Rules

Spain fails to comply with the rules with the registration of travelers. Brussels has just opened a file and gives him two months to fix it

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The European Commission opened this Thursday an infringement procedure against Spain for the controversial traveler registry promoted by the Ministry of the Interior. Brussels considers that the rule violates European regulations on data protection in the criminal field, by forcing hotels, digital platforms and car rental companies to collect and send personal information of tourists to a state database that is then accessible to the Police. We tell you all the details. What are we talking about? This is known as the Traveler Registry, regulated by the Royal Decree 933/2021 and fully operational since the end of last year. The regulations obliges accommodations, travel agencies and vehicle rental companies to upload their clients’ data into the ‘ses.hospedajes’ application and transmit them to a centralized Government database. Just like point La Vanguardia, the objective declared by the Interior, which can be read in the preamble of the decree itselfis to reinforce the fight against terrorism and organized crime, activities in which, the ministry argues, accommodation and the use of vehicles have special logistical relevance. What a reproach Brussels. The Commission points to three specific problems. First, consider that the categories of data collected and stored are “excessive”, due to the variety of sets they cover, including payment and GPS data. Second, it maintains that access by police authorities “is not limited to specific and explicit purposes”, as required by directive 2016/680. And third, it describes as “disproportionate” that these data are kept for three years after the traveler’s stay. Amount of data. One of the big discussions revolves around how much data there really is to deliver. The hotel sector has denounced that the standard requires up to 42 different fields, while the Government insists that only 13 are mandatory: name and surname, number and type of document, reference and date of the contract, arrival and departure dates, means of payment, telephone or email and the relationship of kinship when a minor travels. The remaining data, according to the Executive, are not mandatory to complete. The file. The procedure opens a period of two months for Spain to respond and correct the irregularities. If the answer is not convincing, the Commission can issue a reasoned opinion, a kind of official ultimatum. And if non-compliance persists, the last step would be to take the State before the Court of Justice of the EU. The reaction of the sector. Hoteliers and travel agencies have been on the warpath for some time. The Spanish Confederation of Hotels and Tourist Accommodations (CEHAT) has questioned the legality of the collection and transmission of data because it conflicts with European regulations on free circulation and data protection. After learning about the file, the agency associations Fetave and Unav They have asked the Government the “urgent suspension” of Royal Decree 933/2021 and an immediate meeting with the Interior, considering that the Executive “cannot act as if nothing had happened” when Brussels has formally questioned the compatibility of the rule with EU Law. And now what. Spain has two months to make a move. Interior can defend the rule, modify it or suspend it while the procedure is resolved. However, pressure is growing, on the one hand from the tourism sector, which has been demanding changes even before the rule came into force; on the other, that of the European Commission, which had already warned of the clash of that decision with data protection regulations. Now that warning is in writing, so we will have to wait and see how things progress. Cover image | François Genon and Square In Xataka | The European Union has been flooding the countryside with billions of euros for half a century. It has been of no use

China already mass-produces the strongest carbon fiber in the world. And that changes the rules in defense, aeronautics and energy

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For decades, access to the world’s highest-performance composite materials has been a privilege of a few countries. For high-performance carbon fiber, Japan and the United States have controlled that market with a combination of technological advantage and export frameworks explicitly designed to keep China out. Last March we saw that this balance had changed, as the Chinese state group CNBM (China National Building Material Group) presented in Paris the world’s first mass production of T1200 grade carbon fiberthe highest step on the tensile strength scale of this material. What is the T1200. As we explained a while ago, in the world of carbon fiber, the letter T followed by a number is a direct resistance classification. The higher the number, the more force the material can withstand before breaking. T1200 exceeds 8 gigapascals (GPa) of tensile strength, making it about ten times stronger than conventional steel, with a density that is just one quarter of that of steel and with a filament diameter less than one tenth of a human hair. According to counted CCTV, a cable just over two millimeters thick, made up of 120,000 of these filaments, is capable of towing a bus full of 54 passengers. More companies join this fiber. China showed its prowess at the JEC World in Paris, but the industries have already gotten up and running. At the end of April, PetroChina announced the inauguration of its first carbon fiber project high-performance in the city of Jilin, with an investment of approximately 1.3 billion yuan (about 180 million dollars). It is relevant because it is no longer just CNBM, as the state energy giant enters the sector taking advantage of its dominance in the supply chain. Zhongfu Shenying, a subsidiary of CNBM, for its part, has commissioned additional production a new 10,000 ton plant standard fiber metrics. China’s idea is to build an industrial ecosystem from the top down, including mastering high-performance carbon fiber production techniques. China had not been able to manufacture it for decades. High performance carbon fiber has been on dual technology lists for decades use of the Wassenaar Agreement, the multilateral export control regime created in 1996 with 42 member countries including Japan and the United States, but not China. According to the China Composites Industry Association, the Agreement restricts the export of carbon fiber of high modulus (from grade T800) to non-member countries. This means that accessing materials above that threshold required, in practice, manufacturing them at home or obtaining them through alternative means. China did not have its first T300 until 2008. From there to the T1200 it took less than twenty years. It has taken Japan 43 to travel that same path. How China has accelerated so much. The model that has been repeated many other times and in other sectors: state capital, research from universities and industrial capacity functioning as a coordinated ecosystem, with the same approach as China has been applied to semiconductorsbatteries or electric vehicles. In this case the protagonist is CNBM, which developed the fiber through Zhongfu Shenying Carbon Fiber. Zhou Yuxian, president of CNBM, counted in the presentation that the country has demonstrated “completely independent and controllable capabilities throughout the entire industrial chain”, from equipment to the transition from laboratory to mass production. Chen Qiufei, head of T1200 R&D at Zhongfu Shenying, added Furthermore, the new grade improves the resistance of the previous T1100 by more than 14% and allows the weight of the equipment to be reduced in the sectors where it is applied by more than 10%. Who led the market until now. Toray Industries, a Japanese company, dominates the global market with a production capacity of 29,100 tons per year. It also developed its own T1200 with 8 GPa strength, but so far has not announced a mass production line equivalent to that of CNBM. Mitsubishi Chemical, another Japanese giant, advertisement plans to double its high-performance capacity before 2027. The South Korean Hyosung Advanced Materials aims to reach 24,000 tons per year in 2028. On the other hand, on the American flank, Hexcel is defined as the main supplier of carbon fiber for aerospace and United States military programs. Where is it applied? High-performance carbon fiber has been used for decades in combat aircraft, missiles, satellites and military fuselages precisely because it combines extreme strength with extreme lightness. With the T1200, things go even further. According to counted Interesting Engineering, the material could redefine the limits of fifth and sixth generation military aircraft manufacturing. In the civil sphere, commercial aeronautics already consumes around 76% of global carbon fiber, and the T1200 would allow additional structural weight reductions on platforms such as the Boeing 787 or the Airbus A350. In energy, high-pressure hydrogen tanks use carbon fiber structures to withstand pressure with the lowest possible weight. China has also pointed out applications in humanoid robotics and in the so-called “low-altitude economy” (drones, air taxis and urban air mobility). The Chinese space company Welight Technology already operates a rocket whose structure is around 90% carbon fiber composites, which reduces weight by 25 to 30% compared to equivalent metal designs. Cover image | Zhongfu Shenying In Xataka | Brazil holds one of the largest reserves of rare earths in the world. And he doesn’t want to repeat the same mistake from centuries ago

the rules of war are being redefined

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In 2007, at a military range in South Africa, an automatic anti-aircraft gun Oerlikon GDF-005 got out of control during an exercise and opened fire without human intervention, causing several victims before being arrested. That incident, investigated for years, is often remembered because left a lesson disturbing about what can happen when machines begin to act in combat environments. That scenario is already happening in Ukraine. The first position captured without humans. In the words of ukrainian president himself several hours ago, the war in the country has crossed an unprecedented border: for the first time in history, a Russian position was taken without the direct intervention of soldiersonly through aerial drones and ground robots. The operation, which ended with the surrender of Russian troops, left no casualties on the Ukrainian side and marked a milestone that until recently belonged more to science fiction than military reality. Here names appear like TerMIT, Ratel, Ardal, Lynx or Volya, “soldiers” who are no longer prototypes, but protagonists of a new way of fighting where machines execute complete missions. The event. The Zelensky’s statement has not been independently verified, but was accompanied by a promotional video in which he described that Ukrainian military robots had completed more than 22,000 missions in the last three months. Ukraine’s Defense Ministry also recently reported a three-fold increase in the Ukrainian military’s unmanned ground vehicle missions over the past five months, with more than 9,000 robotic missions carried out in March, according to Scripps News. The growing presence of ground robots represents a new trend in a war that has become synonymous with drones. An option. According to The IndependentZelenskyy’s statement could refer to an event that occurred last year in Kharkiv Oblast, northeastern Ukraine. That statement cited a statement from Ukraine’s 3rd Independent Assault Brigade detailing how the unit had used drones and kamikaze ground robots to attack Russian fortified positions on the front lines. The brigade’s statement also described Russian soldiers surrendering to one of the unit’s robots after abandoning damaged fortifications. In fact, it we get to count and there are several examples advances of Russian soldiers, individually or in small groups, surrendering to drones Ukrainians and even before a robotwhile they were recorded on video, so the idea that a group of Russian soldiers surrender to a robot is not far-fetched. Plus: the exploits of these robots on the battlefield also appeared in a recent video which described a similar, or possibly identical, incident involving the same brigade. From logistical support to assault force. Because what began as a limited use of robots for transportation or evacuation tasks has quickly evolved into an active role in combat. I counted a few weeks ago the Guardian that, in a matter of months, missions with unmanned ground vehicles have multiplied, going from thousands to tens of thousands, while drones dominate the battlefield and cause the majority of casualties. In this environment, robots have taken on roles increasingly aggressivefrom placing explosives to opening fire or acting as suicide units, integrating into coordinated operations that previously required infantry. Moving is almost impossible. It we have been counting. The rise of these systems responds to a brutal reality: the front has become a constant death zone dominated by drones, one where any human movement is detected and attacked within minutes. With areas of up to 20 kilometers under permanent surveillance, soldiers can barely move without exposing themselves to attack, which has forced them to completely rethink the way they operate. In that context, sending machines instead of people is not only a tactical advantage, but a necessity to survive. The scene that defines everything. During the last months we have related all kinds of episodes more typical of a fantastic novel. Possibly images of Russian soldiers surrendering to robots armed groups condense this paradigm shift. In some cases, fighters have emerged from destroyed positions to surrender to remotely controlled devices, aware that they were not facing a conventional enemy. For this reason, the operation that has culminated in the capture of a position without direct human intervention reflects the extent to which the war has entered a phase where the physical presence of the soldier is no longer essential to gain ground. Ecosystem in full acceleration. Behind these advances is a dynamic system in which engineers, manufacturers and combat units they work togethertesting and perfecting technologies in real time. In that sense, Ukraine has turned the need in innovationdeveloping fast and scalable solutions that compensate for its resource disadvantage compared to Russia. In fact, it is on its way to becoming one of the great powers weapons with drones and AI as standard bearers of this new war. Hence, furthermore, the model has aroused so much interest from other countries and military alliances, watching how the integration of drones and robots redefines tactics and preparation for future conflicts. A revolution beyond Ukraine. If you also want, beyond the immediate impact on the conflict, all these advances point to a deeper transformation of the art of modern war. Robots already represent an essential part of logistics and begin to replace infantry of the last century in key tasks, with the possibility of significantly reducing the number of soldiers needed at the front. In other words, what happened with that captured position without humans It is not an isolated episode, but rather the preview of a model in which machines will not only accompany the soldier, but, in certain situations, will wage war on their own, completely replacing them. Image | YouTube In Xataka | If you thought Hormuz was not enough, the war in Ukraine has opened another maritime front in Europe: the Gulf of Finland In Xataka | If fog was deadly in Ukraine’s winter, spring is offering Russia a key advantage: greenery

We believed that AI was killing jobs in the tech industry. It is actually changing the rules of the game: Crossover 1×41

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It is possible that in the future AI will take away our jobs, but at the moment it is being taken away from very few. This was stated in a recent Anthropic study on the impact of AI on the labor market, and this is a perfect perch to present the debate that concerns us in Crossover 1×41. And it is a special edition because we have as a guest Jordi Arrufiof Talent Arena. This event, which is held within the framework of the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, ​​is aimed at future developers and also senior profiles, and with it we had the opportunity to talk about how AI is changing the rules of the game for professionals in the sector. To begin, we must dispel myths. At least for now, because although there was a time that AI was going to replace programmers, what is being seen according to Arrufí is that The demand for technological talent is increasing. In fact, what is expected is that the impact of AI will cause this technology to begin to create jobs that we cannot even imagine. We also couldn’t imagine that with the rise of the Internet there would be frontend and backend developers or web designers: the same in this case. Many professionals may fear that future, and here the recommendation to be prepared for the future is that these professionals combine your technical capacity (‘hard skills’) with human capabilities (‘soft skills’) such as critical thinking, leadership or communication. The frenetic advancement of AI also makes the ability for continuous learning and adaptability key in these changing times. He vibe coding has changed the paradigm, and has opened this area even to users without basic programming knowledge. Plus there is something striking here. A real opportunity for current professionals and those to come, because if something is clearly taking off it is interest in technological sovereignty. Europe seeks to recover ground against the US and China through investments in chipsFor example. Public funding is especially critical to retaining talent and prevents professionals from emigrate for higher wages. We also had the opportunity to talk about another of the areas of greatest projection: robotics. It is expected a imminent adoption of humanoid robots in industry and in logistics processes. Domestic robots will take longer, no doubt, but what seems clear is that by 2035 the world will be dominated by AI agents and massive advances in fields such as biotechnology. This is not just about AI: It’s about talent, money and who adapts faster and in a more accurate way. On YouTube | Crossover In Xataka | A startup from Malaga is the most used European AI app in the world according to Andreessen Horowitz. It’s called Freepik

The Galaxy Ultra already had a scandalous screen. The Galaxy S26 Ultra directly changes the rules of the game

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I don’t want to waste my time talking about seniority, but I’ve been dedicating myself to current technology and video games for more than a decade and I can say that, at this point, few things surprise me. There are evolutions and functions that are cool, but on very few occasions it is something groundbreaking. Then Samsung arrived with the screen of the Galaxy S26 Ultra and its privacy mode. And I tell you what it is one of those things that you have to see to believe. In the first impressions of all Samsung Galaxy S26 We have already told you the essentials. The South Korean company has put a lot of effort into providing its new models with artificial intelligence functions. According to their estimates, more than 80% of users see value in the features of AI and we have a call assistant to avoid the SPAM, agents who perform actions for usa photo editor to which we give commands with prompts and other functions that make more or less intense use of AI. However, what I have noticed the most is something done so that you do not ‘focus’ on the screen of the one next to you: the new privacy screen. It is a mix between software and software that is explained simply. Have you seen one of those tempered panels that are tinted so that they can only be seen from the front so that curious people can’t see anything? Well, that’s what the Galaxy S26 Ultra screen does. Yes with him S24 Ultra they introduced an anti-glare screen that worked very, very wellthey have now added another layer of technology and functionality. The operation is simple and has to do with the pixel matrix of the OLED panel. We have pixels that emit in a narrow spectrum and those that emit light in a wide spectrum. When privacy mode is not activated, the screen lights up all the pixels, allowing it to look great both from the front and at any angle. But, when we activate the new privacy mode, pixels that emit light in the wide spectrum are turned off. And that’s the trick. When that happens, as users, we notice that the brightness drops a little, but also that we can only see the screen if we are completely perpendicular. If we start to tilt the phone, we quickly lose the angle of vision to the point that at 30 degrees it is very difficult to see anything. In practice, whoever is next to you on the couch, on the train or on the bus, will not see anything at all on your screen. And this is great in terms of privacy, but also in terms of security. Because let’s see, you may be thinking that it is ideal so that no one sees your conversations. Telegram or a mischievous eye that tries to take a look at the gallery or the bank app. And yes, it’s useful for that, but also so that your PIN or important notifications don’t get caught. Because There are three ways to activate this mode: Activated at will in full screen. Activated when we run certain apps in full screen. Notifications only. For example, I don’t care if they see my Telegram, but I don’t care if they take a look at my photo gallery. So I can set it to turn on when I open the gallery and turn off when I exit. But, also, I can add another condition: When there is an app that asks for my PIN, it is automatically activated to hide the process. And the truth is that it works like a charm: it’s fast, transparent for the user once we configure it for the first time and… you don’t see anything, really. I know it sounds very “source: believe me”but in the photos and video above you can see it in operation. In addition, it is not tied to Samsung apps, but to anyone. And it also works with notifications, hiding only the notification bar at the top. Now, it has a catch. You may have noticed that I said “the screen of the Samsung Galaxy S26”, and there is a reason: It is a technology reserved for the most expensive model. We already saw this with the anti-reflective finish of the S24 Ultra and it is a decision that I understood. It is logical that manufacturers save exclusives for their most ambitious models. However, here we are no longer talking about a function to keep gossip away: we are talking about something focused on improving privacy and security. I think that little brothers should have it. What’s more, I think all brands should step up and copy this function. It’s going to make cell phones go up in price, yes, but the truth is that I prefer something like this to cell phones that are increasingly more and more powerful and with more and more –very expensive– RAM for AI functions. From now on, this Samsung ‘invention’ has become something to which I am going to pay close attention. And surely there is someone who doesn’t like anything: to manufacturers of tempered glass with privacy function. Because I have one from a very well-known brand and it works well, but it is a pain in many circumstances and, in addition, it interferes too much with the brightness sensor. That does not happen in this Samsung implementation. Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra, 512GB, Smartphone with Galaxy AI, 200MP Camera, 12GB RAM, 5000mAh Battery, 3 Year Manufacturer’s Warranty + 1 Extra Year, Cobalt Violet Color (Spanish Version) The price could vary. We earn commission from these links Photos | Xataka In Xataka | It’s not that AI makes us stupid: it’s that we are surrendering to it

We just found a planetary system that breaks the rules of the game with a planet where it should not be

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The universe has a curious habit: every time we think we have a perfect standard model for how things form, something comes along that forces us to rewrite the textbooks. At the moment, our solar system (like many others) seems to have a logical order with rocky planets like the Earth near the Sun and gas giants far away, but what just published the magazine Science It is the exception that confirms that the rules are meant to be broken. A new model. An international team, with strong Spanish participation from IEEC-CSIC and the IAChas discovered LHS 1903, a system 120 light years away which presents an “impossible” architecture according to traditional models: rocky, gaseous, gaseous and… rocky again. The importance of order. This study details the discovery of four exoplanets orbiting a red dwarf starwhich a priori does not seem anything out of the ordinary. But the focus is on how they are placed, as can be summarized in the following list: LHS 1903 b: an inner rocky planet. LHS 1903 c: a gaseous sub-Neptune. LHS 1903 d: another gaseous sub-Neptune. LHS 1903 e: an outer rocky planet. The normal thing in planetary formation is that the outer planets, when formed far from the heat of the star where ice and gas are abundant, accumulate enormous gaseous atmospheres like Jupiter or Neptune. This is why a rocky, bare planet, without a gaseous envelope, in the outermost orbit is an anomaly that has baffled astronomers. It’s like there are two Earths in locations where they shouldn’t be. How it has been seen. To confirm this strange system, a single telescope was not enough. The finding is the result of the combination of data from TESSNASA’s exoplanet hunter, and the satellite’s surgical precision Cheops of the European Space Agency (ESA). In this way, while TESS detects the general transit signals when a planet passes in front of the star, Cheops is able to refine those observations to determine the exact size. Combining all this with velocity measurements from ground-based observatories such as the Canary Islands telescope, the team was able to calculate the densities and confirm that planet ‘e’ is indeed a solitary rock on the outside. How is it possible? A priori, there are two theories to explain why a planet loses its gas and becomes rocky: photoevaporation and the internal heat of the planet. However, neither of these theories work for LHS 1903 e. As the most distant planet, it receives much less radiation than its inner gaseous brethren and is too cold to have lost its atmosphere on its own. In this way, if the planet did not lose its atmosphere a priori, the only logical explanation that the authors find is that it never had it. The study proposes a training model in a gas-depleted environment where the protoplanetary disk ((the cloud of gas and dust where the planets are born) did not form all the bodies at once. What happened, theoretically speaking, is that the inner planets formed first when there was a lot of gas and the outer planet formed later. He is left with the crumbs. By the time the last planet finished forming, the gas in the disk had already dissipated or been absorbed by its older brothers. In this way, it was formed from solid “leftovers”, with no gas available to build an atmosphere. This supports the theory of the “inside-out” formation, where the planets appear sequentially. It is a scenario that has rarely been confirmed with such observational clarity as until now in this system. Its importance. This discovery forces us to rethink the history of solar systems around red dwarfs, which are the most common stars in our galaxy. And we even thought that the position of a planet determined its destiny, but LHS 1903 teaches us that timing is just as important. The LHS 1903 system thus becomes a perfect laboratory: four planets, the same star, but completely different birth stories coexisting in a stable orbital balance. Images | THAT Images | There are satellites in space that need to be “towed.” And a company from Galicia has exactly what is needed

painful rules cost billions in productivity

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Although in Asian countries like Japan, South Korea or Taiwan the cancellations due to painful rules They have been around for a few yearsthey are still rare bird. Without going any further, Spain is a pioneer in the EU (Italy tried it in 2017but it did not come to fruition) and the measure came not without controversy before and after approval. Because periods and pain are managed privately, but they have a profound impact on people’s health… and also on the economy. How much does a period cost at work?. A recent study published in the Australian Journal of Social Issues How the rule affects Australia’s economy makes its importance clear: 14 billion Australian dollars a year alone in lost productivity (about 8.54 billion euros at the exchange rate). And the calculations are conservative in that they do not include health or treatment costs. The rule, in figures. The first menstruation arrives at approximately 12 years of age and since then it occurs more or less regularly every 21 – 34 days until menopause arrives, around the age of 45 – 55. We are talking about between 400 and 600 periods throughout life (except interruptions in the form of hormonal contraceptives or pregnancy). The rule, in discomfort. And if we leave the quantitative and go to the qualitative, for the majority it means a period of discomfort in the form of menstrual pain and bleeding. in the studio They speak of 90% of women under 25 years of age with dysmenorrhea, more intense pain during the first two days. Likewise, it is also quite common to experience fatigue, dizziness, lower back pain and headaches. He heavy menstrual bleeding It results in blood loss that causes a feeling of tiredness or fatigue (among other things, due to loss of iron). The study quantifies between 20 and 25% of those surveyed. The study. To carry out the research, they interviewed 1,796 Australian women with paid jobs of different age ranges (from 18 years old) to find out how common menstrual pain and other symptoms are and what the impact was on their work productivity in terms of presenteeism and absenteeism. Or what is the same: go to work but be at half speed or directly miss work. It hurts me. They came to a conclusion: those with periods between the ages of 35 and 44 suffered a noticeably greater loss of productivity than the younger ones. However, 97% had suffered menstrual pain in the last three months and 1 in 4 said they always had pain. Worldwide, menstrual pain is around 71% and only in Spainthe Spanish Contraception Society reports that almost half have to take medication for pain. From here, they calculated the range of economic impact: 7,176 Australian dollars per person per year, for a total of 14,005 million dollars. Why is it important. Because it provides economic data that is sufficiently impactful so that the management of menstrual symptoms at work is not managed individually and in isolation, falling on those affected, but rather from a collective and institutional level. As resume The research team itself “highlights the strong economic case for governments and companies to adopt policies that help people manage menstrual symptoms.” That is, with laws and policies that standardize and regulate to homogenize and streamline individual procedures in companies, but also with dialogues within the company to introduce changes in working conditions aimed at improving the productivity, health and well-being of the workforce. Among the measures proposed by the team, the modalities of teleworking or hybrid work or the schedule flexibility. In Xataka | The majority of medical discharges that are investigated are fraud. The nuance is that they are only investigated if there are signs of fraud In Xataka | Period pain in adolescence is not “normal”: massive study links it to increased risk of chronic pain in adulthood Cover | Annika Gordon

Google just changed the rules of the lightweight model

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Now, in the race to lead the development of artificial intelligence, something unusual has just happened. Gemini 3 FlashGoogle’s new model, has surpassed GPT-5.2 Extra High, the higher-reasoning variant of OpenAI, in several performance tests. And that forces us to rethink some of the rules that we took for granted. A fast model that also reasons. Google’s new model comes with a very specific promise: to demonstrate that “speed and scalability do not have to come at the expense of intelligence.” Although it has been designed with efficiency in mind, both in cost and speed, Google insists that Gemini 3 Flash also excels at reasoning tasks. According to the company, the model can adjust your thinking ability. It is able to “think” for longer when the use case requires it, but it also uses 30% fewer tokens on average than Gemini 2.5 Promeasured with typical traffic, to complete a wide variety of tasks with high precision and without penalizing response times. The truth is in the benchmarks. Are the benchmarks perfect? No. But they are still one of the most useful tools we have for comparing AI models.confront them against each other and detect in which scenarios they perform better or worse. And in this area, Gemini 3 Flash comes out well. In SimpleQA Verifieda test that measures reliability in knowledge questions, Gemini 3 Flash achieves 68.7% compared to 38.0% for GPT-5.2 Extra High. In multimodal reasoning, within MMMU-Pro, Google’s model scores 81.2% compared to OpenAI’s 79.5%. In Video-MMMU, Flash achieves 86.9% compared to 85.9% for GPT-5.2 Extra High. If we look at multilingual and cultural capabilities, Flash is again ahead, with 91.8% compared to 89.6% for GPT-5.2 Extra High. In Global PIQA, focused on common sense in 100 languages, the difference remains: 92.8% for Flash versus 91.2% for the OpenAI model. Everything indicates that Gemini 3 Flash is specially optimized to capture nuances outside of English and reason more fluently in global contexts. He also excels in the use of tools and agents. In Toolathlon, Flash scores 49.4% compared to GPT-5.2 Extra High’s 46.3%. In the FACTS Benchmark Suite, the difference is tighter, but still in favor of Google: 61.9% versus 61.4%. In long-term tool execution tasks, Flash appears to show greater consistency. But he is not the king of pure reasoning. Now, it is worth looking at the complete photo. Although Gemini 3 Flash outperforms the best OpenAI model in several tests, if you are looking for “pure” reasoning, the balance changes. In the most demanding tests in this area, GPT-5.2 Extra High continues to set the benchmark. OpenAI’s model leads ARC-AGI-2, focused on visual puzzles, with 52.9% compared to Flash’s 33.6%. In AIME 2025, with code execution, it reaches 100% compared to 99.7%. And in SWE-bench Verified, aimed at software engineering, it obtains 80.0% compared to 78.0% for Gemini 3 Flash. What exactly is GPT-5.2 Extra High. Throughout the article the name GPT-5.2 Extra High appears several times, and it is normal to wonder if it is something new or little known. In reality, it is not a model that is usually mentioned to the general public. Google uses this designation in its comparison table to refer to the maximum level of reasoning available in the OpenAI API for GPT-5.2 Thinking and Pro. In the official OpenAI documentation it is identified as “xhigh”. Where you can use Gemini 3 Flash. Access to Gemini 3 Flash is not country dependent. If you have access to the Gemini appyou are already using this model, which has become the default option. It is also reaching developers through the API, AI Studio and Vertex AI. In the United States, the deployment goes a step further, as the Gemini 3 Flash has become the default model of the AI Mode of the Google search engine. The price of using Gemini 3 Flash. For those who want to integrate Gemini 3 Flash into their applications, the model costs $0.50 per million input tokens and $3 per million output tokens. This is a slight increase over Gemini Flash 2.5, which was $0.30 per million tokens in and $2.50 per million tokens out. An increasingly tight race. Gone are the days when Google tried to confront ChatGPT with Bard, or when OpenAI seemed to be years ahead of the rest. Today, the distances between the big players in AI have been drastically reduced. The competition is more direct, more technical and, above all, much closer. Images | Google In Xataka | Amazon is preparing an investment of 10 billion in OpenAI because if you can’t beat your enemy, the best thing is to join him

These three alternatives want to change the rules

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Artificial intelligence chatbots have crept into our daily lives without asking permission. We talk to them to work, resolve doubts or simply vent, but many times we overlook an important detail: services as popular as ChatGPT, Gemini or Copilot They use these conversations by default to train their models. And there they end up ranging from personal issues to work issues that perhaps we would never share with a stranger. For anyone who values ​​privacy, this may be a cause for concern. Turning off training from the settings menu helps, but does not eliminate all risks. There is some possibility that a security breach could also expose conversations. So the question that we haven’t quite resolved returns again: are there alternatives that really put privacy first? And if there are, which ones work best? AI chatbots that better protect our privacy In a new video from Xataka’s YouTube channelFrancisco Franconi tries to shed light on this dilemma. He himself admits that he is not the best example of prudence: over the years he has turned sensitive information in ChatGPT. “He has my tax return, my medical history, he knows what time I walk my dog, how many days I have left on vacation,” he confesses. But this time he is determined to change the rules of the game. After testing several options, it has selected three alternatives that focus on privacy and that also have free versions. He acknowledges that there are more, but he preferred to focus on those that really convinced him. The first is Venice. “Your data is encrypted and are stored locally in your browser and not on its servers,” explains Franco, highlighting one of its big claims. The way Venice works is peculiar: it adopts a different mechanic than usual to manage messages, a process that he details step by step in the video and that helps to understand why it fits so well into a more secure approach. The second proposal is the work of an old privacy acquaintance. “If you are a freak privacy, you most likely know the DuckDuckGo search engine, an alternative to Google that became famous for not track your searches or your history,” says our colleague before presenting Duck.AI. The tool, he assures, has been very well received and its philosophy is clear: “It does not compete by offering its own model, but rather guarantees privacy in the use of commercial or third-party models,” he adds. In the video, Franco also shares practical recommendations for getting the most out of Duck.AI, which is useful if you are looking for a chatbot that fits into more intensive workflows. The third option is, perhaps, the least known, but also the one that makes the most forceful declaration of intentions: Okara. For Franco, this platform is “a declaration of war on the data business model.” Its proposal is supported by its own infrastructure, open source models and an encryption approach that gives full control to the user. “Although your history is stored on their servers, it is encrypted in such a way that only you can decrypt it using your key,” he explains. In addition to explaining how Okara works and what advantages it brings, Franco also talks about its limitations. For some users they will be minor details, but for others they can tip the balance towards one platform or another. Each of these alternatives offers a different approach, but a common goal: privacy. And you, which one would you choose? Have you tried any or are you tempted to take the leap? We read you in the comments. And remember that you can see the full video in the Xataka YouTube channel. Images | Xataka In Xataka | DeepSeek has launched its new reasoner model. It’s free and beats GPT-5

Putting four chickens in the yard seemed like a good idea to have cheap eggs. Bird flu just changed the rules of the game

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From November 13, 2025, there is no poultry farm in the country that can be outdoors. With mass confinement, the Government wants to contain the spread of the H5N1 bird flu. And it makes sense: so far this season, 14 outbreaks have already been recorded in poultry, several in captive birds and dozens in wild birds. The problem is everything that falls under the radar. “What do I do with my chickens?” In Spain, at least from 2024, all chickens must be registered. And yes, that includes ‘self-consumption’ chickens; some animals that, according to the data, they represent only 0.77% of the census (but all experts know there are many more). A report from El País from the spring of this year confirmed that “the figures do not reflect reality and that a large part of self-consumers have birds (especially the ISA Brown species) without census.” This has meant that in a context in which self-consumption does not have inspections (and lives unaware of animal health regulation), the doubts and risks have grown exponentially. As Cristina García Casado explained in InfoLibrethe question most frequently asked by veterinarians across the country is “what do I do with my chickens?” And the answer is very simple: confine them. Because the regulations do not understand sizes: a backyard chicken infected by contact with a wild bird can be just as big a problem as any other type of chicken. Or maybe more. After all, the European authorities they continue to qualify the risk to the general population as low; but they raise it to low-moderate for people in direct contact with infected birds or contaminated environments. Having unmonitored poultry increases the risk to the “civilian” population and if we are realistic we will recognize that they cannot be monitored. The problem has names and surnames: at least when it comes to the flu, all those domestic pens have the same sanitary requirements, but much less infrastructure. The ‘boom’ of homemade eggs. We must remember that this does not happen in a vacuum. The truth is that in recent years we have lived a real ‘boom’ in self-consumption chickens. It is the confluence of the “happy chickens” movements with the response of many citizens to a price that does nothing but go up. According to the National Institute of Statistics, have gone up 15.9% so far this year and, according to the OCUthe growth has been 105% compared to 2021. And, be careful, we are not talking about a luxury product. We are talking about what may be one of the proteins cheaper and more accessible of the world. Faced with this ‘ovoflation’, the accounts are clear: “a hen costs about nine euros, it is easy to raise and maintain with fruit, vegetables and feed, and it lays an egg every 25 hours.” How can there not be a problem? What to do if I have a chicken coop for self-consumption? If we are in that situation (or are thinking about setting up our own domestic corral) there are some things to keep in mind: Whether larger or smaller, the corral must be registered in the REGA (General Registry of Livestock Operations). Implement confinement and biosecurity measures: separate chickens from any contact with wild birds; control inputs and outputs; record all changes in a log book. Improve cleaning conditions, more frequent bed renewal and tightening daily management protocols. Introduce wellness programs to contain the problems associated with a sedentary lifestyle. But, above all, be extremely vigilant. There are many warning signs (apathy, drop in production, high mortality or flu symptoms). Therefore, it is best to be alert. Anything can happen. Image | Finn Mund In Xataka | H5N1 bird flu unleashes a massacre in Antarctica: half of the female seals have already disappeared

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