leaves

Pedrerol leaves Atresmedia for Mediaset after 13 years, and his departure is the perfect reflection of the current war between private companies

by

We have seen this before: Josep Pedrerol shows up at the door of a chain at just the worst moment for the one hosting him to lose him. Well it’s happened again. Only this time the chain where it lands is already waging an open judicial war with which it is saying goodbye. The hostilities embodied in lawsuits and (future) trials between Atresmedia and Mediaset find in Pedrerol’s escape almost a symbol of the tensions that plague Spanish television. What has happened? Atresmedia and Josep Pedrerol They announced last Tuesday that end their professional relationship. There is talk of mutual agreement and a very specific expiration date: the Catalan presenter’s contract expires on July 19, and ‘El Chiringuito’ says goodbye a day later with a special dedicated to the final of the 2026 World Cup. Pedrerol summarized the balance by saying that “they have been thirteen fantastic years in which we have worked with absolute freedom.” On behalf of the chain, the general director of Atresmedia Audiovisual, José Antonio Antón, thanked in a statement the professionalism of the team and the achievements achieved. The outing is not limited to the evening program. Also closing is ‘Jugones’, the desktop news program that Pedrerol has presented on laSexta since 2013 and which, according to the statement itself, has remained a “reference for sports news at that time.” This is how Pedrerol says goodbye. The story has an almost identical precedent. Pedrerol directed ‘Punto Pelota’ on Intereconomía when the chain, in the midst of a default crisis, He terminated his contract on December 4, 2013.. By then he had already presented “Jugones” on laSexta, since September of that same year, which allowed him to land on Atresmedia shortly after: the heir to “Punto Pelota” debuted as “El Chiringuito de Jugones” on January 6, 2014 on the now defunct channel Nitro, before going through laSexta and Neox and settling on Mega since 2015. This time there are no defaults or termination, but a contract that has not been renewed after months of stalled talks. The piggyback format. For a presenter to change channels is normal on Spanish television, but it is not so normal for him to carry an entire format on his back, with equipment and production company included. The precedent most cited is that of Pablo Motos, who moved ‘El Hormiguero’ from Cuatro to Antena 3 in 2011 maintaining program and collaborators. Pedrerol starts from a similar position: ‘El Chiringuito’ is produced by Radio Sport Plus, its own production company, and according to Digital Journalist Citing sources in the sector, Mediaset is also negotiating to incorporate a good part of its usual team to transfer the format almost entirely, although under a different name. Mediaset is in a hurry. Telecinco closed the 2025-2026 season with an 8.9% average share, its worst historical record and the fifth consecutive season with a decline, while Atresmedia led the group with a 25.6% share. sharethe greatest advantage it has ever taken from Mediaset. Coinciding with the World Cup semi-finals on La 1, Telecinco signed the worst day in 36 years of history. A format with a low production cost and an already formed community of followers fits with what Mediaset needs before La Liga starts on August 15. It is still ironic, of course, that the same sport that is giving Telecinco so many headaches could serve as a rescue raft in the near future. War on. Mediaset and Atresmedia have been in litigation for years over ‘Pasapalabra’ and its final test, the Rosco: the Supreme Court forced Antena 3 to withdraw the Rosco in May, Atresmedia replaced it with a new test called AlaZ on June 19 (which has continued to triumph in hearings), and the Dutch production company MC&F and Mediaset They have announced that they will sue her considering that the new test is too similar to the original. Taking away one of its most profitable sports brands from Atresmedia would have something symbolic. No confirmation at the moment. Neither of the two networks has confirmed the signing, and there are still many pending details: whether the new program will land on Telecinco or Cuatro, with how many historical collaborators it will do so and what it will be called (a possible clue: on April 13, Radio Sport Plus record before the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office the name “Chiringuito Gol TV”). Again, August 15 and the start of La Liga can be a key date so that, around it, we know more things. In Xataka | Netflix users love to watch the first season of a series. Then they love to stop seeing it completely

Airbus leaves its aircraft engines in the hands of others. With hydrogen he has decided to enter that business

by

Airbus has built some of the world’s most important commercial aircraft for decades, but its engines have always come from outside. Rolls-Royce, GE Aerospace, Pratt & Whitney and CFM International have occupied that specialized space, while the European manufacturer concentrated on design, integrate and assemble the aircraft. That separation has been one of the unwritten rules of the industry. Now, the search for a hydrogen-powered plane has led the group to cross a border that until today it had preferred to keep intact. The movement will take shape, if it overcomes the pending steps, in a joint venture between Airbus and MTU Aero Engines. Its objective will be to bring together in a single organization the development, testing, certification and commercialization of a fully electric propulsion system powered by hydrogen fuel cells. For now, both companies have signed a non-binding agreement and the operation remains subject to regulatory authorizations and the corresponding labor consultation processes. The forecast is that the new company will begin operating in 2027. Airbus wants to manufacture the heart of its future hydrogen plane The operation represents Airbus’s first foray into the manufacture of complete aeronautical engines. The step breaks with a model in which manufacturers define and integrate the aircraft, but leave the propulsion in the hands of specialized companies. The European firm does not intend to compete with them in the conventional engines that its models currently use. Its entry will be limited, at least for now, to a technology still in development that Airbus and MTU want to transform into an industrialized and certifiable system. The two partners come to the project from complementary positions. Airbus brings its knowledge of commercial aviation programs and its experience in fuel cell and liquid hydrogen propulsion; MTU adds capabilities in engine design, integration, validation, certification and maintenance. The final terms of the future partnership are still being negotiated. The Financial Times maintainsbased on two sources close to the talks, that the European manufacturer would have close to 75%, that the valuation could exceed 1.2 billion euros and that both parties are inclined to install it in Germany. Recreation of the ZEROe turboprop concept presented by Airbus in 2020 The initiative also reflects how ZEROe has changed since its launch in 2020. Airbus initially aspired to introduce a hydrogen aircraft around 2035, but ended up recognizing that the technology and the necessary ecosystem would not advance in time to meet that horizon. The British newspaper now places the launch in the 2040s and claims that the readjustment included a budget reduction and the reassignment of staff. After reviewing the program, the group decided to prioritize an all-electric architecture based on fuel cells. The prioritized architecture would not burn hydrogen inside a turbine. The fuel, stored in a liquid state, would power fuel cell systems that would electrochemically combine it with oxygen to produce electricity; That energy would later reach the electric motors responsible for moving the propellers. It should not be confused with the direct combustion demonstrator that Airbus and CFM International had planned to test on an A380. That was a different technological path. The system would not produce direct CO₂ emissions during the flight and would have water as a byproduct of the reaction. The announcement does not immediately bring a hydrogen plane closer to airports. As we say, the future society must still be established, convert the research and results of the demonstrators into an industrialized and certifiable system, and face obstacles ranging from weight and cooling to fuel supply. There is also no assigned model nor a confirmed commercial calendar. Images | Airbus In Xataka | Spain promised them very happy with the European hunting megaproject. Until a rival appeared out of nowhere: Italy

the destruction that Cobendai leaves in its wake

by

Almost a hundred people they are still waiting for the car they bought and months ago they paid the Cobendai Group, the Hyundai, Peugeot, Suzuki, Subaru, KGM and MG dealer network in the Community of Madrid that has collapsed between non-payments, a pre-bankruptcy of creditors and the dismissal of its entire staff. Some customers paid the money in November 2025 and, seven months later, they neither have their vehicle nor know when they will have it. What has happened? The Cobendai Group entered into pre-bankruptcy at the end of April, according to account The Country. Since then, the company stopped responding to calls and emails, its workshops ran out of supplies and dealerships began to empty of cars. In parallel, the company opened an Employment Regulation File (ERE) for its 170 workers, a negotiation that has ended without an agreement. According to affirms El Español, the company has chosen to lay off the entire workforce through “objective” layoffs for economic, productive and organizational reasons. Shock. On the one hand, workers have not been paid since March, and on the other, customers who paid for their cars in advance have not received them yet. Cobendai became a benchmark in its sector. And just as they explain in El Español, in 2025, Hyundai Motor Spain awarded him the Dealer of the Year award, for his sales volume and customer service. Less than a year later, the same company has a debt of around 21 million euros, according to detailed an anonymous worker to El País. In detail. In mid-April, Cobendai announced that it would begin to deliver the pending vehicles to the approximately 150 affected people who reported the situation. Between the end of April and mid-May, it delivered more than a hundred cars, but deliveries stopped suddenly and left between 30 and 40 people without theirs, according to counted Francisco José Murcia, one of the affected clients, told El País, whose father paid 25,900 euros in cash in November. Added to this group are about 40 buyers of the MG brand through ASIMCO dealerships, also integrated in Cobendai. One of them, Silvia Corchero, reserved her car on November 26 and paid 21,500 euros in January without the registration ever taking place, according to the media. Between the lines. Neither Hyundai nor MG are directly responsible for the management of Cobendai, but both brands have been swept up in the dealership crisis and have begun to offer partial solutions. Hyundai Spain counted to El País that there are pending deliveries and assured that it was studying each case “individually”, in addition to insisting that the problem responds to “poor financial management” unrelated to the brand. MG, for its part, indicated that it monitors the situation and offers legal advice to clients who request it. Both manufacturers have begun to deliver replacement cars, although with conditions, since MG requires a deposit of 500 euros and limits use to 3,000 kilometers per month, as Corchero explained. For many affected people, it is a patch that does not solve the core of the problem. And the workers, what? The fired staff has between three and four unpaid payrolls and has only received an advance of 500 euros since March, according to denounced an anonymous employee told El País. The lawyer who represents the workers in the ERE negotiation, identified as Ana, explained told El Español that now the main question is when they will be able to recover that money, and pointed out that a good part of these amounts will have to be claimed from FOGASA, the state fund that guarantees unpaid salaries in the event of business insolvency, a procedure that is usually delayed. Cover image | Carlos Bustillo (Google Maps) In Xataka | Ryuta Kawashima, neuroscientist: manual shifting has “a significant effect on maintaining mental health and cognitive function”

the best Reno to date leaves the mid-range, also in price

by

OPPO has just announced its new range of Reno mobiles and we have already tested the most complete of this duo. Although traditionally the Reno series was framed in the mid-range, this OPPO Reno16 Pro wants to put its foot in the high range with very balanced features and a corresponding price. Let’s see how it performed in our tests. ✅Buy it yes You appreciate that the design is compact and manageable. You want the battery to not be a headache. You like taking photos, especially selfies. You like OPPO’s software, ColorOS16. ❌Don’t buy it if You want a mobile phone with the most cutting-edge specifications. You are looking for something with the best quality-price ratio. You are very demanding in the photographic section. You prefer cleaner software. OPPO Reno16 Pro, Xataka’s opinion and note I admit that the OPPO Reno16 Pro has surprised me for the better. Between the fact that the Reno series is more of a mid-range and that when I took it out of the box I saw that it was compact and with a youthful design, my feeling is that I was looking at a mobile phone that I couldn’t demand a great camera or crazy performance from. After several days of use, the OPPO Reno16 Pro has proven to be a very balanced smartphone. It is true that it does not have the best processor nor are its cameras the most advanced, but In practice he has kept my mouth shut; The performance is smooth and the cameras are very versatile. If we also add excellent autonomy and details such as the 144Hz screen, they elevate the experience to a more than decent high-end. The biggest drawback (and what also points to the high range) is its price. For the first time in the Reno series, OPPO has exceeded 1,000 euros (1,099, to be exact), entering a prohibitive terrain for many users, especially the young people to whom it is supposedly aimed. 8.4 Design 8.5 Screen 8.5 Performance 7.5 Camera 8.0 Software 8.5 Battery 9.5 in favor Two days of autonomy. Thank you Quality, compact and manageable design The main sensor offers good results against The price is too high The screen looks great, but a little more brightness would have been nice The angle and telephoto are weak at night Our experience with the OPPO Reno 16 Pro Compact design with a detail that stands out. It is one of the things that I have most appreciated when using the OPPO Reno16 Pro, especially considering that I come from a iPhone 17 Pro Max. On an aesthetic level, it has a fairly classic appearance, with the metal frame and both sides covered in glass, but it has a detail that makes it stand out: the back cover is decorated with a drawing of a planet that has a three-dimensional effect that seems to be coming out of the glass. It is a more youthful and striking design, but if you prefer something more sober and elegant there is a black version with a completely smooth back. Clear and fluid screen. The visual experience with the OPPO Reno16 Pro is very good. We have a 6.32-inch AMOLED screen that gives us sharp and contrasted images, but also the 144Hz refresh rate makes everything move fast and fluid; If you like playing with your mobile, you will appreciate it. Of course, when using it outdoors with a lot of sun I have missed an extra bit of brightness. On the screen we also have an ultrasonic fingerprint reader that is very fine, although if you want to unlock the phone without hands you can also configure facial recognition. Plenty of performance for everyday use. Although it does not have the most powerful processor (it is a Mediatek 8550 Super), the OPPO Reno16 Pro performs perfectly in common day-to-day tasks. We are talking about a mid-range chip, but it is more than enough to navigate, use maps, take photos and check social networks without noticing any lag or problems managing multitasking. As for the temperature, I have not noticed that it gets particularly hot, although when taking photos outdoors, between the screen being on and it being horribly hot, you want something not to get hot. Up to two days without going through the plug. When I saw that the design was more compact I automatically thought that autonomy would not be its strong point, I couldn’t be more wrong. We have a 6,000 mAh battery silicon-carbonwhich allows for greater energy density. During my tests it allowed me to charge the phone every day and a half and even two days if I used it less intensively. Not bad. The OPPO Bubble is one of the most curious accessories I have tried on a mobile phone A versatile camera with a very original accessory. The camera system is quite versatile and gives very good results in favorable conditions. At night the weaknesses are noticeable, especially with the angle and telephoto since they are not as bright as the main sensor. But the most striking thing is not the camera itself, but the accessory it comes with. It is called OPPO Bubble and it is a small round magnetic screen that we can “stick” to the back of the mobile. This allows us to take selfies taking advantage of the quality of the rear camera, but it also serves as a viewfinder/wireless shutter release. It’s not something that will change your life, but if you like taking photos it’s a lot of fun. The main sensor gives us a great level of detail that is maintained when zoomed in On the other hand, with the telephoto lens we have a less bright lens that tends to capture slightly blurred photos if the light is lower or there is some movement (the same thing happens with the wide angle lens) Selfie with front camera (left) vs selfie with rear camera using the OPPO Bubble (right). The rear … Read more

Someone has created the first complete advanced malware by vibecoding with AI. It’s called Voidlink and it leaves an important question

by

For a long time, develop malware advanced seemed reserved for actors with experience, time and considerable technical capacity, especially in an environment in which operating systems and many platforms have been tightening their defenses. But the table is changing. What we have seen in recent years is that artificial intelligence not only serves to summarize texts or answer questions, it can also very visibly accelerate the software creation when given precise instructions. And that leaves us facing a reality that is difficult to ignore: the same tool that simplifies legitimate tasks can also reduce part of the effort necessary to create malicious code. That change begins to take concrete form with VoidLink. In his analysisCheck Point presents it as one of the strongest evidence so far of advanced malware developed largely with the help of AI. There is, however, an important nuance in the investigation itself: the company assures that it detected it at an early stage, that it was not deployed against victims and that it was not used in active attacks. But that is precisely why the discovery is so revealing, because it allowed access to development materials that rarely come to light. How VoidLink was built and why it changes the dashboard VoidLink was not, at least on paper, a minor piece or a rudimentary experiment. The cybersecurity firm describes it as a malware framework for Linux with a modular architecture, designed to maintain stealthy and prolonged access in cloud environments. In his analysis he mentions components such as eBPF and LKM rootkits, as well as specific modules for cloud enumeration and subsequent activities in container environments. That level of maturity is just what separates it from other previous cases associated with simpler code. One of the most striking twists in the case is who seems to have been behind it. Check Point explains that, due to its internal structure and the pace of evolution observed, VoidLink gave the impression of having come from a large team, with different profiles and a fairly defined work plan. But the evidence collected by the firm points to something very different: a single actor who, according to the investigation, would have had AI support during different phases of development. There is also another relevant element: that actor would not be a rookie, but rather someone with a solid technical base and previous experience in cybersecurity. The most revealing part of the case is how the project would have been built. The firm describes a working method based on what it calls Spec Driven Development that works as follows: You define what you want to build This idea is translated into architecture, tasks, sprints and delivery criteria The implementation is delegated to the model. In the exposed materials, development plans, technical documentation, coding standards, deployment and testing guides appeared, as well as an organization by teams and phases that supports this model. One of the recovered artifacts, dated December 4, 2025, further suggests that VoidLink had already reached a functional phase in less than a week and exceeded the 88,000 lines of code. That is precisely what separates VoidLink from other precedents. Check Point maintains that this is the strongest evidence of malware created almost entirely with the help of AI. “This is the first confirmed case of advanced AI-generated malware, created with the speed, structure and sophistication of an entire engineering organization,” claims the company. The question now is how far malicious actors can go with these types of techniques. Images | Xataka with Nano Banana | Check Point In Xataka | The Booking hack is a little more disturbing: “Tracking phishing” attacks are here to stay

Alzheimer’s leaves its mark decades before showing its face:; keeping vitamin D at bay is already a promising shield

by

Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia remain one of the most complex medical puzzles of our era, standing out above all for the absence of treatments that completely stop the disease or even reverse it. But science continues to advance and has now focused on a preventive factor that could be in our hands from a young age: vitamin D. It keeps moving forward. The main study that has sparked interest was published at the beginning of this month of April in the magazine Neurology. And the objective of this was none other than to shed light on how our brain behaves decades before the classic symptoms of dementia appear. To get here, a total of 793 participants from the renowned Framingham Heart Study with an average age of 39 years were monitored. From here, the serum vitamin D of the patients began to be measured between 2002 and 2005, and then, at the age of 16, they underwent different scans to check the state of the brain. What was seen. In conclusion, the study pointed out that maintaining higher levels of vitamin D, greater than 30 nanograms per mL, during the ages of 30 to 40 is associated with less subsequent accumulation of the tau protein in the brain. Because it matters. The relevance of this discovery is crucial and to understand it, you just have to know that Alzheimer’s occurs because two factors mainly come together: Beta-amyloid protein plaques, which accumulate outside neurons. Neurofibrillary tangles of tau protein, which form within the brain cells themselves and are closely linked to neuronal death and cognitive decline. In this way, the effort of science right now is focused above all on blocking the formation of beta-amyloid plaques around neurons or preventing the tau protein from accumulating in our neurons. Although it is something really complicated. There is a nuance. Interestingly, the study found no association between midlife vitamin D levels and beta-amyloid accumulation. The protective effect is limited exclusively to the tau protein, especially in the brain regions where Alzheimer’s usually strikes its first blows. This is good news, as it narrows down the biological mechanisms involved and suggests that vitamin D could play a specific role in the pathways that regulate how tau is produced or eliminated over the years. There is small print. As they warn in the press release itself, this is a simple observational study. This means that it is true that people with higher vitamin D in middle age accumulated less tau protein, but the study cannot categorically state that vitamin D destroys tau protein on its own. Furthermore, the authors of the study themselves are categorical: this finding is not a medical prescription. There is no current evidence to justify that massively supplementing with vitamin D pills at age 40 will protect the brain against dementia. This simply paves the way for future research to truly test this relationship in a clinical trial and lead to new treatments. Images | catalyststuff freepik In Xataka | More than half of the population in Spain has a vitamin D deficiency. Now a study questions the benefits of supplementation

30 years later he leaves without making a sound and that is the worst of all

by

The alarms went off when the model could not be chosen in the configurator on their website, but it now seems that there is no turning back: Audi has closed orders for the A8 in Germany. Which means that the manufacturer is going to stop marketing them, at least for the moment. It is the end of an era for its flagship. More than 30 years giving the call. Since 1994 it has been Audi’s reference in the large luxury sedan segment, competing directly with the Mercedes S-Class and the BMW 7 Series. The fact that it is going to disappear from the market has its reason, but above all it responds to a trend that we have been experiencing for years: people are moving from sedans in the premium segment: they want an SUV. What exactly happened. On February 18, Audi stopped accepting configurations of the A8 in its German domestic market. The brand’s website now redirects interested parties to second-hand alternatives. Motor1, which was the media that confirmed the news, received a response The manufacturer is vague about its availability: “it depends on inventory levels and other factors,” said a spokesperson for the brand. The A8 is currently still active in the UK and US configurators, where it starts at $95,100, but everything indicates that once stock runs out in each market, the Audi A8 will say goodbye. The D5 generation I was on my way to 10 years. The current model arrived in 2017 and received a facelift in 2021, falling short of standing up to its rivals. While Mercedes has renewed the S-Class with around 50% new or redesigned components, according to they count from Autoblog, they already point to the next big leap planned for 2029; and more of the same for BMW, which is already preparing new features for the 7 Series. In this context, the A8 has aged without being able to catch up. On the other hand, according to they counted in October from the German media Automobilwoche, the Euro 7 regulations would make a new restyling of the D5 unfeasible without a prohibitive cost. A segment in retreat. The A8 does not fall alone. Lexus said goodbye to the LS after 37 years, and brands such as Jaguar, Maserati, Cadillac, Lincoln and Infiniti have already abandoned or drastically reduced their presence in this segment. And the numbers of the A8 itself throughout its history say it all: the first three generations sold between 150,000 and 200,000 units each worldwide. The current D5 generation, presented in 2017, has not reached 50,000 units in its entire life cycle, according to they count from Motor News. The door is not completely closed. Audi spokesman Marcel Bestle dropped to Motor1 that the brand “will communicate more details about a possible successor at a later date.” Maybe we’re not going to say a definitive goodbye, but it seems that Audi is going to have to rethink things a lot to go back to betting on the A8. Maybe make the jump to pure electric? In this context, they still have to give it some time, but being left without a representative sedan for longer than necessary can end up damaging the brand’s image. Meanwhile, it seems that Mercedes and BMW have free rein to continue accumulating more market share in this segment. Cover image | Audi In Xataka | If you have a 1991 car and you are registered in Madrid, the City Council has a message for you: do not throw it away

The head of AI at Alibaba leaves the company. That points to a 180º turn for the Qwen family models

by

An employee leaving a company does not have to mean a radical change, especially when that employee has been the leader of an important project and his departure occurs just after the launch. This is what just happened with Junyang (Justin) Lin, the technological leader of the team qwen. A strange exit. On March 2, Alibaba launched a new model family lightweight with two fast models designed for edge use, a multimodal model for agentic systems and a reasoning model that stood up to much larger models. The next day, Junyang Lin announced on his X account “I am leaving. Goodbye, my dear Qwen,” without giving further details. And he wasn’t the only one. Also leaving the company were Hui Binyuan, a scientific researcher, and Yu Bowen, head of post-training at Qwen. No one has commented on the reasons behind his departure from the company and rumors that they had been fired They didn’t wait. However, according to Panda Daily, Alibaba said it had approved his resignation. ¿What is happening? Justin’s departure caused a stir among his colleagues, with some claiming that it was “the end of an era”. We are talking about the person who has led the Qwen team from the beginning and a great AI researcher, with an academic profile that exceeds 40,000 citationsso this decision has raised many eyebrows. Whether fired or resigned, Justin was a key figure on the team, but he also leaves just after a launch and several other employees have followed him. What is happening at Alibaba? Closed models. As we said, the parties involved have not offered more details, but the theories have not been long in coming and one of them is that Alibaba could be thinking of moving towards closed models. Alibaba has been making efforts to monetize its AI and closing their models could be part of the plan. It would certainly make sense for the project leader to quit at the prospect of such a profound change. There’s a new guy in the office. Shortly after the news broke, another one jumped out: Alibaba has signed Zhou Haowho until now was a researcher at Google DeepMind. Zhou will join the Qwen team as head of post-training, so he will directly replace Yu Bowen and not Justin. Zhou has been a key figure in the development of Gemini 3, the Seeker’s AI mode, and Deep Research mode. lto open source strategy. DeepSeek, Kimi, Qwen… Chinese companies have become the standard bearers of open source AI, an antagonistic strategy with the closed stance of the US. But it is not a question of giving away AI just for the sake of it, but rather it is part of their roadmap: offering access to create a large user base and thus be able to be dominant in the future. Furthermore, Chinese companies know very well that the US is technologically ahead (Justin himself recognized it recently), so launching open and free AIs is a way to gain ground on them. However, in the long term it does not seem like a very good strategy because there will come a point where they want to monetize it and there is a risk of losing users who feel betrayed. We do not know if Alibaba has already started down this path, but if it has, we will soon see if this risk is real or not. Image | qwen In Xataka | China’s open AIs aren’t “beating” ChatGPT, they’re doing something more important: catapulting their industry

Anthropic’s security manager leaves the company to write poetry

by

In a movement more typical of “nihilistic penguin“that the head of security for one of the main protagonists in the development of AI, Mrinank Sharma, head of artificial intelligence security at Anthropic, has announced his resignation with a public letter in your X profile and he will dedicate his life to writing poetry. In his statement, Sharma not only explained why he is leaving the company that develops the models of Claudebut instead described the current state of AI development, with language that mixes alarm with personal reflection. “The world is in danger,” said the former director of Anthropic. The context: who he is and what he did at Anthropic. Mrinank Sharma headed the Safeguards Research Team from Anthropic, a research group focused on studying the risks associated with AI systems. Within Anthropic, Sharma’s work included developing defenses against risks such as AI-assisted bioterrorism and studying phenomena such as sycophancy (the tendency of AI models to user adulation), as well as investigate how AI can influence human perception and change cultural behaviors. He leaves, but leaves a message. The almost cryptic letter that Sharma published in X It quickly went viral due to the messages it contained. In it, he expressed his concerns in a tone that transcends the technical. One of the quotes that has attracted the most attention: “The world is in danger. And not only because of AI, or biological weapons, but because of a series of interconnected crises that are developing at this very moment.” Beyond the almost apocalyptic literalism, Sharma warned that humanity was approaching a critical point in which the development of AI was facing ethical dilemmas for those who develop it “our wisdom must grow at the same rate as our ability to affect the world, otherwise we will face the consequences.” Work to stay out of work. Sharma is not the only one who faces this ethical dilemma. According to sources of The Telegraphother Anthropic employees have expressed concern about the huge evolutionary leap in the latest AI models. “I feel like I come to work every day to stay out of work“one of the employees acknowledged to the British media. In a way this is true, since these employees are working on the development of a technology that, in all likelihood, change nature of his work, and that of millions of peoplea few years away. Is that good or bad? A first reading of the letter leaves the feeling that these workers are developing the weapon that will destroy humanity. However, a reading between the lines leaves Anthropic in a pioneering situation compared to its rivals from OpenAI, Microsoft or xAI: they are achieving advance at a pace which overwhelms even its developers. A sensation that does not seem to occur in the templates of other companies. Could it be that their models are not at that point of evolution? “Throughout my time here, I have seen repeatedly how difficult it is to allow our values ​​to guide our actions. We constantly face pressure to let go of what matters most,” Sharma wrote. The poetic turn. In addition to reflecting on the global risks he perceives, Sharma announced that his next professional step will be very different from the one he had until now. In his letter he mentioned his intention to devote time to what he called “the practice of courageous speech” through poetry. This change of lA for poetry has been interpreted as a sign of dissatisfaction with the pace and focus prevailing in the AI ​​technology industry. Like Sharma, in recent weeks other key figures in Anthropic’s AI development have announced their resignation. Harsh Mehta and Behnam Neyshabur They also announced a few days ago that they were leaving the company. However, in these cases, the exit announcement was made and, immediately afterwards, a new AI project was announced. That is to say, far from the ethical postulates that Sharma proposed, his intention was more along the lines of digging into his own gold mine and not that of others. In Xataka | Daniela Amodei, co-founder of Anthropic: “studying humanities will be more important than ever” Image | mrinank sharmaAnthropic

France leaves Zoom and Teams behind in its administration and aims for something greater

by

For years, digital services from American companies have enjoyed a clearly dominant position in Europe. A mix of consolidated trust and lack of regional alternatives competitive on many fronts, it has been constantly expanding its user base, both individuals and companies, while fueling a shower of million-dollar contracts also coming from governments and public administrations. The footprint of large American technology companies in the Old Continent is impossible to ignore. Gmail, Instagram, Spotify and YouTube are part of the daily lives of millions of Europeans. Likewise, it is common to find public organization computers running Windows, Office or Microsoft 365, a scene so normalized that it is rarely questioned. To this visible layer is added another much less obvious, but perhaps even more strategic: cloud computing. Providers such as Microsoft’s Azure, Amazon’s AWS, or Google Cloud host everything from everyday services to critical infrastructure. In parallel, in the field of cybersecurity, platforms such as CrowdStrike Falcon They are integrated into the core of sensitive systems used by airports, airlines or financial entities. When technological dependence becomes a strategic risk However, this balance is beginning to show cracks. The question is no longer just who provides the service, but what would happen if that partner considered reliable suddenly stopped being so. How would Europe respond to such a scenario? And, above all, are you preparing to face it? For some this is an extreme hypothesis; for others, a risk that can no longer be ruled out. The truth is that the debate is no longer marginal and has reached the offices of Brussels and several European capitals. As The Wall Street Journal reports, Since the re-election of Donald Trump, those responsible for strategic sectors in Europe are putting pressure on the large American cloud service providers to facilitate quick exit mechanisms. The objective is clear: to be able to transfer systems and data to local centers or to European suppliers if necessary. And what is considered an emergency situation? The possibility, remote but not impossible, that the United States limits or even suspends access to services and data centers operated by its own companies. It would be an unprecedented move, with profound consequences for the European economy and public services. Finding an argument to justify it is as difficult as it is simple: everything can end up revolving around a concept that is increasingly present these days: “national security.” Despite the existing tensions between Europe and Washington, everything indicates that such a scenario remains unlikely in the short term. Even so, there is one incontestable fact: The concern is real. In Brussels and in several European capitals, discrete but constant steps are already being taken to reduce dependencies and gain room for maneuver. Visio, the alternative to Zoom and Teams promoted by France France has become one of the most illustrative cases. The Government is promoting the progressive withdrawal of extra-European videoconferencing solutions in the public sector to replace them with Visioa “sovereign” and open source alternative. The State’s own digital strategy portal admits that, until now, the different departments have operated with a mosaic of tools and expressly mentions Microsoft Teams, Zoom and Webex. According to the official statement, this fragmentation “weakens data security, creates strategic dependencies of external infrastructures, generates additional financial costs and makes cooperation between ministries difficult.” The answer lies in a unified solution, developed by the Interministerial Directorate for Digital, under government control and based on French technology. Visio already has about 40,000 regular users and its deployment is planned to reach 200,000 public employees. Among the first organizations to adopt it widely during the first quarter of 2026 are the CNRS, the National Health Insurance Fund, the General Directorate of Public Finances and the Ministry of the Armed Forces. Zoom, the video conferencing platform that became popular during the pandemic The scope of the movement is better understood with a specific piece of information: the CNRS will replace your Zoom licenses with Visio at the end of March for its 34,000 employees and the 120,000 researchers associated with its research units. American solutions are thus beginning to lose ground in France, as has already happened in other countries. Denmark moves towards LibreOffice and Munich opted for Linux for years, although in this last case the path was not linear and ended with a partial return to Microsoft due to compatibility problems. These types of strategies, extrapolated to other attempts to promote sovereign alternatives, are not without obstacles either. It is worth remembering that open source does not automatically guarantee quality or pace of evolution. When maintenance, auditing, and development fall to a limited number of actors, product progress can slow down. Pointing out these tensions does not invalidate the approach, but it does help to understand its real complexity. Furthermore, the debate is not limited to public services. In a hypothetical decoupling of American platforms, ordinary users could also be affected. Some people, like our colleague Jose Garcíahave chosen to start a process of technological emancipation with respect to the United Statesa path that is not without friction. After years of moving in an ecosystem dominated by North American Big Tech, getting out of it requires time, sacrifices and assuming new limitations. Images | Government of France | Mika Baumeister | Yoyus sugiharto In Xataka | France and Germany have created a “European Notion” with a very simple objective: depend less on the United States

Log In

Forgot password?

Forgot password?

Enter your account data and we will send you a link to reset your password.

Your password reset link appears to be invalid or expired.

Log in

Privacy Policy

Add to Collection

No Collections

Here you'll find all collections you've created before.