Month: February 2026

Elon Musk and Sam Altman predicted that AI will force the establishment of a universal basic income. The United Kingdom is already considering it

by

The main economic organizations in the world they don’t agree in their forecasts about what the real impact of the arrival of AI will be in the economic and labor sphere. A report The World Economic Forum estimated that AI will create 170 million new jobs. The problem is that until that happens, it will destroy about 92 million jobs. The US Senate consider that some 100 million jobs could be destroyed. Elon Musk and Sam Altman have repeated on several occasions that, to minimize this impact on society, it will be necessary to implement a universal basic income. In the United Kingdom, the government is debating measures to protect workers with the same idea. Millionaires ask for a basic income. Some of the top AI millionaires, such as Elon Musk, have predicted that universal basic income will be a reality in a future dominated by AI. While it is true that Musk’s vision is based on a vision more optimistic about the future in which “work will be optional” and it will not be necessary to save for retirement, the millionaire does not deny that universal income will be a necessary instrument to achieve it. Along the same lines, although with a more realistic vision, the CEO of OpenAI, Sam Altman, has funded studies on the effects of universal basic income in a scenario of job destruction and how this income helps recipients return to work train for new jobs. Companies do not need human labor. In one your blog postDario Amodei, CEO of Anthropic, warned that AI will have an “unusually painful” impact on the labor market. “AI is not a substitute for specific human jobs, but rather a general job substitute for humans,” the manager wrote. For this reason, this mechanism is increasingly seen as a transition instrument that allows employees laid off due to the arrival of AI to retrain to re-enter the labor market. A systematic review of the Department of Economics of the University of Huelva on more than 50 empirical casespoint out that universal basic income improves spending on basic needs without participants stopping looking for work, so it will be a way for employees to train for new jobs. jobs created by AI. The UK Government is debating it. In an interview for Financial TimesJason Stockwood, UK Investment Minister, has revealed that within the Government “it is definitely being talked about.” The minister noted that “without a doubt, we are going to have to think very carefully about how to smooth the process of disembarking those industries that disappear, through some type of UBI and some type of lifelong learning mechanism so that people can retrain.” According to published BloombergMorgan Stanley declared a net job loss of 8% in the UK in the last 12 months due to AI, the highest among large economies. Which explains the concern of the British executive to begin evaluating formulas that cushion this impact. A lifeline to keep them afloat. Unlike Musk’s “optimistic” vision, British representatives do not see the arrival of AI as a liberating element that makes work optional, but as a problem that will temporarily leave millions of workers who will need help unemployed. So declared it Sadiq Khan, mayor of London, concerned about the high rate of “white collar” unemployment that can cause the arrival of AI in a city like London. Liz Kendall, Secretary of Technology of the United Kingdom, spoke along the same lines, assuring that, although it is true that more jobs will be created than will be lost, there will be a transition period in which AI will be “a weapon of mass destruction of jobs. We will not leave people and communities to fend for themselves,” collected Guardian. The million-dollar question: who finances that income? It is easy to predict that universal basic income would be a solution for those who do not have a job to return to because AI has automated it. However, something more complicated will be determining who will finance that basic income. Bill Gates already gave some clues almost a decade agoensuring that they should be their own companies that use robots in their processes those that pay for that subsidy “if a robot replaces the work of a human, that robot must pay taxes like a human.” Ioana Marinescu, economist and associate professor of public policy at the University of Pennsylvania consider that taxing technology companies could slow down their implementation at the local level, so that this transformation process it would be more progressive increasing that transition period that would give time to the labor market to adapt. In Xataka | AI and its impact on the labor market: how the perception of its arrival varies by country, explained in a graph Image | Unsplash (Alexander Gray, enrico bet)

How euthanasia allowed an “à la carte” face transplant to be planned in 3D in Barcelona

by

Spain has once again shown why remains at the top in terms of organ transplants refers to the new milestone that has occurred at the Vall d’Hebron Hospital in Barcelona. It is neither more nor less than first face transplant in history coming from a donor who had requested the euthanasiadying in a controlled manner in a hospital environment. The programming. Until now, face transplants, of which a few have been performed 54 worldwidedepended on the urgency and availability of a donor who died due to an accident or brain death. However, this case introduces a new variable: transplant scheduling. This is thanks to the fact that the donor had requested to benefit from the Euthanasia Law and jointly expressed their willingness to donate all their organs and tissues, specifically their face. This is something that allowed the medical team timewhich is not common in transplants, to find the most suitable candidate and also plan in detail what the procedure was going to be like. What they did. By knowing in advance the availability of the donor, the medical team was able to begin virtual 3D planning. In this case, digital models of both the donor and the recipient were created to be able to design completely personalized cutting and grafting guides to guarantee the success of the intervention. And it is not at all easy to do this type of transplant, since the bone structure and soft tissues must fit together with millimeter precision, reducing the usual uncertainty of these operations. The surgical challenge. The operation was not easy, since It lasted 24 hours and required the coordination of a team of nearly 100 professionals.including plastic surgeons, microsurgeons, anesthetists, nursing and immunology experts. And it was not a simple aesthetic operation by putting the skin on top and that’s it, but rather a complete reconstruction was sought at all times that included muscles, nose, lips, blood vessels and of course nerves. All of this could not be done without microsurgical equipment that allowed arteries, veins or nerves less than a millimeter in diameter to be ‘connected’ in order to have sensitivity, movement or the ability to eat. The recipient. Her name is Carme, and her life changed radically in 2024 while she was on vacation in the Canary Islands when she suffered a bite that caused a serious infection. The bacteria caused sepsis and death of the facial necrosis, causing him to lose part of his face and severely affecting his jaw. In this case the consequences were devastating, since Carme could barely open her mouth and had serious difficulties breathing and feeding. Not to mention his social life, which had been drastically reduced, with the mental impact that this entailed. According to his own statements, the transplant was “the only solution” to try to regain a normal life. Legal context. All this is not a coincidence, since the Vall d’Hebron was already a pioneer in 2010 in performing the first complete facial transplant in the world. Of the six transplants that have been performed in the history of Spain, half have taken place in this center, demonstrating the great experience they have in this regard. The procedure is also framed within the Euthanasia Law that came into force in Spain in 2021, which contemplates the possibility of donating organs. The generosity of the donor, who explicitly offered her face during the authorization process for her assisted death, has opened a new door for regenerative and transplant medicine, demonstrating that advance planning can be key to success in the most extreme surgeries. Images | Vall d’Hebron In Xataka | Elizabeth Hughes’ 42,000 injections and the miraculous discovery of insulin

Tesla aspired to bring the automobile industry to its knees. Now the auto industry is giving it back

by

Tesla has been held accountable to investors. His 2025 numbers have been bad. Pretty bad, in fact. So much so that it has confirmed the almost immediate cessation of the Tesla Model S and Model X, the cars that helped popularize the brand but whose sales are already minimal. It will make robots instead. It is confirmation of a much deeper problem. Bye. Elon Musk confirmed it a few days ago. Tesla will stop manufacturing its most expensive vehicles. The Freemont factory, where the company produces the Tesla Model S and Model will start producing humanoid robots Optimus. Without just a very sentimental message, as usually happens in the motor industrythe CEO of Tesla has practically treated these models as mere employees. The farewell is similar to that given to the classic worker who ends up at the exit door with a cardboard box in his hands to carry a photo of his children, three pens and the stapler that the company refused to buy. I can almost see the sleeve of the sweater sticking out and the shirt half removed from the pants. Deeper. Stopping production of its most expensive electric cars, no matter how few they sold, points to Tesla having a deeper problem: it wanted to reconvert the automobile industry. And, over the years, the automobile industry seems to be beating the company. To understand what we are talking about, we must take into account different variables: how Tesla carved out a niche for itself in the market, how it revolutionized automobile production and how that same revolution has put a back on the backpack that is becoming more complicated to handle every day. And, of course, how it is facing the same problems as every other automaker. His emergence. Building a car brand from scratch is complicated. Almost impossible, as many Chinese companies are experiencing firsthand. Tesla was born in 2003 and It wasn’t until 2020 when it was profitable each and every quarter of the same year. It was thanks to the sale of emissions credits and bitcoins. It wouldn’t be until later when it became profitable on its own selling electric cars. In those 17 years, the company was sustained with the help of investors, partnerships with companies like Toyota and aid from the United States Government. And if they managed to keep losing money for almost two decades, it was because they promised a differential technology, something that only they could deliver at that time. A groundbreaking vehicle for what was on the market. Aspirational. Tesla became an aspirational company. He Tesla Roadster (the only one that has existed so far) walked all over Hollywood and later the Tesla Model S and Model X they became neck-turning vehicles of worship. I still remember the first time I saw a Tesla store in Amsterdam and how that huge vertical screen in the sedan It attracted the attention of all of us who were there sightseeing. Both cars were confirmation that a company could put an electric car on the street with an autonomy that allowed travel, with a striking aesthetic at that time and unbridled power compared to combustion cars. It was a desirable brand, a status symbol. Millions of copies. The Tesla Model 3 and Model Y They were the next step. The key to making Tesla a profitable company on its own was to sell millions of copies. To put an “affordable” electric car on the road or, at least, much cheaper than the competition with equal benefits, Tesla showed off its Gigapress. This machine allows you to create huge body parts, much larger than competing machines. This allows Tesla to produce faster and at a lower cost. But it has a problem: it needs millions and millions of copies to make it profitable and take advantage of it. Each profound change in the part to be produced forces very long development times and excessively extended technical stops. Furthermore, it is not easy to create that first original piece. Disadvantages that have forced the design of Tesla cars to remain practically unchanged. Too seen. Being a slave to design is a problem in the automobile industry. Tesla thought it could sell the same car for years or decades, but time is telling it that customers like to see new things. When someone spends tens of thousands of euros on a car, they like it to look fresh and new. The purchase of a car is still marked by irrational and passionate concepts above all logic. A car, no matter how much it is sold like that, is not a mobile phone. It’s not a black turtleneck either. These are products that, with a perfected and standardized design, differ little from each other without being fashionable. But above all, they are products with a rapid renewal rate. The car, if all goes well, will be in our house for more than a decade, which is why we like to buy the latest things within our budget. Millions of copies of the Tesla Model 3, Model Y, Model S and Model with hardly any renovations they have diluted its novel image. Their cars have an aesthetic designed not to go out of style quickly but the customer needs to put new things in their mouths every so often. That is why generations in the automobile industry last between six and eight years, with a more or less profound renewal in the middle of the commercial life to boost sales again. And the competition tightens. Tesla thought he could turn the automobile into another consumer good. Elon Musk even promised sales of 20 million units per year. An outrage if we take into account that it is doubling the production of Toyota, the largest manufacturer in the world. This would be possible (and with many doubts) if its competitive advantage was so overwhelming that it left its cars in a position years ahead of the competition. But if we have seen anything since 2020, … Read more

These are the best technology deals we have found on Amazon today, February 3

by

If you have been wanting to renew some of your technological devices or purchase new ones for some time, to expand your assortment of personal technology, today is a good time to get the best devices at the best price. amazon It is one of those stores where you can find good technology offers and these are the best deals we have found today, February 3. Ring Intercom Audio by 44.99 euros: with two-way communication and Alexa. Smart TV Hisense 55E63QT by 296.65 euros: 4K UHD and with Dolby Vision. laser projector XGIMI Horizon 20 by 1,439 euros: 4K and with Google TV. Virtual reality glasses Meta Quest 3S by 299 euros: with 128 GB and up to 2.5 hours of autonomy. sound bar Ultimea Apollo S50 2025 by 99.99 euros: compact and 4.1 channels. Ring Intercom Audio Amazon has a series of technological devices ideal for starting to create your connected home. The Ring Intercom Audio is one of them and now has a available 44% discount on Amazon. You can buy it for 44.99 euros. The Ring Intercom Audio is a device that is used to improve your home’s intercom. It allows you to know (through the app) who is calling the intercom and open it without having to get up. Comes with Alexa integrated and also allows you to create virtual guest keys, so that whoever you want can open the portal at the established time. The price could vary. We earn commission from these links Hisense 55E63QT Smart TV If you are looking for a good, pretty and cheap TV, this one from Hisense is a bargain now on Amazon. Its usual price is 419 euros but now it is available for 296.65 eurosthus obtaining a savings of almost 30%. This TV mounts a 55-inch panel with 4K UHD resolution and refresh rate of 60 Hz. It is compatible with Dolby Vision and it comes with a specific mode for games and another for sports. It runs under the VIDAA operating system and supports voice control. Hisense 55E63QT – UHD 4K Smart TV 55 Inch The price could vary. We earn commission from these links XGIMI Horizon 20 Laser Projector If you would like to watch your movies and series in a big way at home, this XGIMI laser projector is a good device to achieve this. It is laser type and has a discount of 230 euros. It has gone from costing 1,699 euros to 1,439 euros. This Horizon 20 from XGIMI is a projector laser with 4K resolution and that comes with Google TV. is able to project up to 300 inches and has a refresh rate of 240 Hz and 3,200 lumens. XGIMI Horizon 20 Laser Projector The price could vary. We earn commission from these links Meta Quest 3S virtual reality glasses The Meta Quest 3S are mixed reality glasses that you can now buy at a discount on Amazon. Before they cost 329.99 euros, but now you can get them with a 9% discountby 299 euros. This Meta Quest 3S On sale they come with 128 GB of storage and have a processor Qualcomm Snapdragon XR2 Gen 2. Its battery offers a range of up to 2.5 hours and allows you to play video games and content from the main streaming platforms. The price could vary. We earn commission from these links Ultimea Apollo S50 2025 Sound Bar Are you looking to improve the sound of your TV without spending a lot? Now, on Amazon, you can get this 4.1-channel sound bar from Ultimea for less than 100 euros (specifically 99.99 euros). Is the best selling in this store right now and before it cost almost 150 euros. As we have already said, this sound bar 4.1 channel offers 200 W RMS power and features VoiceMX technology. In addition, it incorporates a wired subwoofer and presents a compact size. In the connectivity section, it comes with ARC, optical, AUX, USB ports and also Bluetooth 5.3 connectivity. ULTIMEA Apollo S50 2025 4.1ch TV Sound Bar with Subwoofer 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 | Freepik, Ring (Amazon), Ultimea, Hisense, Meta and XGIMI In Xataka | Home alone: ​​buying guide for smart devices to take care of your home when you go on vacation In Xataka | Best surveillance cameras: which one to buy and 11 recommended models for indoors, outdoors, babies and pets

the Great Trade Route through the Mongolian Desert

by

At the end of the 19th century, as Japan emerged as an imperial power after the Meiji erahis army undertook an ambitious cartographic project to precisely know the territories beyond its borders. Those maps, prepared by the Imperial Japanese Army with methods that combined espionage, foreign sources and field work, were classified as state secrets and for decades remained hidden in military and university archives. Today, those maps have revealed a fascinating route. A forgotten runner. For centuries, the so-called Great Mongolian Route was a key artery of Eurasian tradean east-west route that crossed southern Mongolia connecting northern China with Central Asia and beyond, serving as a northern alternative to the better-known routes of the Silk Road. Despite its historical importance, it had been blurred between travelers’ stories and scattered references, without precise cartography that would allow it to be reconstructed in detail. That gap is what is now filled through a historical work, a published study in the Journal of Historical Geography by Chris McCarthy and his colleagues demonstrating for the first time that the Great Mongolian Route was not a literary abstraction, but a perfectly structured corridor, designed to enable the regular transit of camel caravans through some of the most arid and hostile landscapes on the continent. Military maps as secrets of the past. The researchers behind the discovery say that the key to rediscovering the Great Mongolian Route has been in the gaihōzuthose maps prepared by cartographers of the Imperial Japanese Army between the end of the 19th century and the Second World War, which systematically covered vast regions of Eastern and Inner Asia. Conceived with strategic and classified purposes For decades, many were on the verge of disappearing after the war (there were instructions to destroy them), but some were saved quietly and ended up in university archives that little by little became accessible to the public. Gaihōzu W6N2N map panel: Explaining the maps. The maps were not simple military sketches: they synthesized information from Chinese records, ancient Russian uprisings, and, in some cases, Japanese field work, resulting in a surprisingly accurate representation of routes, wells, monasteries, oases and geographical features key to survival in the Gobi Desert. Owen Lattimore’s map of several Inner Asian caravan routes, including the Great Mongolian Trail, whose name appears next to the location of Gurbun Saikhan Confirm the map on the ground. Recent work has gone beyond the archive, touring more than 1,200 kilometers on the ground to verify to what extent those sheets coincided with current reality. The verification has confirmed about fifty nodes (from water sources to settlements, caves and sacred places) spaced at intervals of about 24 kilometers, a distance that fits exactly with the average day of a camel caravan. Plus: the oral traditions of local shepherds, the physical traces of secular transit and the persistence of toponyms have reinforced the idea that these maps captured a refined logistical system, one in which each stop was essential to making the journey possible. Gaihōzu W9N2N map panel Caravans, tea and benefits. Although the main objective has been to document the infrastructure of the route, everything indicates that was parte of the historic tea trade, with Chinese goods traveling west and steppe products returning east. Inscriptions found in caves and oases speak of journeys of up to 120 days for heavy caravans and faster journeys, of about 90 days, for urgent transports seeking extraordinary benefits. The harshness of the route did not deter the merchants, moved by the promise of “triple benefits,” a reminder that these routes were not only avenues of cultural exchange, but high-risk economic gambles. From stories to cartography. For decades, knowledge of the Great Mongolian Route depended almost exclusively on the descriptions of the explorer and scholar Owen Lattimorewhose diagrams offered a conceptual vision of the corridor. Now, the combination of his stories with the millimeter detail of the gaihōzu transforms that diffuse image into a concrete and verifiable layout, where each lake, well or monastery has a clear function. The result not only recovers a lost route, but shows to what extent these military maps constitute an exceptional file of landscapes, economies and ways of life just before modern transportation erased centuries of mobility caravan in the interior of Asia. Image | McCarthy et al. 2026 In Xataka | The entire history of the Iberian Peninsula year by year, summarized in six minutes of interactive map In Xataka | Our conception of the world has changed a lot during history. This map illustrates all its forms

AI is starting to change that dynamic

by

For years, Apple was more than just a mobile phone manufacturer: it was the customer that everyone wanted to keep happy. The company that could negotiate with suppliers and reserve capacity in advance. But that stage is beginning to break down for a very specific reason: the industry has started buying hardware for artificial intelligence on an enormous scale, and that new appetite is reordering priorities. AI companies are willing to pay more and secure supplies up front, a shift that is beginning to put pressure on something Apple has protected like a treasure: its margins. Memory, the bottleneck. The easiest example to understand is in something as everyday as the storage and speed of the iPhone. It’s no secret that memory chips are in short supply due to the explosion of AI, and that is pushing prices up. Tim Cook dropped it in the last earnings call acknowledging limitations in chip supply and that memory prices were rising “significantly.” Not so comfortable terrain. The Wall Street Journal points out that AI giants are willing to close agreements with very attractive conditions for suppliers, including the possibility of securing supply with firm commitments and advance payments. This context gives room for companies like Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix to raise prices on certain DRAM chips destined for Apple. Even on the less visible plane there is friction: many engineers who previously worked on improving displays for smartphones now also spend time on specialized glass for packaging advanced AI chips. It’s a silent fight for capacity and attention. Alternative to TSMC. The newspaper says that TSMC is doing more business with NVIDIA and other AI companies. Consequently, according to anonymous sources with knowledge of the plans, Apple would be exploring the option of manufacturing some less advanced processors with another supplier. No name has yet been released, but it would be a fairly important change in the Cupertino company’s supply chain. How it affects us. In the short term, the blow is taken by the income statement: if components rise, margins suffer, even in a company used to working with ease. For the consumer the scenario is more ambiguous. The well-known analyst Ming-chi Kuo estimates that Apple would not expect to raise the price of the next iPhone if they are equipped in a similar way to the iPhone 17. That doesn’t take the pressure off, but it suggests that adjustment could come through other avenues, from configurations to tighter margins. Images | Apple In Xataka | The AI ​​bill for Meta has grown by 400% since 2023: Zuckerberg wants to lead the sector at any cost in 2026

It is the key step in the “rebirth” of a company on the tightrope

by

The United States is immersed in the war for technological independence. They aim to be sovereign and produce most of the key components of their technology, but they remain so dependent on the rare earth from china like from Taiwan for advanced chips. At the same time, the strongest Taiwanese company, is planting its flag on North American lands with TSMC. In this scenario, Intel has become the great hope of the American foundry. And they just announced that their Intel 18A plan is ready for action. Self-imposed goal. Intel has been going through the deepest crisis in its history for years. Unlike NVIDIA, Qualcomm or AMD, which design chips but are manufactured by others –TSMC mostly-, Intel designs and manufactures semiconductors (although it also outsources part of its production). It is, as it is known in the industry, a foundry, and after being devastated in the mid-2000s, they have seen how his rivals ate his toast. Both in semiconductor production and in their design and in the market. For this reason, in 2021 they set a goal: to develop five nodes in four years. This strategy, baptized as 5N4Ywas a move to restore the company’s position at the forefront of semiconductor manufacturing. In between, they have acquired ASML’s latest generation machines, they have positioned themselves as the local foundry for the US to achieve technological sovereignty… and they have needed an unprecedented injection of money from the US government. Intel 18A. But well, the plans seem to be coming out and, if in September 2024 Ben Sell, vice president of technology development at Intel, commented that Large-scale production of node 18A would begin in 2025now it is the company that has declared that they are ready to start mass manufacturing products based on that technology. The result is two processors with a very different approach. Panther Lake – It is the architecture of the Intel Core Ultra Series 3the first System on Chip from the American company created with this photolithography. They are chips created in a smaller size, which allows for greater density (30% according to Intel) and 15% greater performance per watt. It is focused on mobile devices and integrates both CPU and GPU. Clearwater Forest – It is the other current leg of Intel 18A, a processor for data centers hyperscale, cloud computing and AI training. It will be the heart of the Xeon 6+ processors and shares those characteristics of higher density, more performance and lower consumption. Technological avant-garde. Things seem to be starting to go well at Intel and the interesting thing is not that they are already preparing for large-scale manufacturing of these processors, but rather the technologies which, for the first time in a long time, will allow Intel to be at the forefront in its sector. RibbonFET – It is Intel’s first new architecture in more than a decade and is what allows improved performance per watt compared to the previous node used by Intel. It is an improvement over the Classic FinFETs. PowerVia – It is the true revolution: it is an architecture that separates the power supply from the processor lines to deliver it through the rear. Power flow is improved and delivery is optimized, allowing better power flow that increases the processor clock frequency while consuming less power. American foundry. This last technology is a pioneer in the sector and, in fact, it is expected that its main competitor, TSMC, will not have a response until the end of 2026 and Samsung its GAA in 2027. And that is precisely what is positioning Intel as a good option for the big technology whales. Because there is no point in having technology if you don’t attract attention, and here Intel has an advantage. Fab 52, the Intel plant in Arizona where these new chips are manufactured On the one hand, and obviously, technology. But on the other hand, and just as important, being an American manufacturing in the United States, with what this implies when it comes to get government favors. I know point that NVIDIA and Apple are in conversations with Intel to have a certain range of their GPUs and SoCs manufactured by them instead of TSMC. Because that commercial success is the last frontier and attracting whales is what will mark Intel’s destiny in a war that is no longer just about having the best technology, but also about where you manufacture it. Images | Intel In Xataka | The world’s technology industry practically depends on a single road: the one that leads to the Spruce Prine mine

SpaceX, founded by Elon Musk, has just announced the purchase of xAI, founded by Elon Musk

by

Until very recently, this was just a rumor. Today, SpaceX just told it as a fact. The aerospace company has published an official statement in which it states that it has acquired xAI, the artificial intelligence company founded by Elon Musk. The text does not go into details of the operation, but it does set the tone: it talks about integrating AI, rockets and space connectivity as part of the same strategy. And, although the announcement is forceful, it leaves many important questions in the air that still have no answers. SpaceX frames the operation as part of a vertical integration. The official statement is signed by Musk and has a more ideological than corporate tone, with references to “freedom of expression” and an almost existential mission. But, beyond the story, the document leaves out some elements that are important to understand this movement: there are no figures or details of how the agreement materializes. In development. In Xataka | Genie 3 is awesome at creating worlds for video games. But the problem with video games was never creating worlds

“We are not going to launch a flagship a year just for the sake of it”

by

If there is an immovable rule in the technological world, it is that every year a new generation of any product must be launched. If not more. The RAM market may explodebut what is certain is that every year we will have a new samsung galaxy and a new iPhone. And to the question of whether it is necessary to have a new high end mobile Every year, someone has answered that, perhaps, it is not necessary. It has been Nothing, and curiously it could do with a high-end. But… it makes sense. In short. Carl Pei is not only one of the founders of OnePlus: is the mind behind the launch of the Nothing brand. After landing in 2022the British company has relied on different marketing, but also on a CEO who is very active in networks, as well as open about the future of the company. Faced with the opacity of colleagues/rivals, Pei has always been quite ‘playful’ with the opinions of both the industry and his brand and the segment in general. In a recent self interview published on his YouTube channel, he has given an interesting key. “We’re not going to launch a new flagship every year just for the sake of it.” There are two melons here: one is that we won’t have the Nothing Phone (4) in 2026. The other is that you are quite right considering how things are. Rampant crisis in the background. Although companies like Micron, Samsung either NVIDIA It is coming in handy, we have been immersed in a -new- components crisis for weeks. RAM was the first product whose price turned this basic component into a luxury one, but the graphics cards and SSDs have followed the same path. And things do not look like they will improve in the short and medium term. This RAM crisis has already resonated in the smartphone segment. There are two options: either -much- more expensive mobile phones or mobile phones with -much- less RAM. Goodbye to the crazy 24 GB of memory on a mobile, welcome 4 GB. Pei himself already commented: if things continued like this, and they have remained the same, the user will have to choose between pay 30% more for a new mobile or settle for a new mobile phone at the same price as the previous one, but with less RAM (and the storage we would see). Come on, Pei has said, without saying it directly, what the decision would be with a Nothing Phone (4). Software > Hardware. Now, as they point out from Xataka Mobilethe fact that there is no new Nothing ‘flagship’ for 2026 does not mean that they are not going to launch a mobile phone. It is estimated that they are working on a mid-range Phone (4a) that will take up the baton of the notable Nothing Phone (3a) at the same time they keep the components short so that the price does not go down. And, furthermore, it gives meaning to an industry strategy, one in which the greatest advances that we have seen in recent generations have more to do with cloud services, artificial intelligence and everything that software encompasses… more than hardware. Yes, more powerful, faster and capable hardware is important to perform tasks within the device, but the cloud is also a pillar in this software. Qualcomm pushes another narrative. On the other hand, there is the strategy of some hardware companies that are obliged to keep the wheel turning. NVIDIA and Qualcomm are two examples, with more capable graphics cards not so much in terms of raw power performance, but rather better processing of artificial intelligence tasks such as DLSS. And also Qualcomm, which every year-end presents its new chips for mobile devicesand those are the ones we see in the new launches of the most premium range. Because each new generation is more powerful than the previous one and -may- have better cameras and more generous batteriesbut it is also true that from year to year we are not seeing considerable jumps between devices from the same brand. And that is when it makes complete sense for a company like Nothing to point out that, perhaps, this annualization of the ‘flagship’ is not necessary. It would be necessary to see what would happen in a context other than a component crisis, of course, but Pei himself has said on occasion that software is the future. Image | Xataka In Xataka | I had no idea what the future of the smartphone is. Until I spoke to Carl Pei

Microsoft has finally realized what the community has been shouting at it for months: we don’t want so much AI

by

The people are fed up with the avalanche of AI that has flooded Windows and Microsoft turned a deaf ear to the numerous community complaints. They have put AI even in Notepadwhich is saying something. Microsoft’s obsession has caused the Windows image to sufferbut finally it seems that they are listening to the users. We are still passing. One of the things Microsoft has been doing in its pro-AI crusade is add Copilot buttons everywhere. It’s in Paint, in Notepad and even they want to put it in file explorer. Although Microsoft has not commented, according to Windows Central fontsthe company is rethinking its AI strategy and one of the things that is under review are these buttons that they have been adding almost indiscriminately. Maybe they end up eliminating some or just being more selective from now on. Windows Recall. “It’s like having a photographic memory.” This is how Microsoft sold what aimed to be the PC+Copilot star feature. What followed were many doubts about your safety and so many criticisms that Microsoft had to delay the project for more than a year. Recall is already implemented, but according to Windows Central the company is not satisfied with how it is working and wants to correct course. How they will do it at the moment is unknown. There will still be AI. Microsoft still has a lot of AI features in the works and nothing indicates that they will stop, so if you were rubbing your hands at the idea of ​​a Windows 11 without AI, that is not the case. Some of the initiatives they have underway are: agentic functions which they announced in November of last year (to which The community flatly refused.by the way) and developer features like Windows ML or semantic search. The complaints have been heard. There will probably still be more AI features than the community would like, but it seems that Microsoft has heard the feedback and they are going to take their foot off the accelerator. The obsession with AI has not been the only reason for discontent, there have also been highly criticized decisions such as force to use an online account to upgrade to Windows 11 or the stability problems after updating. Despite everything, Windows 11 is advancing unstoppably and It is already on more than 1 billion devices. Image | Microsoft, edited In Xataka | I have decided to become independent from all US technology and embrace European technology. This is how I’m getting it

Log In

Forgot password?

Forgot password?

Enter your account data and we will send you a link to reset your password.

Your password reset link appears to be invalid or expired.

Log in

Privacy Policy

Add to Collection

No Collections

Here you'll find all collections you've created before.