Month: February 2026

UAE and Saudi Arabia seek to be the new strength of AI

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Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia have been engaged in a particular war: that of burning money. While in other parts of the world that means bringing AI into the conversationin this battle we are talking about two countries that compete to see who builds the tallest skyscraper… wave most ostentatiously unnecessary megaconstruction. Now they have engaged in another fight: that of hyperconnecting. And, curiously, they share the goal of being the hub between East and West in the age of artificial intelligence. SilkLink. It’s funny how things work. If one of the countries announced a skyscraper, the other unveiled a larger one. Both countries have the money for punishment and are focusing efforts on improving their digital infrastructure. Saudi Arabia made its move first by revealing the project SilkLink next to Syria. This is a 4,500-kilometer-long fiber optic network worth about $1 billion that will aim to position Syria as the ideal route for data to cross between Asia and Europe. The name is a nod to the Silk Road, that historic ‘silk road’ that China is reviving with another objective: dominate the world market. WorldLink. But of course, if Saudi Arabia opted for the homage name with SilkLink, the Arab Emirates directly pursues its ambition with its project. Something more humble in costs, “only” 700 million dollars, but ambitious in name: WorldLink. Like its neighbors’ project, it is a fiber cable that will have two phases: a submarine one from the United Arab Emirates to the Iraqi peninsula of Al-Faw, and then another land section to Iraq. The money comes from private entities and it is estimated that it will take about four or five years to complete. Once done, it will be one of the arguments for the UAE to become one of the most important centers of AI and digital infrastructure in the Middle East. The same thing that Saudi Arabia is looking for, wow. An unexpected actor. These cables also share something: they will alleviate the load that already built cables support because, in this excessive rise of AI and data centerscomputing power is as important as the speed at which everything is transmitted. And something curious is that Iraq, with these facilities, is positioning itself as a stable corridor after decades of conflict. If until then the most famous road was the ‘highway of death‘, they are now building one to connect Al-Faw with Türkiye. In a development plan of more than 17 billion dollars are also other efforts to improve connections, such as the Al Faw port which will allow the country to increase its loading and unloading capacity in the Persian Gulf. Middle East 🤝🏼 AI. The project website itself emphasizes the benefits that WorldLink they will have as much for Iraq as for the region and for the world. The improvement in regional integration stands out, but above all being a tool to attract investment. What investment? The one you are imagining: OTT platforms, hyperscalers and… data centers. If a region has space and energy to unleash plans to build gigantic data centers (apart from China, of course) is the Middle East region. It is a goal that is not new and it has already been spoken of billion-dollar investments by companies like NVIDIA or AMD, and this commitment to new transmission cables is one more step to build that future. Middle East 🤝🏼 all. But it is no longer just artificial intelligence: it is anything. WorldLink’s ambition is to be the catalyst for other segments such as cloud servicesthe digital economy and entertainment. In fact, like almost everything in the technology sector, there is no stitches here and an improvement in communications in this regard is in line with what Emirates is following. What are we referring to? For example, the billion-dollar purchases they are making recently to position itself as a major player in video games. First it was Electronic Arts for 50,000 million, now they negotiate by the creators of one of the most successful MOBAs for mobile phones for another 7,000 million. We will see if they achieve their goal, but as we said a few lines ago, in the competition to burn money, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have no competition. And on the cables, the two shake hands pointing that all the investment made in this sense will be beneficial for both. Images | Maritime, Francesco Bini In Xataka | 99% of the internet travels through submarine cables. Now there is a much more ambitious plan underway: linking the electrical grid

What exactly happens to your body if you continue drinking after age 65?

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The alcohol is quite normalized in our society as it is for sale to the public as long as you are of legal age, and almost always because we associate it at leisure. But the truth is that we are talking about a drug that has important harmful effects on our body, that at 30 years old may not be noticed because we have a strong body that processes it relatively easily. But when we reach the barrier of 65-70 years this changes completely. An older organism. What at 30 years old can be easily counteracted with healthy organs, cannot be achieved with organs that are more ‘worn out’ with the passage of time. This means that science suggests that, from a certain age onwards, it is advisable to stop drinking alcohol, and scientific evidence behind It never stops giving us reasons to do so if we want to have a better old age and with fewer diseases. A structural change. The first and most critical factor that alters our relationship with alcohol as we age is drastic change in body composition. As we age over 65, the body experiences a progressive loss of lean muscle mass and, crucially, a reduction in total body water. This is vital, because alcohol is a substance that is diluted in water, and that is why, as there is less water in the body to dilute it, the same amount of alcohol ingested by a 65-year-old person will result in a significantly higher concentration than in a younger person of the same weight and gender. We go slower. Added to this is the slowing down of liver metabolism, since the aging liver produces Less of the key enzymes responsible for breaking down ethanolwhich means that alcohol remains in the bloodstream longer, prolonging its toxic effect. The direct result is drunkenness that comes much sooner with less alcohol, drastically increasing the risk of loss of balance, falls and bone fractures. Something that at that age is almost a sentence for the muscle loss that it entails. Neurotoxicity. If we start talking now about the direct effects that alcohol has on the different organs of our body, the first obligatory stop is the brainwhere one of the most severe impacts of continued consumption occurs. Here alcohol acts as a neurotoxin that accelerates neuronal lossa process that already occurs naturally due to aging, but that ethanol multiplies. Prestigious neurologists such as Richard Restak emphasize that neuronal damage after the age of 65 is irreversible, recommending total abstinence here. This joins reviews carried out in Spain that demonstrate that alcohol accelerates cognitive deterioration, the impact being even more serious with distilled beverages compared to fermented ones. In memory. But the loss of brain matter, which can lead to severe dementia, is also accompanied by loss of memory and control of what we do. Cohort studies, such as the NEDICES projecthave linked high alcohol consumption in people over 65 years of age with notably lower neuropsychological scores. Furthermore, the loss of motor coordination explains why 60% of serious falls in the elderly they are related to alcohol consumption. Multi-organ damage. Continued consumption in the elderly is not limited to one organ, but causes cascading systemic failure aggravated by oxidative stress, which is the great enemy of aging. A recent cross-sectional study made in Extremadura With more than 2,800 participants, it was demonstrated that in men over 65 years of age, the prevalence of risky consumption reaches an alarming 30%, being strongly associated with increased cholesterol, hypertension and cardiovascular risk such as a heart attack. The heart. Undoubtedly, you suffer the onslaught of alcohol-induced hypertension and an increased risk of arrhythmias, while blood vessels lose their elasticity. This makes it much easier to have high voltage spikes that lead to a stroke, for example. In the liver. Without a doubt, one of the most affected organs, being the ‘factory’ that is in charge of processing all the alcohol that enters the body. Chronic toxicity here not only increases the risk of cirrhosis, but, due to poor metabolism, prolonged exposure to toxic metabolites exponentially increases the risk of developing cancer, especially liver, breast and colorectal. Something that responds to the greater damage suffered by DNA in the elderly who continue to drink with some frequency. In the intestine. Perhaps one of the most recent notes we have is the erosion caused by alcohol in the intestinal mucosaand therefore to the microbiota found here. Little by little we are seeing that the microbiota is more important than we think, and it has been shown that its loss allows endotoxins to pass into the bloodstream, favoring chronic inflammation of different parts of the body. Something that is linked to many other effects. Without going any further, this inflammation aggravates the osteoporosis that is already marked at this age, damages the pancreas and causes an accelerated shortening of cellular telomeres, which translates into premature biological aging and a fragile immune system incapable of fighting respiratory infections effectively. The silent trap. A critical factor that is often overlooked is the polypharmacysince the vast majority of people over the age of 65 take several prescription medications daily. It is not uncommon to see a person with a pill for stress, diabetes, pain, to reduce fluid retention… The problem is that combining some of these pills, such as anti-inflammatories such as ibuprofen, increases the risk of suffering severe digestive bleeding. Images | Vlad Sargu In Xataka | The work ethic has been selling for years that getting up at 05:00 AM is good. Science is clear that absolutely

making mistakes as an antidote to the cult of productivity

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They say we live in a secular country, but whoever says that has not encountered the productivity gurus or the stationery YouTubers. bullet journal, intermittent fasting, hobonichi roof, cold showers at five in the morning“atomic habits“, journaling until you end up with blisters on your hands… let’s be clear: productivity and growth aspire to function as civil religions. Therefore, perhaps it is time to look for an old-fashioned way out, one inspired by Saint Augustine. The cult of productivity I know that talking about ‘civil religion’ may seem exaggerated, but the truth is that a very specific aspirational narrative has been normalized: one based on self-optimization. And it’s not all those things that I described above (getting up early, diet, metrics, discipline, etc…), it’s that not achieving it has become a ‘moral failure’. If you make a mistake, if you don’t arrive, if you don’t achieve it… it’s because you didn’t make the effort, you didn’t organize yourself, you’re not good enough. An example much discussed in recent days are all those readers who, given the evidence that they are not going to reach their “reading challenge” of the year, decide to discard books that they would like to read and prioritize short books in order to reach the numbers that had been marked. Error has become something we cannot afford. But Augustine did not agree. Louis Comfort Tiffany But, of course, St. Augustine had its moments. One of the most brilliant people of the late Roman Empire, Augustine of Hippo was a ‘pearl‘ in his youth and early maturity. But it quickly became one of Christianity’s sharpest swords. That, translated, means that he did not agree with many. He has not only written some of the greatest works of universal literaturebut he worked to destroy (theologically, philosophically and literally) Manichaeans, Donatists and Pelagians. That war changed Western thinking, but I don’t think anyone imagined it would be essential to defending ourselves from the productivity gurus. Saint Augustine vs productivity gurus “If I’m wrong, I exist” (“If I fail, add“), wrote the saint of Hippo in book That is, the idea that a mistake is not only a stigma: it is a piece of information, a learning, a reminder that we are human, but we are on the way. We could say that error is also productive (and there are people who defend it); but that’s not the point. The point is that, against what Byung-Chul calls the “performance society” (compared to the self-demand that is sold as freedom, but leads to self-exploitation), compared to the spiritual turn of your trusted technobro, there is an even deeper dimension: the right to be and be without the chains that bind us to the productive system. In a world that asks for “performance” and “utility” to have personal value, Augustine exposes that ancient Christian tradition that says that the ontological value of the person does not depend on anything; that even in the worst of failure, we are worth exactly the same. Because, pay attention to the fact, when Agustín talks about existing he is not just talking about existing. It talks about doing it, about knowing that you exist and about loving those two realities as a non-productivist theory of self. Image | Xataka In Xataka | The Catholic Church changed the psychology of Europe. Unintentionally, it sparked an era of technological innovation

The cell phone on the nightstand is not “frying” your brain, but science is beginning to understand why it prevents you from resting

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It is practically a ritual today: connect your phone to the charger, set the alarm and leave it on the nightstand just 30 centimeters from the pillow to sleep. According to the data, for 95% of adultssleeping with your phone within reach is a logistical necessity; For a growing stream of longevity experts, It’s a biological miscalculation. because we rest less. To do this, we have analyzed the bibliography to know exactly the effect of having your cell phone next to you. The culprit confirmed. Before entering the swampy terrain of the possible problems that radiation can generate when it is around us, we must point out the “elephant in the room.” The most solid evidence we have today does not blame antennas for having a bad sleep, but to the screens and what we do with them. To give us an idea, a meta-analysis over 36,000 participants concluded that excessive use of smartphone increases the risk of having poor quality sleep by 228%. The double responsible. The first is the suppression of melatonin, since the blue light emitted by the LED panels of mobile phones tricks our brain making him believe that it is still day. This delays the release of melatonin and fragments the architecture of sleep. But not only the blue light is information, since responding to a WhatsApp or doing doomscrolling on TikTok before bed keeps the brain alert. A study of medical students suggested that nighttime cell phone use corresponded to poorer sleep. The radiation debate. It has always been a mantra for many: having your cell phone nearby is having a large source of radiation that causes many health problems. In this case, organizations such as the WHO or ARPANSA have traditionally maintained that evidence of damage from low-level electromagnetic fields is “insufficient.” However, it does not mean that it is non-existent. The most recent studies They are beginning to see the non-thermal effects that mobile phones have. One of the most interesting was done with baby monitors that have a frequency of 2.45 GHz, similar to Bluetooth or Wifi, to simulate environmental exposure. The result was that the exposed group, compared to the placebo, showed a worse subjective quality of sleep and alterations in heart rate variability, suggesting that sensitive people do notice the invisible “presence” of the electronic device nearby. Brain wave modulation. Other research on 5G signals found that exposure to 3.6 GHz waves affected sleep spindles during N2 phasethat is, light sleep that accounts for 50% of the total rest time. The curious thing about this study is that the effect depended on genetics: only carriers of certain variants of the CACNA1C gene showed alterations in the electroencephalogram. This qualifies the warnings of some experts, since radiation may not affect us all equally, but for a genetically predisposed subgroup, sleeping next to a continuous emission source could be fragmenting their N2 phase, crucial for memory consolidation. The habit factor. It is often cited Sinha’s studio to demonize radiation, but what this study really measured were habits in a sample of 566 participants. In this case, it was seen that those people with high mobile phone use took longer to fall asleep, their sleep was less efficient, and 22.6% reported worse quality of sleep. In this way, the conclusion was not that the waves prevented them from sleeping, but that the habit of having their cell phone nearby inevitably leads to using. If it’s on the table, you look at it. If you look at it, you become active. It is a behavioral rather than a radiological vicious circle. Hygiene protocol. The question in this case is inevitable: should we wrap the room in aluminum foil? It’s not necessary. In this case, physics works in our favor thanks to the inverse square law: the intensity of the radiation falls drastically with distance. That is why the most important thing is to move the device at least one meter away from the bed, since at this distance the exposure falls to negligible basal levels, making Sleeping with your cell phone under your pillow is the worst possible decision. If we want to go a little further, we can put it in airplane mode, although the best advice, as the Spanish Society of Neurology points out, is to have a sacred hour, where the recommendation is to leave the screens an hour before going to sleep. Images | Nubelson Fernandes In Xataka | We thought insomnia was just not being able to sleep. Now we know that there are five different disorders

In 1997 Blockbuster decided that DVD would never replace VHS. With that decision he began to dig his grave

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In 1997, Warner Bros. proposed blockbuster an exclusivity agreement to rent DVDs. The deal replicated the model that was already practiced with the VHS format, which gave 60% of income to the video store chain. Blockbuster declined because they were confident that magnetic tape would maintain its dominance for years. Warner responded by drastically cutting the wholesale prices of its records and Walmart was quick to take advantage of the opening: In less than a decade, it overtook Blockbuster as Hollywood’s biggest moneymaker. The DVD arrives. In 1997, this format arrived promising better imaging, more durability, and interactive features (we were so young). But it had a giant before it: in 1988, after defeating Sony’s Betamax format, VHS already controlled 95% of the home video market. And a decade later, in 1997, it was an empire: VHS rentals generated $10 billion annually for movie studios, with Blockbuster pocketing about half of that revenue. VHS had reasons not to be afraid: DVD players were very expensive, between $300 and $500, and VHS devices were very accessible. And they were not wrong: DVD sales would not surpass those of VHS until 2003, six years after its commercial release. Warner’s proposal. Warren Lieberfarb, head of Warner Bros.’s home video division and one of the key figures in the development of the DVD format proposed to Blockbuster a deal that replicated the VHS model: exclusive rights to rent the company’s new DVD releases before they hit stores for sale to the public. Warner would receive 40% of the rental income from those records. John Antioco, CEO of Blockbuster, had just arrived at the company after passing through Taco Bell, and his decision could be key to the company’s future. The rejection. Blockbuster decided to reject the proposal because it believed that VHS would maintain its dominance for years. As we said above, a not unreasonable assumption. Furthermore, creating an inventory of DVD movies was an unnecessary expense under the profitable and peaceful reign of VHS. Some later format releases, before the advent of DVD, possibly made Blockbuster think it had done well: JVC’s D-VHS digital tape, which allowed high-definition recording, was a flop. But Blockbuster didn’t have two things: Hollywood support for DVD and the inevitable drop in player prices. The answer. Warner Bros. responded with a strategy that would transform home cinema: it drastically reduced wholesale prices for its DVDs, in order to compete directly with the rental industry. This allowed businesses to sell records at prices that made purchasing more attractive than renting. The North American giant Walmart detected the opportunity very quickly and began to sell DVDs below the cost price, and in this way, for example, they sold their discs for 15 or 20 dollars when renting a VHS cost between 3 and 5 dollars per day. The power of Walmart. Walmart’s network of stores had power in distribution, covering the entire country, that Blockbuster could not match. In addition, it had privileged deals with suppliers and, in general, a fund and resources that allowed it to absorb the losses from the DVDs. In this way, Walmart replaced Blockbuster as the studios’ main source of income in less than a decade. This led to redefining the balance of power in the industry: the most valuable distribution channel was no longer the video store, but became large commercial stores, where consumers no longer only bought movies. Blockbuster, free fall. As is well known, It was not Blockbuster’s last catastrophic decision: in 2000, when Reed Hastings and Marc Randolph, co-founders of Netflix, approached John Antioco about selling their DVD-by-mail rental service for 50 million dollarsthe executive declined the offer. A decade later Blockbuster declared bankruptcy in 2010 while Netflix reached a valuation of billions. They are not the last. The case has parallels with recent technological transitions where dominant companies have underestimated the speed of the public’s adoption of new formats: the physical media industry believed that Blu-ray would maintain its relevance against streaming. And it is also easy to draw lines that link current technology companies with the adoption of AI: who will be the next giant to fall? Header | Stu pendousmat In Xataka | VCR Virus: the anti-copy system of the VHS era that looked like something out of a B horror movie

China is building submarines faster than anyone else. And that’s a problem for the United States.

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In a tense geopolitical moment on a global scale with several open fronts such as Greenland, whose melting ice is allowing us to see nuclear submarinesChina just achieved a historic milestone: it is manufacturing nuclear submarines faster than any other country in the world, according to a report by the International Institute for Strategic Studies. This is a complete surprise to the United States, the power that until now held this title, and threatens the advantage that Washington has maintained for decades. Brief notes on nuclear submarines. Without wanting to delve into their characteristics, it is worth distinguishing what types there are: He SSBN is a nuclear-powered submarine designed to launch ballistic missiles with nuclear warheads (some with intercontinental range). They are strategic second response platforms, practically undetectable and guarantee that if someone attacks first, they will receive a response. The SSN/SSGN are nuclear attack submarines (the second, guided missiles), true maritime control weapons: they can attack land or sea targets, block routes and operate for months without resupply. Context. American hegemony underwater lasts for decades, but Beijing has on its roadmap modernize its military capabilities by 2035: it already has the largest surface fleet in the world in the words of the Pentagon and now he has turned on the turbo to reach the last bastion of the United States: the depths. The data. China has surpassed the United States in the pace of launching nuclear-powered submarines (SSN/SSBN). Thus, between 2021 and 2025, the Asian giant launched 10 units compared to Washington’s seven, according to has discovered the IISS through satellite analysis of the Bohai shipyard in Huludao (northern China), as the epicenter of the industrial leap. In a decade, China has gone from being far behind to leading the race: Why is it important. This shift in underwater hegemony has three implications, one of which points directly to the US: Nuclear deterrence. The new submarines Type 094 and future Type 096 They expand China’s nuclear response capacity in the face of possible nuclear attacks. A preemptive attack is strategically unfeasible. Maritime control of commercial routes. SSGNs with high-speed missile systems add a layer of threat to foreign combat groups in the Indo-Pacific, complicating access for the US and its allies to potentially conflictive areas, such as the South China Sea or Taiwan. At a time when The United States is betting on boarding As a sign of maritime control, China has in this fleet a safeguard for its commercial routes. The United States cannot cope with that pace. John Phelan, US Secretary of the Navy, recognized in Congress that “All of our programs are a disaster, honestly. Our best-performing program is six months behind schedule and 57% over budget.” Phelan mentions the erosion of this industry, which according to the Government Accountability Office Today it faces problems such as aging infrastructure and a shortage of qualified labor. The surprise figures. The IISS Military Balance 2025 leaves other interesting figures to better diagnose the reality of both powers in nuclear submarines: Launch rate from 2021 to 2025: seven from the US to 10 from China. The difference in tonnage is notable: while those from China weigh 79,000 tons, those from the US are 55,500. Active nuclear fleet: The United States wins by a landslide, with 65 units compared to China’s 12 units (plus another 46 conventional ones). Quantity vs quality. We have already seen in the previous point that the United States continues to gain in numbers (still) and it is not the only reason for optimism for the country led by Trump. CNN echoes the IISS report where he explains that “Chinese designs are almost certainly behind American and European submarines in terms of quality.” Among other qualities, in noise: Chinese submarines are noisier, which makes them more vulnerable, they explain. But as a captain warns Retired US Navy Half USNI Officer, Biggest Fleets Win. In Xataka | In the midst of rearmament, Spain has just surprised Europe: 5,000 million for 34 warships and four submarines In Xataka | The new fear of Western fleets is not nuclear. They are conventional submarines armed with surprise and a flag: China Cover | CSR Report RL33153 China Naval Modernization: Implications for US Navy Capabilities—Background and Issues for Congress by Ronald O’Rourke dated February 28, 2014 – United States Naval Institute News Blog, Public Domain

Europe has thought of throwing three robots into a volcanic lava tube and now colonizing the moon or Mars is closer

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While the mission Artemis II Its objective is for human beings to return to the moon after more than half a century later, space agencies continue to investigate how to reach other planets and there space robotics is essential because well: space in general and places like Mars are the most inhospitable for life. So a European research group in which, among other entities, the European Space Agency participates, has introduced an autonomous robotic system inside a volcanic lava tube in Lanzarote, like collects this paper published in Science Robotics. Their conclusions bring us closer to a future colonization of the Moon or Mars. The context. Neither Mars nor the Moon have a flat desert surface, but rather they constitute volcanic worlds where there are underground cavities formed millions of years ago by liquid lava. We are not talking about small cavities precisely: there is space for a city to fit in as long as low gravity allows sizes of kilometers, how this study explains. Lava tubes are present on the Moon, on Mars and also on Earth, without going any further we can find some in Hawaii or the Canary Islands, precisely where the research was carried out: The lava tube of La Corona de Lanzarote has sections that reach 30 meters wide and high, come on, that It’s a cave like a cathedral. Why is it important. Because the space environment is harsh: there are extreme temperatures, radiation and meteor showers, a crude combination that makes it difficult for life to exist or simply to establish an eventual foundation for human civilization. On the other hand, if there is any remains of life or frozen water left, these caves are the ideal place to look for it. These structures are strategic because they function as natural shielding against ionizing radiation, extreme thermal flows and meteorites. So the next generation of robots will have the mission of exploring those underground lava tubes on Mars and the Moon to see what their conditions are like. The Lanzarote experiment. Anyone who has been to Lanzarote will know that it has places that seem taken from outer space. That is where the La Corona lava tube is where three different robots with different roles began their characterization mission without GPS or sunlight: The lookout stays outside mapping the entrance. The Explorer: It is essentially a cube full of cameras that you drop into the hole to look before anyone else. The speleologist, who rappels down to enter the darkness at a depth of 235 meters. The discovery. That they did 3D mapping as they progressed was just one of the objectives of this mission, led in the technical section by the German Center for Artificial Intelligence. But what is as important as how: the robots were not controlled with a remote control, but rather functioned autonomously, making their own decisions on the fly. Their performance in collaborative tasks is essential since in space the radio signal takes minutes to arrive from Earth. First Lanzarote, then Mars. The test carried out on heterogeneous and cooperative space robotics was a success, although there is still room for improvement regarding navigation without light and how the sensors respond to interference from the environment. In Xataka | Mars has just entered the exclusive club of planets with rays. This is discouraging news for NASA. In Xataka | We knew that Mars has gravity. Now we have just discovered the unexpected effect it has on the Earth’s climate Cover | dfki

They have found a way even though it is prohibited

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Elizabeth Holmes answer in Xfrom prison, to the questions of his followers. Harvey Weinstein give interviews to a podcast without leaving the cell. A prey launches an AI-generated clone of you on his Instagram profile. These are not isolated cases at all: technology is redefining what it means to be “incommunicado” when you serve a sentence. Cell phones in prison. Wait a minute: how come influencers in prison? Isn’t the use of cell phones prohibited in prison? Yes and no, at least in the United States: the Federal Bureau of Prisons has maintained a system called TRULINCS (Trust Fund Limited Inmate Computer System) since 2009, designed to provide prisoners with limited access to electronic messaging without an internet connection. To be more specific, the system does not allow inmates to access the web, all incoming and outgoing messages are monitored and emails are limited to 13,000 characters with no attachments. Social networks are also completely out of authorization. Who pays it? The inmate himself: the operation is so restrictive that inmates can only write to a maximum of 30 previously approved external contacts, and the service costs $0.05 per minute, paid directly from the inmate’s own funds. This money comes from the inmate’s work in prison, but no one gets rich there: an inmate receives an income of barely 15 dollars a month working inside the center, so use the mail server It can become a luxury. Influencers by proximity. How then do figures like the aforementioned Holmes (convicted of fraud and founder of Theranos, a Silicon Valley company that promised to revolutionize blood tests with a single drop, eventually being valued at $10 billion) or Sam Bankman-Fried (former CEO of FTX, one of the largest cryptocurrency platforms, guilty of one of the largest financial frauds in US history)? They transfer the management of their accounts to trusted people outside the premises. George Santos (former Republican congressman convicted of wire fraud, donor identity theft and embezzlement of campaign funds for personal use and whose sentence was commuted by Trump) acknowledged that nine people managed his profiles while he was inside. The system explicitly prohibits inmates from operating or maintaining social media accounts, and there is an intention to toughen sanctions limiting the ability of third parties to post content on behalf of the prisoner. It is a legal and ethical gray area. And in Spain? Before we continue, let’s be clear about the differences: we do not have any unified electronic messaging infrastructure comparable to TRULINCS. In Spain, the technology available to prisoners is, in most cases, analog: radio, television, and computers without an internet connection for those who study with the UNED or participate in workshops. From 2022, yes, there are a reform of Royal Decree 268/2022 that modified the Penitentiary Regulations to open the door to teleworking, videoconferences with family members, the presentation of complaints online and internet access in the centers’ libraries. Everything depending, obviously, on the infrastructure of each prison. Prisoners who speak. The figure of the inmate who tries to speak to the world from his cell is not new. For decades, television was the only channel, and personalities like American journalist Barbara Walters They made it a common format, with long conversations with criminals from prison, such as the Menéndez brothers, the scammer Bernie Madoff or the actor Robert Blake while he was awaiting trial for the murder of his wife. The next step has been podcasts: famous journalists (significantly, always conservative) like Tucker Carlson or Candace Owens have used the format for interviewing people as prominent as Harvey Weinstein. This appeared on Owens’ podcast in his first interview in almost ten years since Rikers Island. Prisoners by AI. The most extreme case of this kind of virtual exit from prison walls is in the case of Nicole Daedone. She was convicted in 2025 for conspiracy to commit forced labor within the framework of the OneTaste company. Her team published a video on Instagram in which an AI-generated clone read a message to her followers: a synthetic replica of Daedone herself thus communicated with her audience while she was physically detained. A curious step forward that faces a new legal loophole, since there is no rule that prohibits an external team from publishing AI-generated content on behalf of an inmate, as long as that content was not produced within the prison. The future. In this way, a multitude of opinions and positions come together. There are lawyers who, significantly and as The Hollywood Reporter specifies, believe that presence on social networks can distort the image of the accused and, ultimately, their public image, and end up harming them. But how it has been saidMartin Luther King wrote his ‘Letter from Birmingham Jail’ on papers that his lawyers distributed. Today, his wife Coretta would have published it on Twitter. In Xataka | The incredible story of the men who escaped from Alcatraz prison with spoons, fake hair and a homemade boat

How to create an excel with artificial intelligence where you can add the expenses of your digital purchase receipts

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Let’s explain to you how to create a spreadsheet with your expenses using artificial intelligence. Specifically, what we are going to do is put all your purchase receipts in a folder, and have the AI ​​read them, extract the totals, write them down in the spreadsheet and then add the total. It seems complex, but it is easier than it seems. For our example we are going to use the PDF tickets that are sent to you by email when you configure the Mercadona digital ticketalthough you can also use photographs of tickets. For the spreadsheet we are going to use LibreOffice, as it is a free and open source alternative to Office. To carry out the actions we will use Claude Coworkthe AI ​​assistant of Claude that can do actions on your computer. The negative part is that To use this tool you must have a paid account in this artificial intelligence chat, but the positive part is how much you can later do with it. There are workflow tools that allow you to automate this and do it online, but we are going to start by explaining this simpler method because it is all local, within your computer, and sharing less data with third parties. Make preparations first It is important to be organized when carrying out this task. Therefore, what we are going to do is go to the file explorer on our computer and create a folder. In my case I have called it Tickets. Inside, we will create a subfolder where you can put the digital tickets which we will call “Ticket PDFs”, and then the spreadsheet file which we will call “Total Purchases”. We will also create the basic structure of the spreadsheetso that it will then be easier for us to describe to the AI ​​what we want. On this sheet I have included the date, the total of the ticket, and then a column to add the link to the PDF file for each one. Here, you will be able to customize this as you need. Now simply Put the tickets in PDF inside the folder that we have created to store the tickets. You can do this by hand with the ones you have, and then update it with the ones that arrive later, because we will also tell you how to ask the AI ​​to update everything. This technique has many variants. For example, adding a specific column in the spreadsheet you can also add the name of the supermarket in order to manage the expenses of several of them, or make a different sheet for each one within the same file. You can make things as complex as you want. Now ask AI to do the work for you Now it’s time to get to work. Let’s open the Claude application on the computer and choose the option cowork. Here, the first thing will be click on the option Work in a folder. When you do this, you will have to choose the folder where you have included the subfolder with the PDFs and where you have created the spreadsheet file. This way the AI ​​will work only within this space without touching the rest of the files on the computer. Once you have done this, tap write a prompt asking it what you want it to dowhich in this case is asking it to read the PDFs with the tickets, extract the information and put it in the place you want within your spreadsheet. I have used this prompt, where I also specify the columns where each content goes: I want you to analyze the content of all the PDFs in the “Ticket PDFs” folder. These are purchase tickets. In all of them, I want you to extract both the date of the ticket and the total you have spent and put them in the “Date” and “Total (€)” columns of the “Total purchases.ods” file. Within this file, I also want you to create a link in the PDF Link column that, when clicked, opens the PDF file it belongs to. This prompt You can modify it depending on what your spreadsheet is like.but always specifying in which column each item goes, or on which page of the spreadsheet if you have created one for each supermarket. You can even make a sheet for the totals, and ultimately ask them to use any of Excel functions or the program you are going to use. Now, you have to wait a few minutes for Claude to process your request and complete the task. When you do, you will be able to enter the file you created before, and you will see that it has updated it. You can make changes to the file for font size or whatever you want, and Claude will then take that into account. You can also tell the AI ​​if it has done something wrong, such as not including links, so it can correct and add it. Now, you can ask him to do extra work like adding a column below with the total. And then, When you add more files you can ask it to update the file reviewing the new PDFs that you have added and adding the missing ones to the list. And that’s it. With all this you will have a spreadsheet that you can update every time you add more tickets. You can also ask him to do it by reading the content of photos, and other tickets that you also have in PDF. In Xataka Basics | Claude: 23 functions and some tricks to get the most out of this artificial intelligence

A municipality in Cáceres has waited more than 30 years for its bridge with Portugal. After moving wind and tide, it is already on its way

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Cedillo, the westernmost town in Extremadura, has been separated from its Portuguese neighbors for more than thirty years by a river that, paradoxically, has always united them. The solution is easy: build a bridge. The issue is that its approval and construction has been in the works for years. Now it seems that things are finally moving forward. The problem. Cedillo (Cáceres) and Montalvão-Nisa (Portugal) are separated by just 13 kilometers in a straight line. But by car, any trip between both towns requires a detour of between 100 and 120 kilometers. The reason: the dam that Iberdrola manages at the confluence of the Tagus and Sever rivers. Until 1995, residents on both sides could cross it freely. That year, with the entry into force of Schengen AgreementIberdrola closed access citing security reasons. Since then, it has only opened on weekends, with a security guard and at controlled hours. “We are brother peoples absurdly separated,” counted in 2021 to El País the mayor of Cedillo, Antonio González Riscado, who has been in office since 1987. How did it get here? The bridge project has been circulating through offices and negotiation tables for decades without finally coming to fruition. In 2011, the Provincial Council of Cáceres, then in the hands of the PP, renounced some European funds destined for the work, according to account The Country. When the PSOE recovered the institution in 2015 and requested them again, Europe had already denied them. The project became a political bargaining chip for years. The turning point came in March 2023, when the Ministries of Transport of Spain and of Territorial Cohesion of Portugal signed a joint declaration committing to promote the initiative. Just over a year later, in October 2024, both governments signed in Faro an international agreement which established the definitive legal framework to build the bridge. According to this agreement, Portugal assumes the design, construction and financing of the main structure, while Spain facilitates the permits and procedures in its territory. The works have already started. In October last year, the machines began to move on the Portuguese side with the first land preparation work. The award went to the company Alexandre Barbosa, according to counted The Extremadura Newspaper. The bridge will be about 160 meters long and 11.5 meters wide, with two twin concrete arches that avoid placing pillars in the riverbed. In fact, as the media reports, this last technical solution was key for the bridge to obtain the favorable Environmental Impact Declaration. The total cost exceeds 19 million euros. Spain does its part. In November of last year, the Ministry of Transport and the Government of Extremadura they signed an agreement to coordinate the work on the Spanish side. The Board assumes the bidding, construction and financing of the accesses to the bridge in Extremadura territory, with an estimated budget of just over 5.1 million euros distributed between 2025 and 2028. Once the work is completed, the infrastructure will become the property of the Board of Extremadura, which will also be responsible for its maintenance. What this means for the area. The bridge is going to solve a problem that has been on the lips of the surrounding towns for decades day after day. Just like counted El País, there are residents of Cedillo who have been hearing about the bridge all their lives and whose lives have been conditioned by that barrier. According to collect El Periódico, the bridge will also shorten the distance between Cáceres and Lisbon by about 70 kilometers and half an hour. “It is a bridge that we need no matter what,” the mayor of Cedillo told the media. What remains pending. On the Spanish side, the access to the bridge was still pending bidding when Portugal already had the machines running. Both countries will coordinate the work through a Joint Technical Commission. The agreement between the Ministry and the Board has a maximum validity of four years, extendable. If the deadlines are met, Cedillo could have his bridge before the end of the decade. Cover image | The Extremadura Newspaper and Google Maps In Xataka | Spain built its roads thinking about extreme heat: the rains are showing how vulnerable they are

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