Mobile Tech & Gadgets

OpenAI swore that ads on ChatGPT were its “last resort.” Now they are your survival plan

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a couple of years ago Sam Altman said that placing ads on ChatGPT was “the last resort for our business model.” Well then, ChatGPT ads are here and OpenAI is sure that it will be the business of the century, one that will generate a whopping $100 billion. what has happened. He leaked it Axios; During a presentation with investors, OpenAI has confirmed its forecasts for the newly released advertising model in ChatGPT. During 2026 they expect to generate 2.5 billion dollars and this will increase in the coming years until reaching 100 billion in 2030. This is the progression they project: 2026: 2.5 billion 2027: 11,000 million 2028: 25,000 million 2029: 53,000 million Why it is important. Advertising has gone from being the last resort of its business model to directly being its business model. OpenAI is losing money at an unsustainable rate and has been making profound changes to be more profitable, such as focus more on enterprise customers, but it may be too late. Advertising is your way to profitability. In other words, your survival depends on this going well. butterfly effect. If it works for them and they achieve their goal, it can change the rules of online advertising. 100,000 million is many millions, enough for Google and Meta’s business to end up being affected. Furthermore, advertising within a chatbot like ChatGPT can be much more profitable because the user says in a much more direct and detailed way what they are looking for. On the other hand, advertising on Instagram or Google Ads requires work to collect data to guess the user’s tastes. If it doesn’t work for them, the outlook looks bad for the technology sector. We talk about the most valuable private company in the world and Its possible bankruptcy can cause a domino effect that freezes investments and punctures the expectations placed on AI. Users. To achieve these numbers, OpenAI estimates that it needs its weekly user base to reach 2.75 billion by 2030. Right now ChatGPT has 900 million weekly active usersthat is, they have to triple them in four years. We talked about ChatGPT having to be at the level of WhatsApp or YouTube. There is already 6 billion people with internet accessAs far as there are users, the question is whether it is feasible for OpenAI to attract almost half of them. The mass adoption of AI is already in a more mature phase and, although it is the most used, ChatGPT is no longer the pretty girl; Now it coexists with equally capable competitors and most importantly: The image of the company has been eroding. The double edge of advertising. Advertising can be tremendously lucrative for OpenAI, but it puts user trust at risk, and that is just what they need to fulfill their plans. We have normalized seeing ads everywhere, but having them appear in a conversation with a chatbot threatens to erode their main promise: to be assistants that respond solely to the user’s interest, and not to the commercial priorities of those who pay to advertise. Two things can happen here: that the rest of the AI ​​companies jump on the bandwagon and we normalize that the free versions have ads (the ideal scenario for OpenAI), or that OpenAI is left alone and people end up going to other ad-free chatbots. Anthropic said it would not advertisewe will see if in a few years they continue to maintain it. Image | Xataka In Xataka | Before, advertising was to monetize. Now it is to punish you and YouTube has taken it to the extreme

They no longer have helium and they have liquefied natural gas left for 11 days

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Taiwan has run out of helium. And has a reserve of liquefied natural gas for 11 days at best. It is a very serious problem that is of great concern to Taiwanese semiconductor manufacturers. In fact, the Taiwan Semiconductor Industry Association (TSIA) has asked the Government of the island that set up a strategic reserve of these two resources capable of guaranteeing their availability for a long period of time. The origin of this problem is the war between the US, Israel and Iran. These countries have agreed to a two-week ceasefire agreement, but Taiwan remains on the ropes. The blocking of Strait of Hormuz has disrupted the supply of helium and liquefied natural gas on which many Asian countries depend, and the Taiwanese integrated circuit industry is deeply dependent on these two resources. Taiwan cannot afford to have such a fragile supply chain More than 40% of Taiwanese power plants use liquefied natural gas. And chip factories need a stable supply of electricity to sustain their activity. Additionally, these facilities require the use of helium in several critical stages of the IC production process, and Taiwan currently does not have a helium reserve. The US and Japan have already created a strategic inventory of liquefied natural gas and helium, and TSIA has requested the Taiwanese government to do the same. There is a lot at stake. The production of cutting-edge chips gives Taiwan enormous relevance from a geostrategic point of view And the semiconductor industry is strategic for Taiwan for three fundamental reasons: it represents among 13% and 15% of the gross domestic product of the country; is the engine of its exports with a value close to 40% of the total; and finally, the production of cutting-edge chips gives the country enormous relevance from a geostrategic point of view. For this reason, it is crucial for this Asian country that TSMC, UMC and its other companies involved in the integrated circuit industry have the resources they need. TSIA has noted that Taiwan must diversify its energy sources: “We propose to the Government the need to continue diversifying our energy sources and the supply of critical materials to prepare for the uncertainty of the current situation (…) Our Association also supports the Government’s decision to reopen nuclear power plants to have a more stable energy supply as long as the processes meet legal requirements and safety is guaranteed.” Be that as it may, the underlying problem that Taiwan faces is that its economy, as we have seen, is deeply dependent on the semiconductor industry. And their supply chain is fragile. Very fragile. The Administration closed the last nuclear power plant in May 2025, and since then more than 95% of the island’s electricity depends on imported resources. The temporary ceasefire agreement reached by the US, Israel and Iran is likely to alleviate some of the pressure on Taiwan, but its integrated circuit industry is too important to allow it to be so sensitive to the international situation. Image | Generated by Xataka with Gemini More information | Nikkei Asia In Xataka | We already know what the chips that will arrive until 2039 will be like. The machine that will allow them to be manufactured is close

300,000 kilometers from Earth you can now make video calls. Artemis II is using telemedicine technology

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We have normalized video calls so much that we hardly think about what happens behind when we press a button and another person appears on the screen. We do it daily, with WhatsApp, FaceTime or any other platformwithout stopping at the network, the servers and the connections that hold that conversation in real time. It is a technology that we take for granted, even when we use it thousands of kilometers away within the Earth itself. But as soon as we leave that environment and go much further, to hundreds of thousands of kilometers, what seemed everyday begins to take on another dimension. ‘Hello’ from space. That change of scenery we talked about has a very specific example in Artemis II. The mission took off on April 2, 2026 and has taken astronauts back to the Moon after more than 50 years without manned flights in that area. In the middle of that journey, a milestone has occurred that until now we had not seen on this scale: video calls made from deep space through a platform called VSee. Wiseman’s message. Beyond the technical milestone, there is a scene that sums it all up. Reid Wisemanmission commander, posted a message on X in mid-flight that allows us to understand what that connection really means. “Distance makes the heart grow fonder… it didn’t take 219,669 miles to remind me how much I love Ellie and Katey,” he wrote, alluding to his daughters. Ellie and Katey are precisely his two daughters, and the message has special weight because Wiseman was widowed in 2020, when his wife, Carroll, died. The figure is not minor either: at that moment, the ship was about 219,669 miles from Earth, about 353,500 kilometers. Click to see the original publication in X Before Artemis. Although what we are seeing now marks an obvious leap, the truth is that video calls in space are not an absolute novelty. On the International Space Station, astronauts have been using video communication systems for years, both to talk to their families and to collaborate with teams on Earth.Video exchanges were already taking place in 2010 for educational purposes, and by 2015 this practice is described as common within the station’s operations. That is to say, the novelty is not in speaking by video outside of Earth, but in doing so at this distance. The difference. The International Space Station moves in low Earth orbit, a few hundred kilometers high, while the Artemis II Orion capsule has reached hundreds of thousands of kilometers from Earth during its trajectory around the Moon. In addition, it reached distances that exceed historical records of manned missions, including the maximum so far attributed to Apollo 13. For this reason, everything indicates that a video call made at that point is the furthest ever made by humans. Why telemedicine. This is where one of the most striking questions appears. If we are talking about a video call, why not use conventional tools like the ones we use every day? The answer has more to do with the conditions of the communication than with the function itself. Solutions like those of VSee have been designed to operate in networks with high latency, data loss and unstable connections, just the type of environment that NASA had already been facing for years in its space communications. More than a question of brand or custom, the key is the robustness of the system. The network that makes it possible. For this conversation to be sustained, a good application is not enough. Behind it is a global infrastructure designed specifically for deep space: the NASA Deep Space Network. This system is supported by three large stations located at strategic points on the planet, in Goldstone (United States), Madrid (Spain) and Canberra (Australia), which work in a coordinated manner to maintain continuous contact as the Earth rotates. In the case of Spain, the Madrid station is part of the network that makes this type of link possible, something especially relevant to understand that these communications also depend on infrastructure located in Europe. Images | POT In Xataka | There is a spontaneous competition to design the “flag of Humanity.” And the best design is an engraving of the Pioneer

This is the new Samsung promo

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You want a new cell phone, an appliance or a TV, but it doesn’t do you any good to make a big expense. It is very likely that, like me, this has happened to you on more than one occasion. There are stores that offer financing and make it easier for us, but these are usually limited in time or have a high interest rate. It just comes in the new promo from the official Samsung storewhich offers Interest-free financing for up to 24 months with PayPal. The price could vary. We earn commission from these links Thanks to it, we can buy the best that the Korean manufacturer has and pay for it comfortably. In addition, depending on the device or appliance, we will also be able to benefit from Additional discounts and other benefits which we will see a little further down and which will be available until next April 27. This is the new promo from the official Samsung store As we say, interest-free financing with PayPal is one of the strong points of this promo. In this way, for example, we can take the S95F (one of the best tvs of 2025) and finance it in 24 months paying just under 75 euros per month. This is just an example, since the same can be applied with phones, wearables, home appliances or laptops. Now, to this we must add some extra things. To start, both delivery and collection of the old appliance (or TV) are free. In fact, it has a tune-up service with which it will leave you everything assembled and working. In addition, the expert chat that the official store has can give us personalized advice on our purchase and, on certain devices, give us a discount code to save a little more. Along with all this, it must also be taken into account that the Samsung store allows extend the warranty on your televisions and appliances. Finally, it is important not to forget about the service Delivery and Premiere (with which we can save by handing over our old device) and Samsung Rewards, with which we will obtain rewards and points to spend on other purchases. Some interesting offers from this new promo Galaxy S26 One of the devices that we can choose in this promo is the new Galaxy S26. If you like compact phones, This Samsung device is one of the best options. It is a light mobile (it barely weighs 167 grams) that has a good 6.3-inch screen and a triple camera system that performs at a good level. In addition, it has 12 GB of RAM. The 512 GB storage version of this mobile starts at 1,199 euros, for which we would pay 47.88 euros per month if we finance for 24 months with PayPal. Now, if we choose this payment method, we will obtain a direct discount of 50 euros that we can complement with a 5% discount if we ask for a coupon in the expert chat or with a 50 euros direct discount if we use Delivery and Release. Depending on the device we deliver, we can save up to an additional 464 euros. All this together leaves its price in about 1,092 euros that we can reduce more by handing over our old device. The price could vary. We earn commission from these links Galaxy S26+ We may really like the previous mobile, but we prefer something bigger. This is where the Galaxy S26+which comes with a 6.7-inch screen with a higher resolution than the previous one (QHD+). It has the same Exynos 2600 processor, the same RAM memory and the same camera system, although it increases the size of its battery to 4,900 mAh and its fast charging up to 45 W. The phone, in its version with 512 GB of storage, starts at 1,440 euros, which would be 58.29 euros per month if we finance the purchase with PayPal in 24 months. As with the previous one, we can obtain the same discounts of 5% (or 70 euros direct discount for Delivery and Release) and 50 euros for using this payment method. Everything would lower its price to 1,329 euros. The price could vary. We earn commission from these links Galaxy S26 Ultra We can also take advantage of this Samsung promo to get the Galaxy S26 Ultraa phone that undoubtedly stands out for your new privacy screenbut it has many other strong points. Inside it is the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5, one of the best processors on the market. In addition, it has a 5,000 mAh battery with 60 W fast charging, a top camera system and a 6.9-inch screen that is a delight for watching movies or playing games. The version with 1 TB capacity of this mobile starts at 1,949 euros, which, financed over 24 months without interest with PayPal, would be equivalent to 77.04 euros per month. Now, with PayPal we will have a direct discount of 100 euros that we can add to an additional 5% if we ask for a code in the expert chat (or 100 euros direct discount with Delivery and Release). Everything together leaves us its price in 1,757 euros. The price could vary. We earn commission from these links Galaxy Book6 Pro The new samsung laptops They also fall within this promo from the official store. The Galaxy Book6 Pro model is a powerful device equipped with an Intel Core Ultra 7 356H, 16 GB of DDR5 RAM and a 512 GB SSD, which translates into hardware that will perform very well for years. In addition, its 16-inch Dynamic AMOLED 2X screen has great anti-glare technology. All rounded off with a battery that gives up to 30 hours of autonomy. This equipment starts with a PVP of 1,999 euros, which would be equivalent to 83.29 euros per month If we choose interest-free financing in 24 months. By paying with PayPal we will obtain a direct discount of 100 euros and we … Read more

John Deere had been preventing farmers from repairing their tractors for years. Now he will have to pay them 99 million dollars

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A modern tractor is a computer on wheels: GPS, sensors, telemetry and proprietary software. Buying it costs a lot more money than a normal car, but until now not even that made the farmer its real owner. John Deere has agreed to pay $99 million to close a class action lawsuit in the United States which accused him of monopolizing the repairs of his machinery, forcing thousands of farmers to depend on authorized workshops with inflated prices and waiting times that could ruin an entire harvest. Why is it important. This agreement is not just about tractors. It is the most visible case of a battle that affects phones, cars, appliances and consoles: that of right to repair what you have bought. If a manufacturer can software block access to the guts of a product you already own, ownership becomes a mere pantomime. What John Deere has done with its tractors, Apple has long done with its iPhones and Tesla with its cars. What has happened. The lawsuit was filed in 2022. Farmers Alleged Deere Purposely Restricted Access to Its Diagnostic Softwareforcing them to go to dealerships that charged artificially high prices. Deere has not admitted wrongdoing, but has accepted the following: Create a $99 million fund to compensate those affected who have paid reparations since 2018. Open to farmers and independent workshops the diagnostic tools that until now only their dealers had. Allow diagnostics and reprogramming in offline mode before the end of 2026. Between the lines. The figure of 99 million is not coincidental. Deere has chosen to stay a million short of nine figures, a classic psychological trick to make it sound less serious in the headlines. But the estimated real damages are much higher: the overpricing in repairs has cost farmers between 190 and 387 million, and total losses could reach 4.2 billion. The fund will be distributed among around 200,000 farmers. Each one will receive a symbolic amount. They cost less than $500 each. Yes, but. John Deere has committed to opening up its repair tools, but only for ten years. After that period, nothing prevents you from turning off the tap again. The company already promised to improve access to repairs in 2023 and, according to the plaintiffs, it failed to keep its word. Additionally, the Federal Trade Commission, the US regulator, keeps another lawsuit open against Deere by the same pattern of behavior. So this soap opera will have more chapters. The big question. The case of tractors is the tip of the iceberg of something that affects us all. A modern tractor, an electric car or a smart thermostat share the same logic: the software inside can turn the owner into a user with permission from the manufacturer. What has been decided in a US court about agricultural machinery will end up defining the limits of ownership in the digital age. Also in Europe. In Xataka | Every summer fires devastate Spain. There is a common culprit that goes unnoticed: old tractors Featured image | Randy Fath

The most buoyant market right now is selling streaming and satellite images of US movements to Iran.

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In recent years, the number of active satellites in orbit has exceeded 7,500many of them dedicated to observing the Earth with a precision that allows us to distinguish objects just a few meters away. At the same time, millions of position signals from aircraft and ships were broadcast every minute openly throughout the planet. Never before has there been so much accessible information about what is happening, in almost real time, anywhere on the planet. A new war market in real time. The war in Iran has opened a unexpected showcaseor where each military movement becomes almost immediate content, packaged and disseminated as if it were a live event by an international artist. Chinese technology companies have detected that opportunity and have begun to offer detailed analysis on US bases, deployments and operations using open data combined with artificial intelligence. What previously required state intelligence resources is now presented as an accessible, visual and viral product, capable of circulating both on social networks and specialized platforms. The result is a kind military streaming where the movements of a superpower are transformed into information merchandise. Fusion between open data and AI. I counted this week the Washington Post that the core of this phenomenon is in the combination of public sources (such as satellite images, flight trackers or maritime data) with algorithms capable of processing them on a large scale. Here are companies that we had already talked about before like MizarVisionwhich use these resources to reconstruct entire deployments, identify aircraft types or follow naval group routes in near real time. Although much of the data already existed, the difference now is in speedautomation and the ability to cross-reference information on a massive scale, turning simple scattered signals into coherent military narratives. This drastically reduces the distance between the public and the strategic. Intelligence as a commercial product. The real turn is not only in technology, but in the business model that surrounds her. These companies do not operate like traditional intelligence agencies, but rather as suppliers that sell visibility on military operations, promoting their capabilities with real examples of active conflicts. Signatures as Jing’an Technology They have even gone so far as to publish alleged records of communications or mission reconstructionsreinforcing the idea that they can “see everything.” Thus, war ceases to be just a geopolitical scenario and becomes a source of income based on the exploitation of raw information transformed into digestible intelligence. Money flows in only one direction. Behind this apparent democratization of intelligence there is a very specific economic flow that mainly benefits the Chinese technological ecosystem. They remembered in the post that many of these companies have grown under the umbrella of the integration strategy Beijing civil-militaryreceiving funding and indirect support to develop dual capabilities. Every report sold, every analysis disseminated and every platform used rstrengthens that industrial fabricfeeding a circuit where data (often generated by Western infrastructures) ends up generating value within China. In practice, monitoring the movements of the United States not only exposes its operations, but also helps finance the technological development of a strategic competitor. A diffuse but growing threat. Although US authorities doubt that these companies can penetrate truly sensitive systems, the problem lies not so much in absolute precision as in the trend that they can represent. The ability to map movements, detect patterns and anticipate deployments is already a advantage in scenarios crisis, even if the data is not perfect. Furthermore, this model offers China an additional advantage: it can benefit from the information without officially getting involvedusing private companies as intermediaries. The consequence is something of a new type of battlefield, one where open, processed and commercialized information becomes a strategic weapon in itself. Image | MizarVision In Xataka | The US is redrawing the map of its bases in Europe. And none of the countries that have said “no to war” appear In Xataka | Of all the paradoxes of the war in the Middle East, few imagined this ending: with a “half-way” deal between the US and Iran

science points to something that disappears when you roast it

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The world of nutrition and supplements is full of dizzying promises, with products that make miraculous promisesand few have made as much noise in the last decade as green coffee. Often marketed as the definitive panacea for weight loss, this product has flooded herbalists, pharmacies and supermarkets, making it available to anyone who wants to finally achieve weight loss without much effort. However, behind the intense marketing, there is hidden a biochemical reality that goes far beyond advertising slogans and that justifies part of their effect. Although a priori, when we talk about coffee to lose weight, we can go with the idea of ​​the extreme thermogenic effect or the extreme dose of caffeine that activates our metabolism, the reality is different. Here science has a clear answer about its real benefits, pointing to a specific compound that we sacrifice every morning in favor of flavor: chlorogenic acid. What is green coffee? To understand green coffee you do not have to travel to exotic plantations looking for a rare species that produces this product, since green coffee is purely and simply the coffee seed in its natural state, before being subjected to the roasting process which gives it its characteristic black color. Of course, we normally talk about the varieties Arabica coffee either Coffea canephora. If we put ourselves in the ‘normal’ situation, when we roast the coffee beans At temperatures around 200 degrees, Maillard reactions occur. A thermal process that is responsible for generating the characteristic intoxicating aroma, dark color and deep flavor that we can appreciate so much in the morning cup. However, these high temperatures produce a large destruction of bioactive compounds that can help us a lot in our daily lives. That is why logic prevails above all else here: if roasting degrades the healthiest compounds, then we eat it without roasting. And specifically, the element that is most important to us to preserve here is called chlorogenic acid, a powerful antioxidant ester, which is something that we want to preserve above all to reduce the hated oxidative stress that destroys our cells and accelerates aging. In this way, green coffee preserves the three characteristics of this compound intact, becoming an exceptional vehicle for introducing a series of phytochemicals into the body that gives it very interesting properties to achieve the benefits that we will see later. Properties of green coffee As we have said, the chemical composition of green coffee is a gold mine for pharmacognosy. By not being subjected to the thermal stress of roasting, it preserves certain components intact that make it a product with high functional potential. It has a lower amount of caffeine. Contrary to what intuition dictates, green coffee generally contains less than half the caffeine than a cup of conventional black coffee. This means that its stimulating effects on the central nervous system are much milder, which can be very interesting for those who are more sensitive to caffeine. In this way, by not generating such an aggressive alert peak, your consumers rarely need to apply the 90 minute rule after waking up to have your first cup and avoid cortisol shock. Chlorogenic acid. As we have mentioned before, it is the real star of the metabolic function of green coffee, since this compound formed by caffeic acid and quinic acid has led science to classify it into three main classes and that in green coffee it has a maximum concentration. High antioxidant capacity. Various analyzes of beans from different producing regions, including exhaustive studies on Mexican varieties, have confirmed that green coffee has a significantly higher amount of total phenols and a higher antioxidant capacity compared to its roasted counterpart. Presence of trigonelline. An alkaloid that is also better preserved in its raw state and that, according to various tests, collaborates in the regulation of glucose metabolism. What the science says about green coffee Scientific scrutiny on this product has been intense, especially after the proliferation of low-quality studies in the early 2010s, some of which, highly publicized, ended up being retracted by scientific journals due to methodological flaws. Today, the evidence is much more solid, mature and, above all, realistic. The most comprehensive systematic reviews, such as the one led by Tajik in 2017 that analyzed Nearly a hundred studies, both in vivo and in vitro, agree on a clear verdict: the chlorogenic acid present in green coffee is a powerful bioactive agent with antioxidant, anti-inflammatory and neuroprotective effects. But logically here science puts a brake on marketing campaigns, since green coffee does not produce a drastic transformation nor does it magically “melt” fat or rejuvenate in a snap, but it does improve different biomarkers of our metabolic health. In this way, we are not talking about something miraculous, but we are talking about something protective. Benefits of green coffee From all the scientific evidence, a compilation can be made of what this green coffee is used for on a daily basis and if it is really proven, since these are the benefits that enter our eyes and that they try to sell us to finally pay for green coffee. weight loss It is one of the most popular benefits that allows many people to take the step to start taking it, but the question we must ask ourselves here is: is green coffee really useful for losing weight? Here a study published in 2023 shed light on this issue by evaluating green coffee extract, providing at least 500 mg of chlorogenic acid daily to patients. The conclusion they drew was simply visual, as these patients had a significant, but modest, reduction of approximately 1.3 kg in the participants’ body weight. Another important piece of information was given to us in 2019. a second study which stated that the supplements had no measurable effect if consumed for less than four weeks. However, in long-term clinical trials using extracts with 70% CGA and less than 1% caffeine, reductions in body weight of up to 6% were documented, … Read more

regional chains like Froiz yes

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For a long time now, talking about supermarkets in Spain has been equivalent to talking about Mercadona. The Valencian chain leads the sector with a business share that around 30% and is the spearhead of some of its most relevant trends, such as bet on the short assortmentthe white labelthe ready foods to eat and the tray as star format for the fresh ones. That does not mean that Juan Roig’s signature is the only one that indicates the path to follow. Another equally interesting trend can be found in the super regionals. In case there were any doubts, Froiz just reminded us. What has happened? That they have just transcended the billing and growth data of Froiz, a chain of stores based in Poio (Pontevedra) and present mainly in Galicia, Castilla y León, Castilla-La Mancha, Madrid and the north of Portugal. Said like this, it may not sound interesting (its weight in the sector is very inferior that of the large chains), but it is if we broaden the focus. Beyond the details of billing or profits, Froiz’s accounts confirm that regional chains keep the pulse in a sector in which only Mercadona, Carrefour and Lidl monopolized almost 43% of the entire pie last year, according to the latest data published by the consulting firm NielsenIQ. And how has it been? Relatively good. In 2025 Froiz reached a business volume of 970 million euroswhich translates into 3.2% more than in 2024 (940 million) and leaves the Galician group one step closer to the psychological barrier of the 1 billion. Its turnover also rises constantly. In 2024 it had already registered 3.1% and in 2023, in a scenario marked by inflation, it reached shoot up 11%. These are figures much lower than those managed by Mercadona, which in 2025 invoiced 41,858 millionbut they still reflect growth. Did it only grow in sales? No. The Pontevedra-based chain also expanded its workforce by 3.7%, placing it at 7,000 employeesand expanded its network of points of sale. Right now sum 268 spread across Galicia, Castilla y León, Castilla-La Mancha, Community of Madrid and four districts of Portugal. There are half a dozen more establishments than the previous year, a growth that has been achieved thanks in part to the acquisition of several points of sale in León and investments in the capital. The firm basically works through “super” format locals (249), although it also manages seven hypermarketsa dozen cash & carry and has another 80 franchised stores. Why is it relevant? We still lack data from other food chains to have a general picture (for example those of Gadisa and Eroskidirect competitors in Galicia), but Froiz’s results connect with a trend that comes from long ago: the resistance of regional companies against the advance of giants food, such as the Carrefour, Lidl, Dia and especially Mercadona groups. Only the Valencian company reached a quota in 2025 29.5% after registering a year-on-year growth of almost half a point. Is there more data? In a recent report Regarding the sector, the consulting firm Worldpanel by Numerator (the former Kantar) in fact highlights two major trends. The first is the growth of “short assortment” chains, which facilitate the shopping experience by limiting supply and focusing above all on prices (often betting on their own private labels). The second trend that the study highlights is the behavior of regional supermarkets, which, although they have not had as good a year as previous ones, still represent an important player in the market. “In addition to the short assortment, the 2025 balance of distribution leaves us with other focuses of interest, such as regional chains, which have shown symptoms of deceleration. They grow together by 0.4 percentage points (pp) to the current 18.5%. However, they are slowed down in the second half of the year in the packaged food part, although in fresh products they continue to be differential,” comment Bernardo Rodilla, one of the directors of Worpanel by Numerator. What does that mean? Its growth as a block may have been modest (0.4 pp, according to Worldpanel), but it maintains the trend of recent years. The same consulting firm estimates that in 2019 regional supermarkets accumulated a share of 15.4%a percentage that had increased in 2024 up to 17.7%. Its latest balance already speaks of 18.5%. They are not the only signs that tell us about their resistance. Other reports have reported its ability to increase profits and muscle commercial (including sales area) in recent years. How do they grow then? Just a year ago FRS gave some keys that help understand how food sales are being redistributed and, above all, which branches are coming out worst. Specifically, it pointed to two: the “specialist channels” and the hypermarkets. Large chains and firms like Froiz may be growing, but this expansion coincides with a loss of strength of traditional businesses such as fruit shops, bakeries, butchers or fishmongers. This last case is particularly interesting, since it coincides with a historical crisis in fish consumption. The Fedepesca employers’ association estimates that since 2007 some 350 fishmongers traditional every year. Why are we going to regionals? The other big question. A recent OCU report shows that seven out of ten Chains most valued by consumers are precisely regional. Its attractiveness (and resistance) responds to a sum of factors: bets on fresh products, local merchandise and direct and personal treatment with specialists such as fruit sellers, butchers and fishmongers. Exactly opposite that happens in other large chains in the sector. The regional ones also stand out for their presence in neighborhoods and towns, brand recognition and commercial policies that usually prioritize loyalty, for example through points programs, raffles or sponsorships. There are those who simply consider them the successors from neighborhood stores. Images | Froiz In Xataka | Years ago we feared that an “apocalypse” would sweep through shopping centers. In Spain, exactly the opposite is happening.

What is Zapier, what workflows can you do by connecting applications with this platform and what is its price

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We are going to tell you what Zapier is, a popular platform to configure workflows or workflows and create automation. It is an alternative to services like Make.com o IFTTT, specialized in connecting applications and/or artificial intelligence to create automation or AI agents. We are going to start by explaining to you what exactly this platform is, and then we will try to tell you in a summarized way what you will be able to do with it. And we will end by talking about its prices and its free plan, so you can know what it will cost to use it depending on what you want to do with it. What is Zapier Zapier is a platform that allows you create automations between applications and services each other. It does it in a very visual way and without the need for you to write code. It has support for more than 8,000 applications and services, including AI systems. You will configure automations with the ones you choose so that they work together automatically without you having to intervene every time you want them to do something. The way this platform works is create step chainsalso known as workflows. In each of these steps you can configure an action by determining which service or application you want to do it, which can be several steps with the same app or with a different one. Think of this as a chain. First you take a step that does one thing, and with the result of this you take a second step that does another, and thus you create a chain of interactions. You will also be able to make branches so that, depending on whether the result of a previous step is one way or another, the sequence goes one way or another doing different things. Each workflow on this platform is called Zap, and is made up of two fundamental elements. one is the triggerwhich is what we define when and why the automation is executed. And then there are the actionswhich can be one or more, and which are the tasks that Zapier executes in response to the trigger. For example, you can set up a Zap to run every time you receive an email in your Gmail account, and set up steps that automatically save it to Google Drive, and then send you a notification via Slack. With this, you will have configured the initial trigger, the received email, and then two actions one after the other. The interface of this service is very intuitive and is designed for non-technical users. Its strong point compared to other similar platforms such as Make is precisely the ease of usealthough that also implies somewhat less flexibility for very complex flows. What you can do with Zapier Zapier has as many possibilities as there are applications you can link to. There are so many, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed at first. You will be able to automate repetitive tasks such as copy or sync data between platformscreate tasks automatically or synchronize databases. You can also manage emails and forms by automatically saving some data, sending automated responses or filtering emails. In general, you should know what you can do simple automations and even with AIlinking any artificial intelligence model after obtaining its API or using the platform’s integrated AI. Zapier also allows you to automatically post to social networks, send notifications to messaging apps like Telegram or Slack when something happens in another app, save email attachments to the cloud, create calendar events, or generate periodic reports. If you don’t know where to start you have two options. Have the integrations pagewhere you choose two services that you want to link and it gives you proposals for what you can do with them. And then you have the templates pagewhere you can find complex workflow ideas made in Zapier. How much does Zapier cost? Zapier has a basic free plan which is used to start experimenting with it. It allows you to create two-step Zaps, use most apps (although not all), use its AI to create automations, and perform one hundred executions per month. Therefore, although it only allows two-step automations, it is good to start getting familiar with its interface. Your payment plan costs 26.54 euros per monthand in it you can now create multi-step Zaps, use all the available applications and perform 750 actions per month. It also allows you to connect AI bots, something the free version doesn’t have, and basically use all of its features. And then, for 91.60 euros per month you have a team account for up to 25 users with 2,000 actions per month, where in addition to everything in its paid version you can also share Zaps and connections between all team members. These were the prices of the platform itself, but Using AI agents or Chatbots has an additional price There are free plans with 400 agent activities per month or limited AI models, but if you need more you will have to make other payments. Furthermore, if you want a larger share quota for the price of the platform you will also have to pay more. In Xataka Basics | The best AI agents that are faster and easier to use to do tasks for you without complications or long installations

to remove protection

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Michael Colosi is a young technology entrepreneur who, like many other millionairesmoved to southwest Florida attracted by the good weather and the low taxes of the state. In March 2024, Colosi bought two hectares of land in Punta Gorda with the intention of building a house and settling there permanently. What he did not imagine is that, before building a single wall of his future mansion, the county was going to present him with a bill for $118,527. The reason: the possibility that a protected bluebird could nest in their plot. The squatter of a bird. That bird is the Florida scrub-jay, the only bird whose species exists exclusively in that state. For this reason, it has been classified as a threatened species since 1987 under the Endangered Species Act and its fate has been caught at the center of a legal battle that, according to expertscould have consequences for hundreds of other species throughout the US. One of the consequences of this protected species status is that Charlotte County can apply a fee in sections to landowners who want to build in areas considered potential habitat for the bird. In the case of Colosi, taking into account the surface area of ​​its land and the fact that it is located in one of the nesting areas of this bird, the fee amounts to $118,527. Lawsuit for an unfair rate. This rate is applied to the entire plot, regardless of whether it is going to be built on the entire property or only part of it. In fact, his own claim document presented by the millionaire indicates that, if his property had only about 280 square meters less, the applicable rate would be $52,696. That is, less than half for going down to a lower section. Colosi maintains that the system is arbitrary and unconstitutional and that the county has not even checked to see if there are jays on its land. However, he cannot appeal or reduce the rate under any circumstances. Jamie Scudera, the county’s project manager, responded in an email to Colosi that “Your only alternative would be to not buy anything in a jay zone, because there is no other option other than our plan at this time.” Florida scrub jay Two arguments for a historical case. Colosi filed a federal lawsuit in October 2024 with the aim of appealing the fee, but the case has implications that go beyond discussing the amount of the fee. This lawsuit launches two legal arguments that, if successful, they would change the landscape of environmental protection in the United States. The first argument questions that the rate is proportionate and demands that it, at least, be directly related to the real impact of the planned construction. The second, and more controversial, is the argument that the Florida scrub jay should not be protected by federal legislation because it lives only in one state and does not affect interstate commerce which, according to the Pacific Legal Foundation that supports the millionaire, exceeds powers of Congress under the commerce clause of the Constitution. A bird without “economic value” that moves tourists from all over the country. The lawsuit includes a claim that has raised eyebrows among biologists and conservationists: that the Florida scrub jay has “no commercial or economic value.” Wildlife defenders refute this thesis with concrete data. Aaron Bloom, attorney for Earthjustice, points out that more than 1,000 people outside of Florida used the app eBird from Cornell University to record jay sightings only in 2024. Biologists from Yale, Harvard, Cornell and Princeton have visited the Archbold Biological Station expressly to study the species, and Audubon Florida organizes bird-watching tours that bring visitors from all over the country to Florida to observe it. The lawsuit’s argument is that, living only in Florida, the jay cannot affect interstate commerce and therefore does not deserve federal protection. The contradiction that conservationists point out is more than evident: under that logic, a species present in several states would be protected by the law, but one so localized that it only exists in a single territory would be unprotected precisely because it is rarer. The weight of what is at stake. According to Bloom, Defenders of Wildlife has documented 1,229 threatened species in the same situation, so their situation could also change if they allow the Florida millionaire to continue with his lawsuit to save a few thousand dollars. Charlotte County records show that at least 15 jays have been sighted in the Colosi neighborhood in the last year, and that hundreds of homeowners have paid protection fees without question over the last eleven years. The parcel’s own cadastral file warned with a note before the purchase: “The value of the land may be affected by the scrub jay habitat.” So, in theory, the millionaire was informed of the situation before purchasing the plot. What remains in doubt is whether he understood the meaning of that note. The Pacific Legal Foundation, which supports the millionaire in his lawsuit, already led the battle two decades ago to eliminate the bald eagle protection When the bird lived in multiple states, the main difference with the case of the jay is that this species can only live in Florida and has nowhere to go if it loses its habitat. In Xataka | Of all the places there were to build a $400,000 house, this millionaire chose the most unusual: in a tree Image | Flickr (FWC Fish and Wildlife Research Institute, Dan Irizarry), unsplash (Alejandra Cifre González)

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