Month: July 2026

The Vivo V70 Lite 5G arrives in Spain, a mobile phone that promises up to three days of autonomy for less than 360 euros

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The year 2026 is passing and we have more and more interesting options if we want a new mobile and we don’t want to spend more than 400 euros. The latest proposal comes to us from Vivo and it is now available in Spain: This is the Vivo V70 Lite 5G, which can now be purchased for 359 euros on MediaMarkt (also on the live store). Mobile – vivo V70 LITE, Titanium Blue, 256 GB, 6 GB RAM, 6.77″ AMOLED, Dimensity 7400-Turbo, 6500 mAh The price could vary. We earn commission from these links Lots of autonomy and fast charging for less than 360 euros The RRP of this new Vivo device is 399 euros, but it has arrived with a launch discount of 50 euros. It is an ideal device for those people looking for a mobile phone with good quality-price ratio, especially if the priority is to have a lot of autonomy. We have the same battery as the Vivo V60 Lite: about 6,500 mAh with 90 W fast wired charging that they promise up to almost three days of autonomy. Furthermore, the mobile comes with a 6.77-inch AMOLED screen with Full HD+ resolution120 Hz refresh rate and compatibility with HDR10+ (which makes it ideal for watching movies). The device comes with a Dimensity 7400 Turbo chip under the hood, a processor that offers adequate performance for day-to-day use (social networks, browsing the Internet, etc.). For gaming or heavy use, it may suffer in the long run. It has a dual rear camera system where there is a 50-megapixel 1/1.95-inch Sony IMX882 sensor and an 8-megapixel ultra-wide-angle sensor. The mobile arrives only with a memory configuration of 6+256 GBa reduction compared to the previous Vivo V60 Lite, which came with two memory configurations with 8 and 12 GB of RAM, respectively. ⚡ IN SUMMARY: vivo v70 lite 5g ✅ THE BEST Very good autonomy: Its 6,500 mAh battery promises to offer several days of autonomy and 90 W fast charging. Light and handy: Despite having a battery with very good capacity, it does not weigh 200 grams. ❌ THE WORST Less RAM than its predecessor: The RAM memory crisis cuts the configurations of this Vivo V70 Lite, which now only comes with 6 GB. Fair performance in the long run: Its processor, manufactured in 4 nm, has correct performance for most users. For demanding or long-term people, it may suffer a little more. 💡 BUY IT IF… You are looking for a new mobile phone and your priority is to have a lot of autonomy without spending more than 400 euros. ⛔ DON’T BUY IT IF… You prefer a more powerful option or one with greater software support, even if that means not having as much autonomy. You may also be interested XIAOMI POCO X8 Pro 12+512GB Smartphone White 6500mAh Battery The price could vary. We earn commission from these links Samsung Galaxy A26 5G 256GB Mobile Phone, Amazing Intelligence, 6GB RAM, 50MP Camera, Black, 3 Year Manufacturer Warranty + 1 Extra Year 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 | Alive In Xataka | Best mobile phones in quality price. Which one to buy based on use and ten recommended models In Xataka | Best mobile phones 2026. Which one to buy based on use and six recommended models

This is how Google’s AI is absorbing the rest of the internet

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ChatGPT had been up and running for less than a month and Google was already talking about a “code red”. The technology that many assumed would end Google’s core business—replacing the search engine with any chatbot—is doing just the opposite. Since Google introduced Gemini into its search engine with AI Mode, it has replaced link lists with conversational responses. AND it’s working for thembecause people spend more time than ever within Google itself. The problem is for everyone else. We love AI Mode. According to three studies compiled by The New York Timesusers spend between one and nine minutes more in AI Mode than in a traditional search. They also write queries up to three times longer than the questions in which we used usual keywords, according to data that Google itself presented at its May event. From snippets to this. A Growth Memo October Studya company specialized in search and marketing, detected that in 75% of sessions users do not even leave AI Mode: they are very comfortable there and forget about the rest of the website. It’s something the company has been doing for years.and they certainly tried before AI arrived to conquer almost everything: snippets and other elements designed by Google they have always had the goal to be sufficient for we wouldn’t have to click in any link. Google Zero. Nilay Patel, director of The Verge, has long been warning of a phenomenon he calls “Google Zero”, when traffic from Google would fall to practically zero for the media. According to him “for publishers, Google Zero has already arrived.” With AI Mode people could see that that initial slow trickle became a real turning point. On Google they say it’s not that big a deal. Google Vice President Liz Reid assured on an official Google blog last year that the company continues to send a “relatively stable” number of clicks to the media, and that reports of traffic drops used “flawed methodologies.” The clear example: Wikipedia. The Wikimedia Foundation has registered an 8% decrease in human visitors in the last year. What has grown, of course, are bots that crawl your content to train AI models. Its director of product and technology, Selena Deckelmann, highlighted that “my job is to make sure that people don’t forget about us because the Google interface has changed.” Human trafficking plummets in media. According to Cloudflaremore than half of all current web traffic is no longer human, and between June 2025 and April 2026, human traffic to websites in sectors such as finance, media or retail e-commerce sites has fallen by 40%. Before, if we wanted to know the performance of a footballer in the World Cup, we would ask on Google and look through links. Today it is enough to ask the AI ​​mode to obtain that information and then continue talking with the Google chatbot in that mode if we need it. background voltage. Tim Berners-Lee, the creator of the World Wide Webalready warned in 2024 that AI had accelerated a trend that had been underway for years: that of locking users in closed ecosystems designed to maximize profit, instead of directing us to an open and borderless web like the one he imagined in 1989. Bad future for media companies. In May Vox Media, owner of media outlets such as The Verge, began selling some of its websites. Jim Bankoff, its CEO, explained that “decimating search traffic” as Google was doing had influenced his decision to look for other ways to reach audiences. From there went on to sell him half of Vox Media to James Murdoch. In Xataka | I asked the AI ​​any nonsense and now I’m writing a news story about it

“Any planet that has developed intelligence should have noosignatures, a physical history of cognitive activity”

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¿We are looking for evil extraterrestrial life Or are we alone in the Universe? Some experts opt for the former. They believe that it would be quite egocentric to think that we are the only ones who inhabit the immensity of the cosmos. The problem is that we are busy searching for alien intelligence, but perhaps we are not smart enough to find it. Or, toning things down a bit, we haven’t found the best strategies. Normally we look for biosignatures or technosignatures. That is, biological traces or radio signals from some extraterrestrial technology. Now, astrobiologist Julia De Marines, from the University of California, Berkeley, has devised a new term that focuses right in the middle: noosignatures. Smart, but not that advanced. If an extraterrestrial had landed its radio telescopes on Earth during the stone age I wouldn’t have found anything. I would have concluded that, in that direction, there are no planets with intelligent extraterrestrial life. The failure would have been in thinking that any planet with intelligent life must be at the same point of technological development. Seen this way, it is a pretty big mistake. But the reality is that we are doing just that. For this reason, De Marines believes that technofirms are not the best options. As to biosignaturesdo not always point to biological processes. The history of space exploration is full of examples in which it cannot be ruled out that the biosignature has a geological origin. In fact, it is most likely. For this reason, this astrobiologist proposes that intermediate point in which life is not sought, but rather intelligent activity at an intermediate point before developing advanced technologies. Because it may not have been sought at the right time or, simply, that civilization may not have advanced that much. To be able to detect it correctly, the key is in Assembly Theory. Too many pieces to put together alone. Assembly Theory is based on the assembly index of an object. That is, the number of pieces that had to be joined to form it. Sometimes pieces can be assembled by natural processes. However, above a certain threshold, a complexity is denoted that can only have certain intelligent activity behind it. Stone age tools are a good example. No need to look for stone axes. Although we take prehistoric tools as an example, this cannot be sought by launching telescopes and sensors into space. However, there are activities that can be measured from the outside. For example, agriculture left a measurable trace of nitrogen in our atmosphere. Even food manufacturing, such as fermented products, can be detected in waste chemistry thousands of years later. It is not necessary to understand it. Something important about this method of searching for extraterrestrial life is that it is not necessary to understand noosignatures. Returning to examples from our own history, in Phys point out the case of the Indus Valley writing. At the moment, no one has been able to decipher it, but we know that it was not written alone. There was an intelligent mind behind it. In this case the same thing happens. We must look for traces that do not fit with the natural behavior of the planet, even if it is not understood how they could have arisen. The limitations. This method of searching for extraterrestrial life has a major limitation. And noosignatures are ephemeral. If they are not measured at the right time, they can disappear. Additionally, they can be quite complex to decipher. To all this we must add that the study published by De Marines is a preprint. This means that it has not yet undergone review by an independent research team. Therefore, we must take their approaches with a grain of salt. Anyway, the reality is that, since the beginnings of SETIthe search for intelligent extraterrestrial life is not bearing good fruit. Not even the search for life, in general. The twists in methodology can be interesting, so this one deserves, at the very least, the attention of other astrobiologists. Image | Brooke Denevan (Unsplash) In Xataka | What is the Fermi paradox and why the architect of the atomic bomb gave a twist to the search for extraterrestrial life

The differences between Qualcomm and MediaTek in 2026 are getting smaller. This is very good news for Android phones.

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A while ago, buying a mobile phone with a MediaTek processor was synonymous with settling. If you wanted raw power, fast updates and good efficiencyyou had to look for the Qualcomm Snapdragon seal on the mobile box. But it is true that this is something that has completely changed in 2026. Today, the gap between the two processor firms is narrower. And, although purists continue to debate figures in the benchmarksthe reality is that the great similarity (today) between these chips is the best news that could have happened to the Android ecosystem in the last decade. Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra 5g 6.9″ 256gb Black The price could vary. We earn commission from these links Mediocre low-end mobile phones are dead The main victory in 2026 is not only in mobile phones of 1,200 euros, but in those of 300 euros or less. MediaTekwith its series Dimensionshas achieved something that seemed impossible: offering good power, 5G connectivity ultra-low latency and 3-nanometer manufacturing processes in devices that do not require a large investment or financing of the purchase. Qualcomm, for its part, has had to react. It is no longer enough to master the high range; Pressure from MediaTek has forced those from San Diego to vitaminize your series 6 and 7making a current mid-range mobile perform like a flagship from just two years ago. Of course, it is true that both brands of processors have been putting in the work. pressure from China with Xiaomi or Huawei pushing their own processors. So, despite being competition between them, they are not two firms oblivious to everything that is happening in the sector at the moment. The new battlefield is Artificial Intelligence If there is one thing that defines the processors of 2026, it is their ability to process generative AI locally. Both brands have NPUs dedicated for several generations. MediaTek integrates its own APU (AI Processing Unit) with capabilities comparable to Qualcomm’s Hexagon. On a day-to-day basis, the difference for the user is practically negligible. Whether it’s editing in 8K video or asking your assistant to summarize a document, both manufacturers offer a fluidity that has eliminated the famous Android jerks of yesteryear. How does this rapprochement between MediaTek and Qualcomm benefit us as consumers? When there is no clear dominator, the winner is the consumer. This technical parity (due to the clear technical rapprochement between MediaTek and Qualcomm) has caused three immediate effects on the market: Price war: To compete with Qualcomm’s raw performance, MediaTek offers its chips at more aggressive prices, allowing manufacturers like Xiaomi, Realme or Samsung itself to adjust their margins. Best updates: MediaTek driver support has improved dramatically, forcing Qualcomm to not sleep and promise increasingly longer Android update periods. Accelerated innovation: Today, competition for energy efficiency is fierce. In 2026, we have more powerful mobile phones than ever; However, they will stretch the battery beyond the intensive day thanks to this rivalry. The end of prejudices In 2026, choosing a smartphone based solely on the brand of the processor is a mistake. We have reached a technological maturity point where MediaTek is no longer the cheap alternative, but a first-class option and Qualcomm has had to get off the pedestal to fight in the field of quality-price. This is an ideal scenario. It no longer matters what engine (that is, processor) your Android has under the hood; What matters is that, for the first time, both types of chips they run at the same speed. Some mobile phones with these processors that may interest you High range Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra (Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 5): is a benchmark in raw power and image processing. Qualcomm maintains a slight advantage here in professional video processing and advanced 5G connectivity. Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra 5g 6.9″ 256gb Black The price could vary. We earn commission from these links Oppo Find X9 Pro (MediaTek Dimensity 9500): a great rival for the Samsung model that has a MediaTek chip is Oppo. On a day-to-day basis, the difference is almost non-existent between both models, although Oppo is achieving higher thermal efficiency rates. OPPO Find X9 Pro 5G 16+512GB The price could vary. We earn commission from these links Mid range Nothing Phone (3) (Snapdragon 8s Gen 4): Qualcomm has had to lower the power of its high ranges to this chip so as not to lose the throne of the premium mid-range, offering an electric and fluid experience in this Nothing Phone (3). Nothing Phone (3) – 12GB + 256GB The price could vary. We earn commission from these links Poco X8 Pro (MediaTek Dimensity 8500 Ultra): It is one of the kings in value for money. MediaTek allows this Xiaomi Poco X8 Pro perform like a top-of-the-range phone from just a year ago, but maintaining a moderate price. XIAOMI POCO X8 Pro – 8+256GB Smartphone 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 | Javier Lacort (Xataka), Iván Linares (Xataka), Álex Alcolea (Xataka) and Xataka Móvil In Xataka | The best mobile phones, we have tested them and here are their analyzes In Xataka | Best wireless headphones. Which one to buy and 21 models from 15 euros to 470 euros

An entire factory will close after 57 years of activity

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After thousands of complaints, Stellantis assumed in January 2025 that something had gone wrong with its PureTech motors. Seeking maximum cost savings, the company had fallen into faulty production that could cause premature engine failure. Although the monetary cost has been high, the worst thing for the company has been the reputational cost. So much so that the company has stopped marketing this engine and the replacement forgets the word PureTech. With the productive tap closed and without a new award, the controversial engine has also taken another step forward. A factory that was part of the French automotive industry. The PureTech. For months, Stellantis customers have been demanding that the company take care of the breakdowns of their PureTech engines in 2024. The company had no choice but to accept the mistake and in January 2025 it confirmed that the warranty on these engines was extended and they would pay for the repairs of all engines that had failed between 2022 and 2024. The problem is that in the search for extreme cost savingsthe engine design could cause the oil-soaked belt to become contaminated with fuel residue to the point of premature wear that would cause it to break unexpectedly. If the timing belt breaks, engine damage can be fatal. A problem. The problem for Stellantis is that the damage caused by PureTech motors goes far beyond economic damage. The company has been setting aside tens of millions of euros to face compensation for customer breakages but the worst has been the reputational impact. To put up a dam, Stellantis has presented the Turbo 100the replacement for the failed propellants. It has done so after the revised versions of the previous engine were also called to go through the workshop for new problems last year. The solution has finally been to nip the issue in the bud. And goodbye to your factory. With the end of the production of these engines, other news has also come: Stellantis will close the Douvrin plant in France, explain our French colleagues from L’Automobile. The decision is a direct consequence of the poor results of the engines and the change in the company’s strategy. And the 1.2 Puretech engines were not being sold in Europe but they were being sold in other markets. The company, however, will completely cease production before the end of the year. Once they also stopped manufacturing the 1.5 BlueHDI diesel last year, the plant was already mortally wounded. Goodbye to decades of history. The closure of the Douvrin plant is sensitive because it is a factory with 57 years behind it. It had been in operation since 1969 and its construction was born from investments by Peugeot and Renault. However, in 2013 it was acquired in its entirety by PSA (of which Peugeot was a part) and from there it passed into the hands of Stellantis after the merger of FCA and PSA. The company, according to the French media, has relocated 340 employees to another plant to produce batteries and another very similar figure has joined different positions. The fate of 100 workers (half of them temporary) who have not been formally relocated remains to be known. Another European plant that closes. The closure of said French plant is just another example of how the European motor industry is suffering with the conversion to electric cars. Stellantis has stressed on different occasions that production costs in France are too high (and along the way we have benefited in Spain). Volkswagen assures that will have to lay off 100,000 employees of its German plants for the same reason. But it is also the certification that Europe continues to move towards the electric car. Although the French plant produced engines for countries outside our borders, we are not competitive against regions such as Morocco, Türkiye or South America…or Poland (where the PureTech that France abandons is still produced). In these countries, producing combustion engines is still the order of the day and at a more affordable price. Photo | Stellantis In Xataka | Italian workers have been angered by Stellantis’ investments. Those that Morocco has taken from them, specifically

44º C in some parts of Spain

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This summer has many options to be one of the warmest since we have recordsif not the worst. The experts from the State Meteorological Agency (AEMET) have been warning about this for some time, while the mercury in the thermometers gave the first warnings. But the worst was and is yet to come, as we can see with the heat this week, in which the highest temperatures so far in 2026 are expected to be reached. The third heat wave of the summer. This week the third is expected summer heat wave. As explained by the AEMET spokesperson, Rubén del Campo, throughout the first days of this week high temperatures will occur in areas of the east, center and south of the peninsula, with especially sultry early mornings. The minimum temperatures in the center, the peninsular Mediterranean area, the Balearic Islands and Guadalquivir will not drop below 23ºC-25ºC. It is even likely that cities like Barcelona will not drop below 26 or 27 ºC. During the day temperatures will rise in the west of Andalusia and in the northern third and the heat will be very intense, almost universally exceeding 36ºC in the north of the peninsula and 38ºC in the south. In addition, 38 to 40ºC will be reached or exceeded in the eastern, central and southern areas and 40 to 42ºC occasionally in the southeast of Andalusia. Starting Thursday. The latest predictions from the AEMETpublished this Monday, July 20, pointed out that the predictions as of Thursday still have some uncertainty. However, the intense heat will most likely continue this day in most of Spain, perhaps with some drops, but with an important exception in the Mediterranean area. There, especially in the interior of the regions bathed by the Mediterranean42-44ºC will be reached. In Murcia capital it could even exceed 45ºC. It would be the highest temperature so far this year. Starting this weekend, temperatures may drop somewhat, although they will rise again next week. In the Canary Islands. In the Canary Islands there will be cloudy intervals in the north, with clearer skies in the south. Temperatures may exceed 30-32ºC in the south of the mountainous islands and in the eastern islands, especially in the south of Gran Canaria, Lanzarote and Fuerteventura. Lightning, haze and hail. These extreme temperatures can be accompanied by episodes of thunderstorms and hail. In addition, it is expected that there will be a lot of haze, which will make the air quality much worse. Beware of fires. In his statements to the media, del Campo warns that this heat wave will place our country at extreme risk of fires, which is why take extreme precautions. It doesn’t look good. 2025 was the third warmest year on record. However, we are talking about the entire year. If we focus only on the summer months, they were the hottest ever measured. A precedent was set that, according to AEMET predictions, will likely continue to increase. In fact, everything points because this year it will be within the warm tertile. This is a measure that is used to order the temperatures in a specific place and time. All values ​​are sorted and divided into three equal groups, with 33% of data in each. Those are the tertiles. The first is the cold tertile, the second is normal, and the third is warm. 2026 has entered the warm season and may not come out of it. The 45ºC in Murcia this week and more than 40 in much of the Spanish map are just the beginning. Images | AEMET In Xataka | Sea temperature continues to rise and experts are clear: “It is partly favored by the start of a new El Niño phenomenon”

Living for free in your parents’ house does not imply a housing donation

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He house price It is one of the main obstacles to the emancipation of young people in Spain. According to data According to the Spanish Youth Council, only 15.2% of young people can afford to live outside the family home. Of them, 57.9% do so in rented apartments and a third of these young people share a flat with other young people to be able to bear the expenses. In this context, it is not strange to find people over 30 years old living with their parents. However, according to have confirmed the Ministry of Finance to VerifyRTVEit is false that living for free in your parents’ home, or in “any property of your parents”, can be considered “as a donation”. The Treasury makes it clear: there is no donation. Both from the Ministry of Finance like from the union of Technicians of the Ministry of Finance (GESTHA) point out that there is no tax or legal change that penalizes children for residing in the family home. Sources from the Ministry of Finance confirmed to damn.es that “there have been no legal changes or changes in the orientation of administrative actions since the IRPF existed, nor has it ever been considered a fiscal risk.” Carlos Cruzado, president of the GESTHA union, explained to RTVE that no taxes or duties apply additional taxes for the simple fact that an adult shares a home with his or her parents. Donation is a change of ownership, not use. The reason why no charge is made is because, simply, when a child lives with his or her parents, no transfer of assets occurs. The consensual use that is made of it changes, not the ownership. This change of use between family members without financial compensation does not fit into any of the assumptions of the Inheritance and Donation Taxso neither parents nor children they must pay that tax. The professor of Financial Law Rosa María Galán pointed to damn.es that, in the case of children without economic resources to survive on their own, the article 142 of the Civil Code obliges parents to cover the support, housing, clothing and medical care of their children. There is no need to argue for free coexistence since providing it is a legal obligation. It even applies to second homes. This same logic applies even when parents and children do not live in the same property, but, for example, the parents live in the primary home, and the children in a second residence owned by the parents. According to Cruzado, the Treasury “understands that there may be a free transfer and does not allocate a return at market value.” In this case, the parents pay taxes the same as if the home were empty due to the imputation of real estate income in personal income tax, the same obligations that already exist. for having a second residence without regular use. In this case, the owner of the home must pay a tax of 2% of the cadastral value of the property, and in some cases is reduced to 1.1%. That is, what is taxed is the condition of second home ownership, not the fact that children live in the home or not. The transfer of use is not a donation: the distinction that changes everything. As and as explained José María Salcedo, managing partner of the tax firm Salcedo Tax Litigation to Idealistiche article 6.5 of the Personal Income Tax Law establishes a presumption of onerousness. This means that the Treasury tends to assume that any transfer has a price. However, this presumption admits evidence to the contrary, and the most common instrument to prove it is the bailment contracta document that formalizes the loan of the property without financial consideration and that, according to Cruzado, the Treasury “does not usually carry out these checks”, although it serves as a guarantee to justify “free of charge the right to use someone else’s property for a certain period of time.” A version of this article was published in February 2026 In Xataka | If the question is how much money can be donated to a child without declaring it to the Treasury, the law makes it clear: none Image | Pexels (Jakub Zerdzicki) In Trends | Confirmed: the Government determines that those who live in their parents’ home must pay taxes under certain conditions

ASML sells the most important machines in the chip industry. Now everything indicates that they will be more expensive

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ASML, the only company in the world capable of manufacturing lithography equipment extreme ultraviolet (EUV) needed to produce the most advanced chips, is preparing for a rise in costs in its machinery. And the first to stand up has been, precisely, its most important client: TSMC. And according to has revealed The Information, the Taiwanese manufacturer is beginning to resist negotiations. Why is it important. ASML is the bottleneck of the entire semiconductor industry. Without their machines, neither Nvidia, nor Apple, nor TSMC, nor Samsung would be able to manufacture the chips that fuel the artificial intelligence boom. That it decides to raise prices, something The Information says it has rarely done in its history, is a sign of the extent to which demand for AI has given the company bargaining power it didn’t have before. In detail. ASML’s plans affect its two large families of machines. On the one hand, according to has confirmed The company’s own financial director, Roger Dassen, during the presentation of second quarter results, there is a way to increase the price of low numerical aperture (Low-NA) EUV systems, its most in-demand technology. On the other hand, ASML has already told several customers, including Chinese manufacturers, that their DUV (deep ultraviolet, somewhat less advanced but still essential) equipment will cost 10% more, according to share the middle. Some Chinese clients have already agreed to pay that extra cost; TSMC, on the other hand, has not wanted to jump through hoops for the moment. Each new generation of ASML machines processes more wafers per hour and improves etching precision, which means more and higher quality chips for its customers. It is what the company itself calls “value-based pricing”, since the logic that follows is that if its equipment generates more economic benefit for the factories that use it, ASML wants to keep a part of that additional benefit, as Dassen explained in the conference with analysts. Between the lines. TSMC’s anger has its explanation. And the Taiwanese manufacturer has been defending for years that You do not need to jump to the very expensive High-NA equipment (which exceed 350 million euros per unit) and that can continue to squeeze out its cheaper Low-NA machines through design improvements and computational photolithography techniques. In fact, according to they count From Tom’s Hardware, its entire manufacturing roadmap until 2030 is based on that premise. If ASML makes precisely those Low-NA machines more expensive as their performance improves, the cost advantage that TSMC had built with that strategy is reduced. Additionally, TSMC needs to buy dozens of these machines for its new plants in Taiwan, the United States and Japan, so even a moderate increase can add billions of dollars to its investment. It is also worth noting that ASML has practically sold its production capacity until 2027 and a good part of 2028, with prices already agreed in those contracts. That means that, in practice, the company could only apply the new rates to orders delivered from the second half of 2028. TSMC will not notice the blow immediately, but it knows that what is negotiated now will mark the price of hundreds of machines in the coming years. And now what. The pulse comes at a time of historic results for ASML. And on Wednesday the company raised its sales forecast for 2026 to a range of between 43,000 and 45,000 million euros, well above what the market expected, according to collect Bloomberg. Gross margin will also improve to 56%, up from 53% previously forecast. To meet demand, ASML plans to increase its manufacturing capacity of its most important EUV machines by 30% this year, and is studying another similar increase for 2028. Cover image | ASML In Xataka | The war in Iran and the Chinese veto redraw the world map of helium for semiconductors

Anthropic was accused of stealing books to train its AI models. Their solution has been simple: pay

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A federal judge in San Francisco has given the final green light to the $1.5 billion agreement between Anthropic and a group of authors and publishers that They reported her for using her books without permission to train Claude. And after extracting millions of books from digital libraries without authorization, and from physical bookstores to scan and destroy en masse, everything has ended up being settled with money. What has happened? Judge Araceli Martinez-Olguin definitively approved this Monday the agreement that Anthropic reached with the plaintiffs, as collect Reuters. The figure was already known since last year, when Judge William Alsup gave his preliminary approval, but this last step was missing for the money to begin to be distributed. How we got here. A group of writers sued Anthropic in 2024 accusing her of using copies of her books to train Claude without her consent. Judge Alsup ruled in June 2025 that training AI with copyrighted books falls under “fair use,” a decision that set an important precedent for the entire industry. The judge also clarified that, although training with those books was legal, Anthropic had broken the law by downloading more than 7 million copies from digital portals without authorization and storing them in a kind of internal library that was not necessarily intended for training, according to explains Reuters. That specific point was going to be decided in a separate trial, with compensation that could skyrocket to hundreds of billions of dollars. So to avoid this, Anthropic preferred to make an agreement. Between the lines. As we explained some time ago, the court documents that came to light revealed the real scope of the project, baptized “Panama”, and with which the company came to physically buy and scan millions of bookscutting their loins to digitize them and then recycling them. Before going this route, Anthropic employees, including its co-founder Ben Mann, had downloaded books directly from unauthorized repositories such as LibGen. The company has always maintained that this content was never used to train a business model, but it was precisely that part of the process that took it to court. How much and to whom. The distribution is made at a rate of about 3,000 dollars per work, out of an estimated total of 500,000 titles between authors and publishers, according to details TechCrunch. Aparna Sridhar, deputy general counsel at Anthropic, said in a statement that the company reached this agreement in 2025 after the ruling that recognized training with books as fair use, and added that more than 91% of the affected authors and publishers have already claimed their share of the payment. For his part, Justin Nelson, lead attorney for the plaintiffs, has called the settlement “historic” and has stated that it represents the largest copyright recovery ever achieved, according to collect also Reuters. Not everyone is satisfied. Some authors have raised objections, arguing that the amount was insufficient, benefiting plaintiff’s lawyers too much or unfairly leaving out certain rights holders. Judge Martinez-Olguin has rejected these arguments, considering that they did not realistically reflect the risks of having gone to trial, and approved fees of more than $101 million for the lawyers, below the $187.5 million they had requested. according to Reuters. Some authors and publishers directly opted out of the agreement and have their own lawsuits against Anthropic that are still ongoing. Why it is important. This closure does not resolve the underlying legal debate for the rest of the sector. And since it is an agreement and not an appealed ruling, Alsup’s decision on “legitimate use” will never reach an appeal court, so it does not constitute binding jurisprudence, as underlines TechCrunch. Each judge is free to interpret similar cases in their own way, and that is just what is happening with the lawsuits opened against Google, Meta, Midjourney and OpenAI for similar reasons. Cover image | Anthropic, edited by Xataka In Xataka | It took 15 years for computers to improve the productivity of companies. AI may take longer for one reason: sabotage

While Mercadona was dedicated to conquering all of Spain, a supermarket has taken over its territory at home: Consum

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For years now, talking about supermarkets in Spain means talking about Mercadona. And it is logical. The Valencian chain has been gradually expanding its share until it has monopolized almost 30% of the sector at the end of 2025 and its commitment to service ‘Ready to eat’ is giving wings to a new business concept in Spain: the merchants. However, despite that resounding dominion of the retailJuan Roig’s company has found a surprise in the Valencian Community, the region where it was born. late 70’s: Consum has just advanced it in a key business parameter. The question is… What does that mean? What has happened? Basically, that the specialized portal infoRETAIL has published a report on the food distribution sector that, for the first time in a long time, relegates Mercadona to second place. The study, based on Retail Data, concludes that the Juan Roig chain has lost its dominant role in the Valencian Community in one of the key business parameters: square meters of sales area. If we look at that aspect, at the end of the first quarter Consum was better positioned. What does the data say? They show that right now Consum dominates the Valencian sales areas with 25.9% of the space. Translated into meters, that is equivalent to 436,835 m2 in the region which are spread across 533 locations. The firm directed by Antonio Rodríguez Lázaro also stands out in this aspect: there is no other chain in the region with more stores. Mercadona occupies second place with 431,688 m2 and 262 stores, which gives it a share of 25.6%. Is it an important indicator? Yes, because it shows us how extended the chain’s sales network is, a key asset when competing with its rivals. However, a crucial detail must be taken into account: the surface area quota is not the same as the value quota. The first is basically measured in square meters with merchandise displayed. The second in invoiced euros. infoRETAIL does not provide updated data on the latest indicator (value quota), but in spring Expansion echoed from a study by Worlpanel by Numerator that reflects that Roig’s chain clearly dominates on that front. Your share of business in the Levant was 33.6%above that reached in other regions of Spain and that registered by Consum, which held 16.8%. Has it grown that much? If we talk about surface, the answer is ‘yes’. In 2025 Consum premiered 18 new supermarketsof which seven were distributed throughout the Valencian Community, and by 2026 it has been marked a similar goal: open 18 new establishments, a good part of which will be distributed throughout towns in the region (Orihuela, Cox, Sagunto, Ontinyent, Torrevieja and València). This explains why Consum’s share of sales area in the Valencian Community has increased by close to 0.2% in a matter of one year. During the same period, Mercadona’s share decreased by 0.1%. In general, Mercadona said goodbye to 2025 with fewer stores in its sales network than in 2024. This drop did not affect its turnover, which grew 8%up to 41.8 billion. And the rest of the chains? The exchange of positions between Mercadona and Consum is not the only change that the sector has experienced in the Valencian Community. The results of Retail Data show that Lidl has managed to establish itself in the Valencian “TOP 5” with 101,777 m2 spread across 83 establishments. The German firm thus surpasses Masymas, which has 100,519 m2 in 180 stores. The photo is completed with Aldi, which totals 89,154 m2 in 78 stores. The Valencian market is not only important for its economic potential, it is also important on a symbolic level. After all, it is the cradle of three large chains in competition: Mercadona, Masymas and Consum, which started in 1975 in Alaquàs and closed 2025 with a turnover of 5,163 million euros, 9.7% more than the previous year. In its annual balance there was already an increase in surface area of ​​5.6%. Images | Wikipedia 1, 2 and 3 In Xataka | Bernardo Rodilla, retail expert: “The ‘Ready to eat’ is gaining weight, in the end we want to spend as little time as possible cooking”

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