Two models of artificial intelligence. Two visions of autonomous driving. The automotive and technology giants are fiercely competing and, at the same time, converging on the same stage: London. The British capital, already immersed in pilot programs, is preparing to see driverless vehicles begin to make their way through its streets. The debate is inevitable: what future awaits flesh-and-blood taxi drivers?

At the Polytechnic University of Catalonia, they do not recall any ovation as long as the one received by Oriol Vinyals (Sabadell, 1983) when he was awarded a doctorate at the end of November. honorary causeMinutes and minutes of standing ovation followed to honor the alumnus of the double degree program in telecommunications engineering and mathematics who has made crucial contributions to the development of artificial intelligence. In fact, he is among the top 10 most cited AI researchers in the world.

Free, rigorous, and verified information, based on facts and data, and on pluralistic and honest analysis and opinion, is in danger, besieged by a combination largely invisible to the general public: the one formed by large digital platforms and the most toxic political populism. These are two worlds that feed off each other and are putting professional journalism, as a guarantee of pluralism and democratic quality, on the ropes.

Rosalía owns a magnificent house on a quiet street in Barcelona's Poblenou neighborhood; naturally, as is typical in Poblenou, it's a renovated warehouse. It boasts 117 square meters, exposed beams, large windows, and a meticulously designed interior featuring high-quality materials. At least, that's what dozens of news articles suggest, with headlines like "Metal Beams and Minimalism: This is Rosalía's Impressive House in the Heart of Barcelona" and "This is the House Rosalía Stays in Whenever She Comes to Spain: An Urban Refuge Created with Industrial Motifs." The articles list details of the property, explain some characteristics of the neighborhood, and some even venture to link the house's style to the singer's current artistic phase. Almost none cite their sources. But all these details fit with a project that never came to fruition.

The GAFAM companies have become the emperors of the new world. Each of the initials stands for Google (also known as Alphabet), Apple, Facebook (now Meta), Amazon, and Microsoft, in that order. They are the American tech giants, where they have grown under the protection of successive governments, particularly those of Donald Trump. In fact, across the Atlantic, they are referred to as the "magnificent seven," a list that includes Nvidia and Tesla. Their power extends beyond the economic sphere—as was evident at Trump's inauguration in 2025—something that has not gone unnoticed by some governments, including Spain's. Indeed, Pedro Sánchez began the year speaking of a "tech elite" and urging the European Union to "stand up to it." He initiated a challenge to the major tech companies, a challenge he has revived eleven months later.

The company behind ChatGPT, OpenAI, has presented ChatGPT Atlas, a new web browser powered by artificial intelligence. Atlas integrates ChatGPT's usual chat function, but also allows the AI to control the cursor, automatically executing actions such as booking flights, filling out forms, or editing documents directly from the web. This new move is seen as an attempt by OpenAI to compete with Google's Chrome browser, which has led the market for years. For now, ChatGPT Atlas is only available for Apple computers, so Windows users will have to wait.

Julia Quinn's literary universe will return to Netflix in early 2026. The Bridgertons It will arrive again divided into two parts, as happened with the previous season and with other productions of the platform such as Outer Banks, Emily in Paris or The WitcherAfter the two trailers for the fourth season, the third has revealed the long-awaited date: the first part will premiere on January 29, and the second on February 26. The announcement came as a surprise to fans of the series, who didn't expect it to arrive so soon. The new season will focus on the life of Benedict Bridgerton, the second son of the distinguished London family, played by Luke Thompson.

What should we do with the social media profiles of someone who has died? And with all the other accounts where they stored photos, emails, and contacts? How can we ensure that our online usernames will disappear with us or that they will continue to be managed as we would have liked? Among the legal experts consulted, there are different opinions on whether or not it is necessary for social media to be part of a will, but they agree that it is an option that will most likely gain significant popularity in the coming decades. The reason? That more and more people are living completely digital lives, many of whom own social media profiles with thousands of followers, or whose social media accounts are a source of income, such as those from the United States. influencers.

Google has sent a 28-page letter to the US Congressional Judiciary Committee announcing that it will reinstate YouTube accounts that were removed during the pandemic for spreading disinformation about COVID-19. Amid the storm over Jimmy Kimmel's continuity, the news has gone relatively unnoticed, although it's a three-pointer from midfield by Trump that once again demonstrates his success in bringing Big Tech—which until four days ago were seen as perfidious agents of progressivism—to his feet. It's enough to know that the chief disinformation expert, Elon Musk, had only two words to comment on the news: well done.

There are many ways to keep up to date with current events with the ARA newspaper: buy it in paper, consult the website, follow the newsletters or download the mobile application (iPhone | Android). But there's another one you probably check out, especially if you have an Android phone or frequently use the Google search app: Google News. Well, If you visit the ARA profile on Google by clicking this link, and click the "Follow on Google" button, highlighted in the image at the end of this article, it will be easier for you to not miss this newspaper's most popular articles and you will be less dependent on the tech giant's algorithm. Doing so will help you choose what you see instead of letting Google's algorithm choose for you.

The accelerated flow of news should not make us forget the €2.95 billion fine the European Commission imposed on Google (link to the ARA, September 6, 2025) for violating antitrust legislation in the advertising market. It is good news that the Commission is reacting to the monopolistic abuses of large technology platforms, which should not be able to survive in a world—a market economy—where competition is considered a supreme value. In the United States, there are very important precedents for the legally mandated breakup of the oil and telephone monopolies, forcing the introduction of competition. In the European Commission, we owe the pro-competition push in the United Kingdom, which was followed by Jacques Delors, President of the Commission, who leveraged its approach to promote greater integration of the European market and an active competition policy. We economists are quite proud of what has been achieved, and it is excellent news that it remains active. The importance that economists place on a rigorous antitrust policy leads them to consider it the best weapon for distributing monopolistic profits and transferring them to users and companies.

Increased pressure on large technology multinationals. France has fined Google 325 million euros for displaying ads in Gmail users' emails without their consent and for using cookies. (cookies in English, the small text files that are used to track you when you use a website) without valid consent, and has done the same with the platform ofultra fast fashion Shein, who has also been fined 150 million for imposing these cookies without the approval of Internet users and for not informing them correctly.

Google has managed to avoid one of the harshest penalties it faced for violating antitrust laws, which the courts had already confirmed in 2023. The US Department of Justice wanted to force Google to divest from its Chrome search engine as a measure to limit the effects of the company's monopolistic practices, but. However, the same ruling prohibits it from using exclusivity contracts that oblige users to use Chrome, and Google will also have to share search data with its competitors.

In recent months, something has changed in the way we read without us even realizing it. And I say "read" and not "search for information on the internet" because I don't know a single writer or artist, even those in their seventies surrounded by a venerably analog aura, who doesn't log on to the internet every day to see how the world is doing. And it turns out the world is increasingly empty of people and more filled with stochastic parrots. "Stochastic parrot" is the nickname we use to try to diminish the authority and propaganda that dominates the great language models of artificial intelligence like ChatGPT: "parrot" because they regurgitate the work of others and are only capable of repeating what someone has already said; "stochastic" because the mechanism that makes these models guilty of what these things are is not a process of logical reasoning, but one of chance artificially introduced into the choice of words. But, although this robotic parrotism is perfectly familiar to us and we instinctively despise it, we use it. For a few months now, newspaper traffic has been plummeting because we're asking ChatGPT for things we used to ask publications written by human writers. There's a bubble of inhuman readings that we should burst.

European justice paves the way for the largest fine in history imposed by the European Commission against Google. In a ruling issued this Thursday, Advocate General of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU), Juliane Kokott, advocates dismissing the US technology company's appeal against the €4.241 billion fine imposed by the EU executive in 2018 and already validated by the Court of First Instance (CJEU). Thus, while awaiting the final ruling from the CJEU, both Brussels and the European courts accuse Google of abusing its dominant position in the EU market.

In March 2023, the RansomHouse cybercriminal group attacked the Hospital Clínic in Barcelona through ransomware (ransomware) which paralyzed part of the healthcare activity, especially vital emergencies such as strokes and heart attacks, which had to be referred to other centers. It was a highly publicized cyberattack that lasted for days, but there have been many more in recent years. The Moisès Broggi, Dos de Mayo, and General de Hospitalet de Llobregat hospitals, or the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB), among others, are just a few examples.

As the competition to dominate the future of artificial intelligence (AI) intensifies daily, Google and Microsoft held their respective developer conferences this week, Google I/O 2025 and Microsoft Build 2025, with AI taking center stage. Both digital giants showed their cards in a game where billions of euros and global technological leadership are at stake.

Have you tried? ChatGPT: You've asked him what he knows about you, if Catalonia will ever be independent, if machines will end up dominating the world, and you've even generated some images. And it's entertaining, but that's it, you think. You're not in marketing, you don't have a website to fill with automatically generated content, and you're not a criminal planning a massive scam. And you wonder if this artificial intelligence trend is of any use in real life. Well, yes, it can be useful. It has many possibilities, many more than I'm able to take advantage of, but I'll tell you what I use it for in my day-to-day life, in which it helps me.

Since its popularization in the late 1990s, the internet has established itself as the primary means of digital communication. With the emergence of artificial intelligence in recent years, however, the internet has undergone a paradigm shift, offering users a wide range of new features: from new ways to search for information to personalized shopping. However, these new tools entail a series of risks that must be taken into account in order to browse safely.

Do you use Google reviews before going to a restaurant? Does Tripadvisor influence your decisions? If so, Yeah, you'll probably be interested to know that there are fake ones out there, and that Google has rolled up its sleeves to hunt them down and eliminate them.