versions

two different versions, millions of accounts in check and one good idea

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If you’ve received a message from Instagram asking you to reset your password in the last few days, you’re not the only one. A quick look to Reddit or social networks like X/Twitter evidence that it is something quite common at the beginning of 2026. In fact, there are those who assures have received these messages on several occasions this week, including a few times a day. what has happened. Numerous Instagram users have detected unusual activity related to mass password reset requests. More specifically, they were receiving password reset emails that looked legitimate without having requested it first. Two versions that explain it. Following that massive request and speculation, on January 9, the antivirus software company Malwarebytes made public a data leak. Just a few hours ago, Instagram pronounced. The versions of each one: According to Malwarebytes, a group of cybercriminals “stole sensitive information from 17.5 million Instagram accounts, including usernames, physical addresses, phone numbers, email addresses and more.” It is not mere scraping, but an authentic doxing kit found on a popular cybercrime forum. From here, there were two options: either we were facing an automated brute force attack where legitimate “I forgot my password” emails were generated and, within the chaos, a malicious email was sent so that you click on a false link. Or that Meta had executed a defensive Instagram reset of those accounts it considers compromised. According to Instagram, they have fixed an issue that “allowed a third party to request password reset emails for some people. There was no breach of our systems and your Instagram accounts are secure.” He closed the explanation with an apology for the inconvenience. Tap to go to the post Why is it important. Instagram minimizes the impact of this incident by calling it a “software problem” and not a systems breach since technically, if they did not enter their servers, they do not consider it a hack. In any case, this alleged data leak contains usernames, real names, physical addresses, phone numbers, and email addresses. The level of risk is high insofar as this exposure of confidential personal information is of such caliber that it breaks the barrier between the digital and the physical. Exposing who you are online also jeopardizes real-world security. The reports detail that parts of that database are being marketed on the black market, sorting them into batches based on countries and numbers of followers. That is, prioritizing high-profile accounts such as influencers or business accounts. What should you do now. To begin with, under no circumstances touch on the links that appear in the emails, no matter how real they may seem. From here: Change Instagram password from the app, in ‘Settings and activity’ > ‘Account Center’ > ‘Password and security’ > ‘Change password’. Use a long, robust and unique one. Configure the Two-Step Authentication that you will find in the ‘Password and Security’ section of the app, following the previous route. Better avoid the SMS option. Likewise, it is advisable to log out on all devices and, in case you have received several messages, check if the emails are truly from Instagram through the ‘Emails from Instagram’ option in the settings. If you detect any, delete them. In Xataka | “You can’t trust your eyes to know what’s real anymore.” Instagram CEO announces that the feed is dead In Xataka | Instagram has wreaked havoc on tourism in half the world. AI has arrived to multiply it by a thousand Cover | Solen Feyissa and Gemini

King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard removed all their songs from Spotify. Immediately afterwards some mysterious versions took their place

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You can leave Spotify, but you don’t leave it completely until Spotify allows you to. King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard just found out the hard way: They left the platform in protest of the CEO’s investmentsbut there are still his songs inside. The terrifying thing about it: they are not the ones who composed or recorded them. We go, or not. King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard left Spotify in July 2025: it was a protest against Daniel Ek’s investments in military technology. Weeks later, however, they discovered that several of the group’s songs were still available on the platform. But they were not the originals, but rather instrumental versions that imitated the original songs, with the same artist name, identical titles and official covers. According to Platformer accountthese songs managed to accumulate more than 10 million views before being detected. The trick. Spotify presented these tracks as authentic. As a fan of the band tells Platformer, when playing ‘Deadstick’ from the album ‘Phantom Island’, what sounded was a simplified version, almost a cell phone ringtone, a kind of low-quality version. But without knowing the original song (and especially taking into account how fond of jokes and experimentation this unclassifiable and prolific band is) any listener could have confused it with the real song. The same thing happened with other songs on the album such as ‘Aerodynamic’ and ‘Grow Wings and Fly’. The article sparked a wave of protests that led Spotify to remove the content, confirming that it violated its anti-phishing policy. There are currently no songs from the group on the platform. It is not an isolated case. According to data from the company itself published in September 2025Spotify has removed 75 million tracks classified as spam over the last year. The consulting firm Luminate estimates that about 99,000 songs are uploaded daily to streaming services, often through distributors that do not verify the identity of the artist. The situation is accentuated on other platforms, in what seems to be a widespread problem with a clear trigger: the ease with which songs can be generated using AI. Deezer, for example, counted this same month which receives more than 50,000 tracks completely generated by artificial intelligence every day, 34% of all the content that reaches its servers. 70% of AI-generated music plays, he says, are unauthorized songs or songs that replace real artists. The Ghost of The Velvet Sundown. In June 2025, a band called The Velvet Sundown reached more than one million monthly listeners on Spotify. Its promotional photos had that artificial appearance characteristic of images generated by AI, and its members did not exist on any social network, but the group started with 550,000 monthly listeners after being recommended by the platform’s algorithm. After weeks of denying the accusations, those responsible admitted it was an “artistic provocation” created with artificial intelligence. His songs are still available on Spotify. The dead artists. However, in terms of impersonated artists, the case of deceased artists is more disturbing: numerous songs generated by AI began to appear in official profiles of deceased musicians. The page of Blaze Foley, country singer-songwriter murdered in 1989, received new songs. It also happened with Guy Clark, a Grammy winner who died in 2016, Sophie, an electronic artist who died in 2021, and Uncle Tupelo, Jeff Tweedy’s former band from Wilco. All of these tracks were uploaded by distributors without any verification and remained active for weeks before being detected. A systemic problem. Although Spotify is the visible head of this chaos, there is a real mess at many points on the diffusion scale. For example, distributors like DistroKid allow massive topic uploads without verifying the real identity of the artist. In the aforementioned September communication, Spotify announced new anti-spoofing policies and an anti-spam filter, but at the moment its effectiveness has not been proven. For now, the King Gizzard case raises a devastating question: after abandoning a platform, you do not abandon it completely. Maybe you’ll never do it. Header | Paul Hudson

Microsoft 365 will have cheaper versions worldwide. It is the result of the antitrust pressure of the European Commission

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Soon, many Microsoft Office customers worldwide can access cheaper subscriptions. It is not a promotion or isolated commercial gesture, but the result of years of Brussels. Microsoft has accepted change your strategy to close an antitrust investigation I could cost him expensive. With this agreement, the company dodges a possible fine and the European Commission reinforces its image as guardian of the rules that govern the digital market. The European Commission confirmed that Microsoft must maintain versions of Office 365 and Microsoft 365 without Teamsyour communication tool, at a clearly lower price compared to the editions that include it. These conditions will be in force for at least seven years and will be complemented with interoperability and data portability commitments for a decade. The American company has indicated that it will implement changes globally. Microsoft undertakes to lower prices and open its ecosystem The origin of this pulse dates back to July 2020, When Slack denounced Microsoft to the European Commission For packaging Teams within Office, claiming that it made it difficult for users to choose alternatives. Three years later, Brussels opened a formal investigation To evaluate whether this practice was abuse of dominant position in the collaborative software market. The case focused on the impact of Teams integration on competitors such as Slack and other business communication platforms. To reduce the pressure, Microsoft began taking action before a resolution arrived. In October 2023 he disaggregated Teams of his suites for commercial clients in the European and Switzerland Economic Space, with lower prices for those who chose not to include the tool. In April 2024 he extended this policy to the rest of the world, withdrawing for new business clients the traditional editions with Teams and introducing “without teams” plans along with an independent license. These steps sought to show good regulatory will and simplify the catalog for multinational companies, but did not suffice to close the file. With the agreement announced this month, the measures become mandatory and more ambitious. Microsoft must guarantee a significant price difference and allow customers to migrate to versions without teams without penalties. It should be noted that to benefit from these sales, organizations must hire the new plans or make the change to renew subscriptions; There will be no automatic discounts for those who maintain current contracts. It also undertakes to facilitate that rival services integrate Office applications into their platforms and that users export Teams data to other tools, reducing change barriers. This valued the measure, Teresa Ribera, executive vice president of the European Commission for the clean, fair and competitive transition: “With today’s decision, we make binding for seven years or more Microsoft’s commitments to end their linking practices that could be preventing their competitors effectively competing with Teams. Therefore, today’s decision opens the competition in this crucial market and guarantees that companies can freely choose the communication and collaboration product that best suits their needs.” Microsoft published concrete examples of prices that will enter vigor in November this year: In Enterprise plans, the difference will be up to 8 euros per user per month; In the Business Standard and Premium plans, it will be around 3 euros. Of course, domestic users and students will not see changes: their subscriptions of Microsoft 365 Personal or family did not include payment teams and are not affected by the new framework. In any case, this episode arrives at a time where the commission has intensified its scrutiny about large technological in recent years, with multimillionaire sanctions to companies such as Google, which recently imposed a fine of 2,950 million euros. However, Brussels face a diplomatic challenge: the US president Donald Trump has criticized these measuresthreatening to activate section 301 of the Commerce Law as a response. Images | Ed Hardie | Microsoft In Xataka | The EU has put Apple against the strings: none of its options guarantees that its devices remain the same

A new HDR format that occurs in two versions

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Dolby has just announce The second generation of its format HDR more successful after more than a decade. And they have not heated their heads to find a name. Dolby Vision 2 promises improvements in the optimization of brightness and the contrast of the image, although it will also be provided with artificial intelligence technologies to automatically optimize the image according to the type of content we see and from where we reproduce it. What really changes. Dolby Vision 2 introduces what the company call “Content Intelligence”, a set of tools based on AIs that promise to go beyond traditional HDR. The system automatically adjusts the image parameters considering three factors: the content that is reproduced, the lighting conditions of the room and the specific capabilities of the TV. Goodbye to the scenes too dark. One of the main complaints about HDR content has been its appearance excessively dark in illuminated roomsespecially on mid -range and entrance televisions. The new precision Black promises to solve this problem improving clarity in dark scenes without compromising the artistic intention of the creator. In addition, another of its technologies, Light Sense, combines the detection of ambient light with reference data of the original content to obtain greater precision when the image is optimized. Softest of movement. Maybe the most controversial novelty is authentic motion, what Dolby Describe as “the first creative movement control tool.” This function allows filmmakers to manage the Scene by Scene Movement Softest, reducing one of the most annoying image defects: “Judder“, which is when a scene is reproduced with small jumps or pulls in the image. They promise to implement this technology without creating the dreaded”soap opera effect“That is criticized in the sector. Two levels for different pockets. Dolby Vision 2 will arrive in two differentiated versions. Dolby Vision 2 Max will be reserved for premium televisions with additional functions that make the most of the capabilities of these equipment, including the tone mapping bidirectional to exploit the extreme brightness of the most advanced panels. The standard version will reach less complete televisions, with the main improvements of the new image engine. The intention is that over time manufacturers end up adopting this new version, which has the objective of replacing what exists today. The first to adopt it. Hisense It will be the first brand in marketing televisions with Dolby Vision 2, using the MediaTak Pentonic 800 processor with its Miravision Pro engine. As regards content, for the moment, Canal+ He has committed to support the new format in its catalog of films, series and sports live. Since almost 350 models of brands such as LG, TCL, Sony, Hisense, Xiaomi and many others already support the current version, the adoption is likely to be gradual but extensive. The key moment. John Couling, senior entertainment vice president of Dolby Laboratories, assures that “we have reached a turning point where television technology has changed dramatically while artists continue to demand even more innovative tools.” Dolby’s commitment to his technology is to facilitate the task to the creators so that its content materializes in the best possible way at home. And he does it by giving more control to both creatives and end users. We have not yet put the glove to technology, but of course we will have to wait to try it first hand to check all these promises. Cover image | Dolby In Xataka | Best televisions in quality price. Which to buy and seven recommended 4K 4K

GPT-5 has many versions, but Openai decides which one to use for you

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Openai wants to simplify our lives, but maybe he has made a mistake in doing so. When you use GPT-5, you won’t know which GPT-5 version you will be using. Because although Openai has raised it as a “unified model”, it is actually using variant distress according to the scenario and, of course, according to what you pay. And not knowing what he is using at all times is a blessed? problem. Welcome to the era of the opacity of AI. GPT-5 are many GPT-5. In his “system card“Openai stands out how GPT-5 It is a “unified system” that actually consists of several versions. Some more powerful, others less, and others that reason. But unlike what happened so far-you chose if you wanted to use the lighter model or one that would think more-GPT-5 will choose for you. As? On the one hand we have the “external” names of the variants of GPT-5 and on the other the inmates. The “real -time router” will be responsible for deciding which is used at each moment. Source: latent.space A “router” that chooses for us. To know what variant you have to use, GPT-5 uses a “real-time router that quickly decides which model to use based on the type of conversation, complexity, or the need for tools.” As they point out In Latent Space The idea is remarkable, and helps to avoid That name chaos We had so far. Of course: the only way to “force” the type of model to use is to express it clearly in the prompt when using chatgpt. Thus, if we ask him something and ask that “think a lot about this”, we will activate that reasoning model so that the router does not make mistakes by choosing perhaps a less capable model. Opacity. Although OpenAi indicates that he uses these arguments to decide which GPT-5 variant USA, here we face the dichotomy of opacity. That GPT-5 chooses for us is on the one hand good and on the other bad. Simplifies the use of chatbot, no doubt, and that brings it closer to the novel public. But at the same time Advanced users steals control or those who have enough knowledge to know how to decide which version of GPT-5 would like to use. With an expected exception. We can already say goodbye to this old model selector. For better, and for worse. Beware of simplifying. The simplification problem of complex technologies is that it can cause unwanted side effects. For example, that users do not understand the differences between the models. That leads to reducing its ability to make informed decisions about which tool is more appropriate for each specific context. Openai raises something like a “technological infantilization”: do not worry, dear users, that GPT-5 will already do everything for you. Even choose how to work. If you pay, choose. If you are one of those advanced users who know how Chatgpt Pro (200 dollars/month) In order to activate any of the different internal models of GPT-5 Correspondence between the “old models” and the “new models.” Source: OpenAi How are they compared to previous models. The arrival of this new family of models assumes that now each of the above It has its replacement with one of the Variants of GPT-5. Thus, the old GPT-4O would be the new GPT-5 Main, while GPT-4O-mini will be GPT-5-Main-Mini and O3 will be GPT-5-Thinking. And so with the rest: Goodbye, old GPTS. As explained in the version notes Published in OpenAI, the arrival of GPT-5 supposes goodbye to the models that were used so far in Chatgpt. Chatgpt Pro subscribers They can continue to have access To these ancient models, at least for now, but for other users the option is clear: the pre-GPT-5 models are retired, and among them: GPT-4O (will continue to be used for voice mode) GPT-4.1 GPT-4.5 GPT-4.1-mini O4-mini O4-mini-High O3 O3-PRO GPT-5 should explain your decisions. Although the idea of having a unified model is not bad, that lack of control and information about the way of functioning of GPT-5 is worrying. One of the solutions is to introduce that selection of ways (available in Chatgpt Pro), but another is even simpler: Chatgpt would be enough to indicate which version of the model has used at all times so that we know what to stick to … and if we can force that in such questions a more capable (or less) model is used. In Xataka | The AI has so far a nice accessory: with GPT-5, OpenAi wants to place it in the center of all things

Apple got into a macOS trap and annual versions. He has managed to focus on the details

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How to improve a product in a remarkable product year after year? Moreover, how to do it when that product has more than two decades with us and is already super mature? That is the challenge that Apple faces every year with macOS, the operating system that governs its Mac since OS X made its appearance in 2001. In this (almost) fourth century, Macos has changed, without a doubt, but The surprising thing is that he has not done so. Who took a Mac at that time would not feel too strange with another of today. It would see changes and numerous modern functions, without a doubt, but in essence the interface has been preserved for a simple reason: it works. To adapt to the new times, Apple self -imposed a rule: there would be a new version of macOS – and, later, of the rest of the operating systems – every year. It was something initially reasonable, but that rhythm has ended up making perhaps not a conviction, but something that comes to play against him. Thus, while in the first years it was logical to expect great changes in functions and benefits, things have been very different in the last editions. There was not so much to scratch, and we have not really striking surprises. Instead, Apple has been focusing on some specific areas of the operating system to try to give significant jumps in benefits. Let’s see what happened in the last three versions of macOS: MacOS 14 Sonoma (2023): the main novelties They were the widgets on the desktop, the screen funds in slow camera and new functions during videoconferences, for example. Nothing really spectacular. MacOS 15 Sequoia (2024): here They debuted The new iPhone mirroring system, a new password app and also the options to better manage windows on the desktop. Macos 26 Tahoe (2025): In addition to the redesign with Liquid Glassin the latest version the focus was in the improvements in the mirroring of the iPhone and of course the changes in spotlight and shortcuts to enhance them more than ever. It is not that none of those changes especially call attention. In fact they can become disappointing for the most demanding users. “Is this really the only thing that changes after a whole year?” They will say. It is a reasonable and logical question, but here there are several factors that explain that apparent lack of ambition. The first, that of the maturity of the operating system. With macOS we are facing a veteran and very solid system in which practically everything works as one would expect. Apple has been polishing it during all this time, and that has allowed the mechanics to be strengthened while small improvements were added here and there. The main features of Macos 26 Tahoe do not seem much after a year of work. It is probably the best that could happen to users of the operating system. This is how Macos has adapted to the new times silently, with internal changes, support of new standards and protocols and of course support of the devices that have been part of the company’s ecosystem. We have a good example here in continuity, the system that “connects” the iPhone with the MAC and that debuted, ” More than a decade ago. That maturity is also closely related to the second of those factors we referred to by talking about Apple’s apparent lack of ambition. The famous “If you work, don’t touch it” It also becomes more true than ever, and it is not necessary to reinvent wheels when (in most cases) everything works as it should. But there is also an important third factor. It is easy to make changes when you have fewer users and your operating system, platform or application has just taken your first steps. But the thing changes when Apple you have more than 1,000 million users who use your devices. A change, however small, affects the lives of all these people, and can mean millions and millions of conflicts. There is therefore that having extreme care when making these changes, and in no way can they be radical or in form – that is why Liquid Glass is not “so different” – or in function – imaginated that suddenly the keyboard shortcuts or the way of using Finder will change. Apple knows better than anyone that situation, and given the challenge of presenting a new operating system every year, its solution has probably been reasonable. What they try is not to surprise us with radical changes, but Provide small practical improvements They try to make the lives of the most comfortable users. That is why we have the aforementioned continuity (continuity), and that is why the current focus on a supervitaminated spotlight that can end up being useful for many users. Is that disappointing? Maybe. Is Apple’s best option for the obligation to renew its operating systems every year? As boring or hard to seem, no doubt. In Xataka | The decline of the “Apple culture”. Blind devotion has evolved towards critical enthusiasm

This is what we know after the versions of a possible cyber attack

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Have you tried to listen to your uslist always this Wednesday and did not carry? It was not your mobile or your connection: Spotify has once again suffered a generalized fall that has affected users in different parts of the world. The streaming platform, usually stable, He already lived an important interruption at the end of September last yearwhen both their website and the player stopped working for several hours. Problems with Spotify. According to Downdetectorthe interruption of the service began shortly before 15:00 (Spanish peninsular time). As usually happens in these cases, X quickly filled with user messages that sought to confirm the failureshare your frustration or simply understand what was happening. They pointed out that the service did not work both in applications and in its web version. 27 Spotify tricks – Control your whole music like nobody! Cyber ​​attack versions. Shortly after the failures began, Hackmanac (@h4ckmanac) He echoed an alleged claim by a group called Dark Storm. According to this versionthe interruption was caused by an attack of denial of service (DDOS), which the apparent attackers sell to interested parties. At no time was data theft or a larger scale infiltration. The message posted by the alleged group of attackers A DDOS attack (distributed denial of service) blocks a service by launching thousands or millions of simultaneous connections from different points. The objective is not to steal information, but to prevent legitimate users from accessing. It is a form of digital sabotage that, in many cases, can be rented or purchased in the Dark Web. Spotify denies a cyber attack. The Swedish company was clear about it: “The reports that it is a security attack are false,” published in x. On their community page, they added that their technical team continued to investigate the situation and that they were aware of the failures that were affecting the service. Of course, they did not offer details about the origin of the problem. The service returns to normal. After 6:00 p.m. the official Spotify status account again publishedthis time with an encouraging news for users: “Everything in order. Thank you for your patience. If you still have problems, contact @spotifycares.” The company offered no more explanations, and the question about what could have happened is still in the air. Services can fall for several reasons. In an increasingly connected world, that a platform like Spotify suffers an interruption does not automatically mean that it is being a victim of a cyber attack. In fact, in many cases, the origin of these failures is much more everyday: human errors, routine updates or simple configuration problems that are more complicated than expected. One of the most common causes are errors in content distribution systems (CDN) or domain name resolution (DNS) services. When they have problems, the user can find that the application does not load, the music does not reproduce or directly cannot log in. On other occasions, a bad configuration of the servers or a defective deployment can leave an entire platform out of service. It may also happen that the entire system works correctly … until an unexpected traffic peak arrives. If the infrastructure is not prepared to manage an avalanche of simultaneous users, the result are intermittent errors, slowness or even a total fall of the service. Although, it should be noted, the latter can also occur precisely by an attack of denial of service. Images | Spotify | Screen capture In Xataka | What is cloudflare, how it works and why a fall or block makes half the Internet fail In Xataka | Agents are the great promise of AI. They also aim to become the new favorite weapon of cybercounts

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