usatoday24, Author at usatoday24

“As AI takes on more jobs, you’ll be able to retire earlier and work shorter workweeks”

July 1, 2026 by usatoday24

Bill Gates has been talking for some time about a topic that has become almost an obsession for the millionaire: what will happen to work when AI takes care of a good part of it. The technology magnate did so sitting in front of the Indian businessman and host of the podcast “People by WTF” Nikhil Kamath. During the conversationGates presented his concerns and predictions about the future of work, from the perspective of someone who has been away from the front line of business for many years and is close to retirement age (if that is the case). millionaires retire one day to be). “In 20 years, AI will have changed things enough that this purely capitalist framework probably won’t explain much anymore.” The shortage that Gates considers dead. The founder of Microsoft assures that “we have always had a shortage: a shortage of doctors, of teachers, of people to work in factories. These shortages will cease to exist. It will be a quite profound change, which will free up a lot of time.” That is, thanks to the implementation of AI and robotics tools, the deficit of professionals in certain areas will be reduced. The data agrees with the founder of Microsoft, at least in relation to the shortage of qualified labor in strategic sectors like the toiletor the teacher, for whom UNESCO foresees a shortage of 44 million primary and secondary education teachers by 2030. “For those of us who have been in a world of scarcity for almost 70 years, it is difficult to even adapt,” acknowledges the millionaire. Hands made of metal. Beyond the knowledge work that AI can develop, the veteran millionaire also spoke about the role of robotics and how robots will contribute to reducing people’s working hours and working lives. “You have to have extraordinary hands to do those things. We will achieve it,” says Gates about the work of robots in factories, construction and in sectors as physically punished as hotel cleaning. He’s not the only one who thinks so. NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang estimates that humanoid robots could move a market of 40 billion dollars. Elon Musk, assured that by 2040, there will be at least 10 billion humanoid robots priced between $20,000 and $25,000. Still lacks real skill for perform with ease and reliability in an industrial environment, but investments and engineering are already at work in that direction, just as Gates predicts. Retire early: the old promise that seems to be moving away. The most controversial phrase in the interview, however, refers to the fact that employees will no longer need to have such a long career to access retirement, something that clashes head-on with the policies of delay in retirement age that many are applying countries of the worldamong which find Spain. “You will be able to retire earlier, work shorter work weeks, and that will require almost a philosophical rethinking of how time should be spent (…) We will have created, in a way, free intelligence.” Gates’ approach is not new at all. In 1930, the economist John Maynard Keynes predicted that technology would reduce the work week to just 15 hours. Almost a century later, a full-time worker in the US spends on average 8.5 hours to work on a working day, while in Spain it is dedicated between 40 and 37.5 hours per week. The promise of more free time has not been fulfilled for almost a hundred years.

The new WhatsApp usernames have a reason for being. Advertising, specifically

July 1, 2026 by usatoday24

WhatsApp launched a couple of days ago usernamesone of the most important innovations when it comes to contacting people. Until now, talking to someone on WhatsApp was synonymous with having their phone number, but not now. Now just know (or guess, we’ll come back to this later) your username. To pave the way, WhatsApp now allows reserve your usernamethat @ that you have been using for so long on other social networks. And what can happen? That it is not available because someone has claimed it (shout out to the beast that @josedextro has reserved). That’s when WhatsApp puts a solution on the table: if you already use that user on Instagram, You can link your WhatsApp account with said social network and try to claim it. Basically, reading is different. Because, in essence, this is still a mechanism to promote the unification of accounts and have more data to show targeted advertising in an app that, by design, does not allow that option. Your @ is more than a name Last year, precisely around this time, WhatsApp announced the arrival of advertising to the application. The proposal had three branches: Promoted channels. Paid subscriptions for channels. Advertising in the States. WhatsApp confirmed that it was not going to touch the chats screen or the chats themselves, but that the ads would be limited to the “News” tab. According to the platform, 1.5 billion people access the content of that section every day. The question, however, is obvious: how can Meta, the world’s largest targeted advertising platform along with Google, show personalized ads in an app whose content is encrypted? If our user is not available, but we use it on Instagram, WhatsApp allows us to unify accounts to be able to claim it | Image: Xataka Last year, Nikila Srinivasan, VP of Business Messaging at Meta, explained that would use data that they do have access to, such as the country, city, device language, channels we follow and interactions with ads in the “News” tab. But he also explained something else, and that is that if a person decides, voluntarily, link your WhatsApp account with the Meta account center (Instagram, Facebook and Threads), information could be cross-referenced to target ads. Coincidentally, now, practically a year after this announcement, WhatsApp launches the ability to have a username and be able to claim it if you already use it on Instagram. Platform that, by the way, disabled end-to-end encryption in private messages just a few weeks ago. By linking the accounts through the Meta account center, and always on paper, Zuckerberg’s firm would have the ability to link your activity on Instagram, Threads and Facebook with WhatsApp. That would allow, in theory, Advertising could be directed to the user while maintaining end-to-end encryption how popular it made the app in its day. Based on creating a system that allows us to talk to other people without sharing the phone number, WhatsApp has devised a mechanism to unify accounts and expand the reach of advertisements. It is not mandatory, far from it, but the temptation to have the same @ in all apps is strong. And dangerous, because anyone could try to guess your username to contact you. What’s more, when you reserve your username, it is activated by default so that anyone who knows it can write to you. This must be changed manually, although privacy concerns maybe you would like to know that you can set a key so that, if someone wants to write to us, they not only need the @, but also a four-digit password that you must give to the contact at the time. By activating the password, we will prevent anyone from writing to us if they guess our username WhatsApp, for its part, fences which has “multiple layers of defense: username keys limit who can contact you, we restrict how many new people any account can contact, and our systems detect and block patterns of abuse.” If you wish, you can access the Meta account center from here and unlink your accounts. Another option is to opt for an app without ads, as encrypted as WhatsApp and less popular like Signal. Curiously, WhatsApp Plus subscription does not include the ability to remove ads. breaking a spear The reservation system has a positive point, and that is to guarantee that public figures or well-known users can have the same @ on WhatsApp. Best of luck to ElRubius trying to book @elrubiusWTF, or to Ibai Llanos trying to get @ibaillanos. There are personalities who may have a genuine interest in making their symbol recognizable and the same as on other social networks. This system allows it. Image | Xataka In Xataka | We have turned WhatsApp into an “emotional pacifier”. And science warns that it is making us more fragile

traditional physical stores

July 1, 2026 by usatoday24

Because here we are not big on getting crazy, but the truth is that we have had a month of dramatic movements in the industry whose real scope, frankly, is impossible to gauge for now. The news of ‘GTA VI‘ about its price and format, the unflattering business movements of Xbox and, now, an unexpected announcement from Sony. Well, we lied. There is a consequence of all this that is easy to gauge: it is going to be difficult for traditional video game stores to get out of this crisis, if they manage to do so. What Sony has announced. The production of physical Blu-Ray discs of all the new games that come out on their consoles will be discontinued from January 2028. Sony speaks of a “natural direction” to adapt to consumer trends, and that “the overall preference for digital media significantly exceeds physical discs” adding that this decision “will allow us to align more closely with the way in which the majority of our community prefers to access and play games today.” There are analysts who read the announcement as a guarantee that PS6 It will not arrive before 2028, and when it does, Its base version will do without a disk reader. In any case, it is obvious that Sony has crunched the numbers and made the most beneficial decision for its accounts, but… is it beneficial for the industry as a whole? And for businesses that make a living from software? What Rockstar tells. A GameStop employee summarized the ‘GTA VI’ pre-order day on Reddit with a single figure: they had gotten five reservations. And they expected five hundred. Because Sony’s announcement comes just a few days after Rockstar confirmed that the physical edition of ‘GTA VI’ will not include a disc, It will only consist of a box with a download code. Not even the title that is going to sell the most units (figuratively) in years has a physical disc: a perfect prologue for what Sony has announced, which we can define without fear of exaggeration as the death of the physical format in video games. It was seen coming. Capcom and PlayStation have been advancing this Sony decision with their financial balances for five years. 93% of Capcom’s video game sales during its last fiscal year they were digitalcompared to 90% the previous year and 75% in 2022. PlayStation went from 19% of digital sales in fiscal year 2015 to 78% on average in 2025, with a quarterly record of 85%. In Spain, the physical market closed 2024 with a turnover 18.11% lower than the previous year, while digital games rose 19.75%. They are not the only ones. In its financial report at the end of fiscal year 2026, Nintendo spoke of digital sales of games on its platforms adding 25% more than the previous yearreaching 54.6% of total software sales. In the case of Xbox, there is also data: 66% of Xbox Series X|S sold in the United States during 2025 were units without a disc reader The problem with physical stores. GameStop closed 590 stores in the United States during fiscal year 2024 and has added more than 400 additional closures by early 2026. In Spain and other European countries, GAME gradually dismantled its business of exchanging and selling second-hand consoles already in 2024, while GameStop reinforced the sale of collectibles and merchandising. In fact, in its annual report for fiscal year 2025, Gamestop said that software revenue had fallen 27.5% and hardware and accessories by 12.3%, while the sale of collectibles had grown by 47.7%. That is to say, the store no longer lives by selling and reselling games, but rather by everything it has found as best it could to replace them. Video game stores are going to become (those that last) stores of objects related to video games… with the exception of the games themselves. Goodbye to second hand. Record production to end in January 2028 strikes down the second handa secondary market that indirectly benefited console manufacturers and whose real scope is impossible to gauge at the moment (the question is: will consoles sell as much if we cannot pay more affordable prices for used games?) We went, in any case, with digital, to paying for a renewable license, not for a game. The true validity of what we possess is more in doubt than ever: ask the users of ‘The Crew‘ when Ubisoft closed its servers, and more recently (just a couple of days ago, with Sony again as the protagonist!) to StudioCanal content buyers who PlayStation Store will withdraw from its users’ libraries starting in September. In Xataka | SSD prices are so crazy that a 2TB drive for the PS5 costs more than the PS5 itself

A year later, it has been such a success that her neighbors are already asking about her

July 1, 2026 by usatoday24

Solar electricity can be generated right under the wheels of a train without posing any risk. Switzerland has just confirmed this in a project that, after a year of having startedhas shown that the idea works, and is now beginning to arouse interest in France, Italy and Asia as well. What has happened? In April 2025, the startup Sun-Ways installed photovoltaic panels between the rails of a 100-meter section in the town of Buttes, in the canton of Neuchâtel, Switzerland, resting on the sleepers. They claim that it is the first installation of this type in the world, and its particularity is that the modules can be easily removed when maintenance work needs to be done on the track. Twelve months later, more than 11,000 trains have passed over the panels without any incidents being recorded. “We have achieved our objectives, both in terms of railway safety and electricity production,” explained Joseph Scuderi, founder of Sun-Ways, told Swissinfo. Why is it relevant? The main obstacle to renewables is no longer just technological, but also space. And it is necessary to find land to install panels without invading crop fieldsforests or protected landscapes begins to be a complicated task. Spain knows this debate well, with projects such as the Maestrazgo renewable macroparkwhich has generated friction due to its visual impact. This proposal presents an alternative taking advantage of an infrastructure that already exists and is hardly used for anything else. In detail. The energy generated is poured into the local electrical grid and, according to data provided by Sun-Ways, the installation has produced more than 16,000 kWh since May 2025, despite a one-month break due to snow and technical work. That figure is equivalent to the annual consumption of three or four households. Extrapolated to the nearly 5,320 kilometers of tracks that the country has, discounting tunnels and sections with little sun, Sun-Ways calculates that the entire Swiss railway network could generate up to 1,000 million kWh per year, around 2% of national electricity consumption. Between the lines. Two of the biggest fears surrounding this system have been dispelled during testing. The first, the accumulation of dirt on the panels. Scuderi had initially thought of cleaning them with a brush installed at the back of a train, but discovered that the very passage of the convoys, which travel up to 90 km/h on that section, generates a current of air that carries dust. The second, the possible dazzling of the train drivers, which has not materialized either. And TransN, the public operator that manages that line, has assured that it has not received any report from its staff in this regard. The company itself also confirms that there have been no conflicts with infrastructure, maintenance or train circulation. The other plus point: installation is quick. The panels, patented by Sun-Ways, are placed using a machine developed together with the railway company Scheuchzer, capable of laying up to 300 meters of panels per hour, according to collect Electrek. And when it is necessary to remove them to repair a track or change a sleeper, disassembling a module with three panels and six meters in length takes about ten minutes, according to reports. detailed Scuderi. The pending challenge. Julien Pouget, professor at the Valais University School of Applied Sciences (HES-SO), warns that transporting the electricity generated over long distances continues to be complicated, since current technology does not allow it to be done efficiently in sections greater than 500 meters, which is why a specific electrical architecture is needed to raise the voltage, as explained to the Swiss newspaper 24Heures. Together with other HES-SO researchers and Scuderi himself, Pouget intends to present a possible solution to this problem at a conference in Paris next August. And now what. The project has caused interest internationally. And the French railway company SNCF, which manages some 28,000 km of tracks and has set the goal of covering 20% of its energy consumption with solar energy by 2030, signed in February a technical cooperation agreement with Sun-Ways. In Italy, the startup is in contact with Rete Ferroviaria Italiana to organize a pilot before the end of the year, while in South Korea already there is an approved government project near the Osong station, and in Indonesia a solar engineering company is closely following the results obtained in Switzerland. Scuderi, for his part, hopes to shorten the three-year trial period set by the Swiss Federal Transport Office and obtain final approval as soon as possible, allowing, he says, his partners abroad to also advance. Images | Jean-Christophe Bott and Sun-Ways In Xataka | Spain produces so much solar energy that it is the envy of Europe. And even so, 70% of what you consume matters

“When things move fast, people make mistakes and it costs them money”

July 1, 2026 by usatoday24

Next to the Fiorano track, the small circuit inside the Maranello factory on which Ferrari tests its F1 cars every winter, the noise is deafening. “When things move too fast, people make mistakes,” he explains. Bogdan Botezaturesearch director of bitdefenderone of the largest cybersecurity companies in the world. Botezatu could refer to the sports cars that, right at that moment, are spinning around the circuit without stopping. But he’s actually talking about something else. Last month, Bitdefender released its first Cybersecurity Grand Prix Fan Threat Indexan elaborate study of the risks and threats that spectators of sports around the world, including F1, face every weekend. The purpose of the investigation is simple: to show the multiple tools that hackers have around them to violate the privacy of viewers and, in the most extreme cases, raid their bank account. “Frauds are evolving. Last year, cybercrime had a turnover of around 9 billion (trillion in English) of dollars globally. Of those 9 billion, only 1 billion came from the scamming“explains Botezatu. His index aims to monitor how scams evolve. In the middle of the Soccer World Cupwith millions of viewers glued to their mobile phone screens every day, the phenomenon is more current than ever. Bitdefender, however, focuses on another area: motorsports. For years, the company has collaborated closely with Ferrari, whom it sponsors and offers cybersecurity solutions for its F1 team. This is no small matter: Ferrari, like all other F1 teams, jealously protects its technical findings. Industrial espionage has always been the order of the day in a competitive environment. With Bitdefender, Ferrari aims to limit damage in today’s highly digitalized environment. “If you look at what happens to large companies, they are constantly being attacked by ransomwareintellectual property theft, infiltrations… But they are protected, they have their own cybersecurity teams, they can protect their perimeters, they can service their infrastructure, they have agreements with companies like Bitdefender. They are protected,” Botezatu points out. We are not, he implicitly suggests. “Things at home are fundamentally different,” he continues, “spectators watching F1 or other motor sports don’t have these safety nets, they aren’t even aware of the risks of cybercrime.” When we sit in front of the television to watch an F1 race or a soccer match, we focus on sport. The only problem is that on the other side of the screen there is a army of scammers and hackers trying to take advantage of the show. To take it out at our expense. The range of tools available to scam us is wide. From merchandise from smuggling (fake t-shirts, accessories, jackets, caps; in the case of football teams, t-shirts) to fraud in the purchase of tickets (often with juicy and pompous “last minute” offers), passing through the ecosystems of streaming. Much of Bitdefender’s talk emphasizes this last aspect. How it works The order of the factors is almost always the same: before a big event, such as an F1 GP or a football tournament, there is an uptick in fraud due to illegal tickets, in addition to a growth in fake advertisements. merchandising. During the celebration of the event, the numbers increase exponentially. streaming malicious, in most cases disappearing at the end of the show. After the race or the game, the scam in the form of highlights or surveys that give rise to abuse. “In the case of motorsports, its ecosystems are dominated by speed. You have to sell or buy tickets quickly, you have to find a service streamingyou have to find legitimate stores merchandising. If there are mistakes, they cost money,” Botezatu reasons. “And there is also an emotional investment during the weekends,” he adds, pointing to the impetuous, nervous and effusive aspect of the sports fan. It’s not just about watching an F1 race or a soccer match: you want be part of itso decision making is sometimes conditioned. Bogdan Botezatu. One of the advantages of protecting users during sporting events is that the behavior of cybercriminals is predictable. The scammers They know that the activity is concentrated during the weekends on Telegram or Discord channels and on streaming unofficial. There are suspicious VPNs, aggressive ads, fake subscriptions and a long list of mechanisms to capture our attention and surprise us. Its operation, in the case of streamingis always the same: First there is amplification on social media: Telegram channels, Facebook groups, Discord servers and Reddit discussions. Then direct monetization is sought: unlock payments, force interactions with ads, redirect users, push notifications push. He streaming of the race is secondary. And finally, the infrastructure is disposable: domains that appear and disappear just before and after the race often use the “cc” domain. Another problem identified by Bitdefender is the services of streaming of Android. We talk about applications like Playfy TV and Cricfy TV. According to them, they require installing APKs and are risky. At the same time, all this It is related to the “streaming boxes” offered by Chinese companies, specifically BADBOX 2.0. They put malware on Android, phones, tablets and much more. Its impact is very high, they seek compromise devices before even reaching the consumer. Using this technology we open our devices to the enemy, according to Botezatu, who specifically focuses on this mechanism. He streaming sports is fundamentally based on Discord servers, Telegram channels and communication systems. backup They work by invitation. The references of streaming They are deleted after the races, the servers are migrated and there is a very high link rotation that makes it impossible to chase them or protect against them effectively. For all this, the Bitdefender expert insists, it is very important to be aware of the risks involved. His summary is very simple: if you have to install something, a bad sign. Given the location of the talk, in the heart of a racing circuit, and the orientation of Bitdefender, sponsor of an F1 team, it is natural to suspect that his efforts are aimed at motor sports fans. and your Fan Thread Indexin … Read more

Telecinco wanted to revolutionize its schedule for the summer in search of solutions for the audience. At the moment it’s a disaster

July 1, 2026 by usatoday24

Telecinco has changed half of its afternoon schedule to escape the worst season in its history. At the moment, however, the changes are not being noticed as much as Mediaset would have liked, and so far no program has reached 8% of share. There is still a lot of summer ahead, and in some cases, the headlines have barely had a couple of broadcasts, but we are certainly far from brilliant starts for these new programs whose structure, aesthetics and presenters smell of the company’s old glories. The figures. He date show by Carlos Lozano ‘Love… or whatever arises’ debuted on June 22 with 6.8% share and 632,000 spectators; the return of Paz Padilla to Telecinco after his rudeness with the now deceased ‘Sálvame’, ‘El show de Paz’, with 7.8% and 638,000; and the magazine of suns and gossip presented by Ion Aramendi and Kike Quintana ‘El Verano Se Move’, with 7%. The latter, the most recent premiere (this Monday), is the network’s third evening premiere in eight days, and the penultimate of a plan that Mediaset designed to get the network out of its worst historical moment. Some context: ‘El show de Paz’ occupies part of the time on weekends of ‘Fiesta’, Emma García’s magazine that had just had its two worst months in history (8.1% in April and 8.2% in May). If Padilla manages to settle at around 9% compared to his rivals (cinema on the rest of the channels) and, in the process, spreads a rise to ‘Fiesta’, he will have fulfilled his promise. And it remains to be seen what happens with the fourth piece of the plan, ‘From Monday to Fridaythe daily version of ‘De Viernes’ with Beatriz Archidona and Santi Acosta, which premieres on Monday, July 6 at 6:15 p.m., in the gap left by ‘El Diario de Jorge’ during the summer. Their litmus test is twofold: not to sink against ‘The Promise’, which averaged 12.6% in May, and to stand up to the World Cup matches that still lie ahead. Summer ahead. They have all just started and you have to give them some space. The only headline that has already been filming for a week is that of Carlos Lozano, which had been on the air for a week on the day of the premiere of ‘El Verano Se Move’. For that day, ‘Amor… or whatever arises’ had a minimum audience (5.4%), and right after, La 1 broadcast the Brazil-Japan of the Worldwhich swept with a 33.7% share and 3,075,000 viewers, and sank both ‘El Diario de Jorge’ and ‘Allá tú!’. Result: 7.2% on average, one of the worst Mondays in the history of Telecinco. The plan. Mediaset announced in mid-June a offensive of four new programs for the section from 3:45 p.m. to 8:00 p.m.: ‘Love… or whatever arises!’, ‘Summer moves’, ‘From Monday to Friday’ and ‘The Peace Show’. They all replace formats that had been moving between 8% and 10% for months, such as ‘El tiempo just’, whose presenter, Joaquín Prat, is on paternity leave. The program had been averaging 8.5% for two months in a row. share and it had barely exceeded double digits five times since its premiere, a far cry from ‘Sueños de Libertad’ on Antena 3, the undisputed leader of the after-dinner program with an average of 14.2% in May. The precedents. Telecinco arrives this summer with the worst possible figures: the 2025-2026 seasonwas the worst in the history of the channel: an 8.9% average share, eight tenths less than the previous year and the fifth consecutive time that Telecinco has set a new historical season low. For the first time, the channel fell below 10% share in the twelve months of the course, with a ceiling of 9.4% and a floor of 8.4% in December, its worst month in the regular season. The afternoon slot, which is now trying to be reformed, also closed the course at a historic low: 9%. And it is a deterioration that is not limited to entertainment: the network’s news They also posted their worst figure, 8.3% share, without any of their three editions reaching double digits on average. It can be compared, for example, with the increasingly firm La 1, which in the last five years has gone from 8.8% to 12.1%. Telecinco’s path has been practically the opposite, from 13.1% to 8.9%. The importance of football. We were talking about the World Cup as relevant when it came to giving the finishing touch to the Telecinco audiences, but the phenomenon goes further. La 1 closed June as the leading channel, with a 14.3% share, its best June in 15 years, with the World Cup contributing almost a quarter of its monthly result. The entire Mediaset group, on the other hand, lost 3.4 points year-on-year compared to an RTVE group that gained 4.4. Football is obviously determining which channel goes better and worse this summer. In Xataka | Telecinco has ‘El Rosco’ but does not have ‘Pasapalabra’. Antena 3 has ‘Pasapalabra’ but does not have ‘El Rosco’

“The 0.0 invites you to take two or even three”

July 1, 2026 by usatoday24

Rarely can a company’s entire strategy be summarized in a single sentence: “the trend is to drink 0.0 beer, it invites you to have two or even three.” It was said the other day by Javier Soriano, brewmaster at Cruzcampo in an ABC interview and there it is all. In a world where alcohol consumption is collapsing, the only segment that seems to be holding on is non-alcoholic beer. So yes, Soriano’s comment has a basis of truth, but also a hope: the only one the sector has left to survive. What’s new in all this? For years, alcoholic beverage companies used ‘non-alcoholic’ versions to circumvent advertising regulations which prohibited more and more spaces from the usual formats. Can our 37-year-old whiskey no longer be advertised at sporting events? No problem, we have released a 0.0 whiskey that, coincidentally, has the same brand image. What is new, however, is that little by little the 0.0 are growing above expectations. It is no longer a marketing strategy, nor a minor niche: according to global data from IWSRthe global volume of alcoholic beverages fell by 2% in 2025 and the only thing that grew is non-alcoholic beer (8% in volume and 12% in value). It’s not just that it’s going well, it’s that it’s the only thing that’s not going wrong. And the sector needs it. In fact, the same plans of the big brewers leave them black on white: AB InBev wants the non- and low-alcohol to be 20% of its global volume; Carlsberg, 35% of your portfolio in 2032; Heineken is on the same line. And what does it have to do with us? Spain is not only the second largest beer producer in the EU, but it is the queen of the ‘low alcohol’ sector: one in every seven beers drunk here is already withoutand the employers boast of hoarding 25% of all European consumption of without. That is to say, Spain has become the great world laboratory of the transition from alcoholic to non-alcoholic beverages. And that (or precisely because of that) weekly drinkers have gone from 48.4% in 2006 to 31.1% in 2023. In young people, in fact, the drop is brutal: habitual consumption has been reduced around 60% in two decades. Being aware of the strategies of the breweries is interesting because they are all looking at our country. “Strategies”? It is the best way to call them. Unfortunately, in recent years we have seen all kinds of strategies to consolidate unhealthy practices that support huge industries. The clearest are tobacco companies focused on “harm reduction” as a (“socially responsible”) way to maintain tobacco consumption. It is reasonable to doubt the good intentions of the breweries and there is already data that suggests that we do well not to trust. The elephant in the room. But, above all, it is a strategy because the sector is not only preparing for a clear trend; is preparing for the impact that drugs like Ozempic can have on alcohol consumption. We already know that it reduces itWhat we don’t know is how far it can go. And breweries know that it is in their best interest to be prepared for what may happen. Image | engin akyurt In Xataka | We thought that quenching hunger with Ozempic was the definitive remedy against obesity. Until we look at the muscle

South Korea has a plan to dominate in memory chips and robotics. One of a billion dollars

July 1, 2026 by usatoday24

South Korea has put on the table a megaproject for the AI era. This is an initiative made up of three public-private projects spread across semiconductors, data centers and the promising industry of “physical AI”, that is, robots and autonomous systems. The advertisement seeks something very specific: that the country does not depend only on selling memory, but on manufacturing other physical products that it anticipates will be consumed massively. Memory chips rule. The largest item of this ambitious plan is, as we all expected, the one destined for the country’s semiconductor industry. Samsung and SK Hynix have committed to investing $585 billion in new manufacturing plants in the southeast of the country, in addition to strengthening factory construction in the Seoul region. They want to double the production of DRAM memories in five years. The future belongs to data centers. The second large part of this plan corresponds to the data centers that are precisely going to take advantage of a large part of those memory chips. SK Group, CS Group and Naver will invest $357 billion to build large-scale AI data centers in areas until now far from the country’s technology centers. According to the Ministry of Science, the final ambition is to achieve a combined capacity of 18.4 GW by 2035, which would make South Korea one of the world’s great AI “nodes.” Robotics, of course. More surprising is the third leg of the plan: the South Korean government has declared that “physical AI” is a “national strategic industry.” These systems, which allow robots or autonomous vehicles to interact with the real world, also want to be part of the future of the country’s technology industry. In three years they want to create a foundational AI model with the philosophy of “models of the world“—the same in which Yan LeCun or Fei-Fei Li work—. Hyundai has its own plan. The South Korean auto industry giant has set aside $5.8 billion to create a robot manufacturing plant and data center. It’s no coincidence: Hyundai is in fact the parent company of Boston Dynamics since 20221, and is already using its local supply chain to help the American company increase production of its Atlas humanoid robot. The goal: build 30,000 units per year in 2028. Humanoid robots in factories. South Korea wants to commercialize humanoid robots in several key industries before 2028, and to achieve this it wants to train the people who will work with them. The joint plan includes a section that talks about training 10,000 new “AI robotics specialists” in the next five years. But. The announcement coincides with an important internal debate: there are political proposals that seek distribute part of the extraordinary profits of the chip manufacturers, and the unions already see the imminent threat of robotics that will replace positions in all types of assembly chains. The opposition to the South Korean government has also criticized the location of these new production centers, which according to them respond more to a political calculation than to a good industrial strategy. In Xataka | Samsung had been the absolute king of technology in South Korea for decades: SK Hynix has just surpassed it

Sony has just set a date for the end of video games in physical format. At the same time it announces the closure of digital stores

July 1, 2026 by usatoday24

The main players in the video game industry have been looking for years to find out how to migrate from physical Blu-Ray to digital format and they already have the answer: Sony has just set the date for the death of the physical format in video games. In a brief releasethe Japanese company has announced that January 2028 will be the turning point and that all the games that come out later for its consoles will arrive only in digital format. Curiously, at the same time that they dropped that bomb, the Japanese they threw another: the closure of the PlayStation Store for PS3 and PS Vita. Definitely not the best news to start July if you are a video game lover (and you like to own what you pay for). We go in parts because it has chicha. The end of physical games on PlayStation consoles “As consumer preferences and the broader entertainment industry continue to shift from physical to digital discs, production of physical game discs for all new games released on PlayStation consoles will be discontinued beginning in January 2028. After this date, new games will be available on the PlayStation Store and at retailers in digital formats only.” Thus begins the statement from a company that continues to claim that this is a “natural direction” to adapt to consumer trends. They argue that “the overall preference for digital media significantly outweighs physical discs” and comment that they are doing gamers a favor because this decision will “allow us to align more closely with how the majority of our community prefers to access and play games today.” This news comes just a few days after we learned that a generational game like ‘GTA VI’ will not have a physical edition (at least at launch) and follows the trend of Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo that, in recent years, have invested heavily in the move to digital. There are consoles without a reader, a PS5 Pro whose reader was sold separately or a Nintendo that has launched Game Key Cards. It is undeniable that the convenience of the digital format was winning the battle. Recent estimates have put this on the table in major markets such as the United States, but the physical format has something that the digital format cannot offer: belonging. Because digital games (except those from stores like GOG) do not belong to whoever pays for them. They are user licenses, which means that today we can pay 80 euros for one, but if tomorrow whoever decides that that license is no longer valid, they can delete it. Even if you had it installed on the machine (tell that to ‘The Crew’ users). Some physical games were also paperweights that required an additional download, but the only way to own a video game was to buy a physical version that came complete on disk. With this movement, Sony gives an important blow to the possession of the product for which you have paid, but it completely destroys the second hand that is so important to access that cultural product called a video game. Sony won the PS4 generation with, among other things, that argument: the loan of video games and the free circulation of discs. And not that long ago. Because Sony announcing that it will stop “printing” discs is just that, a brutal blow to video games in physical format. Sony, along with Panasonic, was the main manufacturer of Blu-Ray discs, the one with the production chain and to which the rest of the companies have to send their games to capture them on the disc. And in the statement the company does not say: “we are going to stop manufacturing discs of our games”, but rather the “production of physical discs that will end in January 2028 for new games released on PlayStation consoles”, in general. In development…

Air conditioners have been wanting to reach the north of Spain for decades without much success. Until the thermometer passed 40ºC

July 1, 2026 by usatoday24

Here a server is writing these lines from Vigo, with the thermometer reading 28ºC (a temperature that in a few days will fire at 35ºC) and without air conditioning or ceiling fans. My only weapons against the haze are a small table fan that is almost (almost) the same decades old as me and the assurance that, no matter how hot the heat was, the temperatures in Galicia would always be tolerable. The first (the antediluvian fan) may not have done much, but the second did. Or so it was until now. In view of the heat waves that are coming at home, we are already thinking about installing a system that allows us to cool off with dignity. And we are not the only ones. On the contrary. We are one of the many homes from the northern peninsula that already look at brochures of air conditioners and fans. Ready for the heat? In the south of Spain it’s hotter than in the north. That was true before, it remains true now, and probably not much will change in the future. As I write this I enjoy a peaceful 28ºC in Vigo, eight degrees less than what the mercury shows in Córdoba. The problem is that there they are probably much better prepared to weather the heatwave than in this northern part of the country. I’m not saying it. The INE says it. From 64% to 0.4%. Although she is almost 20 years old, the Household and Environment Survey from the INE clearly shows that acclimatization facilities are much more frequent in the Mediterranean or Levant than in northern Spain. While in 2008 54% of homes in the Valencian Community had air conditioning, a percentage that rose to 57% in Andalusia, and 64% in Murcia, in Galicia, the Basque Country, Asturias and Cantabria the indicator did not reach 2% in any case. In the Principality it actually marked 0.4%. The INE data is old, but the SER chain recently disclosed a more recent survey confirms that the air conditioning map is still clearly divided between north and south. According to that study, only 17% of northern homes are acclimatized to the heat, far from 86% of the Mediterranean coast. Another Idealista report shows a gap even bigger. Changing the mentality. If they repeated that survey in a few years, it is likely that the ‘photo’ would be somewhat different. The heat wave that has shaken Galicia, Cantabria, the Basque Country either Asturiasleaving in some cases record temperatures that exceeded 40ºC, with hospitalizations due to fainting and deceasedhas led many families to look for new ways to cool their homes. Take a quick look at the regional press to check it out. Skyrocketing sales. In May The Montañés Diary counted how the demand for fans had skyrocketed by more than 80% in some businesses in Cantabria. Installers and stores of air conditioners and portable appliances also noticed the boom. I had something similar recently The Voice of Asturiaswho has spoken with companies in the sector that have noticed a 25% increase in requests for information. The Basque Journal confirm also an increase in the sale of ceiling fans, just like The Region in Ourense. From shops to homes. The most interesting thing is that the demand for devices does not come only from businesses. Andonio Suárez, from a company in the industry, recently recognized to ‘Hoy por Hoy Cantabria’ who in their business “do not stop” touring the community to install air conditioners. Not only that. Their technicians have gone from working basically in commercial premises installations to doing so in private homes, homes of people tired of being in the heat. “It is practically 50% between homes and businesses,” resume. “Before we managed”. Patricia lives in the province of Pontevedra and is one of the people (more and more) who has begun to think about ways to cool her home, beyond the use of floor, ceiling or table fans. “We had always managed, but now we are studying switching to a portable air conditioner or air conditioner because the fans fall short,” he confesses. In mind, you have devices that do not require the installation of exterior elements, such as evaporative air conditioners or tubeless air conditioners. “We save trouble and can take them from one home to another.” Poorly prepared floors. “The summers are longer and hotter, and the heat waves are more frequent. This year we already had a month of May with a week of tropical nights in which it was difficult to sleep, another in June, and summer had not yet started. A month of July is approaching in which it does not seem that we are going to go below 30ºC on most days,” explains Patricia before remembering that many of the apartments built between the 70s and 90s in Galicia “are not prepared nor do they have good insulation.” for the heat. “It has turned against us”. His experience is similar to that of Manuel, another Galician who recognizes that his house is designed to conserve heat, something ideal in winter, but not so much for the months from June to September. “The increasingly hot summers have turned against us.” Hence, she has opted for two portable air conditioners that she places in the living room and in her daughter’s bedroom, the room that accumulates the most heat. “I had been thinking about it for a while. Years ago it was not something that compensated, since it was not really necessary; but in the last five or six years the heat has been much more intense, even reaching days of 30-35ºC continuously.” More than just heat. Both Patricia and Manuel have opted for portable devices, which, among other things, they admit, has made installation easier for them. For systems that require an outdoor unit, it is necessary something more than you want to cool off: it is important to take into account both the municipal ordinances that regulate noise, urban aesthetics and … Read more

Log In

Sign In

Forgot password?

Your password reset link appears to be invalid or expired.

Log in

Privacy Policy

Add to Collection

No Collections