Mobile Tech & Gadgets

we are nostalgic for the attention span we had then

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A few days ago I saw a tweet which said the following: “There was a time when happiness took the humble form of an ordinary afternoon. Coming home, turning on the PS2 and disappearing for hours.” It is one of those tweets that manage to strike a nostalgic chord and name something that many people feel but have not yet been able to articulate. The easy reading is the nostalgia of youth: we were young, we had no responsibilities, we had entire afternoons to lose in the GTA on duty. That’s true, but it’s only half the story. The other half is that we lived those afternoons with an attention that today is almost impossible to reproduce.. There was nothing competing for her. The screen was one, the world was that, and the mind stayed inside for hours without anyone calling it back. That no longer exists. Not because we have less free time, but also because adult life overwhelms us as is normal; but because the free time we have has stopped being habitable in the same way. The cell phone does not interrupt only when it rings: it interrupts all the time without doing anythingwith its mere presence in the pocket, with the always open possibility that there is something in there that we have not yet seen. The 2007/2008 academic year was absolutely spectacular for my group of friends. Of the six of us, four of us had a girlfriend. We all finished the course single. One of the reasons was that we loved spending hours together playing PES 2008. A few years later we wanted to recover those times but it was never the same, and what had changed was that we all now had smartphones and social networks, and We all ended up looking at it, the individual screen, instead of the TV, the collective screen.so we lost track of what others were doing and the experience was completely different. Even with solo play, loading screens, which were previously a moment of mental pause or going for another Coca-Cola, have become the automatic trigger for taking out the phone. The brains that grew up with those PS2 afternoons have been reconfigured to not tolerate even fifteen seconds of emptiness, just like when we wait for the elevator or have someone in front of us in line at the supermarket. The result is a strange form of loss that is difficult to name because nothing concrete is taken from you. Even though we have more responsibilities and less free time, we still have some moments. We still have access to games. What we don’t have is the ability to step inside them in the same way, to let the world narrow until only that exists. That ability, to pay complete attention to a single thing for hours, It was a resource that we didn’t know we had until it was taken away from us. so gradually that we do not notice at what exact moment it disappeared. That’s why the tweet didn’t actually talk about the PS2. I was talking about that. From the last time a plastic rectangle was enough to make the rest of the world cease to exist for an entire afternoon. In Xataka | The intellectual luxury of our era is sustaining our attention, AI is making it worse Featured image | Swello

Is it a good time to buy a Samsung Galaxy S26 or will the price drop soon?

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According to the price at which the Samsung Galaxy S26 And taking into account our trend analysis and market history, this is how we see the purchase of Samsung mobile phones right now: 🟢 Buy with confidence Samsung galaxy 26 (base) Verdict “Launch” moment. It is on pre-launch sale and you will enjoy the novelty for a few months. official RRP €999 (Samsung store). Target price “on the street” Don’t pay more than €949 for the base model. Next release Samsung Galaxy Z Flip and Z Fold (expected in 2026), Samsung Galaxy S27 (expected in February 2027). Our recommendation Buy keeping two things in mind: 256 GB model: on Amazon it is on sale with a coupon for €949. 512 GB model: on Amazon it is on sale with a discount + coupon for €944. Our recommendation right now is to buy the 512 GB model taking advantage of the double direct and coupon discount. Regret cost Low. The mobile phone has just been launched and is on sale, so you can enjoy the novelty for a lower price. Why is the traffic light GREEN? Right now (March 2026) we are in its pre-launch period, so we have the news of a new mobile phone along with the offers that we usually have on most of the brand’s smartphones in this period. Thus, we find ourselves in this situation: Pre-release effect: The Galaxy S26 has not been launched yet, so we can enjoy a few months of the “newness” effect. Multiple offers: The launch has been accompanied by many offers, which may vary depending on the store we look at. Prices in their configurations: One of the most attractive offers lies in the “Double your storage”, a campaign that many stores have in which we have the 512 GB version at the same (or similar) price as the 256 GB version. This also affects higher internal storage configurations. Expert buyer advice: If you are going to buy a Samsung Galaxy S26 right now, go for the 512 GB or 1 TB configuration if you want to have a lot of storage, especially in its pre- and post-launch period, which is when it usually has the best offers in the first months of the cycle. Price history and change prediction The image above is a price chart of the previous generation, the Samsung Galaxy S25 (2024-2025), and we have superimposed it with the prices that we have seen so far on the Samsung Galaxy S26. This is what we see: What history tells us: During the first months of the cycle we only usually find post-launch offers, so it is not until after about three months that we can see better prices. Possible price drop in April: If we look at the price history of its previous generation, it was in April when we began to find more recurring offers, especially until the month of June. Keep an important fact in mind: Around October, we started seeing worse deals on the 128GB Galaxy S25. Because? Apple has a lot to do with it, since the iPhone 17 starts at 256 GB. To compete and sell, stores stopped launching offers on the 128 GB version, and began launching more on the 256 GB version. Hence, except in December, in November 2025 and in January and February 2026 we have seen crazy prices. So? If you see the price for 999 euros (RRP), you are losing money. The pre-launch “street price” right now is around 940 – 950 euros, don’t pay more than that, especially for the 256 GB base model. The best Samsung Galaxy S26 deals now: In the pre-launch period, both the official store and many suppliers have their own offers: Samsung has it for 749 euros paying with Bizum or Samsung Pay and with a direct discount. It allows you to have double the storage (512 GB) without paying more and you can save more money by handing over your old device. MediaMarkt has it for 899.10 euros if you pay through their app. amazon has it for 949 euros using the coupon and it saves you 100 euros if you are a student. The English Court has it for 999 eurosbut it offers a 5% discount when paying from the app, another 5% discount with the El Corte InglĂ©s card and another 10% when purchasing Samsung Galaxy Buds4 (the discount is on the headphones). fnac has it for 999 eurosbut it offers a 10% discount when purchasing Samsung Galaxy Buds4 (the discount is on the headphones). PcComponents has it for 999 eurosbut it offers training on artificial intelligence focused on Samsung Galaxy, allows you to have double the storage (512 GB) without paying more and allows you to finance the purchase at 0% for up to 36 months. Samsung Galaxy S26 (256GB) The price could vary. We earn commission from these links Is the Samsung Galaxy S26 for you now? To better understand whether or not you deserve to buy the mobile right now, these are the reflections I would make: âś… BUY IT TODAY IF: You need a cell phone because the one you have is broken or the battery no longer lasts you half a day. You want to enjoy the “new” effect on your mobile, also taking advantage of the fact that it is now on sale. You come from a very previous generation, from the Samsung Galaxy S23 back. â›” I DO NOT RECOMMEND IT IF: You have a recent mobile phone, a Samsung Galaxy S24 or Galaxy S25. The improvements, especially compared to the previous generation, are not great enough to justify the purchase at the time of its launch. You are going to pay the official price (999 euros). You can hold out for a few months, until at least April, which is when we start to see better offers. Good alternatives to the Samsung Galaxy S26 that I would buy If you still have doubts about whether or not to buy … Read more

the wheels of your car are revealing your position to anyone who wants to monitor you

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I can think of few uglier scenarios behind the wheel than a puncture going 120 kilometers per hour. Fortunately, tire pressure sensors minimize this risk because they act as whistleblowers in case of mishaps, ranging from a blowout to a simple loss of pressure. They were designed with security in mind and not privacy and that has opened a door: monitor where your car passes. And obviously, where are you. Context. Tire pressure monitoring systems or TPMS are required by law: in the EU since 2014, also in the pioneering United States and other countries such as South Korea or Japan. This system uses small sensors integrated into each wheel to monitor the pressure and send wireless signals to the car’s computer to alert the driver if a tire drops below the set pressure. Due to regulations and validity, there are millions of vehicles in circulation with TPMS and no one perceives them as a risk: they are safety sensors, not connectivity. The discovery. A research team from IMDEA Networks has shown that TPMS sensors continuously emit a unique identification number via radio frequency that has neither encryption nor authentication. The ID does not change, so it works as if it were a license plate. Like that radar that catches you on a specific day and time at a certain point. Thus, anyone with a radio receiver can pick it up and if they do it once, from then on they will be able to recognize that car at any other time. This operation occurs without the driver knowing and, furthermore, he cannot do anything to avoid it. Why is it important. To begin with, because the research team has already confirmed that by crossing the four data from the four wheels, the reliability of the identification is high. Alessio Scalingi, professor at UC3M and one of the authors of the study, summarizes it like this: “data that seems passive and harmless can become a powerful identifier when collected at scale.” But it is also much more discreet than a conventional radar or camera: the TPMS emits radio signals continuously and these are invisible and can pass through obstacles or walls. Hiding is not an option. On the other hand, there is no need to hack anything: the signal is public and by default it arrives unencrypted. In short: TPMS tracking is cheap, difficult to detect, and difficult to avoid. How they did it. To reach this conclusion, the IMDEA Networks Institute research team together with European partners conducted a 10-week study in which they collected signals from more than 20,000 vehicles. The equipment used was a network of low-cost SDR radio receivers ($100 each), which were distributed near parking lots and roads. In that time they were able to collect more than six million messages, which helped them to reconstruct routes and routines, for example what time someone arrives at work or how often they go shopping, the type of vehicle or even whether it transports heavy cargo. The receivers are capable of capturing signals from moving cars at more than 50 meters, even if the sensors are hidden or inside buildings. How it affects you as a driver. You are potentially exposed to monitoring of your car journeys no matter what you do. This sensor goes inside the wheel and has no switch, so as a driver you cannot do anything to avoid this tracking beyond obviously not using your private vehicle. Of course, it requires someone to deploy this network of receivers deliberately. The ball is in the regulators’ court. As the research team explains, the real problem is structural: the TPMS regulations do not require encryption for these sensors, so the solution is not in the hands of users, but in those who regulate and the manufacturers. As concludes Dr. Yago Lizarribarone of the authors of the study: “Our findings demonstrate the need for manufacturers and regulatory bodies to improve the protection of future vehicle sensor systems.” In Xataka | The industry has been filling cars with complex safety systems for years. The only problem is that we don’t use them In Xataka | The Government of Spain has insisted that we do not exceed the speed limits. And it has a threat: jail Cover | Waldemar Brandt

In 1997 Winamp forever changed the way we listen to music. This is his story 30 years later

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Perhaps the main topic of this article is a fond memory for you, perhaps you have not yet moved it to that section or perhaps you do not know what we are going to talk about, but if we think about keys in the history of the digitization of music and the mp3 format, we inevitably have to talk about Winamp’s own history. A software that came to your computer in one way or another to listen to your favorite mp3s and create your lists (eventually). Let’s forget the flat designhe material design and all the modern interfaces to remember this precedent of other players, which was not strictly the first either. Who created it and what motivations were there? Why was it losing prominence? If you know him, nostalgia will probably invade you for a little while; if you don’t know him, you may know some of the reasons for his decline. The original broth of Winamp and digital music The popularization of the Internet, the lowering of its rates and the digitization of music meant that the computer began to take on the role of source and player of our songs. Regarding this, it is impossible to ignore a chapter in this story in which piracy was the order of the day, with protagonists like KaZaA or eMule (perhaps more common and longer in time depending on the country). In any case, obtaining a significant number of songs in mp3 format made the players much more required and someone thought that what was offered so far (Windows Media Player, Real Player, etc.) did not satisfy the needs or did not give the option to do so, specifically Justin Frankel and Dmitry Boldyrev (former students of the University of Utah). They created the seed of the player, which was a very simple graphical interface to make the use of AMP more comfortable (Advanced Multimedia Productswhich is considered the first *.mp3 player) on Windows systems (a title bar and a menu bar with a few playback commands). In 1997, Frankel created Nullsoft, his company, and Winamp 1 was released. It was not the only alternative player created to listen to this music format, but it was the one that combined features such as creating playlists or random playback, all in an interface that used to be quite intuitive. It soon became popular, becoming among the most downloaded software in the last 10 years. What started out as free software ended with version 1.5, at which point the license freeware became sharewareso that users had a 14-day free trial after which they would be obliged to pay 10 dollars. The program became popular to the point that Frankel He earned $100,000 a month. And the success did not go unnoticed by what was a great company at the time, AOL, which bought the software from Nullsoft for $80 millionIn fact, the streaming service and the SHOUTcast protocol also remained. Versions 0.2 and 0.92 (right). Winamp version 2.0. Winamp version 3.0. The intention was to create a leading online radio platform like Pandora or Last.FM by unifying the catalogs of Winamp and Warner Music, but they did not achieve it (the existence of one and the absence of the other is the proof). This also coincided chronologically with the launch of the iPod and its song sales platform, iTunes, which although it was somewhat behind in the mp3 revolution, had its role in normalizing the purchase of mp3s to the detriment of piracy in the United States. AOL would eventually dismantle Nullsoft in December 2003, and Frankel left the new parent company in January 2004. In Rocknerd They quote Nullsoft’s Rob Lord regarding the AOL acquisition and what Winamp could have been if it hadn’t been managed by AOL the way it was. “There is no reason why Winamp is not where iTunes is now other than the mismanagement on AOL’s part that began immediately after the acquisition.” Rob Lord, Nullsoft A review of the versions Depending on how familiar Winamp is to you (whether you were a user from the beginning, a recent user or if you have never used it before), one interface or another will have remained in your retina, but the most popular ones may have been from 1.9 onwards, when many new functions and elements were added. on the blog Old Version (now disappeared) made their particular tribute to the app by showing some of the interfaces of these versions that allowed us to recover some images. As we mentioned before, the first version was 0.2 (April 1997), which already went beyond plain text to present an interface with the basic elements of a player (title, play buttons, bitrate, audio output mode, etc.). The dark gray background that would become a hallmark would come with 0.92, in addition to the top bar with yellow lines, and in 1.0 a graphic equalizer, the list editor, a frequency analyzer and the search bar would be added to this. Version 1.6 introduced another of the features that was best received: customization. In addition, they were expanding support for different formats, such as MIDI, *.wave and CDswhich arrived with version 1.91. This interface with the equalizer taking up much of it and the playlist screen may be quite familiar to you. With version 2.0 came the Advanced Visualization Studio (AVS) by default (until then it was a separate plug-in), which allowed you to create rhythm-dependent animations on demand. But it was** in 2002 when Winamp 3** arrived, after the purchase of AOL and completely rewritten at the code level, incorporating a multimedia library, a renewed interface and the only one adapted to Linux of all the existing ones (and video support since 2.9), although there was some rejection as it consumed too many system resources and was somewhat unstable. The interface of the latest version for Mac has nothing to do with those modules with gray backgrounds in versions starting from 2.0. With version 5 in December 2003, the … Read more

“Citizen surveillance and autonomous weapons deserved more deliberation” OpenAI robotics director resigns

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A week ago we were just saying that “A dead king, a king“: Anthropic passage to pure ostracism after being considered a “risk to the supply chain” of the United States practically overlapped with the announcement of the US Defense Administration agreement with OpenAI in record time. Behind the scenes: the reasons for the no from the company led by Dario Amodei and the unknown of the terms of that agreement that installs ChatGPT on the Pentagon computers. A few days later, Caitlin Kalinowski says goodbye at his position at OpenAI, citing the military use of artificial intelligence as the reason. The resignation. Caitlin Kalinowski, head of the OpenAI robotics team since November 2024, announced her departure from the company a few hours ago in publications from X and from LinkedIn. He makes it clear that his decision is about principles and not people and expresses respect for Sam Altman and the team. In his brief statement there are two lines that, in his opinion, the company did not think about enough internally: The surveillance of American citizens without judicial supervision. Autonomous weapons capable of firing without human supervision. Tap to go to the post Context. The resignation occurs in the midst of Anthropic’s departure from the Pentagon (the transition will last six months), the entry of OpenAI and in the midst of a debate about how far AI companies should go in their collaboration with the US military establishment: Anthropic stood before the Pentagon drawing strict lines on domestic surveillance and autonomous weapons. OpenAI reached an agreement with the Department of Defense to deploy its models on a classified government network in a move that has been interpreted as opportunistic. According to the company led by Altman, the agreement excludes domestic surveillance and autonomous weapons, but the damage to its reputation had already been done: thousands of people uninstalled ChatGPT by way of cancellation. Why it is important. The goodbye of Caitlin Kalinowski is the first public and nominative resignation from a senior position at OpenAI motivated by ethical disagreements over the military use of AI explicitly. And this sets a precedent in the industry insofar as it exposes the internal fracture in the most influential company in the sector, placing OpenAI in a delicate situation before those who use its tools, its staff and also before society. And finally, it makes more clear than ever the need to legislate on artificial intelligence and its civil and military uses. Maybe Europe is behind in the AI ​​battlebut a long time ago he set about the arduous task of establish a regulatory framework. Which Kalinowski does not say. In the comments of her post on Kalinowski does not say it clearly, but when an agreement of this magnitude has already been signed and its CEO makes it publicthere is no room for much maneuver from within: resigning with a public statement like yours is one of the few pressure maneuvers left to exert. Consequences. For OpenAI, the pressure is growing and it faces more departures and more cancellations if it does not clearly show what its red lines are in a credible and verifiable way: the militarization of AI is something we are experiencing in real time. For the AI ​​industry, it is more fuel on the fire of the self-regulation debate. And Anthropic gains reputation, although in the short term it has lost an important agreement and its new status may put its existence in check. In Xataka | The US has decided to shoot itself in the foot and destroy one of the best AI companies in the country In Xataka | Sam Altman says he’s terrified of a world where AI companies believe themselves to be more powerful than the government. It’s just what you’re building Cover | Caitlin Kalinowski

The legendary Renault plant in Valladolid is “reinvented” with an old acquaintance: the combustion engine

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The historical map of car factories in Spain is blurring with the evolution of the industry and the transition towards electrification, which has brought an unequal destiny for all of them: uncertain future of Ford in Almussafes to the Cupra bastion in Martorell. In the middle of the peninsula and emulating the village of Asterix and Obelix, an irreducible combustion engine factory that still resists: the Renault of Valladolid. But staying with the combustion engine does not mean staying stuck in the past: the historic Valladolid plant, which has such iconic models behind it as the Renault 4 CVpromises to continue writing history with Tilting Gravity Die Casting, the technique that changes how the heart of hybrid engines is manufactured. And Valladolid is the first factory in Spain to use it. New technology and more production. Horse Powertrain has invested 45 million euros at the Valladolid plant to install a head gasket manufacturing line using the Tilting Gravity Die Casting process, the first with this technology in the state. The new facility, which will occupy 3,500 square meters, will increase cylinder head manufacturing by 20% (from 300,000 to 360,000 units) and will require 150 new permanent jobs. Context. We are talking about the old Renault from Valladolid, but it has little of that 1953 Renault: today it is powered by Horse Powertrain, a joint venture formed by Renault 45%, Geely 45% and Aramco 10%. The formation is not coincidental: Geely provides the Chinese technological muscle, Renault its experience in the sector and the Saudi oil company is more than just financial muscle: it is interested in the combustion engine having the longest possible run. In Valladolid, Horse does not manufacture cars: it manufactures the hybrid E-Tech engines of the Captur, Symbioz, Clio, Austral and Rafale, the “heart” of a good part of the Renault range in Europe. And not only from Renault, but also from the group’s brands, which makes it strategic in that a single engine can end up in several different models. Why is it important. The bet is not minor: Valladolid is one of Horse Powertrain’s most strategic plants, which confirms that this is not a local experiment but a first-class industrial decision. The new technology allows engines to be manufactured with a more precise design and greater durability, something essential for hybrids, whose constant start-stop cycle subjects the components to greater thermal stress than a conventional engine. And the context justifies it: although almost one in five cars sold in Europe is already electric96% of those circulating they still have a non-plug-in motor. An inertia of more than 250 million vehicles that will not disappear in a decade. At a business level, the support is unquestionable. Its CEO highlighted that this investment “further demonstrates Valladolid’s leadership as a world-class automotive plant.” On the other hand, it is the first plant of this type in Spain and has been considered as a Priority Industrial Project by the Government of Castilla y LeĂłn. What is Tilting Gravity Die Casting. Head gaskets are traditionally made of aluminum through a molding process, which leads to the possibility of air bubbles forming inside. And if there are bubbles, there will be microporosities and the structure will therefore be weaker. The TGDC solves this in a seemingly simple way: the aluminum no longer falls into the mold, but rather the mold is tilted so that it flows slowly and uniformly, thus minimizing turbulence and the risk of air. Bridging the distances, like when you pour beer into a glass. The result is a more homogeneous and structurally more integral piece that better withstands use and deterioration. In addition, this method requires less machinery and shortens production cycles. The push of Spain in the European industry. At the 2024 Paris motor show, then-Renault CEO recognized that the French unions were demanding the hybrid vehicle projects in Valladolid and Palencia due to the lack of demand for their electric models in the Douai and Maubege factories, however this latest movement is a complete “non, merci”: Spain not only does not give up production but also expands and modernizes it. Spain is the second state that manufactures the most vehicles in the old continent and this operation reinforces that position in the segment that endures the most: the hybrid. The question that remains in the air is whether De Meo’s successor will maintain the same commitment to Spanish plants in the face of French union pressure. Renault’s roadmap, which the brand plans to update soon, will give clues. In Xataka | Renault is a firm defender of the hybrid car and has its key factory in Valladolid. We have been there to know your future In Xataka | Given the tariffs on China, the CEO of Renault is clear who the European electric car should imitate: China Cover | Xataka

Sam Altman is laying the foundations for post-humanism as the philosophical current of the AI ​​era. It’s not good news

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“But it also takes a lot of energy to train a human. It takes about 20 years of life and all the food you consume during that time to become intelligent.” These two sentences were enough delivered at the India-AI Impact Summit 2026to set the networks on fire. But Sam Altman didn’t stop there. “Not only that, it took the widespread evolution of the 100 billion people who have lived and who learned not to be eaten by predators and to understand science and so on to create you,” continuous. Therefore, the criticism about “how much energy is needed to train an AI model” They are extremely unfair. And it’s curious. The most “unpopular” technology in history… Not because it is not understandable (or even because it is not reasonable). It’s funny because Altman and the rest of the AI ​​bigwigs don’t seem to realize that they are making every effort to make AI extremely successful. unpopular among the population. Maybe it’s nothing new. Maybe it’s something similar to what happened with fabric making machine salesmen in the midst of the industrial revolution. Maybe it’s something similar to what motivated movements like that of the Luddites and the reason why dozens of historians rewrote their history as that of poor technophobes. What has changed is that we are now broadcasting it to the entire world — and live and direct. And very insistently. Although the discourse they use to ‘sell’ their technology to investors, technical elites and politicians around the world can only be understood at a public level as a very sophisticated way of saying: ‘human things get in the way.’ Or not so sophisticated, of course. …that is finding its “public” Team Mirai Over the last few years, in fact, the process has become less and less subtle and more blatant. It is not something that is limited to AI companiesbut it is an increasingly clear phenomenon: people speaking to a convinced hyperminority while alienating the vast social majority. And artificial intelligence is the tip of the spear. And it wouldn’t be a problem if there weren’t something else: the current great technological battle is not only technical, it is ideological, philosophical and of values. For the social changes they hope to be successful, it is necessary to move the ‘Overton window’ as quickly as possible. And it’s working. The best example is Japan: in the last election, Team Mirai ran. As Antonio Ortiz explainedis “a new Japanese party founded by engineers” with “a fairly accelerationist program: government chatbots and databases for transparency of donations and to make politics ‘faster’, reduce paperwork and achieve an increase in productivity to compensate for the labor shortage.” Well, those people just got 11 seats and 7% of the votes. In a way, two apparently contradictory processes are two legs of the same phenomenon: the discourse becomes more explicit as the population becomes more related. And changing the world is also (and above all) changing ideas. We tend to have a softened vision of social changes. However, there are several psychosocial processes that are usually key for these to be carried out: delegitimization (“what ruled until now no longer deserves obedience”), demonization (“those who hold these ideas are evil”) and dehumanization (“they are not human, moral norms do not apply”). You don’t always get to the last step, but some degree of moral disconnection it is necessary. And the artificial intelligence revolution (and all the tensions it brings) continues to show similar signs: for years, accelerationist and posthumanist groups have been ‘operating’ in the shadow of the great social and political discourses. Now, however, they face it: as the AGI approaches, everything we thought we knew (on a social, economic or institutional level) is useless. Or so they try to make us believe. And the best example is that of Altman: the CEO of OpenAI does not have to declare himself a posthumanist to lay the rhetorical tiles through which these discourses will travel: when you convert the human into energy cost comparable to an AI model, you are lowering the bar to justify “anything” in the name of efficiency But what exactly is all this talk about posthumanisms and accelerationists? Although they are two different philosophical traditions (posthumanism questions classical humanism and lays the foundations for its improvement, while accelerationism is a family of ideologies that propose accelerating certain dynamics – technological or capitalist to provoke radical social change), the truth is that in recent years they have ended up coming together. And, beyond that, they are providing the mental framework that allows certain decisions to be made that, in other scenarios, would not be socially acceptable. When the human being ceases to be the ideological ‘center’ of the system, acceleration becomes the great political principle and the AGI becomes the utopian destiny of a post-scarcity society (the modern equivalent of the Christian heaven or the Marxist classless society), everything that opposes this — rightly or wrongly — will become old, outdated or outdated. Altman’s statements in India are not an accident: they are part of the delegitimization of the current system of values ​​that the next revolution needs and, as we see, is already underway. Image | Xataka In Xataka | “A place of joy with pain”: the phrase that summarizes the Aztec philosophy to be happier in this life

A study shows that we pay more attention to doctors if they are rude and arrogant

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Lovers of medical series may have a reference in their mind, such as Gregory Housea brilliant but insufferable doctor noted for his sheer arrogance. Fiction here taught us that we forgave him for his bad manners simply because he was a genius who saved lives, although now we may wonder what would happen in real life:we would put up with a doctor like that? science wanted to respond to this, pointing out that as patients we would not only tolerate it, but that we would pay much more attention to it than to a kind doctor. A paradigm shift. Although it may seem absurd, the doctor-patient relationship is something that It’s about cultivating from your own career of medicine in their first courses in order to achieve greater empathy and closeness to the patient. Something that, beyond the good manners that one should have, also serves as another diagnostic tool. But the fact that as patients we are much more obedient to a somewhat borderline doctor is something that has surprised, and that is why it has been dubbed the ‘Doctor House effect’. Here the objective was unravel a mystery of human communication: How a lack of civility affects our ability to be persuaded when it comes to our health. The experiment. To test our impression with these doctors, the team conducted three experiments with almost 200 participants. The premise here was quite simple, as it focused on evaluating how people reacted to different types of health advice, playing with variables such as the experience of the person giving the advice or the politeness of the person speaking. The results. These They have attracted the attention of a large part of the communitysince it breaks what doctors have been instilled in since their careers. What was seen is that, when the advice came from an expert in the field, the use of very arrogant language turned out to be much more persuasive than an affable and polite tone. In other words, acting like Dr. House was working much better than he imagined. But curiously, this study shows that there is a double standard. In this case, if the person giving the advice was not an expert authority figure, the exact opposite happened: using arrogant language destroyed credibility, with courtesy being the only way to persuade the patient to follow the most appropriate medical advice. Because Are we attracted to being talked down to? This is the question we may be asking ourselves right now, and science suggests that the key does not lie in a strange clinical masochism, but in expectations and how we manage care. Here we must understand that in our modern society there is an unwritten social contract that dictates that we must be kind and polite, especially in environments like a doctor’s office. But when a health expert abruptly breaks that rule and constantly swaggers at us, our brain goes into a state of alert. And this “unexpected rudeness” acts as a switch to capture a massive amount of our cognitive attention. The scene is clear in this situation: when we are surprised by a doctor’s borderlineness when we did not expect it, we process his message much more deeply. And the impact is so strong that persuasion works regardless of the initial relevance we gave to the topic being discussed or the biases with which it was arrived at. Not so fast. Obviously, the conclusions of this 2026 study are not a carte blanche for health professionals to start insulting us in our next medical check-up, but it does teach us a lesson about human communication and how sometimes not everything is as we think in an idyllic mind. In Xataka | Spending all day scrolling on Instagram or TikTok has a very specific effect on your brain: it dwarfs

The emptied rural Spain has been revealed as the great energy engine of the State

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Spain is a State full of contrasts. At a demographic level, the population density is concentrated in Madrid and coastal cities, that is, 30% of the territory concentrates 90% of the people. It is “tight Spain.” The rest, approximately five million people, occupy 70% of the territory, in the interior of the peninsula. More people consume more resources, which puts two realities on the table: Madrid consumes more and generates less energy than anyone else and that emptied Spain is the energy engine of the State, as the report summarizes “The energy transition in the Spanish rural environment” prepared by Monitor Deloitte. The most striking fact: 84% of renewable energy generation comes from rural environments. Context. In the collective imagination we associate energy production with large nuclear or fossil fuel installations, but nothing is further from current reality. Spain is carrying out an energy transition collected in the National Integrated Energy and Climate Plan with the objective of reaching 81% electricity generation from renewables. And it’s on the right track: the report of the Spanish Electrical System of Red ElĂ©ctrica for 2023 It showed that it had already exceeded the 50% quota. At specific moments, has reached 100% supply. Listing renewable sources by their importance, we find wind energy prominently, followed by photovoltaic and hydraulic energy. Where. In rural territory, in that sparsely populated place where natural resources and space abound. The report highlights regions such as Castilla-La Mancha, Castilla y LeĂłn and AragĂłn as hubs precisely because of their availability of soil and climatic resources (radiation and wind). Why is it important. Because the State needs that emptied Spain and its resources to successfully carry out its energy transition. Without that territory or its available resources, there is no decarbonization or energy sovereignty. Obviously a paradox occurs: that the most populated places are those that produce the least energy and vice versa, which generates a territorial imbalance. However, this deployment of infrastructure can become an opportunity to promote local employment and thus establish the population. Finally, agrivoltaics is revealed as a way to modernize the agricultural sector, making it possible to make cultivation for food compatible with energy supply, all on the same soil. In figures. In addition to this substantial share of 84% of renewable energy from rural areas, the report reveals other interesting figures: There are 15 provinces with critical population density (

68% have serious damage

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More than half of the Spanish road network accumulates serious or very serious damage. This is how it specifies the latest report of the Spanish Road Association (AEC). And according to the study, the deterioration has skyrocketed in recent years and the bill to fix it now exceeds 13,000 million euros. Among all the Autonomous Communities, AragĂłn occupies the last place in the ranking of the roads with the worst condition. A problem that does not stop. In July 2025, the AEC published its audit on the state of the national road network, and according to the association, the roads are in the worst state “since the late 1980s.” In 2022, the AEC estimated in its audit that there were about 13,000 kilometers of roads that had very serious pavement damage. Today that figure is close to 34,000almost triple in just three years. What exactly does “serious impairment” mean? He report The AEC distinguishes two levels of urgency. On the one hand, there are 34,000 kilometers that need immediate reconstruction (in less than a year) because they present serious structural damage: deep potholes, what is technically called “crocodile skin”, longitudinal and transverse cracks, and peelings in the asphalt. On the other hand, another 20,000 additional kilometers require intervention within four years. In total, more than 54,000 kilometers, out of a total network of 101,700, are in a more or less compromised situation. The invoice. The accumulated road maintenance deficit amounts to 13,491 million euros, according to the AEC, which updated the figure in 2025 taking into account inflation and the increase in the cost of materials and labor. Compared to 2022, the cost necessary to fine-tune the infrastructure grew by 42.7%. Of that amount, 4,721 million correspond to the State network and 8,770 million to roads managed by autonomous communities and provincial councils. Aragon tops the ranking. According to the association, 68% of its road network presents serious deterioration, sixteen points above the national average. As the AEC says, it is the only community that is at a “critical” level, which implies that most of its roads are not only bad, but require practically immediate action. The deficit per kilometer in Aragon reaches 150,632 euros, also the highest in the country. The motor expert Alfonso GarcĂ­a ‘Motorman’, analyzed the figures in the COPE program Putting the Streets, counting that “riding on our roads and highways has become a risky activity.” The state in other Communities. Just behind AragĂłn, with 59% of its network in serious condition, are Castilla-La Mancha and Galicia. They are followed by Asturias, La Rioja, Castilla y LeĂłn and the Region of Murcia, all above the 52% national average. At the opposite extreme, the communities with the lowest percentage of deteriorated roads are the Valencian Community (32%), the Madrid Community (38%) and Extremadura (40%). Driving on bad asphalt is expensive. According to AEC calculations, driving on a road in poor condition can increase fuel consumption by up to 12%. Only during July and August of last year, the association estimated that the overspending on gasoline and diesel derived from the poor condition of the roads would exceed 270 million euros, considering the more than 100 million journeys long-haul that the DGT provided. According to the report, the deterioration of the pavement also forces the average speed to be reduced by 10%, which makes the transportation of goods more expensive and, as a consequence, pushes up product prices. AI enters the scene. Until recently, the AEC audited roads with a classic visual inspection methodology, that is, with evaluators traveling sections on foot or by vehicle. In 2023 the transition to a digital inspection system based on artificial intelligence. A vehicle equipped with sensors travels along the road at up to 90 km/h and collects images that are later processed using artificial vision in the cloud. The result is a sample of 4,000 kilometers compared to the 300 that were previously analyzed with visual methodology. What solutions are proposed. The AEC has been calling for years for a specific and stable financing fund for road maintenance, which would combine public budgets, European funds, pay-per-use systems and public-private collaboration. Also point to a possible financing route that has no extra cost for drivers: making the special hydrocarbon tax also paid by rail, maritime and air transport. Thus, they say, some 4,091 million euros would be generated annually, enough to liquidate the accumulated deficit in just over three years. A few weeks ago, the Minister of Transport, Ă“scar Puente, announced an injection of 1,629 million euros to face the situation, although at the moment it is far from being enough. Cover image | Commons In Xataka | As soon as the war in Iran began, Spanish gas stations had already done something: start raising prices

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