date does not move, but the fines will wait. Navarro reiterated that the regulations comes into effect as plannedand that is something that had been announced for five years. But he also clarified that the agents “will be flexible, for a time, informing” the drivers before starting to sanction. The objective, according to the director of the DGT, is to “consolidate this system” without generating a barrage of fines from day one. Mea culpa from Traffic. Montserrat Estaca, head of the Telematics Area of ​​the DGT, publicly acknowledged in statements to 20Minutos that “we have not done the job well” in terms of disseminating the measure. He admitted that many citizens are unaware of the mandatory nature of the connected V16 beacon and that communication has been insufficient. Until now, the DGT has only reported through the media, without sending direct communications to drivers as it did with environmental labeling. Why this change now?. The replacement of the triangles with the V16 beacon seeks to prevent drivers from having to get out of the vehicle and walk along the road to signal a breakdown. Navarrese provides data: Between 20 and 25 people die every year after being run over after abandoning their car, although it recognizes that not all cases are directly related to the placement of triangles. The new device is placed on the roof of the vehicle without leaving the passenger compartment and emits a light signal visible up to a kilometer. Not all beacons are valid. Here is one of the big problems: many drivers bought V16 beacons a long time ago, but not all are approved. Only connected V16 beacons are valid, those that incorporate a GPS chip and SIM card to connect to the platform. DGT 3.0 and transmit the position of the vehicle in real time. Connectivity must be guaranteed for a minimum of 12 years without additional fees. Offline beacons, mostly sold before 2022, do not comply with the regulations. How to know if your beacon is legitimate. The key is in the certificate number. Before buying, you must verify on the DGT website that the product has valid approval. The official list includes all devices certified by the IDIADA or LCOE laboratories. Simply enter the certificate number in the search engine to confirm that the beacon meets the technical requirements. Without this step, it is easy to fall for misleading offers, especially on platforms like AliExpress or Temuwhere we can find both approved products and others that are not. Price is not everything. Although the OCU places the usual price around 40-50 eurosthere are specific offers that reduce the cost up to 10 euros for new users on certain platforms. Stake defend that the expense is acceptable, commenting that divided by 12 years of guaranteed connectivity, “it amounts to just three or four euros per year.” In addition, he also highlights that if you change vehicles, “you can take the beacon from one vehicle to another as you could do with triangles.” The beacon does not solve everything. Navarro too warns that “there are those who think that by installing the V16 everything is over. No. This is simply to notify that a kilometer and a half away there is a vehicle stopped on the road due to an incident. It is not for anything else. You still have to call your insurance company to have the tow truck come and remove the car or fix the damage. One thing does not replace the other, let’s make no mistake” Its limitations in broad daylight. The DGT itself recognize that the beacon works worse with natural light. Estaca admitted that “the worst they work is in daylight,” when their visibility is reduced to about 50 meters, the same distance as a traditional triangle. In adverse conditions (fog, rain, night), the flashing light gains effectiveness. Traffic’s commitment also involves trusting in digital connectivity, allowing other drivers to receive the warning through their browsers before arriving at the area of ​​the incident. Spain, world laboratory. The country will be the first in the world to mandatory implement a system of connected beacons. The European Commission follow the experience closely in Spain with a view to there being changes in the rest of the countries. Navarrese presume of the system as “a Spanish invention” and asks for patience to evaluate its real effectiveness once it comes into operation. What vehicles are required. The norm It affects passenger cars, buses, vans, goods transport vehicles and non-special sets registered in Spain. Motorcycles, special vehicles such as agricultural machinery, bicycles, scooters and cars with foreign license plates are exempt, which may continue to use triangles. Fine if we don’t have it. Although there will be initial flexibility, as claimed Navarro, the fine for not carrying the beacon will be 80 euros, the same as is currently applied for not having triangles. In addition, using triangles will also be punishable from January 1, since Traffic considers that they pose a risk of being run over. The DGT has not confirmed how long exactly the grace period will last before starting to sanction systematically. It would also not be advisable to tempt fate. Cover image | DGT In Xataka | More and more Spaniards receive a letter in their mailbox: they have a fine and an AI has given it to them

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