Month: May 2026

The science behind the “sixth vital sign”

by

If we observe the traffic on a street, it is easy to see that each person has a speed when walking very different. This is something that may seem like a fact without much relevance, except that going slower can annoy someone who is behind or cause them to let’s lose less fat. But the reality is that science found a correlation between walking speed in middle age and the state of the brain. It has been investigated. Here is a great study published in JAMA in 2019 changed our perspective on how and when we begin to age neurologically. To look for this relationship, the researchers focused on New Zealand, where the development of 904 participants from his childhood until reaching the age of 45. Just when they reached middle age, the researchers measured the subjects’ walking speed at a normal pace, performing a simultaneous cognitive task and maximum speed. And from here all that was left was to cross-check the information. The results. Here it could be seen that the participants who walked slower at age 45 presented accelerated biological aging, evidencing deterioration in multiple organic systems. In addition, these slower walkers also showed worse brain integrity, causing them to have a smaller volume, as if they had aged much earlier. The link with childhood. Surprisingly, neurocognitive dysfunction detected when participants were just 3 years old already predicted slower walking speed in their midlife. In fact, a difference of between 12 and 16 points of IQ between the group of the slowest walkers and that of the fastest. A deterioration sensor. All of this strongly supports the idea of ​​the brain-body nexus, since the relationship between worse cognitive function in childhood and a slow gait at age 45 suggests that the brain acts as an early “sensor” organ for systemic decline driven by genetics, aging, and environmental factors. In this way, walking speed in middle age is no longer seen only as a symptom of old age frailty, but as a true “summary index” of cumulative aging and brain health over a lifetime. It has implications for the future. The preventive potential here is incredible, since an extraordinarily simple evaluation such as timing how long it takes a patient to walk 4 to 6 meters could become a standard tool in medical consultations to assess the patient’s cognitive status. Something that can also be standardized with the use of smartwatches, which today make very precise measurements of the movement we do daily. This would allow specialists to identify people at risk of experiencing accelerated aging and cognitive decline long before reaching old age or meeting the criteria for classic frailty. And having this information is essential to anticipate, for example, the onset of dementia. Images | Drazen Zigic in Magnific rawpixel.com on Magnific In Xataka | Dementia is devastating largely because it arrives without warning: some researchers already predict it seven years in the future

For the CEO of Ford, the reference for the electric car is no longer Tesla, it is China

by

The head of Ford has been studying Chinese manufacturers in depth for months and is clear about one thing: that to understand where the electric car is going, we must pay close attention to China. For some years now the country is leading a historic transition in the automobile, and the perfect proof of this reality is the fixation that brands as historic as Ford have with the Chinese electric car. And for Jim Farley, CEO of the company, Tesla is no longer the benchmark. China, not Tesla. The automobile industry has been at a crossroads for some time. Electric sales are not growing at the expected rate in the West, large manufacturers have had to rethink their strategies and convert their factories (energy storage for data centers), and in the United States the elimination of federal tax incentive It has made the purchase of a new electric car even more expensive. In this context, Ford CEO Jim Farley explained in the Rapid Response podcast that Tesla is no longer the benchmark, and that it is now China. Change of sight. In the interview, Farley explained why he has been testing a Xiaomi SU7 instead of an American vehicle. “If you’re an American and you want us to beat the Chinese in the car business, you’re going to want to pay attention, not necessarily to Tesla. Nothing against Tesla, they’re doing well, but they don’t really have an up-to-date vehicle,” he said. And his reference for Ford is not Elon Musk, but BYD: “The best thing in the business for us in cost, supply chain, manufacturing experience and innovation is BYD,” Farley said. in the same podcast. Concerning. BYD was born in 1995 as a battery manufacturer and today is the largest electric car manufacturer in the world by volume. having surpassed Tesla in global sales in 2025. In 2022 it was the first manufacturer to completely abandon pure gasoline cars. For Farley, what is relevant is not the market capitalization of each company, but rather who is defining what the consumer will want to buy in the next decade. TOGod to the expensive electric ones. Ford has learned its lesson through million-dollar losses. The company became the second brand that sold the most electric cars in the US after Tesla, but its models were, according to Farley himself, “designed in the wrong way.” In December 2025, Ford took over a $19.5 billion correction having to reformulate its entire electric strategy. He F-150 Lightningwhich was presented as the flagship of its electrical commitment, is converted into an EREV vehicle (with a small combustion engine that acts as a generator) because, as admitted Farley himself in December, “the $70,000 electric cars were not selling.” The new roadmap involves launching an electric pickup at $30,000 before 2027. The key is in the second-hand market. Farley has an unconventional way of reading the market. And it is that prefer look at the sales of used cars before those of new ones, because “the second-hand market is twice that of new ones, and since they are all sold at lower prices, they are a better predictor of consumer behavior.” And of course, in this market, affordable electric and hybrid vehicles are the ones that move the most compared to those in the premium segment. China is not just price. Farley recognize that each Chinese car incorporates about 4,000 or 5,000 dollars in government subsidies, direct and indirect. He is also aware that these vehicles incorporate up to ten cameras and advanced connectivity systems that, in his opinion, “should be reviewed by the US Department of Defense for reasons of national security.” However, Farley concludes that the correct response is not to ignore them, but to learn from them. “That is the gift that China has given us: that we are respectful enough of its progress not to settle for business as usual,” he said in the interview. Cover image | Hans and Rapid Response In Xataka | The longest straight road in the world is a mental challenge: 240 km without curves, in the middle of the desert and with truck traffic

Tim Cook has been a wonderful CEO for Apple investors. For the United States, not so much

by

Filling the void left by a myth like Steve Jobs seemed like an impossible mission, and although Tim Cook has been a radically different CEO than his predecessor, his career has been equally prodigious. At least in financial terms, because with it Apple has become a four trillion dollar titan. That’s one way to look at it. There is another. Financially impeccable. Over the past fifteen years, this logistics genius has refined operational efficiency and managed to turn every iPhone into a ticket printing machine. An amazing fact: With Tim Cook, Apple’s value has grown by 682 million dollars on average per day for every day of the last three decades. The business runs like clockwork, but behind that economically impeccable facade there is an uncomfortable paradox. The factories do not matter, but the processes. Cook’s management has shown that to achieve maximum profit margins it is not enough to create iconic products: you must master the supply chain. And to achieve this, Apple preferred to own processes rather than factories. She delegated all production risk to external suppliers while she developed new hardware products and especially services that expanded the ecosystem and maximized profit. China as a great ally. The pillar of this entire strategy was unusual. Since arriving at Apple as vice president of operations in 1998, Cook opted for the massive scale and cheap labor of mainland China. This allowed Apple to manufacture in massive volumes and at a very low cost, but in doing so signed a blood pact with Beijing. Educating your rival. By fully focusing the manufacturing process on China, Apple invested billions of dollars in training millions of workers. The transfer and transfer of technical knowledge has been of such magnitude that it has elevated China’s economic and technological status compared to the West. Flexible principles. This relationship with China has also been controversial due to how the company has been folded to the demands of the Chinese government in the geopolitical sphere. The App Store removed thousands of applications following direct orders from Beijing, but even more revealing has been the iCloud data transfer of Chinese users to servers operated by a Chinese state-owned company. There is a moral duality that inevitably raises suspicions. Remembering Jack Welch. In The New York Times they remembered to Jack Welch, a manager who was described as “manager of the century” after his management at the General Electric (GE) company. Like Cook, Welch was a manager with a spectacular financial record. He achieved staggering annual returns, but over time he was shown to have turned GE into an overleveraged company that was about to collapse in the 2008 crisis. Hero or villain. Cook has systematically ignored a great existential risk: if the tension of the trade war between the US and China ends up exploding, the impact could be terrible for the North American economy. The threat that China ends up attacking Taiwan could come true and in that case Cook would be remembered as the CEO who handed over the technological sovereignty of his company to his country’s biggest geopolitical rival. It is true that Cook takes time reducing Chinese dependence in the manufacturing processes at Apple, but it is also true that “the damage has been done” and the transfer of knowledge has been enormous. Ternus and a very heavy legacy. Cook’s successor will be John Ternusbut your room for maneuver will be very limited at the moment. Tim Cook in fact is not retiring completely and will become CEO and supervise the management of his successor. That makes it difficult to chart a new course for Apple if that is what Ternus is proposing, which also seems unlikely. The iPhone has changed all of China. The truth is that every step that Cook took to reinforce his commitment to China It made undeniable financial sense. and generated huge sums of money for all of the company’s investors. That does not reflect the other reality, because the iPhone has contributed definitively for China to become the giant it is today. In Xataka | Apple has been giving in to China for years, but this time the price to pay is much higher. Your AI is at stake

Companies that made “boring” chips are riding the dollar

by

In any sports team there are starters and substitutes. The headlines are usually the big stars, who capture all the attention. The substitutes are the ones who go out to do the job when it’s time, without making so much noise. That same universe of ‘Zidanes and Pavones‘is in the world of computer components and, if the chips of Intel, Nvidia, amd either TSMC They are the Zidanes, the Pavones are, indisputably, the chips of Texas Instruments. And the accounts are coming out. Texas Instruments. It is one of the most evident cases of how profitable it is to live outside the hype. Texas Instruments is the ‘Paco Bearings’ of technology, a company that has been manufacturing chips for decades that we have in a multitude of devices, but that do not make noise with specifications. Are very specific chips to carry out very specific tasks, and if in February we already said that They were dropping their wallets to acquire companies like Silicon Labs (an American company that also makes ‘boring chips’), now we have to echo the accounts. Revenue for the first quarter of the year they reached 4.8 billion dollars, 19% more year-on-year and exceeding expectations. And, precisely, what has increased the most year after year has been the number of chips for data centers. Boring chips in AI. Think about the chips in your washing machine, but also in the refrigerator, in a smart speaker or even in wireless headphones. It also makes other types of chips: those that control power, isolate signals and manage faults. And those are the ones who are making gold in the age of AI. GPUs and CPUs are the star chips of a data center, but others are needed to do the most basic work: power, control, interfaces and protection. Texas Instruments manufactures and sells these chips, and they are what allow a GPU or CPU to run stably in racks. Putting it down, if Nvidia or AMD put the ‘brains’ in the data centers, Texas Instruments provides the nervous system. And this is tremendously profitable since, in the breakdown by segments, although Texas Instruments’ industrial chip segment increased by 30% year-on-year, that of data centers grew 90%, representing approximately 11% of the company’s income. The ARM case. Another interesting case is what processors are experiencing. AI needs are shifting from GPU power for training to CPU efficiency for efficiency. In the era of Agentic AIit is estimated that more CPUs will be needed in data centers in what has already been dubbed the ‘CPU renaissance’. Intel is adapting to it and the market is rewarding a historic processor: Arm Holdings. On March 24, presented AGI CPU, ARM’s first proprietary processor for data centers. It is optimized to precisely run large inference workloads, such as the aforementioned agentic artificial intelligence. Manufactured in a 3-nanometer TSCM process, it has 136 cores per chip and a performance that promises to be double that of conventional x86 processors. AND co-developed with Meta, one of the most interested in stopping depending on Nvidia. Market confidence is at its highest and share prices have shot up to all-time highs. In fact, the graph of ARM and Texas Instruments is extremely similar over the last five years. Those of memory, to their ball. In parallel, there are other companies that do not create the processors to ‘move’ the AI, but rather the memory for the most powerful GPUs on the market. They are invisible chips, but unlike Texas Instruments, their presence in data centers is notable for a very simple reason: they are those same memory companies that have stopped making memory for consumers, focusing almost all of their production on data centers. SK Hynix record a 405% growth in its operating profit in the first quarter of the year, something driven by HBM memories and DRAM for AI. Samsung, more of the same, earning more in three months than during all of last year. The question is the same as in recent months: how long will this growth last and whether investment in data center equipment has a ceiling. And what will happen when that ceiling is reached. Images | Victorgrigas, Raimond Spekking In Xataka | NVIDIA has so much money that it is becoming something different: the largest startup incubator in the world

19.4% rare earth concentrates

by

For the transition, rare earths are needed like breathing: they are simply essential to make electric cars or wind turbines. However, rare earths have a master and mistress: China, the country that holds the bulk of the reserves and production, because almost as important as having a deposit in your domains is having the expensive industry necessary for its processing, a necessary requirement for its use. Europe has been looking for years to break that dependency and with its law Critical Raw Materials Act has put the turbo on: by 2030 it wants at least 10% of critical raw materials to come from the old continent. Then Jaén, an old acquaintance of the mining industry, appears. The Australian Osmond Resources Since 2024, it has been investigating a critical mineral deposit in the surroundings of Sierra Morena under the name of the Orión project and after obtain research permit of the Spanish Government, in just eight months it has gone from being a geological promise to becoming a the strongest candidate in the EU to produce rare earths domestically. Osmond’s discovery. In November 2025, Osmond communicated to the Australian Stock Exchange the results of the first relevant survey carried out in “Menipe”, an area of ​​up to 228 square kilometers between Aldeaquemada, Santisteban del Puerto, Castellar and Montzón: in an interval of just 1.5 meters and at a depth of 108 meters appeared concentrations of 15.92% titanium dioxide, 5.67% zirconium dioxide and 1.15% total rare earth oxides, with especially high values ​​in magnetic oxides, the most industrially valuable. Translated into mineralogy, this means 15.7% rutile, 9.8% zircon and 1.7% monazite. Four months later, collect Hora Jaén that the SGS Lakefield laboratories in Canada have validated that the processing of monazite from the deposit allows obtaining a concentrate with 19.4% of total rare earth oxides, after a process that eliminates worthless materials from the raw rock extracted. The zircon reaches a purity of 50.2% in the concentrate, with plans to exceed 66% in subsequent phases, which means reaching the premium category in the international market. Location of the deposit. Osmond Resources Why is it important. This first test leaves some striking numbers: the concentrations of titanium and zirconium are, according to the company itself, ‘globally competitive’. The processing of monazite reaches 19.4% of Total Rare Earth Oxides, of which a quarter corresponds to neodymium and praseodymium, the essential elements to manufacture the magnets for wind turbines and electric cars. Finding that quality and processing viability on European soil is simply unusual. Furthermore, unlike the majority of European critical minerals projects, which remain in extraction, Orión aims to cover the entire value chain: from the mine to the production of separated oxides ready for industry. This is differential in Europe. In the legal framework sponsored by the Critical Raw Materials Law and a mineral geopolitics dominated by China, Orion is much more than a mining project: it is exactly the type of asset that Europe needs to advance towards its technological sovereignty, of imperative need for the trade and industry of the old continent. Context. As we mentioned in the intro, the land is a historical site of mining in the Spanish state: the Linares-La Carolina region was during the 19th and 20th centuries one of the most important lead extraction areas in Europe and between the 50s and 70s there were already explorations in search of uranium, thorium and heavy minerals that were never exploited, partly due to the technical limitations of the time. This history has been essential in determining the target areas of the current program. At the regional level, Andalusia concentrates close to 90% of the value of Spanish metal mining and has a few research permits underway. That is to say, Orión is not an isolated case, it is the spearhead of a mining ecosystem that is being reactivated with European legislation stepping on the accelerator. Geology works in its favor, but everything else is missing. How have they done it. Osmond entered Spain by establishing Green Mineral Resources SL, its local subsidiary, and obtained the research permit published in the BOE in September 2025. The research plan has a duration of three years divided into progressive phases that start from the collection of historical information or the preparation of geological cartography to technically and economically evaluate the results. When the first surveys showed solid data in November 2025, the company communicated it to the Australian stock exchange and that was the trigger for everything. With the data on the table, agreements came quickly. In February 2026 signed with Técnicas Reunidasone of the largest Spanish engineering companies, to design and build what aspires to be the largest rare earth processing plant in Europe. In addition, they have partnered with other leading companies such as SGS Lakefield in Canada to expedite the project and give it the necessary packaging to attract European investors and organizations. Yes, but. As of today, the Orión project is in its infancy: there is no official resource estimate, no exploitation license, and no approved environmental impact assessment. The current permit only authorizes research and that does not guarantee anything. The case of Matamulas Ciudad Real is the best example: a site with high geological potential that generated great social rejection and that the Junta de Castilla-La Mancha has already blocked on three occasions. Likewise, there is a technical detail absent in the project communications: the monazite contains thorium and this is a radioactive element. While it is true that it is technically manageable, it involves waste with specific environmental and regulatory implications that will make social acceptance difficult when it is made known. He low initial investment model It focuses on concentrates to start, but the jump to separated oxides (where the interesting thing is) requires a complex, expensive and intensive hydrometallurgical plant. The potential is real and the data is solid, but the road to having an operational mine is long and full of mines. In Xataka | A mining company believes … Read more

The house of Open Source is collapsing because of vibecoding

by

When it arrived, GitHub was miraculous for Open Source developers. Not only did it allow you to have a platform on which to host your code and always have it updated thanks to the version control software on which it was based (Git), but it did so with a social network component that definitively boosted its growth. Everything was wonderful, but suddenly it wasn’t. When GitHub didn’t exist. Developer Armin Ronacher I remembered GitHub before GitHub. When your Open Source software was on SourceForge, you had Trac running and that segment was filled with decentralized and anarchic Subversion repositories. It is a good way to remember how important the arrival of GitHub was, which solved almost all the problems that existed for these developers and became the backbone of the Open Source community. The Ghostty Earthquake. Although there had already been criticism and complaints in recent months, there has been a before and after in this situation. It happened this week, when Mitchell Hashimoto, developer of ghosttyannounced that left GitHub. This terminal emulator is a project with notable popularity on GitHub (more than 52,000 stars), but its creator has become fed up with the platform’s unreliability and has declared that “this is no longer a serious place to work.” GitHub acknowledges the problems. Last March, GitHub CTO, Vlad Fedorov, admitted in an article on the company’s official blog that the platform was indeed suffering availability problems. Hashimoto’s post seemed to set off even more alarm bells, because the same engineer published an article shortly after titled “An update on GitHub availability.” In it he apologized again, but also explained that the problems have a culprit. At GitHub they wanted to explain that the availability problems are due to the brutal growth they have had in software creation in recent months. Source: GitHub. Damn AI agents. This engineer indicated how in recent months they have realized that they need a redesign of GitHub that can scale by multiplying its capacity by 30. “The main reason for this rapid change is in how the software is being developed. Since the second half of December 2025, agentic development workflows have accelerated significantly.” The vibecoding phenomenon and the rise of Claude Code and other agentic development tools have caused companies and new users to develop more and more software, and that has caused reliability problems in a platform that was not prepared for this avalanche of code. They promise to fix the problem. At GitHub they know what to do: “Our priorities are clear: first availability, then capacity, then new features.” They are going to focus entirely on that to improve the behavior of critical services and optimize availability that in April has fallen to 85%, something unacceptable for a service on which millions of developers depend. The official history of its availability makes it clear: too many yellow and red updates. GitHub has no CEO. There is one more element that worries in the future of the company. In August 2025 Thomas Dohmke left office CEO and Microsoft did not replace him. Instead of that distributed management functions among several executives and integrated GitHub into the CoreAI division. Meanwhile, Dohmke announced in February the creation of his new startup, called Entire, which is precisely intended as an evolved successor to GitHub that proposes solutions for the new flow of software development that has emerged with AI. The alternatives are fine, but. There are, of course, very valid alternative platforms. Among them is including Plastic SCM, from the Spanish Códice Softwarewhich in turn was purchased by Unity in 2020. There are others like CodeBerg or GitLab even more popular among the community, and even OpenAI seems want to create your own platform. Whether you do it or not, the problem with all of them is the same: GitHub had become a social network for developers, and it showed that in this case centralization provided more advantages than disadvantages. If the community now spreads out, project discovery and contributions will become fragmented. Image | Rubaitul Azad In Xataka | AI came into our lives under a “freemium” model: GitHub and Claude are clear that the future is paying for it

Every year Renfe dedicates millions and millions of euros to something that has little to do with transportation: cleaning graffiti

by

In March 2023 Renfe did something very rare in the world of communication: he sent a press release full of graffiti to newsrooms across the country. Literally. The text was so smudged that you could barely read its content, beyond the headline, in which the operator lamented that “the graffiti vandalism” that occurs on trains generated a cost of 25 million of euros, in addition to affecting the flow of traffic with delays and cancellations of services. That marketing campaign served to arouse curiosity and raise awareness about the issue, but it does not seem to have solved the problem. In fact, the bill for graffiti removal just came a considerable jumpjoining others related to vandalism, such as wiring theft. What has happened? That despite all your attempts to tackle the problem, the campaigns awareness, the control of the authorities and the complaints launched by the workers, Renfe has not managed to free itself from a very special type of vandalism: that which is perpetrated with sprays and that attacks its wagons and locomotives. The operator already had warned in several occasions that graffiti on trains cost him 25 million euros annually, but the bill seems to have increased in recent years. at least like this has advanced it elEconomista.eswhich ensures that in 2025 spending will skyrocket to exceed 32.2 million euros. Has it increased that much? The economic newspaper assures that the railway operator has had to increase the efforts it dedicates to keeping its trains clean, going from around 25 million annually invested in recent years (the sum includes direct and indirect costs) to just over 32 million in 2025. The largest expense would be located in Catalonia, where recently The socialists presented a bill to increase fines for acts of vandalism that affect public transportation. According to The NewspaperIn 2023, cleaning trains in the region cost 11.6 million, about 32,000 euros per day. Is it something new? No. And that is precisely one of the keys to the problem. Three years ago, in his famous statement defaced, Renfe already denounced that “graffiti vandalism” on the trains was generating a cost of more than 25 million euros per year, a bill that, it warned, falls directly on citizens. It may seem like an exorbitant figure, but Renfe recalled that graffiti not only requires cleaning machinery, it also has less visible consequences that are equally (or even more) burdensome. “This figure includes, in addition to the cleaning itself, the indirect expenses derived from this scourge, such as investment in security, both for personnel and other technological systems,” scored Renfe in 2024. Graffiti also affects railway operations, so passengers suffer directly. Click on the image to go to the tweet. Does it affect that much? Yes. In her day the operator already warned that sometimes graffiti directly affects the service they provide, causing delays and leaving trains unusable. The reason? The company spoke of “lack of visibility or graffiti on safety elements that impede circulation”, in addition to “emergency braking to paint in the middle of a journey” or even the smell generated by aerosol paints. “It is very annoying to travelers.” The truth is that Renfe has not been the only one to report the problem. He has also done it by example the Government in Catalonia or the CGT union in Galicia, which in February regretted in X that the graffiti on a train was preventing Renfe from using it to resolve the saturation of the service between Vigo and A Coruña. How much is vandalized? Renfe calculates that if the entire area of ​​vandalized wagons and locomotives is added, in 2023 there will be around 80,000 m2. And not because that was a particularly bad year. It is an estimate very similar to that of 2022 and theEconomist points out that one year the 90,000 m2. To give a clearer idea of ​​what these levels of vandalism mean, in 2023 the operator I remembered that cleaning such a quantity of paint had required 15,000 hours of work and that the railway network had also been affected to the same extent. “The trains were stopped for 15,000 hours unscheduled due to graffiti removal,” insisted the company, which reminds that the damage could be even greater if surveillance were relaxed: in 2023 alone its security personnel thwarted almost 1,200 incursions by vandals to create graffiti. Is there no way to avoid it? If there is, in Spain we have not yet managed to find the key. And not for lack of efforts. In addition to toughen sanctions and carry out controls that not long ago allowed ‘hunting’ in Catalonia about a dozen of those involved in 115 graffiti on FGC, Renfe and Barcelona Metro machinery, Renfe has resorted to new forms of surveillance. Renfe already employs for example, drones to hunt down vandals who paint wagons or break into their facilities, which has led to a notable investment. Images | Renfe 1, 2 and Alvaro Galve (Flickr) Via | elEconomista.es In Xataka | Japan has a secret weapon to end vandalism in its streets that only affects teenagers: “The Mosquito”

15 minutes of work a week and then warm up the chair. Leyla Kazim spent a year without giving a damn and no one noticed

by

Leyla Kazim has taken chair warming very far. Writer and presenter for the BBC, a few weeks ago she told it on her Substack A Day Well Spent his experiment, a sort of ‘The Fiaca‘ by Talesnik applied to the world of work as Marisa executed with mastery in ‘The discontent‘the sharp debut feature of the brilliant Beatriz Serrano, but elevated to maximum power: a year without hitting the water in a London technology company. Nothing happened. Neither conflict nor dismissal nor discovery, unlike the ghost official of Cádiz who spent six years without going to work: it was the worker herself who took her knives things and closed the door from the outside, evidencing in a crude and documented way the structural cracks of large corporations and office positions. A real experiment on bullshit jobs and face-to-face work. Let Rita work. In 2013, Kazim spent an entire year doing absolutely no work for the London-based tech company where she was employed. Nobody noticed. In 2014 he left the office permanently voluntarily: neither reprimands nor dismissals were appropriate. His trick? He spent as little time as possible fulfilling his contractual obligations, doing so at a level competent enough not to raise suspicions. The mechanism was quite simple: he spent 15 minutes a week preparing for meetings where he showed fictitious progress and meanwhile spent the hours with an open Excel sheet. Neither budgets nor calculations for projects: he planned his personal trips. She made her efforts, but in other tasks, the most important: those dedicated to herself. Why is it important. The case of Leyla Kazim is not an isolated anecdote: this YouGov poll put on the table that 37% of British adult workers believe that their work contributes nothing to the world. And this has consequences: there are investigations from the universities of Cambridge and Birmingham who point out a relationship between the sense of purpose in employment and psychological well-being. Come on, if you think that your work is useless, you’ll burn out sooner. On the other hand, it exposes business control systems: if a corporation is unable to detect that one of its employees has not worked for twelve months, something is wrong: the performance metrics it uses, whatever they may be, do not work. Context. Kazim’s experiment is a practical application of bullshit jobs, or shit jobsa concept coined by anthropologist David Graeber. His thesis is as simple as it is uncomfortable: between 37% and 40% of workers in rich countries feel that their work is worthless. In this sense, automation has been part of the problem: according to Graeber, instead of freeing us from repetitive tasks, it has led to the creation of empty jobs. The consequences are twofold. For the person who works, psychological deterioration: it is difficult to get up every morning knowing that what you are going to do does not matter. For the company and the economy it represents a waste of talent and money. But the most revealing thing about Graeber’s theory is precisely what the writer has done: those who occupy these positions know it perfectly well and yet they pretend that they don’t. They keep up appearances because the system demands it. Added to this phenomenon is the in-personismthat cultural mechanism that allows shitty jobs to go unnoticed: it doesn’t matter about productivity, the important thing is to be in your chair all the hours that your workday marks. Since 1998, it has been studied and defined as “the tendency to remain at work beyond the time necessary for effective performance.” When a company measures visibility instead of results, in-person attendance becomes the norm: just what protected and masked Leyla Kazim for a year. In detail. Kazim masterfully exploited both phenomena: on the one hand, a job with functions so diffuse that reducing it to the minimum essential did not generate any imbalance (what Graeber calls box ticker tasks) and on the other, he took advantage of the company’s face-to-face culture. It is worth remembering that there are work environments that consciously or unconsciously perceive better and reward those who arrive earlier and leave later. In fact, has been proven that there are managers who show a predilection for in-person workers compared to remote ones due to proximity bias. As long as she had Excel open, kept her schedule, and attended meetings, the lack of effort went unnoticed. What he learned. The now BBC presenter’s conclusion is that modern office work is something of a play. Once you accept that your work has no real purpose and understand the rules of the game, you have a better chance of winning, which in this context means spending as little time as possible on contractual obligations. Of course, he issues a warning: his experiment is neither universal nor does he recommend it. Having a shitty job with diffuse tasks and wrong performance metrics is not the same as having someone whose job, even if it is shit, consumes their health or their room for maneuver is tight. On the other hand, let’s remember that even this perception of having a shitty job ends up taking its toll on psychological well-being. In Xataka | We believed that AI was going to take our jobs. At the moment he has started whispering to your boss who he should fire In Xataka | Spain has become accustomed to something abnormal in the rest of Europe: working with unsustainable stress levels Cover | Vitaly Gariev

May begins loaded with offers on the MacBook Neo, the perfect eReader for traveling, sales on TVs and much more. Hunting Bargains

by

We welcome the month of May that has begun with several very attractive campaigns and loose offers. Do you need a new television to watch the Soccer World Cup? Do you want to read more and are you looking for your first eReader? Well pay attention because today We’re back with a new Bargain Hunting. MacBook Neo by 749.95 eurosa perfect laptop to make the leap into the Apple ecosystem. nintendo switch 2 by 449 eurosone of the best prices MediaMarkt has had to date (there is also a pack available). Woxter Scriba 195 by 59.90 eurosan e-book reader that is ideal for casual readers. Xiaomi Buds 5 by 44.99 eurosthe brand’s headphones at half the official price. Samsung TQ65Q7F5AUXXC by 494 eurosa good QLED TV with a 65-inch screen. The price could vary. We earn commission from these links MacBook Neo He MacBook Neo It is one of Apple’s most popular laptops, and it has been one of the last to arrive. The version of 512GB It is the best seller in the “Traditional Laptops” section of Amazon and it is the one that is on sale, for 749.95 euros (previously 799 euros) in this case. It is a light computer of 1.23 kg, its chip is the A18 Pro of the iPhone 16 Pro and it is, in short, perfect for everyday tasks of writing text, web browsing, playing multimedia content and even image editing. The price could vary. We earn commission from these links nintendo switch 2 MediaMarkt and other stores have lowered the price of the nintendo switch 2. You can now buy it again for 449 euros (before 469 euros). However, if you do not have the first Nintendo Switch and want to receive the current generation with a video game, MediaMarkt also has a pack available for 479 euros from the console along with ‘Super Mario Bros. Wonder‘ and a keychain. To buy the pack you must select it with the “buy pack” button in the store. The price could vary. We earn commission from these links Woxter Scriba 195 If you want to read a little more and are looking to make the jump to digital format because it is more comfortable for you, the Woxter Scriba 195 It is the perfect model for two reasons: it is economical because right now in El Corte Inglés it costs 59.90 euros (before 79.90 euros) and because it is small as it has a six-inch screen. In addition, it includes buttons to turn the pages and not dirty the screen so much and includes a microSD card slot in case you want to store many digital books. The price could vary. We earn commission from these links Xiaomi Buds 5 On the other hand, if you are looking for good headphones to enjoy your favorite music anywhere, be careful because the Xiaomi Buds 5 They are on MediaMarkt for 44.99 euros (before 59.99 euros, although its official price is 99.99 euros). They are headphones with audio adjustments signed by Harman, they are resistant to water and dust (IP54) and offer a good theoretical autonomy of up to 39 hours of use according to Xiaomi. The price could vary. We earn commission from these links Samsung TQ65Q7F5AUXXC There is little left until the Soccer World Cup, so if you have decided to take the opportunity to change TV, the Samsung TQ65Q7F5AUXXC has dropped to 494 euros at MediaMarkt (previously 689 euros). It is a QLED smart TV with a 65-inch screen that supports the HDR10+ to have a good image experience on compatible content. It also includes Filmmaker mode for cinema and comes with both voice assistants Alexa and Google Assistant. Samsung TQ65Q7F5AUXXC (65 inches) 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. Image | Apple, Nintendo, Woxter, Xiaomi, Samsung In Xataka | Best televisions in quality price. Which one to buy and seven recommended 4K smart TVs In Xataka | Best wireless headphones. Which one to buy and 21 models from 15 euros to 470 euros

This is how your AI camera system works

by

The new DéporTienda, the same as Deportivo de la Coruña, is not a simple store merchandising with a facelift. It is a case study of how spatial analytics, computer vision and predictive models can impact the retail sports. And a club from, for now, the Second Division has done it. RC Deportivo celebrates its 120th anniversary immersed in a modernization operation that goes beyond what happens on the pitch: museum, hospitalitysports city… But there is a project that says more about the direction the club wants to take than any signing or renovation of the stands. It’s your store. La DéporTienda has just reopened in its historic location next to the Abanca-Riazor stadium after two months of works. And more than just the furniture or decoration has changed. The nervous system of space has changed: it is now monitored, analyzed and, according to those responsible, it is capable of anticipating decisions before they are made. The cameras watch The project started with an observation phase of at least four months in the old store. The company responsible for the technological layer is Noumena Group, a Barcelona company founded in 2011 and specialized in spatial analytics with computer vision and Machine Learning. Its CEO, Aldo Sollazzoexplains that the system they have implemented in Riazor has the same DNA as the one they developed for Barcelona City Council in the analysis of Superapples and the green axles: cameras that process images to understand how people move through a space. Material for sale, and in the background, the wave made of PETG. Image provided. “It works through cameras connected to a brain based on edge computing“explains Sollazzo. “Each camera converts the input visual in a string text that guarantees anonymity and complies with the GDPR and the European AI law. We do not store images: we store spatial data,” he explains to Xataka by phone call. The system maps movement flows within the store, segments visitors by estimated age ranges and gender, generates heat maps and cross-references all this with product distribution and sales data. So far, descriptive analytics. What Noumena proposes as differential is the predictive layer. Predict before moving a shelf “The difference with other systems is that our data are not numbers disconnected from space,” says Sollazzo. “They are linked to the built environment. And that allows us to train models to predict what would happen if we redistribute the product, move the furniture or relocate the payment points.” In practice, this translates into decisions such as estimating whether an alternative display arrangement maximizes product exposure. Or whether relocating cash registers based on traffic reduces queues on busy days. Or calculate how many staff the store will need for a specific event. All this without the need for trial and error in the field. Heat maps on the store floor (top-down view). They represent the distribution of visitor flows in three different scenarios or moments, probably different furniture configurations or different temporal moments (normal day, match day, special event…). The most intense areas indicate a greater concentration of people, the dark areas are cold areas where few people pass through. It is clearly seen how the traffic distribution changes depending on the scenario: in some configurations there are obvious bottlenecks at the entrance and next to certain exhibitors, while in others the flow is distributed more homogeneously. The numbered white elements are the furniture and display modules. Image provided. Three-dimensional visualization of the same flow data as in the previous image. Instead of a flat heat map, occupancy data is represented as volumetric columns that “grow” from the floor: the higher the column height, the higher the traffic density at that point. The isometric perspective allows you to see the store as a built space (you can sense the walls, the modules) with superimposed spatial data. It is the representation that connects analytics with architecture, which is the point that Sollazzo emphasizes as differential: the data is not abstract, it is anchored to the physical environment. Image provided. Panel with a comparison of key indicators: net sales, visitors, items sold, conversion rate, average ticket… All within the framework of an event day, with a specific anniversary that drives attendance and purchase. Image provided. This tab crosses spatial data with sales data by product. The graphs show the ranking of suppliers, where Kappa logically dominates as it is the technical brand of the club; the interactions by exhibitor or the comparison of interest versus sales by supplier, where it is seen that Kappa generates a lot of interest and many sales, while Soricastel and Texprint (merchandising, not technical clothing) generate interest but convert less. This type of data is what allows us to decide if a supplier needs a better location, better price or less space. Image provided. Thanks to this research, the club has increased its working square meters by 10% and enhanced product exposure by 15%. For a football club store next to a stadium, where on match days the footfall can multiply by twenty (a figure declared by the club), those margins matter a lot. The system, furthermore, cross internal data with external variables: weather forecast, events in the city or at the stadium, mobility data in the surrounding area… “In celebration of the 25th anniversary of the League We had 250% more occupancy compared to a normal day,” recalls Sollazzo. “Without this technology it would be impossible to anticipate how much stocks “Do you need, how much workforce, how to redistribute the points of sale so that the queue does not block the flow of the store.” What is measured and what must be demonstrated The KPIs that the club will monitor are those expected in any serious operation of retail: average ticket, conversion rate, average stay time, number of visits, distribution of flows by module and visitor profile. The return on investment, according to Sollazzo, is expected in one year. The idea, in theory, is to sell more, of course, but also to make better, … Read more

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.