Technology

Palantir says its Maven system has no "kill switch" as Europe questions its military tech dependence
An incident involving SpaceX's Starshield network in Ukraine revived in Europe the question of how much of its defense capability depends on decisions made in Washington. Louis Mosley, Palantir's executive vice president for the UK and Europe, told Reuters that neither the company nor the U.S. government can shut down the Maven Smart System, the AI platform NATO bought in 2025 and that several European armies use. Several countries are seeking alternatives, though finding a viable European option is proving difficult.
TechnologyInternationalXatakaOct 24AI
Waymo, Uber and Bolt begin first on-street autonomous vehicle tests in Madrid
Spain's DGT has authorized autonomous vehicle tests in Alcobendas, Getafe and Madrid city. Waymo (Google) will put its electric Jaguar I-PACE cars on the streets in the coming days, including at night, and expects to welcome its first users in 2027. Uber has held a license since September to test 20 WeRide vans with a safety operator on board, and Bolt will start in the capital in 2027 backed by Nvidia and Lucid. The trials are at level 4 automation.
TechnologyInternational20MinutosOct 24AI
Gartner: only 11% of consumers would let AI decide their purchase
A Gartner study published in May 2026, surveying 322 U.S. consumers in January of that year, found that only 11% would be willing to let AI make the purchase decision for them. 31% would accept AI narrowing options for household items and 28% for personal electronic devices. The report concludes that consumers use AI to research and compare, but keep the final decision.
TechnologyInternationalEl Ecosistema StartupOct 24AI
roc-deflate, written in the functional language Roc, trails the C library libdeflate by 2.6%
An analysis compared roc-deflate, a compression package written in the functional language Roc by Niclas Ahden, with libdeflate, the DEFLATE library written in C and hand-tuned with SIMD instructions. Using the Silesia corpus and 144 benchmarks at levels L1 to L12, the median was 2.6% slower on a MacBook Pro M1 and 8.9% on a Ryzen 9 3900X. In the worst case it was 18% slower and in the best case slightly more than 18% faster. Roc, which is preparing version 0.1.0 after eight years of development, guarantees memory safety and pure functions.
TechnologyInternationalEl Ecosistema StartupOct 24AI
Dutch researcher expects commercial electric flights within about a decade
Maarten Steinbuch, a professor at Eindhoven University of Technology, says booking an electric flight in Europe will be possible in about ten years and that batteries are "the key element" of the development. Dutch start-up Elysian Aircraft is building one of the first battery-powered passenger aircraft, with six engines and folding wings. Steinbuch urges the European Commission to pass legislation with deadlines to electrify part of fleets and to speed up certification processes.
TechnologyInternationalEuronews.comOct 24AI
Tesla, XPeng, Hyundai and other automakers push ahead with flying cars and air taxis
Several automakers are advancing flying vehicles and air taxis. Tesla revived the idea with the Roadster and its Rocket variant, which uses cold gas thrusters and is not a conventional flying car. XPeng is developing the Land Aircraft Carrier through Aridge and in November 2025 announced progress in its production. GAC Group with the Govy AirCab, Hyundai with Supernal and the S-A2, Toyota with Joby Aviation, Honda, Suzuki with SkyDrive, Geely with Aerofugia and Stellantis with Archer Aviation are also involved. Certification and operating rules will be key for commercial use.
TechnologyInternationalLa RepúblicaOct 24AI
Claude gains ground on ChatGPT in the artificial intelligence race
ChatGPT still leads in mass adoption, but Claude is growing faster. According to Similarweb, between June 2025 and May 2026 chatgpt.com averaged about 5.7 billion monthly visits and 467 million unique visitors, up 53% and 45% year over year. claude.ai recorded 331 million visits and 37 million unique visitors, with increases of 319% and 252%. Professor Andrey Lizarazo of Universidad del Rosario attributes Claude's advance to its technical capabilities in complex tasks and AI agents.
TechnologyInternationalLa RepúblicaOct 24AI
AI as patient support: useful for understanding test results, but with clinical limits
Artificial intelligence can help patients understand medical terms, summarize test results, organize medical history and prepare questions for consultations, without replacing the assessment of health professionals. A case in Bucaramanga illustrated its use: an emergency summary with medical history, tests and medications was shared with the ambulance and the treating team amid suspicion of a stroke. Studies show mixed results and experts warn that an answer can seem convincing and still be false.
TechnologyColombiaVanguardiaOct 24AI
Yelp launches "Check for Me", a voice agent that calls the restaurant to check wait times
Yelp presented its Fall 2026 Product Release with more than 30 new features, including "Check for Me", a voice agent that calls the restaurant on the user's behalf and texts back the wait time. The flow is activated from the restaurant's listing: the user states the party size and leaves a phone number. The initial rollout is limited to iOS in the United States, on eligible restaurants and within Yelp Assistant, with no date set for Android or other markets.
TechnologyInternationalEl Ecosistema StartupOct 23AI
Ukraine signs letter of intent with Iceye and Nokia for its own satellite system
Ukraine's Defense Ministry signed a letter of intent with Finnish companies Iceye and Nokia to explore a sovereign satellite communications system that Ukraine would own and control. The announcement coincided with Finnish Prime Minister Petteri Orpo's visit to Kyiv and was confirmed by Volodymyr Zelenski. The initiative follows restrictions SpaceX imposed on the military version of Starlink, Starshield, on platforms moving faster than 160 kilometers per hour. The agreement includes no financial commitments or timeline.
TechnologyInternationalInfodefensaOct 23AI
Viral video of a baby with a mustache was altered with artificial intelligence
A video of a newborn with a dark mustache went viral on social media and raised doubts about its authenticity. According to information published by La Kalle, the recording is based on images of a birth that were altered with digital tools: an artificial intelligence filter overlays the facial hair and adjusts it to the baby's face. Blinking, the mustache shifting when the face moves, and the overly uniform texture and lighting of the hair are signs of the manipulation.
TechnologyColombiaPulzoOct 23AI
Diego Guauque reports deepfake using his voice and face to promote an alleged investment platform
Colombian journalist Diego Guauque said on his social media that he was the victim of identity impersonation using artificial intelligence. According to what he showed, the authors of the video altered fragments of an interview he gave to Caracol Televisión, in which he spoke about his cancer diagnosis, to make it appear he endorsed a fraudulent investment platform. In the manipulated version, the clone claimed to have invested 200,000 pesos and obtained returns of up to 9 million in one month. Guauque denied any link to that business and warned about the risk for older people.
TechnologyColombiaRevista SemanaOct 23AI
CSIC researcher says PP and Vox blocked his testimony on data centers in Extremadura
A predoctoral researcher at CSIC and UC3M recounts in an article that PP and Vox voted against his appearance before the Economy, Employment and Digital Transformation Committee of the Extremadura Assembly on October 21, 2026, where he was to present a scientific analysis of the benefits and risks of large data centers. According to the author, the PP representative justified the rejection by saying they would not allow "someone from outside" with "Chavista environmentalism" to put obstacles in the way of technological progress.
TechnologyInternationalEL PAÍSOct 23AI
Japanese animation turns to AI to ease animator shortage
Japan's anime industry has opened the door to artificial intelligence to streamline its processes and address staff shortages. Toei Animation announced in April 2025 its participation in a joint investment of about 30 million euros in Preferred Networks, a company specializing in deep learning. The global anime market grew 14.8% in 2024 to a record 3.8 trillion yen (about 23 billion euros), according to the Japan Animation Association, while output rose from 100 to 300 titles a year since 1995 and the number of animators grew only 1.2%.
TechnologyInternationalEL PAÍSOct 23AI
AI reaches restaurant complaints: retouched photos to avoid paying
Restaurants and delivery platforms are detecting complaints backed by images manipulated with artificial intelligence. A Galician restaurant reported that some customers tried not to pay using a video of insects on the tablecloth. The Deleito chain estimates losses of 500 to 600 euros per month per location from these complaints and now photographs orders before delivering them. Just Eat says it uses a "multifactorial verification" of photos. Fact-checkers warn that detectors offer indications, not certainties.
TechnologyInternationalEL PAÍSOct 23AI
AI giants set their sights on the travel industry, which moves $11.6 trillion a year
OpenAI, Alphabet and Anthropic are seeking a share of the revenue of a travel industry that moves $11.6 trillion a year, according to the WTTC. Some 1.4% of hotel traffic already comes from AI, double the level of six months ago, according to Lighthouse, which estimates the real figure could climb to 5%. Hotels, agencies and tour operators are preparing strategies to appear in assistants' answers and adapt their distribution.
TechnologyInternationalEL PAÍSOct 23AI
Telefónica strengthens its AI investment in Brazil with Vivo Ventures in Squad.com
Telefónica strengthened its bet on artificial intelligence in Brazil with a strategic investment by Vivo Ventures, its corporate venture capital fund, in Squad.com, an autonomous agents platform from Brazilian company Inner AI. The deal combines funding with a commercial alliance to extend the use of AI tools among SMEs, through Vivo's base of around 1.8 million business customers. The amount was not made public. The investment extends Inner AI's latest round, whose previous seed round raised 30 million reais.
TechnologyInternationalCinco DíasOct 23AI
Why an emergency kill switch will not work to stop AI
After hacking incidents attributed to advanced AI agents, politicians and executives have called for a kill switch for these systems. The article argues the metaphor is misleading: advanced models rely on a distributed infrastructure of computers and data centers that does not respond to a single switch, and it also hides the human decisions involved in training, oversight and deployment. It mentions the AI Kill Switch Act in Congress, an executive order by Gavin Newsom and Donald Trump's opposition to the measure.
TechnologyInternationalEl ConfidencialOct 23AI
The Czech engineer who shipped the PHP patches: "We will never be completely secure again"
A model from OpenAI discovered two serious vulnerabilities in PHP, the open-source language that early estimates suggested could affect 7 out of 10 websites. The PHP Foundation released the patches and Ondřej Surý, an engineer in the Czech Republic, took on the unpaid work of packaging and distributing them. The flaw, dubbed php2shell, had been present for 14 years. Surý warns that many systems will never receive the update and that full security will not come.
TechnologyInternationalEl ConfidencialOct 23AI
Senate president reports identity impersonation: "They use artificial intelligence to imitate my voice"
The Senate presidency warned that artificial intelligence is being used to impersonate the voice of Senator Honorio Henríquez, the chamber's president, to the point of holding conversations that appear real. The corporation warned that phone numbers 3213401065 and 3203925074 do not belong to the senator and urged the public not to respond to requests, share personal information or make money transfers. Henríquez said he is taking steps to file a complaint with the authorities and called for evidence to be preserved.
TechnologyColombiaELHERALDO.COOct 23AI