Month: December 2025

We thought insomnia was just not being able to sleep. Now we know that there are five different disorders

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insomnia is for many people a serious problem with which they deal daily, both day and night, and whose treatment is always based on three pillars: sleep hygienecognitive-behavioral therapy or hypnotic drugs. However, Sometimes what is useful for one person is useless for another.. Something that we now know is because there is not just one type of insomnia, but five. The study. With Spanish origin and published in the Journal of Sleep Research confirms what many specialists were suspecting: insomnia is not a unique disorder. As Francesa Cañellas, from the Son Espases University Hospital, points out, research has proven that there are five different subtypes of insomniaa finding that promises to revolutionize the way we treat sleep problems. Its evolution. The first hypothesis that was raised about the variability of insomnia comes from 2019, when some dutch researchers They already saw that this disorder had five faces. The problem is that these differences had to be proven according to the personality traits and biography of each of the patients. That is exactly what the Spanish team has done. Financed by the Spanish Sleep Society (SES), the study has analyzed data from eight sleep units in Spain using the Insomnia Types Questionnaire (ITQ). Using the patients’ responses in these questionnaires and the data obtained from each one’s sleep, it has been seen that these five profiles are true. Although the problem is that the most severe type is the most common. The different types. The interesting thing about this study is that it does not classify insomnia by the number of hours spent sleeping, but by personality traits or level of distress. Based on this, the classification proposed is the following: Type 1: a very complex group, since their peculiarity is that they have high anguish within them. In this way, they are patients with high levels of neuroticismtension and depression. Type 2: patients who have moderate distress, but who can respond to positive stimuli. In this way, they are able to overcome the problem thanks to cognitive-behavioral therapy, which is the usual standard treatment. Type 3: in this case the patients do not feel much anxiety, but they do have a great insensitivity to pleasure, which is known as anhedonia. This is a problem, because being emotionally flat, conventional treatments are not very effective. Type 4 and 5: They are the mildest forms, since they are due to specific problems in the life of each patient that increase their level of stress but without a psychological burden behind them. The bad news. Although it has been possible to classify insomnia into different types, the reality is that 82% of patients belong to subtypes 1 and 3. These are the ones that respond the worst to treatments and that cause greater psychological damage to people. Logically, these are the people who most frequently go to medical consultations and sleep units because They literally can’t take it anymoresince it is unlikely that a sleeping pill will solve your problem. In fact, the study highlights that these two groups are the ones with the highest consumption of hypnotics and anxiolytics, often with poor results. A precision medicine. The importance of this work lies in the fact that there is no effective standard treatment for insomnia. In this way, if a type 2 patient receives psychological therapy they will do wonderfully, but for a type 3 patient this treatment will do almost nothing. Likewise, type 1 may require a psychiatric approach to treat underlying anxiety and then treat the insomnia problem. With all this, we seek to stop treating the disease in isolation, and conceive that it will be associated with a person who has a specific biography and a personality that may require different care. Images | Solving Healthcare In Xataka | How close (and how far) we are from not sleeping at all: for the first time in history, we have a small way to try it

what happens when a Cabernet ages 20 years

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A bottle that has spent two decades in a cellar comes out of the shadows and rests on the table with the care reserved for something that has been awaited for years. It’s not just glass and label: it’s contained time, decisions made long before the world was what it is today. Before even uncorking it, the question arises: what has happened in there for 20 years? Wine is famous for improving with age, but the myth is based on one exception. As winemaker and critic Jancis Robinson recalls in his column for the Financial Timesless than 10% of the wine produced in the world is actually designed to age. Precisely for this reason, storing a bottle for two decades is not a romantic gesture, but rather a technical, chemical and, in part, risky bet. Understanding how it happens is understanding the true science of patience. The myth that it gets better with age. From the outside, the first thing that reveals the passage of time is color. A young Cabernet Sauvignon is usually opaque, violet, almost black. After twenty years, Robinson explains.that color has become lighter and garnet, ruby ​​and even brick shades appear on the edge of the glass. It is not a sign of decline, but of transformation. The wine has lost some of its original pigments because they have reacted with each other and with oxygen over the years. Something similar happens in the mouth. Cabernet Sauvignon is born with powerful, harsh, mouth-drying tannins. During aging, these tannins soften, the wine loses aggressiveness and gains complexity. Sediments appear in the bottle, the physical result of chemical reactions accumulated over decades. According to Robinsonthe big question for any wine intended for aging is whether it will have enough fruit, acidity and structure to survive that process. When it achieves this, the result is not a more intense wine, but rather a more subtle, deeper and, paradoxically, more fragile wine. For this reason, if Cabernet Sauvignon has become a privileged candidate for this trip, it is no coincidence. Its natural combination of abundant tannins, sufficient acidity and antioxidant capacity makes it one of the few varieties capable of communicating with time for decades without prematurely collapsing. Looking with the microscope. Wine aging is anything but passive. Various scientific publications, like the review Bottle Aging and Storage of Wines In the magazine Molecules, they explain that the main protagonist is oxygen. In trace amounts, oxygen slowly enters the bottle through the cork and triggers a series of controlled chemical reactions. Among them, the polymerization of tannins: small and aggressive molecules join together forming larger structures, perceived by our palate as softer and silkier. At the same time, the compounds responsible for color—especially anthocyanins—combine with tannins and other phenols. Studies like the one published in Foodsfocused on the chemical evolution of red wines during aging, show how these compounds decrease over time and give rise to new, more stable pigments. In parallel, the primary aromas of fresh fruit are transformed into what the popularizer Rana Masri described in The Grape Grind as tertiary aromas: tobacco, leather, humid forest, cigar box. They don’t appear out of nowhere; They are the result of decades of slow and irreversible molecular rearrangement. The final destination of wine. Aging does not depend only on the wine, but also of its environment. Storage conditions – stable temperature, darkness, humidity and absence of vibrations – are essential. A wine stored at 14ºC for twenty years does not age in the same way as one subjected to sudden changes in temperature. Time, in wine, needs calm to work well. Furthermore, the study Wine aging: a bottleneck story has shown that oxygen entry occurs not only through the cork, but also at the interface between the cork and the neck of the bottle. This explains why two bottles of the same wine, from the same batch, can evolve differently. Aging, even under ideal conditions, is not completely controllable. As they remember on the specialized page Wine Follyacidity, alcohol balance and tannin concentration determine whether a Cabernet is prepared for a long life or if it will collapse prematurely. Aging wine is not a guarantee of improvement, but rather a constant negotiation with failure. It won’t be the same to open a bottle. After twenty years, a Cabernet Sauvignon is not simply an older wine. It is the result of thousands of micro-decisions: of the viticulturist, of the winemaker, of the type of closure, of the winery and, finally, of the collector who decided not to open it before. Science explains much of the process, from the polymerization of tannins to the slow controlled oxidation, but there is always a margin of mystery. Wine ages, but it also risks. Maybe that’s why as Jancis Robinson points out with some ironymany wineries and collectors face the same dilemma, knowing when to stop waiting. Because wine, no matter how fascinating its molecular journey, is not made to be eternal. It is made to be drunk. And sometimes, the greatest act of wisdom is not to keep the bottle for another ten years, but to uncork it and accept that patience, after all, had a liquid destiny. Image | Unsplash Xataka | If the question is why are non-alcoholic drinks so expensive if they are not taxed, the answer is simple

there is a type of attack that is impossible to block

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The browser is no longer just a window to the Internet and is becoming a tool that also operates within the web. In the case of Agent Mode in ChatGPT AtlasOpenAI explains that its agent views pages and can perform actions, clicks, and keystrokes within the browser, just as a person would. The promise is clear, to help in everyday flows with the same context and the same data. The consequence is also, the more power we concentrate in an agent, the more attractive he becomes to whoever seeks to manipulate him. What is a prompt injection. In simple terms, a prompt injection is a technique that seeks to sneak malicious instructions into apparently normal content so that an artificial intelligence system interprets them as legitimate orders. IBM describes it as a type of cyber attack against language models in which malicious inputs are camouflaged as valid prompts to manipulate the behavior of the system. The objective can range from forcing inappropriate responses to causing information leaks or diverting a task, without the need to exploit classic software vulnerabilities. The root of the problem is less “magical” than it seems and more structural. Many language model applications combine developer instructions and user input as natural language text strings, without rigid separation by data type. The model decides what to prioritize based on learned patterns and the context of the text itself, not because there is an infallible boundary between “order” and “content.” If an external instruction is formulated convincingly, it may gain weight even though it should not. When the context becomes unfathomable. The risk is amplified when the agent does not process a single message, but rather goes through very different sources within the same order. OpenAI warns of a practically unlimited surface, emails and attachments, calendar invitations, shared documents, forums, social networks and arbitrary web pages. In that journey, the agent may encounter unreliable instructions mixed with legitimate content. The user doesn’t always see every step, but the system does consume it, and that’s where manipulation can creep in. The disturbing thing is that this can fit into ordinary workflows without raising any obvious alarm. The AI ​​signature describes an example where an attacker “seeds” an inbox with a malicious email, and later, when the user requests a harmless task, the agent reads that message during normal execution. In one case, the result is intentionally extreme, the agent ends up sending a resignation email instead of composing an automatic response. All this thanks to an external attack. Why there is no perfect shielding. In cybersecurity there is a widely assumed idea, no system is completely secure, and OpenAI frames prompt injection as a persistent problem. In his text he formulates it like this: “We hope that attackers continue to adapt. The injection of prompts, such as scams and social engineering on the web, will hardly be completely resolved.” The objective, therefore, is not to promise invulnerability, but to raise the cost of the attack and reduce the impact when something fails. In this context, those led by Sam Altman explain that it has deployed a security update for the Atlas agent motivated by a new class of attacks discovered through network teaming automated internal. The company says the delivery includes an adversarially trained agent model and strengthened safeguards around the system, intended to improve its resistance to unwanted instructions during navigation. What we do still matters. OpenAI recommends using the offline agent when you don’t need to access sites with an account, and calmly review confirmation requests for sensitive actions, such as sending an email or completing a purchase. He also advises giving explicit and limited instructions, avoiding overly broad assignments that force the agent to go through large volumes of content. It does not eliminate risk, but it reduces opportunities for manipulation and helps existing controls work as designed. Images | OpenAI In Xataka | How often should we change ALL our passwords according to three cybersecurity experts

It is the back door through which China avoids US tariffs

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The Bac Luan 2 Bridge is the border that connects China to Vietnam. According to one Nikkei Asia researchit is also the back door through which China is sneaking its goods to continue selling in the US without being affected by tariffs. what’s happening. Chinese trucks form huge queues at the border town of Mong Cai every morning; They bring merchandise that will end up arriving in the United States, but first all traces of ‘Made in China’ are erased and the certificates of origin are changed so that it continues its journey as Vietnamese merchandise. The trick allows them to continue selling products while avoiding the high tariffs imposed by the Trump administration, always according to Nikkei. Why is it important. It highlights that the trade war is full of cracks. We have seen other similar “tricks” such as dropshipping of chips and also Chinese companies that have gained access to banned NVIDIA chips via Indonesia. What on paper seem like insurmountable walls are not so insurmountable in practice; Chinese companies respond by redesigning new supply chains to keep prices low and continue selling in the US. Re-export. It is the strategy that many Chinese companies are adopting, some even offer it as a service to their clients. Nikkei has had access to a document from a Chinese company in which they literally say “re-exporting through a third country is effective in avoiding high tariffs.” Another company urges its customers not to include Chinese characters on the packaging nor of course any reference to ‘Made in China’. Volume. Of course the process of changing the country of origin is done clandestinely and China evidently does not recognize this practice, but the volume of containers that have passed through the border in Mong Cai continues to increase. As of July 2025, this volume was 840,000 tons, 43% more than the same period last year. At the same time, exports between Vietnam and the US are also increasing. In addition, Nikkei has analyzed satellite images and found that the Mong Cai border has changed a lot recently; It is filling up with logistics centers and urbanizations with a strong presence of Chinese businesses. White and in bottle. Washington raises his eyebrow. Trump reached an agreement with Vietnam, but warned that would raise tariffs to 40% if it is proven that they are acting as a platform to divert exports. Vietnam is trying to calm the waters by pursuing these fraudulent export practices and in July of this year alone they uncovered 900 cases. The question is how many more are still sneaking in and not just in Vietnam, routes are also being diverted through Malaysia, Indonesia and others. Image | Daniel Fikri in Unsplash In Xataka | China already has an army of 5.8 million engineers. His new plan involves accelerating doctorates

a supermassive black hole ejected from its galaxy at 3.4 million km/h

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Until now, we thought about supermassive black holes like the immovable anchors of galaxies, being gravitational giants that keep everything in order from the center. But we were quite wrong, since the James Webb Space Telescope us has confirmed that, sometimes, these anchors break and are shot through intergalactic space as if they were real gun bullets. The study. A team led by astronomer Pieter van Dokkum of Yale University has presented the first observational confirmation of a wandering supermassive black hole. It is called RBH-1 and its existence is the result of one of the most violent events that physics allows: being “kicked” out of your home by gravitational waves. A scar. Detecting this is not easy, since black holes They cannot be seen with the naked eye, but the destruction they leave in their wake is analyzed. This is precisely what JWST saw when it detected a massive linear structure about 200,000 light years long (twice the diameter of the Milky Way), which connects a distant galaxy with a bright, fuzzy spot. After trying to analyze this destruction in more detail, the telescope itself has revealed that it is a discontinuity. In layman’s terms: there is something extremely massive moving at an absurd speed of 954 km/s, which is equivalent to 3.4 million kilometers per hour. A speed that would allow us to travel from the Earth to the Moon in less than seven minutes. How do we know? The question in this case seems obligatory: How do we know that it is a black hole and not a simple star formation? The answer lies in everything it leaves in its wake, since by moving at this type of high speed, the black hole It compresses the gas so violently that it generates a trail of hot plasma that can be measured, as well as the formation of new stars. And now science has been able to confirm that this gas is not heated by the light emitted by stars, but by the brutal collision of a target that has at least 10 million times the mass of the Sun. Why is he running away? The theory behind this phenomenon is not new, but has been predicted by general relativity for 50 years. But in order to understand what has happened here, we can see it in three different steps: The first thing that happened was the merger of two galaxies and their respective supermassive black holes that began to orbit each other. After this, a third galaxy arrives to join this party and its black hole interacts with the binary system formed before. Finally, a cosmic “kick” is given. In this case, the interaction of three bodies generates a great asymmetry in the gravitational waves that results in a black hole shooting out of the galaxy at a high speed. It’s not the first. We already knew about wandering “stellar mass” black holes (a few times the mass of the Sun) roaming our own Milky Way, detected by gravitational microlensing effects by Hubble or the Gaia mission. However, finding a supermassive, what is the type of object that usually lives in the heart of galaxies, is a milestone on a different scale. Why this matters. The confirmation of RBH-1 is not a simple curiosity for physicists, but validates models of galactic evolution that suggest that the universe is full of these ‘exiles’. And this shows that if supermassive black holes can be ejected so easily, it means that many galaxies could be “orphaned” of their central core, affecting how they grow and form stars. Images | NASA Hubble Space Telescope In Xataka | China is launching more rockets into space than ever before. And the reason is very simple: not to depend on Starlink

data centers in space are a horrible idea

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Artificial intelligence has turned energy into the new technological bottleneck. And faced with that limit, some of the largest companies in the world have begun to look up. To give some examples, Jeff Bezos has spoken of “giant AI clusters orbiting the planet” in a decade or two. Google has experienced with running artificial intelligence calculations on solar-powered satellites. Nvidia supports startups who want to launch GPUs into space. Even OpenAI has tried the purchase of a rocket company to ensure his own path off Earth. The promise is seductive: solar data centers running around the clock, without power grids or cooling towers. The problem is that, when you move from the story to physics, engineering and numbers, the idea begins to break down. Data centers in space. There is a question that surrounds this issue: why do technology companies want to send data centers to space? The motivation at first glance is clear. According to data from the International Energy Agencydata center electricity consumption could double by 2030, driven by the explosion of generative AI. Training and running models like ChatGPT, Gemini or Claude requires massive amounts of electricity and huge volumes of water for cooling. In many places, these projects are already running into local opposition or physical network limits. In this context, space appears as a tempting solution. In certain orbits, solar panels can receive almost constant light, without clouds or night cycles. Besides, as Bezos and other defenders explainthe vacuum of space seems to offer an ideal environment to dissipate heat without resorting to cooling towers or millions of liters of fresh water. According to this argument, space data centers would be more efficient, more sustainable and, over time, even cheaper than terrestrial ones. For some executiveswould not be an eccentricity, but the “natural evolution” of an infrastructure that already began with communications satellites. When engineers raise their hands. Faced with the enthusiasm of corporate statements, several space engineering experts have been much more forceful. In one of the most cited texts on the subjecta former NASA engineer with a PhD in space electronics and direct experience in AI infrastructure at Google sums up his position bluntly: “This is a terrible idea and it doesn’t make any sense.” His criticism is not ideological, but technical. And it starts with the first great myth, the supposed abundance of energy in space. Solar energy is not magic. The largest solar system ever deployed outside of Earth is the International Space Station. According to NASA dataits panels cover about 2,500 square meters and, under ideal conditions, generate between 84 and 120 kilowatts of power, a part of which is used to charge batteries for periods in the shade. to put it in contexta single modern GPU for AI consumes on the order of 700 watts, and in practice around 1 kilowatt when losses and auxiliary systems are taken into account. With those figures, an infrastructure the size of the ISS could barely power a few hundred GPUs. As this engineer explainsa modern data center can house tens or hundreds of thousands of GPUs. Matching that capability would require launching hundreds of structures the size—and complexity—of the International Space Station. And even then, each would be equivalent to just a few racks of terrestrial servers. Furthermore, the nuclear alternative does not solve the problem either since the nuclear generators used in space, RTGs, produce between 50 and 150 watts. In other words, not even enough to power a single GPU. Space is not a refrigerator. The second big argument against orbital data centers is cooling. It is frequently repeated that the space is cold, and that this would make it easier to dissipate heat from the servers. According to engineers, this is one of the most misleading ideas in the entire debate. On Earth, cooling is based on convection: air or water carries away heat. In the vacuum of space, convection does not exist. All heat must be removed by radiation, a much less efficient process that requires enormous surfaces. NASA itself offers a compelling examplethe active thermal control system of the International Space Station. It is an extremely complex network of ammonia circuits, pumps, exchangers and giant radiators. And even so, its dissipation capacity is in the order of tens of kilowatts. According to the calculations of the aforementioned engineercooling the heat generated by high-performance GPUs in space would require radiators even larger than the solar panels that power them. The result would be a colossal satellite, larger and more complex than the ISS, to carry out a task that is solved much more simply on Earth. And there is a third factor: radiation. In orbit, electronics are exposed to charged particles that can cause bit errors, unexpected reboots, or permanent damage to chips. Although some tests, such as those carried out by Google with its TPUs, show that certain components can withstand high doses, the failures do not disappear, they only multiply. Shielding systems reduces risk, but adds mass. And each extra kilo increases the cost of the launch. Furthermore, AI hardware has a very short lifespan, as it becomes obsolete within a few years. On Earth it is replaced; In space, no. As critics point outan orbital data center would have to operate for many years to amortize its cost, but it would do so with hardware that is left behind much sooner. So why do they keep insisting? The answer seems to lie less in current engineering and more in long-term strategy. All of these projects depend on the condition that launch costs fall drastically. Some estimatesthey talk about thresholds of about 200 dollars per kilo so that space data centers can compete economically with terrestrial ones. That scenario relies on fully reusable rockets like Starship, which have not yet demonstrated that capability on an operational scale. Meanwhile, terrestrial renewable energies they continue to get cheaperand storage systems They improve year after year. Furthermore, the story of the space fulfills another function because it positions … Read more

science points to other ways to help

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When a couple is expecting a child, before the birth a complex decision is made and one that is increasingly publicized: what to do with umbilical cord blood. And there is a fairly deep debate here: clinics sell it as “biological insurance” for the future, while the scientific community prefers talk about altruism and collective utility. Its biological importance. To understand this debate, you first have to know why The blood in an umbilical cord is so coveted. And it is actually very valuable, since it has blood cells that are essential for treat serious diseases such as leukemia or lymphoma. Situations in which a donor as similar as possible to the donor is required to renew their blood cells, and what better than one’s own blood to do so. The cells in the cord can regenerate blood cells, including those of the immune system itself, giving a patient who does not have a donor a great chance of survival. Although sometimes a cord is not enough to renew the entire reserve of blood cells. The reality of probabilities. As we say, the main argument of private banks is the immediate availability of stem cells for the child himself with an autotransplant. But the different European guides provide figures that invite reflection, such as that the possibility of using this blood for an autologous transplant is estimated. between 0.0005 and 0.000004%. In this way, it is calculated that there is a probability of using this blood less than 0.04% over a 20-year horizon. And there are even situations in which when a child presents leukemia, the clinic advises against the use of the child’s own blood in his cord because you could have some genetic alteration that has led to leukemia at a young age. Public banks. In the current paradigm, there are different banks where blood can be stored. On the one hand, we have the public option where any family can donate cord blood so that it is stored, but The use will be intended for anyone in the world that needs it and is compatible. That is, it will not be exclusive to the family that donated it, having to wait for a donation from this bank if they need it. But this means that this blood has many possibilities of being used in someone around the planet to resolve a serious illness such as leukemia. This is something possible in Spain be integrated into the REDMO network which is used to register bone marrow donors. What is clear is that Spain is an international benchmark in this field. With tens of thousands of units stored on its public network, there have already been nearly 2,000 successful transplantsdemonstrating that the true utility today lies in the altruistic model. The private bank. If you want exclusivity on umbilical cord blood, this is logically the most recommended option. But it must also be taken into account that the price that must be paid is quite high, since the maintenance of blood storage is not free, and requires periodic payments. Even science suggests that it is not the most advisable, except in very specific situations. The drawback here is that you may never have to use this blood because you do not contract a disease that is not common, and also because there are situations where it is not possible to do so. Regenerative medicine. Looking to the future It is not well known what can be done with these umbilical cord cells. Science is now exploring the possibility of treating type 1 diabetes with these cells by regenerating the function of the pancreas, or there are even studies focused on cerebral palsy. But nothing advanced. And while there is potential on paper, medical societies like the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP)Warn to store cord blood for uncertain future use In regenerative medicine it is, today, a practice without consolidated scientific justification. What should be done. The majority recommendation from health authorities is clear: public donation is the most solid option. By donating to the public bank, the unit enters an international registry where it can save the life of a child or adult anywhere in the world. Although logically the decision always lies with the parents who have the freedom to take the path they want. However, even if you choose a private bank, you must keep in mind that it must have the necessary certifications so that when the blood is needed it is in optimal conditions to be processed. Images | Eduardo Barrios In Xataka | They have created an artificial blood factory that “breathes”: it is essential to give us the key to leukemia

I have been to the Xiaomi Store in Beijing. It is a glimpse of the future that awaits us in Spain

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Seven years ago we visited one of the Xiaomi stores in China. It was the My Home in Shanghaiand we found a space full of devices, without much glamor from the outside and full of ‘gadgets’ that we did not yet have in Spain. Things have changed a lot in these years. The Xiaomi store is now surgical, from the outside we see the company’s cars and the space is an ode to good taste. The most interesting thing is not that: it is that almost everything we see is going to reach Spain. Store/experience. In one of the shopping centers on Dongdan Avenue in Beijing, you will find one of the several Xiaomi Stores in the Chinese capital. If you have ever been in a Apple Storethe concept is the same: a neat space, employees who don’t harass you if you don’t ask for assistance, and a sea of ​​devices to fiddle with. Image | Xataka Image | Xataka For a technology lover, having the Xiaomi 17 Exposed there and within my reach, it was a joy. You can try any of the models, but you also have tablets, computers and even speakers. One of the employees told me I could connect my cell phone to see how they sounded. Image | Xataka They also have technology that we have not seen around here yet, such as Xiaomi AI Glasses that they go for the Meta models and that in person they are very discreet. Image | Xataka Home. But despite all the junk, what impressed me most was the catalog of home devices. Televisions, vacuum cleaners and even air conditioning we have already seen them herebut in China the catalog expands greatly. In a time when some They insist that we not cook at homethe range of gadgets The kitchen that Xiaomi has is unfathomable. Image | Xataka Again, we have many of them in the Spanish store, but for every rice cooker sold here, they have three other models there. And the same with devices such as the food processor, warming jugs of all kinds, mixers, thermoses, faucets, water (and air, many) purifiers… Image | Xataka It is a legion of devices for the home. And, sharing the same space, curiously there are two that will soon disembark in our country. If a few lines ago I was talking about air-conditioning that opened the gap, now I mention both the washing machine and the refrigerator. Image | Xataka a few months ago confirmed their arrival in the west with a single objective: that our entire home remains within its ecosystem. Pride. Because entering that store makes you realize that, while my house must be controlled with four or five different applications for different devices, in China you need… one. That of Xiaomi Home, in this case. But Huawei is working towards something similar, a sign that the ecosystem is what the Asian giant’s companies are taking most seriously. Image | Xataka And, within this strategy, is the pride of the store. In plural, better: cars. A couple of Xiaomi SU7 Ultra and two or three others Xiaomi YU7. The same thing: you can touch them, ride wherever you want, ask and an expert will appear to tell you the benefits. It’s a dealership experience. Image | Xataka Image | Xataka Image | Xataka Lifestyle. And if all the devices are within the same ecosystem (something that He has even fallen in love with the CEO of Ford), to round out the experience is the ‘Xiaomi Life’ wall. Here you already have “toys”, such as mugs with the colors of the cars, bags, amazing replicas of the cars, caps, t-shirts and a lot of other accessories for the vehicle. Image | Xataka It’s… another bummer, but if seven years ago we couldn’t even dream of the arrival of a quarter of what we saw in Shanghai, today we can say that, sooner or later, everything I saw will be here over the next few months. Xiaomi already has its first official store in Spaina first step for them to disembark cars that already have a launch segment. And once the most ambitious product in the company’s history is here, nothing prevents everything else from also appearing in the store. PS Sony. But hey, although I found the Xiaomi store amazing, I have to say that other stores in the shopping center (one of the shopping centers on the avenue) were just as impressive or more impressive. Sony’s thing is also impressive. Image | Xataka Huawei also had a car parked in its store, for example, and Sony has another megastore with movie theaters to take a look at its most cutting-edge TVs and speakers… and even miniatures so that customers can try out the benefits of their cameras. I can only say one thing: I left that street overwhelmed. And thinking that I should have bought the Xiaomi 17 Ultra because it was at a VERY good price. What I did want to buy is the Pixar-style lamp shown a while ago: the PIPI Lamp. After asking about her, no one knew how to answer me until another girl appeared who – sadly – cleared my doubts: it was an experiment and there is no evidence that it can even be ordered from stores. Images | Xataka In Xataka | I have asked for water from the first humanoid robot working in Beijing. It’s a weird vending machine.

120 inches, Google TV and speakers. Now it’s on sale at MediaMarkt

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Winter is the perfect time of year to spend afternoons at home watching series and movies. If you want to do it in a big way, like in a movie theater, MediaMarkt has a discounted device that will be very interesting for you. It is about the Xiaomi Smart Projector L1 Pro. At MediaMarkt (although also in other stores) it is discounted to 269.99 euros. Although the advantage of buying it in this store is that you get a extra discount of 27 euros if you join myMediaMarkt. Xiaomi Smart Projector L1 Pro The price could vary. We earn commission from these links A cheap projector capable of reaching up to 120 inches This Xiaomi Smart Projector L1 Pro It has a compact size and a discreet yet elegant design, so you can place it practically anywhere. One of its star features is its luminosity of 400 ISO lumensso you can use it in rooms with little ambient light. Another of the hallmarks of this Xiaomi projector is that it integrates four speakers that offer a 5W poweralthough you can enhance the sound section with a sound bar or wireless speaker. Works under the operating system Google TVso it includes Google Assistant and Google Cast, so you can send content directly from your tablet or smartphone. Last, but not least, it can be highlighted that its light source is LCD type and allows project in size from 40 to 120 inches with resolution of 1,920 x 1,080p. Some alternatives that may also interest you 30000 Lumens Projector Supported WiFi Bluetooth AMEELA The price could vary. We earn commission from these links XGIMI MoGo 2 Pro (New) 1080P Mini Portable Projector The price could vary. We earn commission from these links Some of the links in this article are affiliated and may provide a benefit to Xataka. In case of non-availability, offers may vary. Images | Xiaomi In Xataka | Best home cinema projectors: which one to buy and five recommended models from 299 to 18,000 euros In Xataka | Mega-guide to set up a home theater: projector, screen, sound system and more

that civil servants work less

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The reduction of working hours It was one of the most visible commitments of the Government for this legislature. Its objective was to reduce the working day from 40 to 37.5 hours per week without loss of pay. The proposal was processed, but ended running aground in Congress due to lack of support. Faced with this blockage, the Executive has chosen to advance where it does not need to negotiate with third parties or with Parliament. That is, on the only work area in which they have direct decision-making capacity: the officials of the General State Administration who do not depend on autonomous communities or city councils. The parliamentary failure of the 37.5-hour day. The general reduction in working hours required modifying the Workers Statute and, therefore, overcome a key vote in Congress. That support did not arrive, which left the measure without a legislative path in the short term. In this scenario, the Ministry of Labor formally maintains its commitment to reducing working hours, but cannot apply it to the entire labor market. This limitation explains the shift towards state public employment, where the Executive acts as a direct employer and can agree on the working conditions of state Administration officials, without having the support of the rest of the forces in the chamber. The 35-hour day and the reinforcement of teleworking. In this context, the core of agreement reached between the Ministry of Public Function and the unions involves implementing a 35-hour work week per week for employees of the General State Administration. The Government’s forecast is to approve it at the beginning of 2026 and for it to begin to be applied from February, once the organizational adjustments are finalized in each department. Along with the reduction in hours, the pact reinforces the Administration’s commitment to teleworking. It is not about introducing it from scratch, but about consolidating and organizing a modality that already exists, providing it with more stable regulations. The objective is to clarify conditions, guarantee technical means and prevent remote work from depending solely on internal decisions of each administrative unit. Both measures exclusively affect personnel dependent on the State. Excluding those public officials dependent on the autonomous communities, city councils and bodies with specific regimes, who maintain their own negotiating capacity. An important nuance: civil servants already worked less. The starting point for implementing this model of reducing working hours is not the same as in the private sector. The officials of the General Administration of the State had already established for years a working day of 37.5 hours per week, less than the ordinary legal of 40 hours. In fact, in public administrations dependent on communities such as Andalusia, Extremadura, the Basque Country, the Canary Islands, Asturias and Castilla-La Mancha and Castilla y León, already applied this 35-hour day since 2019, although some administrations they suspended them temporarily. This makes the measure announced now a continuing step that is already applied in other Administrations, thus equating state officials with regional officials. The other leg of the agreement: the pending salary increase. He agreement reached between the Ministry of Public Service and the majority unions is not limited to the working day. It also unlocks the application of the 2.5% salary increase corresponding to 2025, which had been pending payment, and 1.5% for 2026. This point is key to understanding the balance of the agreement since the reduction in working hours will not only imply a salary reduction, but is accompanied by a reinforcement of the purchasing power of officialsafter successive salary freezes and a context of inflation. Limited movement. Given that these changes only affect officials dependent on the State Administration, the real scope of the measure is limited in quantitative terms, since it affects approximately 250,000 public officials. However, it is a powerful incentive to attract the best talent to the Public Administration to address its rejuvenation process of the templates, and offering job stability and conciliation options. Factors that private companies increasingly limiting. In Xataka | The hoteliers cried out to the sky with the reduced working day. A hotel in the Balearic Islands has proven them wrong Image | Unsplash (Lissette Laverde)

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