Month: March 2026

Iceland, Norway and Switzerland have been boasting independence from the EU for decades. Global chaos is about to change everything

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The war between the United States, Israel and Iran is shaking the foundations of the historic independence of the nations that make up the European Free Trade Association (EFTA or EFTA). Faced with an increasingly volatile geopolitical panorama, Iceland, Norway and Switzerland find themselves at a crossroads and look, each at their own pace, towards the European Union in search of refuge. The question that now haunts European parliaments is no longer just political, but purely industrial: are they willing to sacrifice parts of their sovereignty in exchange for the protection and stability that Brussels offers? As explained to the newspaper Five Days Sophie Altermatt, economist at Julius Baer, ​​these countries face external pressures from increasingly interventionist superpowers. The United States has become a much less predictable ally on trade and security, while China’s growing ambitions endanger European industrial competitiveness and create vulnerabilities in supply chains. The rhetoric of US President Donald Trump, who has even suggested his intention to annex Greenland, has acted as a powerful catalyst for this change in mentality. As the magazine warns The Spectatorquoting a maxim from Mark Carney: “If you’re not at the table, you’re on the menu.” The return of hard power politics is forcing middle powers to reevaluate their place in the world. From the European side, the door is open. As detailed by the Icelandic public broadcaster RÚVEU Enlargement Commissioner Marta Kos has stressed that the current geopolitical context is fundamentally different from the past and that EU membership offers “an anchor in a bloc based on values, prosperity and security.” Are we facing a real approach? Moving towards greater integration implies sitting at the table where decisions are made, but also assuming a clash of sovereignties. Ine Marie Eriksen Søreide, leader of the Norwegian Conservative Party, acknowledged in a parliamentary debate collected by Five Days that remaining outside the Union generates enormous vulnerabilities, since their country remains “on the margins of everything we want to enter into.” However, the price of admission is high. Political analyst Thomas Vermes explains in the Norwegian middle ABC Nyheter that the EU is transforming towards a federation where supranational organizations assume more and more authority. Entering means submitting to decisions by qualified majority – where large countries have more demographic weight – and growing pressure to eliminate the right to veto on key issues. In addition, it would imply assuming joint economic burdens, such as the common debt of 90 billion euros contracted to help Ukraine. In fact, the possible entry of Ukraine would radically transform the bloc’s economy. According to the same Norwegian mediathe incorporation of the 41 million hectares of Ukrainian agricultural land would flood the markets and force rural aid to be restructured. Three countries, three different rhythms The answer to this dilemma varies drastically depending on the resources each nation brings to the table. Iceland: The direct path and the referendum in sight The Icelandic government has stepped on the accelerator and passed a resolution to hold a referendum on August 29, 2026 on resuming EU membership, a measure supported by 57% of the population. Iceland would provide the EU with a vital logistics position in the emerging Arctic trade routes and strategic supply: already is the fourth largest supplier of aluminum of the block, material that accounts for more than half of its exports to Europe. Nevertheless, as reported RÚVthe Minister of Foreign Affairs, Þorgerður Katrín Gunnarsdóttir, has drawn a non-negotiable red line: she will not sign any agreement that involves ceding control over the island’s precious natural resources to the EU. Norway: The fractured debate Although the country rejected joining the EU in 1972 and 1994, the debate has been resurrected. According to The Spectatorthe conservative party (Høyre), now led by the determinedly pro-European Ine Eriksen Søreide, is “clearly a yes party.” Polls show an increase in support for accession, rising from 27% in 2023 to 41% in 2025. However, the current Labor government of Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre is strongly opposed. Despite not being a member, Norway is Europe’s absolute energy guarantor after the invasion of Ukraine: it supplies 51.8% of the pipeline gas and 14.6% of the crude oil consumed by the EU. Precisely for this, the internal opposition is fierce. Columnist Hans Christian Hansen warns in the financial journal Finansavisen that the EU is losing technological ground to the US and Asia. According to Hansen, while the US uses energy to attract industry, the EU uses it to “self-regulate with increasing rigor” and promote projects of uncertain profitability such as offshore wind. The question he asks his compatriots is brutal: “Do we want to link our energy policy, our industry and our future to a team that is already losing?” Switzerland: The pragmatic path and bilateral agreements Unlike the Nordics, Switzerland does not contemplate full accession so as not to compromise its historical neutrality, but it is making progress in its economic and technological integration. President Ursula von der Leyen and Swiss President Guy Parmelin They signed the “Bilateral III” package. This framework modernizes agreements on transport and free movement, and adds crucial pacts on health, food security and Swiss participation in the European space agency and the Horizon Europe and Erasmus+ programmes. In addition, it will allow it to fully enter the internal electricity market in the EU. The objective of the Federal Council is “stabilize and future-proof the proven bilateral track“. The Federal Council approved the sending of this package to the Parliamentor, proposing to subject it to an optional referendum to guarantee its democratic legitimacy on sensitive issues such as salary protection. Switzerland’s weight is undeniable: in 2023, bilateral trade in services reached €245 billion, representing almost 9% of the EU’s total services trade. Forecasts in sight? The geopolitical board will continue to move. If Iceland eventually joins the EU, the pressure on Norway will be immense. As conservative leader Søreide arguesNorway would be in a “completely different situation” if its EFTA partner makes the leap. For its part, Switzerland … Read more

Hollywood has been debating for years whether AI can replace real actors. With Val Kilmer the debate turns into practice

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A year after his death, Val Kilmer will appear in a fiction film without filming a single scene. ‘As Deep as the Grave’ uses generative AI to bring the actor to life with the explicit support of his family and respecting the rules of the actors’ union. It is the first documented case of a Hollywood star being digitally recreated on this scale and with this level of legitimacy. Perhaps in the future this film will be seen as the point at which there was no turning back. As deep as the grave. Val Kilmer died on April 1, 2025, at the age of 65, from pneumonia resulting from the throat cancer that he had been fighting since 2014. This week, almost a year later, the production company First Line Films has announced that the actor will return to the screens in a role that he was never able to film. The film, initially known as ‘Canyon of the Dead’, is a historical drama based on the true story of Ann and Earl Morris, early 20th century archaeologists who documented the culture of the Navajo people in Canyon de Chelly, Arizona. Kilmer was cast five years ago to play Father Fintan, a Native American Catholic priest and spiritualist. The role was designed around him: Kilmer identified with the character’s Native American heritage and with the story’s spiritual link to the American Southwest, where he made his home in New Mexico. “We were ready to film his part. Just, (Val Kilmer) was going through a very, very difficult medical time,” has counted director and screenwriter Coerte Voorhees. Go for AI. The production accumulated six years between filming and forced stops due to the pandemic. When the Voorhees brothers (Coerte directs, John produces) reviewed the material, they saw that Father Fintan’s scenes were essential to the story. Replacing the actor was a possible solution, but they did not have the budget to repeat the shoot. So they chose to generate it artificially. What makes this recreation technically unique is not only the use of images of the actor at different stages of his life, many contributed directly by his family, but the decision to use his real voice, deteriorated by the tracheotomy that Kilmer had to undergo during cancer treatment. Father Fintan suffers from tuberculosis in the fiction, which turns his altered voice into a character trait. The character generated by AI occupies, according to those responsible, a significant part of the final footage. Pioneer Kilmer. The curious thing is that Kilmer was one of the first actors to actively resort to AI to preserve his communication skills. In 2021, while working on the documentary ‘Val’, he collaborated with the startup Sonantic to reconstruct your voice from hours of archival recordings. The company had to develop new algorithms (the available material was ten times less than what they used in other projects) and generated more than 40 different models before selecting the most expressive. That work reached the general public in 2022, when Kilmer appeared in ‘Top Gun: Maverick’, in an appearance that was one of the most talked-about moments of the film. Seal of approval. What distinguishes ‘As Deep as the Grave’ is the consents that support it. The actor’s daughter, Mercedes Kilmer, states that “my father always looked at emerging technologies with optimism, as a tool to expand the possibilities of the story. This spirit is what we honor within this film.” The producers also assure that the film followed the SAG-AFTRA union guidelines and that the actor’s family receives financial compensation. The environment. This news comes amid constant updates on the topic of AI to generate prototypes of real actors or completely new virtual creatures. In recent months, the Xicoia company launched Tilly Norwooda character entirely generated by AI whom she presented as an actress, and which SAG-AFTRA unambiguously condemned, calling her a direct threat to the profession. Here, however, we have the posthumous realization of a job that the actor himself had accepted. But… what will happen when the technology is accessible to productions without family endorsement? How is compliance with SAG-AFTRA standards monitored in independent productions? Can a case like this normalize practices in less scrupulous hands? Header | Variety In Xataka | Seedance’s strategy was to copy first, go viral later and back away later. Until Hollywood said “enough”

It is the promise of a Chinese startup that aims to revolutionize the sector

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There is a whole world in this synthetic fuels. And it is no wonder, since whoever can develop a renewable fuel, without harming the environment and with elements that we have in abundance, has won heaven. And in this regard, there is a Shanghai startup that promises to have taken a significant step. And if his claims hold up, it could change the rules of the game. We tell you the details. Context. China imports more than 70% of the crude oil it consumes, and a considerable proportion comes from the Middle East. If you have been paying attention to this region of the planet in recent weeks, you will have seen that the thing is not very there. And at a time when conflicts in the Persian Gulf generate volatility in the markets and threaten energy supply chains, Beijing has been looking for alternatives to conventional fossil fuels for years. It is in this scenario where Carbonology emerges. What exactly has he announced. Just like share SCMP, the company, co-founded in 2024 by a former Tesla vice president, claims to have developed a process to convert carbon dioxide (extracted from air and water) into synthetic fuel using solar and wind energy. The products it claims to be able to manufacture include gasoline, diesel, aviation kerosene and naphtha, all of them at competitive prices with those on the market. The company also reportedly announced that it is preparing a deployment to produce its product on a large scale in China. How this technology works. The process the startup describes is based on direct air capture, known in the industry as DAC (Direct Air Capture). This technique consists of extracting CO₂ from the atmosphere and combining it with hydrogen, in turn obtained through electrolysis of water using renewable energies, to synthesize liquid hydrocarbons. The result is fuels that are practically identical to those derived from petroleum, but whose carbon cycle is closed: the CO₂ they emit when burned is the same as that captured to manufacture them. It is really not a new process, as it has been developed for years in laboratories around the world and There are pilot projects underwaysuch as the Haru Oni ​​plant, in southern Chile, promoted by companies such as Siemens and Porsche. What is still unclear. The bad thing is that Carbonology’s claims lack details. According to the mediuma company spokesperson confirmed the information but declined to offer more information on the matter. As SCMP shares, the company has a registered capital of just over 14 million yuan (about $2 million) and completed a first round of financing last year. In January it opened a 300 million yuan R&D center in Shanghai, along with a synthetic kerosene production line. In any case, the company recognized that its future commercial operations will probably have to be located near large solar and wind energy facilities in western China, since it is a process with high energy demand. A problem that persists. Synthetic fuels produced from renewables remain expensive. The medium refers to paper published in January 2025 in the journal Energy Conversion and Management, where some of the obstacles to its commercialization were identified, including high capital intensity, low energy efficiency in the conversion and absence of infrastructure and regulatory frameworks that allow its large-scale deployment. About Repsol. In Spain, the main company that has promoted renewable fuels in its gas stations has been Repsol, although the concept in this case is different. Repsol comes from a process that reuses used cooking oilremains of agricultural processes and forestry waste to develop its Nexa fuel, which is already sold in hundreds of gas stations in the country. However, the company is also studying the DAC technique to produce synthetic fuels. It does this through a cutting-edge project in the Port of Bilbao (Petronor). At the moment what they have is a demonstration plant, so we will have to wait to see if it has an outlet. for the car. That a Chinese startup barely a year old claims to have solved the cost problem that has blocked the entire industry is, at the very least, interesting, but there is a lack of data to support it. DAC technology exists and is maturing, but most of the CO₂ captured so far is stored underground, not converted into fuel. That the announcement was made under these circumstances is curious, to say the least. So we will have to wait to see if this project ends up materializing and fulfills what it promises. Cover image | ADIGUN AMPA In Xataka | 115 million barrels released and a fear on the horizon: that gasoline in Spain will go to €2/liter

wireless chargers, wallets, powerbanks and more

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He iPhone 17e It is already a reality. This new iPhone comes with interesting improvements that go beyond a new, more powerful chip and the most important is, without a doubt, the arrival of MagSafe. With this, the device becomes compatible with a lot of accessories that can be great for usboth in our daily lives and if we plan to go on a getaway (at Easter, for example). Apple MagSafe Charger (1 m) ​​​​​​​ The price could vary. We earn commission from these links The best thing is that there are many different types of accessories. We have chargers, of course, but also others such as cases that allow us to continue using MagSafe or even wallets. For this reason, we leave you a selection of five accessories for the iPhone 17e that we find especially interesting right now, both for features and price: Spigen Liquid Air Case by 16.99 eurosa discreet MagSafe case with very good grip. Xiaomi UltraThin Powerbank by 59.99 eurosideal if you want to have more autonomy without carrying around a hulk. Satechi OntheGo Wireless Charger by 59.52 eurosperfect for traveling. Apple MagSafe Wallet by 54.99 euroswhich alerts you if it is separated from the phone. Apple MagSafe Wireless Charger by 14.90 eurosan essential that comes at a very good price at the MediaMarkt outlet. Spigen Liquid Air Case There are many cases that are compatible with MagSafe, but this Spigen stands out mainly for being very minimalist. That is precisely the best thing about it: it is thin and thin, so it will not increase the thickness of your iPhone. In addition to being resistant, it also has a rough feel on the sides to facilitate grip. And its price is very tight: it costs 16.99 euros. Spigen Liquid Air Case Compatible with iPhone 17e / iPhone 16e – Matte Black The price could vary. We earn commission from these links Xiaomi UltraThin Powerbank A powerbank can give you that extra autonomy if you are a user who spends a lot of time on their mobile phone every day. There are some with a lot of capacity, but they tend to be hulks. This one from Xiaomi is just the opposite: it is barely 6 millimeters thick and does not even weigh 100 grams. Thus, you stick it to your iPhone and you will barely notice that extra thing on the back. It has 5,000 mAh and we can get it for 59.99 euros. Xiaomi Ultrathin Magnetic Power Bank 5000mAh 15W Compatible with MagSafe for iPhone Ultrathin and Light External Battery with Wireless Charging, Compatible with iPhone 17/16/15/14/13/12, Gletscher Silber The price could vary. We earn commission from these links Satechi OntheGo Wireless Charger If you have another device that you usually charge wirelessly (like an Apple Watch) and you’re going on a trip, a charger like this OntheGo from Satechi can be great for you, since it allows you to charge both things at the same time. In addition, it folds and weighs about 100 grams, so you can store it in your suitcase and you will barely notice it. The only thing to keep in mind is that it requires a 30W power adapter, which is not included. like this one from Apple. It is available for 59.52 euros if we use the discount coupon that is within the charger’s own page on Amazon. SATECHI OntheGo™ Foldable 2 in 1 Wireless Charger, 15W Qi2 Fast Charging Station for iPhone Series 17 16 15 to 12, 5W for Apple Watch and AirPods, Induction Charger for Travel – Black The price could vary. We earn commission from these links Apple MagSafe Wallet If you want to carry your cards with your cell phone, a wallet with MagSafe can be great for you. There are some cheaper ones, but the official Apple one right now, with the price it has, is very interesting: it costs 54.99 euros. It has a fairly elegant design and enough space to carry three cards. Additionally, if you accidentally separate from your phone, you will receive a notification on your phone with your last known location. Apple Slim Braided Wallet with MagSafe for iPhone – Navy Blue​​​​​ The price could vary. We earn commission from these links Apple MagSafe Wireless Charger Whether you go on a trip or not, a very basic (and useful) MagSafe accessory is Apple’s official charger. It offers up to 25W charging and has a 1 meter cable, which is not bad at all. Being so simple, it is one of those things that we can take with us wherever we go. Now, as with the Satechi above, we also need to purchase the adapter separately. Its price is almost always around 50 euros, although we have it available at the MediaMarkt outlet for only 14.90 euros. It comes with the box open, but as this store indicates, it is a new, unused item. Apple MagSafe Charger (1 m) ​​​​​​​ 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 | Spigen, Xiaomi, Satechi, Apple In Xataka | The best mobile phones, we have tested them and here are their analyzes In Xataka | Best tablets for studying. Which one to buy and five recommended models with the best quality and price

There is a Russian bomb floating in the Mediterranean coming from Ukraine. And Europe trembles because it can explode at any moment

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It is a fact that most of the world’s trade moves by sea. This means that every day thousands of ships cross key routes very close to European coasts. In this constant traffic, a single out-of-control incident is enough to put entire ecosystems in check and force several countries to react at the same time. The war in Ukraine has just ended activate one of them. A bomb adrift in the heart of Europe. The situation is the following: in the Mediterranean right now there is more than just a damaged ship, the Arctic Metagaz is a latent threat that mixes war, energy and environmental risk in a single point. We are talking about a loaded Russian tanker with gas, fuel and diesela ship hit by a drone attack from Ukraine that sails uncontrollably, with structural damage and a real risk of explosion. Not only that. It appears to have no crew, is leaking and catching fire, and is moving slowly between European waters and North Africa. What makes it especially disturbing is not only its condition, but its origin: It is one more piece of the war being fought in Eastern Europe that has ended up floating in the Mediterranean, moving the conflict directly to the doors of the entire continent. It’s not just the front anymore. The episode confirms something that was already intuited for some time: that the war between Russia and Ukraine is no longer confined to the Black Sea or the land front. Ukraine has expanded its radius of action by attacking Russian ships on much more distant routes, including those that are part of the called “ghost fleet”key to avoiding sanctions and financing the Kremlin’s war effort. These increasingly frequent attacks turn ships into de facto military targets, even if they are sailing through international waters or near European territories. The result is an extension of the conflict that blurs borders and places Europe in an uncomfortable position, because it is not a direct part of these attacks, but its potential scenario. Arctic Metagaz Ecological risk and implications. The immediate danger right now it’s pretty obvious: an explosion or massive spill in an area of ​​high ecological value could cause lasting damage in the Mediterranean, affecting protected ecosystems and coastal economies. But the problem goes beyond the environmental impact. These types of incidents also reveal to us the fragility of the maritime system in times of hybrid war, where poorly maintained, aging ships, with opaque structures and no safety guarantees, They circulate on key routes. The combination of sanctions, evasion and attacks turns these ships into risk vectors that can trigger crises at any moment. Europe and the threat. The European reactionwith Italy and France along with several EU members warning of the imminent risk, reflects a growing concern: countries have asked a coordinated response facing a problem that is not only specific, but structural. The difficulty in intervening (whether due to weather conditions, the location of the vessel or legal issues) also represents a capacity and governance vacuum in nearby waters. While Russia he ignores of incident management and points to coastal states as responsibleEurope faces a rather complex dilemma: managing the consequences of a war in which it neither controls the origin nor the evolution. Symbol of a new phase. If you also want, the derived from the Arctic Metagaz summarizes like few elements the evolution of the current conflict: a war that no longer only dynamits infrastructure on land, but is capable of turning the sea into a space constant riskwhere each asset can become a threat. It is not just, therefore, an accident or an isolated episode, but the proof (one more) that the conflict has acquired an unpredictable dimensionwhere an action in Ukraine can end up generating a crisis thousands of kilometers away. And that is precisely what it has of the nerves to Europe: not knowing when or where the next impact may materialize. Image | war-sanctions.gur.gov.ua In Xataka | While we all look at Iran, in Ukraine they continue doing their thing: robot against robot battles where humans only watch In Xataka | Ukraine has become the world’s leading specialist against Iranian drones. And he won’t share his antidote

They are going to begin the most ambitious nuclear fusion experiments in history

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The largest experimental reactor of this type tokamak for nuclear fusion that exists is called JT-60SA and it is in Naka, a small city not far from Tokyo (Japan). The construction of this mill began in January 2013, but it was not done from scratch; he did it taking the JT-60 reactor as a starting pointits precursor, a machine that came into operation in 1985 and that for more than three decades has achieved very important milestones in the field of fusion energy. The assembly of the JT-60SA was completed in early 2020, and from the end of 2023 it is ready to start the first tests with plasma. This machine is a device tokamak that just like JET and the future ITER resorts to the magnetic confinement of the ionized plasma. Although the ultimate goal of fusion is to use deuterium and tritium, JT-60SA initially uses only deuterium for its experiments, as it is not designed to handle the high neutron loads of tritium (that will be an ITER task). Either way, this machine is titanic. Colossal. In fact, it has a height of 15.4 meters and a diameter of 13.7 meters. However, the most impressive are the “specifications” that allow us to form an idea about its performance. And it is capable of confining a plasma with a volume of 130 m³, as well as generating a toroidal magnetic field of 2.25 Tesla and sustaining a current inside the plasma of 5.5 MA (5.5 million amperes). These figures are impressive, and presumably when ITER is ready to begin the first plasma tests its figures will be even more astonishing. An engineering prodigy During the last two years, the Japanese and European engineers working on the JT-60SA reactor have installed several extraordinarily sophisticated systems in this machine that will play a leading role during the next experiment campaign. One of these systems is made up of two ring-shaped coils 8 meters in diameter that have been expressly designed to control the confinement of the plasma that is moving at very high speed inside the vacuum chamber. An amazing note: these two devices were wound directly inside the reactor. However, another of the technological solutions that these engineers have installed in the reactor in recent months is even more amazing. Every time the researchers who operate this very complex machine carry out an experiment with it They need to know with maximum precision possible temperature and electron density of the plasma. The main problem they face is that it is not possible to obtain this data by taking direct measurements. The interaction between the laser and the plasma is what allows engineers to indirectly calculate temperature and density For the fusion of deuterium and tritium nuclei to take place, the plasma containing them must reach a temperature of at least 150 million degrees Celsius, and any sensor that comes into contact with it at this temperature will not survive. This is why the JT-60SA reactor engineers have been forced to develop an extraordinarily sophisticated diagnostic system. Thomson dispersion measurement equipment components have been designed and manufactured in Italy, Romania and Japan. Broadly speaking, this device manages to measure the temperature and density of the plasma electrons by analyzing the light it emits with a high-power laser beam dispersed, precisely, by the plasma electrons themselves. In some way the interaction between the laser and the plasma is what allows engineers indirectly calculate temperature and density. The JT-60SA reactor will have two Thomson dispersion diagnostic systems. The core one has been developed in Japan, and the plasma edge one has been devised in Europe. This enormous effort has been worth it. The reactor is almost ready to start the next experiment campaign. All that remains is to carry out a gradual start-up that will allow testing the main systems of this machine, and at the end of 2026 the experiments will begin. They will last for six months. Most impressively, this campaign will take the JT-60SA to an unprecedented level of current, enabling longer, steady-state plasma pulses to be sustained. The researchers operating the reactor are confident that everything they will learn during these experiments will be very valuable in bringing the future ITER to a successful conclusion. Let’s hope that the performance of the JT-60SA will finally live up to expectations. Image | QST More information | Fusion For Energy In Xataka | The JET reactor has successfully completed its final tests with deuterium and tritium. It is a crucial milestone for nuclear fusion

the heir of the DVD to survive streaming

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Video StoreAgea distributor founded by former Sundance Festival programmer Ash Cook, sells independent films on encrypted USB drives and splits the revenue 50/50 with the filmmakers. The project arrives at a time when the festival circuit no longer guarantees distribution for the majority of titles and physical support is experiencing a recovery that no one expected. The origin. Ash Cook spent years as a programmer at the Sundance festival, specializing in independent film, always listening to the same conversation. Filmmakers, sales agents, distributors and acquisitions managers agreed on the same diagnosis: independent film distribution was broken. The Cook’s response to these questions was to found Video StoreAge together with Aidan Dick, head of communications for another specialized festival, Frameline, with a specific proposal: to sell indie films on encrypted USB drives. The company launched its first collection in February 2026 and has several presentations planned in Los Angeles on March 18, 19 and 21. The first USB includes, among other titles, ‘Heightened Scrutiny’ by Sam Feder and the extraordinary ‘The People’s Joker’ by Vera Drew (which you can check out on Filmin), a trans autobiographical parody of the Batman universe that has accumulated a 96% on Rotten Tomatoes. The data. In 2025 only 19 films coming from Sundance Distribution was secured in the United States, compared to 30 in 2024 and 38 in 2019. Only 11% of films selected at top-level festivals end up selling rights to the entire world. By 2025, only half of the ten documentaries in competition at Sundance found distribution. They are very weak numbers and some professionals blame the streaminglittle concerned about this independent cinema, by ending an entire sector of medium-sized distributors that absorbed the most risky titles. The third way. Video StoreAge’s proposal is similar in spirit to a DVD: a physical copy of the movies, they can be played on any computer, and it is yours forever, without depending on platforms. Each quarter, the company releases a collection of five feature films and five short films on encrypted USB drives (using patent-pending technology). Files are played using a built-in player and cannot be copied or ripped. They are sold by quarterly subscription, in individual packages, or combined at the buyer’s choice. The short films are free extras. How the money is distributed. Video StoreAge splits the profits 50/50 with the filmmakers and only acquires the physical distribution rights, leaving the filmmaker free to seek distribution in theaters, streaming platforms or any other means. At the moment the scale is modest, around 20 titles in the first year. A partnership with the latest alternative festival Slamdance (perhaps the most notable indie festival outside of Sundance) allowed them to offer two titles as limited editions during the festival itself, ‘Danny Is My Boyfriend’ and ‘The Bulldogs’, before their official release. The return of the physicist. Curiously, this happens in a very peculiar context: DVD, Blu-ray and 4K UHD sales fell just 9% in 2025, compared to declines of more than 20% in the previous two years. The unexpected culprit: Generation Z and for two reasons. First, the fatigue of streaming and second, the unreliability of digital catalogues, with films that disappear without prior notice due to expired contracts or tax reasons. All this while the premium 4K UHD segment grows 12% year-on-year. The parallel with the resurgence of vinyl is inevitable, although at the moment this return of DVD does not have an industrial infrastructure behind it to support it, but it does have many specialized publishing labels such as Criterion or Arrow. What remains to be resolved. There are questions to answer: Video StoreAge has not detailed the technical specifications of the medium or publicly addressed issues of long-term durability of flash memories, a weak point compared to pressed optical discs that, when well preserved, do not suffer data degradation. On the other hand, the target audience for this product, willing to pay for indie films on an alternative physical medium, is small. Enough to be profitable? In Xataka | For years Blu-ray resisted streaming: now Sony has decided to close the chapter on its home recorders

They fill you up in the moment, but leave you emptier later

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Every time we are more alone and so? it’s a problembut don’t worry, AI has arrived to save us. Mark Zuckerberg believes AI friends can fill that gap. In South Korea They are sending AI robots to older people to keep them company and in New York they are also testing it. New studies suggest that it is a bad idea. The study. Was conducted by the University of British Columbia on a sample of 300 first-year students. The study leader tells 404media which is a very vulnerable time because often students are away from their family and don’t know anyone. The students were divided into three groups: the first would chat with an AI chatbot, the second would chat with another unknown student and the third, the control group, would have to write a diary. The rules were that they had to write at least one message a day and complete several daily surveys, including the UCLA Loneliness Scale. The chatbot was based on ChatGPT-4o, the model known for being more empathetic and close and whose withdrawal generated criticism precisely among those who seek emotional connections with an AI. The results. Participants who talked to another peer showed lower levels of loneliness, while the other two groups (AI chatbot and diary) showed no change. They did see a decrease in negative mood when chatting with the AI, suggesting that it offers momentary relief, but does not have a lasting effect. 33% of students in the first group continued talking to their partner after the experiment, while only 14% continued talking to the chatbot. There is more. The University of British Columbia conducted another study with a sample of 2,000 adults over a full year. It was seen that people who feel lonelier are more likely to increase the use of chatbots to try to fill that void. However, in the long run the effect of emotional isolation increases even more. According to one of the authors, it “suggests a negative feedback loop” and compares them to “social junk food,” meaning it fills but does not nourish. Connect with an AI. When we saw Her in 2013 we did not imagine that a few years later the story was going to come true. There are people falling in love with AIssome even they cheat on their human partners with one It is an increasingly common trend and AI companies know it. There are apps that offer AI companions like Replika or Character.ai, but AI is also coming mainstream. We have the example with the controversial erotic mode that OpenAI is preparing for ChatGPT. They are not always romantic relationships, there are also those maintain a friendship and who goes to the AI ​​to tell it their problems, as if he were a psychologist. The experts have already warned that machines cannot replace a real connection, but the machinery advances unstoppably and AI is already redefining relationships. In Xataka | People Blaming ChatGPT for Causing Delusions and Suicides: What’s Really Happening with AI and Mental Health Image | Talha Uğuz, Pexels

Spaniards, the price war at gas stations has begun. And Repsol is the first to launch its attack

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The price of gasoline has skyrocketed. Diesel is through the roof. It has already been dropped that The Government has studied discounts on purchases of fuel as it already did in 2022. And while the Spanish are looking for the cheapest gas stations to refuel, service stations have just opened a war to continue attracting customers. through the clouds. If we talk about average prices, we are still far from the figures that we end up paying for gasoline and diesel in 2022. In the days that followed the first stages of the Ukrainian War, gasoline came to reflect an average price in Spain of 2.152 euros/liter and diesel 2.106 euros/liter, according to the portal dieselgasolina.com which monitors the price of all service stations in the country. Today, March 19, gasoline reflects an average price of 1,784 euros/liter on average. 98 gasoline already scales at 1,938 euros/liter. The basic diesel is already paid at 1,906 euros/liter and the “premium” at 1,988 euros/liter. With these data, gasoline is about 40 cents/liter of what was paid in 2022 but diesel is already at 20 cents/liter. Not only that. If we look back we find a brutal increase in prices. On March 1, the average price of gasoline was 1.495 euros/liter. That is, in 19 days the average price has increased by almost 30 cents/liter. Diesel is even more worrying, rising almost 50 cents/liter from the 1,447 that it reflected on average on March 1. A relief to the pocket. At least cosmetically. That is what happened in 2022 when the Government applied a fuel reduction of 20 cents/liter. It was a flat rate for all drivers which partially alleviated the effect of rising fuel prices, without taking into account if the client was doing it for recreational useto go to work or because he was a professional who needed it to provide his services. However, prices continued to rise and just a few days after the aid began to be applied, which arrived when gasoline was 1.84 euros/liter, we were already paying the same than before the subsidy. Did the marketers take advantage to continue raising prices and increase their business? The CNMC suspected so. Repsol tightens. Although rumors point to a possible subsidy again, oil companies have already begun to take positions in the face of a new price war. The most ambitious has been Repsol, which has in its Waylet program the best tool to build customer loyalty. The company has announced that double your discounts with Waylet. That is, now they deduct 10 cents/liter for each refueling. But Repsol has turned Waylet into its own ecosystem from which it is difficult to get out. If you have electricity contracted with Repsol, the savings double and go from 10 cents/liter to 20 cents/liter. And if you have other contracted services, such as car or home insurance, the discount is 40 cents/liter. Added to this are the discounts with every electric car recharge and domestic rates or subscriptions outside the home, which is why they have managed to position themselves as a very attractive option for those who have both technologies at home, combustion and electricity. A price war. Repsol, yes, is the company that has the highest prices on the market, according to dieselgasolina.com. On average, gasoline at Repsol costs 1,763 euros/liter and diesel 1,861 euros/liter. Moeve, the second most expensive supplier, is very far away, with an average price of 1,693 euros/liter and 1,760 euros/liter for gasoline and diesel respectively. The gap with low cost is gigantic. Alcampo currently sells gasoline at 1,594 euros/liter and diesel at 1,706 euros/liter. However, Repsol has a reason to push: low cost. They explain in Expansion that these service stations are more sensitive to price increases because the volume of each purchase is smaller. They do not have the storage capacity of large companies, which forces them to buy more often and, therefore, increasingly more expensive when the price skyrockets. This reduces your profit margins. And although in the middle they assure that the low cost ones continue to be cheaper, the truth is that the margin is narrowing. When the difference is small, it is easier for Repsol to gain followers and build customer loyalty with large discounts since “cheap gasoline” loses much of its appeal. This loss of competitiveness translates into the results of dieselgasolina.com that collects that Ballenoil has, right now, gasoline more expensive than Moeve, just one step below Repsol. under the magnifying glass. The aggressive discounts on gasoline have fueled the debate about the extent to which oil companies are taking advantage of the situation. In 2022, Repsol has already taken the opportunity to make aggressive discounts. Those, according to the CNMCthey took advantage to try to take smaller gas stations out of the market. Those days, low-cost service stations already assured that the Government subsidy was suffocating them due to the particularities of their business model. Just a few days ago, The OCU has already filed a complaint with the CNMC that the increases that were occurring in the price of fuel were being abusive. They noted that according to the Official Gazette of the European Union, Spain was the third country in which prices had increased the most and that the cost of diesel was higher than the European average. As in the case of Expansion According to his calculations, the low cost ones were the ones that reflected the most striking increases. It remains to be seen what the response of the rest of the service stations is. Repsol has already shown that it has room for maneuver. In 2022, the oil companies that entered the game did so in the same way, with wide discounts within their loyalty plans. And that has some clear losers: the low cost ones. Photo | Juanedc In Xataka | Fear of gasoline at 2 euros per liter: the sector is already preparing for the worst after the start of the war in Iran

a proton accelerator against cancer

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At the Madrid hospital in Fuenlabrada they are building something that, from the outside, doesn’t look like much: a two-story building with three-meter-thick concrete walls, a roof that had to be opened with a crane, and foundations designed to support dozens of tons of machinery. Inside that bunker is kept one of the most valuable assets that Spanish public health has received in decades. That technological jewel that they protect with concrete is the proton accelerator donated by the Amancio Ortega Foundation: one of the ten latest generation machines that the founder of Inditex agreed to surrender to the public health system in October 2021 in a donation valued at 280 million euros. The objective is to install them in seven autonomous communities and transform the cancer treatment in Spain. A custom concrete bunker. Building this type of technology is not like installing a scanner or an X-ray device. The radiation emitted by a proton accelerator requires the construction of a specific building to act as a containment barrier. In Fuenlabrada that has become concrete walls three meters thick. The construction of the bunker began in July 2024 and the regional government has allocated 13 million euros to finance the construction of the new building. According to a statement of the Community of Madrid, the result is a two-story structure with more than 2,000 square meters of total surface area, partially connected to the already existing oncology area. The ground floor, of about 1,300 square meters, will house the diagnosis, treatment and patient preparation areas. The first floor, of 875 square meters, will be used for maintenance, supplies, medical offices and training. The pieces that entered through the roof. The proton therapy equipment is made up of two main elements, and both are already inside the bunker. The first is the Cyclotron, the device that generates and accelerates protons that are then used as “ammunition” against cancer cells. It measures eight meters tall and weighs almost 50 tons. To place it in place, it was necessary to open the roof of the building and use a heavy crane to install it inside the bunker. The second element is the Gantry, the rotating arm that directs the radiation towards the tumor with millimeter precision. This component exceeds 11 meters in height and reaches 75 tons in weight. Its complete rotation capacity is what allows the tumor to be attacked from any angle and reduce damage to healthy surrounding tissues. In this video The installation process of one of these machines in the New York Proton Center is shown, using a process very similar to that used in the Fuenlabrada hospital. Protons change the rules of the game. Proton therapy is not an improved version of conventional radiotherapy, but rather it works with high-energy proton beams capable of concentrating the impact exactly on the tumor and stopping there, without continuing to irradiate the tissues behind. This makes it an especially useful tool for treat hard-to-reach tumorssuch as brain tumors, on neckspinal cord, lung, ocular, sarcomas, etc., and for pediatric patients, where minimize side effects In the long term it is critical. Until now, in Spain there were only two centers with this technology, both private: the Hospital Quirón de Pozuelo de Alarcón and the Clínica Universidad de Navarra. Thanks to the donation from the Amancio Ortega Foundation10 new proton therapy centers will soon be inaugurated in public hospitals distributed throughout the national territory. A nuclear reactor in the basement. The arrival of the two main pieces does not mean that the equipment is ready to use. Only the main elements have been installed in place. Over the next 12 months, engineers will carry out the complete assembly of both components, their calibration and the commissioning of the accelerator. It is a process that involves continuous testing to check and monitor radiation before any patient is approached. In December 2025, the Nuclear Safety Council (CSN) already issued a favorable authorization, with conditions, for the radioactive facility of the hospital: an essential requirement before the unit can operate. It won’t be the first, but it adds up.. The one in Fuenlabrada will not be the first public health device of these characteristics to offer proton therapy treatments. The Galicia center, in Santiago de Compostela, is the most advanced in its installation and already has the Proteus One accelerator. In this case, two bunkers have been necessary (one for treatment and the other for research) and the first patients are expected to be treated at the end of 2026 or beginning of 2027, with capacity for 250 patients per year per room. The Madrid hospital, for its part, aims that its unit will be operational throughout the first quarter of 2027. In Xataka | Amancio Ortega: the billionaire who lives like a neighbor (except for private jets and superyachts) Image | GTRES, New York Proton Center

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