Mobile Tech & Gadgets

Laurance Li, CEO of Honor Spain

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Laurance Li is a reference within the mobile telephone sector. He started working for Huawei in Shenzhen in 2008 and has been in the industry since then: first linked to Huawei especially in Mexico and then, starting in 2021, already in Honor. He has experienced from the inside the rise of smartphones, the changes between 2G and 5G and much, much more. On the occasion of the MWC we were able to sit down and talk to him, and the truth is that he is quite clear about where he is going to go. the present and also the future of the smartphone. You can innovate in mobile phones in 2026 Honor may currently be the brand that is experimenting the most with new mobile device formats. For years they have been fighting to lead the folding category, and this MWC they surprised everyone with the Honor Robot Phone. Honor Robot Phone in an image taken during its presentation at MWC Although the most striking thing about the phone is that camera that is “stored” in the back and unfolds, for the CEO of Honor Spain this new type of device is very relevant because They will change the way we communicate with the phone. On the Honor Robot Phone, the camera responds to you, looks at you, reacts to your requests. “There will be communication with you, excitement.” Beyond phones with robotic arms, Honor has been betting on folding phones for some time. In 2023 I visited their factories in Shenzhen and from then on it was one of its main strategic priorities, and the arrival of the Honor Magic V6 comes to endorse it: thinner and with more battery than ever. A foldable that doesn’t look like a foldable from the outside. “I think folding phones are going to be the future,” he says convinced. For now, he believes that many people are not daring to take the leap because of the cost, but he believes that this will change. Honor’s plan to convince people to make that leap? Paradoxically, it happens, in part, through the iPhone and its users: it is no coincidence that in their MWC presentation they spent some time explaining all the compatibility between the iPhone and the Honor ecosystem. “Some iPhone users want to switch, but they can’t because of the ecosystem.” These types of initiatives open the door to more users: “more and more users will choose foldable devices.” “I want to change their minds, but step by step. Apple users can use Android devices and other devices,” he adds. The importance of operators and stores in the present and future of Honor Finding a place in an already complex and competitive market like the Spanish one is not easy, and Honor knows it. It is no coincidence that when we asked how 2025 has gone, much of the conversation focused on highlighting how Honor is growing with some of its great allies. According to figures that Laurance Li shared with us, with MasOrange they have “more than 8% of the smartphone market share.” The figure grows, according to the executive, up to 20% if we talk about tablets sold through the operator. Together with Vodafone, it claims to have “800 points of sale” in which Honor as a brand has direct contact with the consumer. This year they have started working with MediaMarkt. Despite not yet being present in all MediaMarkt stores, 8% of smartphone sales went to Honor and, if we talk about tablets, the figure grew to 10%, according to their figures. They continue working with El Corte Inglés, and it is not strange to go to a store and see a counter decorated with their brand. “It has been a good 2025,” Li summarized when he shared the figures with us. Its goal for the future is to strengthen its presence in these distributors and work more closely with them, but also to look for new partners with whom to continue growing. In terms of market share, Honor ended 2025 growing 18% in Europe compared to the previous year, according to figures from Counterpoint Researchranking as the fourth brand with 4%. Ahead, Apple with 33%, Samsung with 29% and Xiaomi with 6%. In other rankings, however, it appears in fifth place: in Omdia They place Motorola ahead in fourth position. The big question: prices in 2026 It is impossible to talk about mobile phones in 2026 and not talk about the big question: what is going to happen to the shortage of components? In reality… it is impossible to talk about any consumer device and not ask this same question. We have told it ad nauseam: it is not only the RAM crisisbut the crisis of components in general sponsored by the massive proliferation of data centers to serve AI. “This is the biggest challenge in the last 20 years for the phone industry,” Li tells us convinced. On the one hand, he sees it as a way to confirm that Honor’s strategy with Alpha and its plan focused on artificial intelligence is on the right track. On the other hand, it confirms what we have already seen: “increasing the cost of memory will greatly affect entry-level devices.” That is why its strategy involves focusing more on mid-range devices onwards. On these phones “it will impact, but not as much”, as the cost of memory is lower in proportion to the rest of the phone. Where is the mobile phone industry going? Sitting down with Laurance Li to talk is like sitting down with someone who has witnessed firsthand all the changes in the telephone industry. I can’t help but ask you what you think is going to happen next, what you think is going to happen to the current smartphone industry. “We have had different revolutions,” he explains. “2G to 3G, 3G to 4G, 4G to 5G. From 2G to 3G was a big leap for video conferencing, for video calls. From 3G to 4G was … Read more

May your next plane be even older… and you won’t even realize it

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A commercial airplane can carry out more than 60,000 cycles takeoff and landing throughout its useful life, as long as it passes extremely strict periodic inspections. In fact, some aircraft fly for decades, accumulating millions of kilometers without this affecting their safety. Because in aviation, time is not measured in years as much as in maintenance. The big secret of flying in 2026. This week they remembered a piece of information from CNN. Commercial aviation has been operating for decades with a reality that is rarely perceived from the seat: many of the planes that fly through the skies are not new, although they may seem that way. The reason? Thanks to constant maintenance and interior renovations, aircraft of more than 20 or even 30 years can offer a completely modern viewing experience. The passenger sees screens, new seats and renovated cabins, but not the fuselage or its age. That disconnection between appearance and reality is key to understanding what is happening now. Increasingly older. The average age of commercial aircraft is already between 20 and 25 yearsand is slowly increasing due to supply chain issues, delays in manufacturers such as Airbus and Boeing and difficulties with engines and components. In fact, there are models delivered in the 90s that international routes continue to operate without the passenger realizing it, because airlines invest in renovating interiors instead of replacing aircraft. In many cases, maintaining an older aircraft It is much more profitable than buying a new one, especially when the availability of parts and engines allows it. The result is a global fleet that ages silently while appearing otherwise. War enters the scene. And here appears an actor who comes to complicate everything a little more, because the conflict in the Middle East has introduced a new factor that aggravates this trend: rising prices and uncertainty of the fuel. With the Strait of Hormuz affected and the jet fuel prices skyrocketEuropean airlines face months of high costs and potential supply problems. Even with a ceasefire, the recovery of energy flows will be slow, with refineries damaged and shipping routes altered. In this context, each operational decision becomes dominated by the cost of fuelwhich is one of the biggest expenses of any airline. Why this extends the life of older aircraft. Because when the fuel it becomes more expensiveairlines prioritize reducing investments and maximizing use of already depreciated assets. Although newer aircraft are usually more efficient, their acquisition cost and limited deliveries mean that they are not always the immediate option. In parallel, the production delays and in the delivery of new models they force older aircraft to continue operating for longer than expected. The Iran war, stress even more the energy market and global logistics, reinforces this dynamic: replacing aircraft becomes more difficult just when maintaining them is most necessary. Between cost and perception. CNN recalled that airlines have perfected the art of making people invisible the age of their fleetsfocusing the investment on what the passenger perceives directly. We’re talking about new seats, lighting, entertainment systems and redesigned cabins that allow a decades-old plane to compete in experience with one fresh from the factory. At the same time, the slowness in the delivery of new interiors (which can take years) make even these improvements arrive more slowly. Thus, passengers continue to fly on increasingly older aircraft without being aware of it, while the industry adjusts costs in an increasingly demanding environment. The “new” will be more relative. Ultimately, the combination of geopolitical tensionsindustrial shortages and pressure on costs point to a scenario in which the actual age of aircraft will continue to increase. The war in Iran has not only affected the price of fuel, but has revealed the fragility of the global energy and logistics system on which aviation depends. Consequently, the “secret” of the airlines will be prolonged: We will fly on older planes than we imagine, without realizing it, because the priority is no longer renewing fleets at the ideal pace, but rather keeping them operational in an increasingly uncertain and crazy expensive world. Image | RawPixel In Xataka | Global air traffic has a problem: Ukraine and Iran have created a funnel that is driving up prices In Xataka | If you have a trip planned to Vietnam or Japan this year we have good and bad news for you

The Xiaomi 17 Ultra at a minimum price, the Nintendo Switch 2 with a free game, offers on LG OLED TVs and more. Hunting Bargains

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April has started strong in terms of number and quality of offers. Stores like Amazon, MediaMarkt or even LG itself right now have some of the most interesting discounts on technology and entertainment, so in this week’s Bargain Hunting we are going to review the best offers we have been finding in recent days. LG OLED C5 by 896.99 eurosa television with an excellent screen and a very reasonable price. Apple Watch Series 11 by 379 eurosthe Cupertino watch at the lowest price MediaMarkt has ever had. Xiaomi 17 Ultra by 999 eurosa new historical minimum price for Fnac members. HP Omen 16 by 1,325 eurosa historical minimum price for a very complete laptop for gaming. nintendo switch 2 by 459 euroswith a gift video game to choose from four options. The price could vary. We earn commission from these links LG OLED C5 If there is a particularly interesting television right now, it is the LG OLED C5whose price at the LG outlet is 896.99 euros. In this case it comes with a 55-inch OLED screen and reaches a refresh rate of up to 144 Hz, it is compatible with Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos and its speakers offer a good power of 40W. The price could vary. We earn commission from these links Apple Watch Series 11 Apple watches do not usually drop too much in price, but there are exceptions. One of them has fallen into the Apple Watch Series 11found on MediaMarkt by 379 eurosthe new historical minimum price of the store. Among the most notable features is an excellent screen, as well as a large assortment of sensors to monitor physical activity. The price could vary. We earn commission from these links Xiaomi 17 Ultra The best offer of the week has fallen on the Xiaomi 17 Ultrawhose price has dropped in Fnac to 999 euros (500 euros discount); Yes, it is only for store partners. Regarding mobile phones, we are talking about one of the candidates to position itself as the best (or the best) of the year. It is a spectacle in photography, it is very powerful thanks to its Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 processor and its 6.9-inch screen is excellent. The price could vary. We earn commission from these links HP Omen 16 The RAM crisis has caused many devices to increase in price, but many others have done the opposite. He HP Omen 16 has been dropping in price until the current price 1,325 euroswhich is its historical minimum. It is a laptop gaming with a 16-inch screen that offers 2.5K resolution. Its processor is the Intel Ultra 7 255H, it comes with 32 GB of RAM and 1 TB of SSD and its graphics card is an Nvidia GeForce RTX 5070. Of course, it does not come with Windows. The price could vary. We earn commission from these links nintendo switch 2 The nintendo switch 2 has returned to MediaMarkt with the offer that we saw at the end of March: if you buy it for 459 eurosthe store gives you a video game to choose from four different options: Nintendo Switch 2 + game to choose from four different options The price could vary. We earn commission from these links Some of the links in this article are affiliated and may provide a benefit to Xataka. In case of non-availability, offers may vary. Images | LG, Apple, Xiaomi, HP, Nintendo In Xataka | The best mobile phones, we have tested them and here are their analyzes In Xataka | Best smartwatch in quality price. Which one to buy based on use and seven recommended models

In 1599 someone wrote down how tortillas were made in Spain. And settles once and for all the debate between “con and sincebollistas”

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Whoever writes this (honesty above all) is a sincebollist unredeemedone of many supporters of the firm conviction that the Spanish tortilla should not contain onion under any circumstances. Having said that, I have to admit the following: if there is an ingredient that can claim its historical place in the national omelet, in addition to eggs, it is the onion. Even before the oil or the potato. And not only because the latter did not reach Europe until well entered the 16th century. Long before the Spaniards even became familiar with what a potato was, they were already feasting on onions and eggs, without the need for any tuberculous seasoning. In fact, it took centuries for the potato to join the party. “Of the art of cooking”. Jesús Munárriz said that “it’s all in the books”. That (pardon the redundancy) is applicable to everything, from history to science, through human passions, religion, geography and of course gastronomy. A few weeks ago, coinciding with Tortilla Day (March 9), the Royal Academy (RAE) wanted to remind us on Instagram dusting off an old book that reveals how our 16th century ancestors ate. The work in question is titled ‘Book of kitchen art’ and basically it is a recipe book from 1599 in which culinary techniques, advice on food and drink and the secrets of the jobs of butler, maître, waiter, carver or cook are detailed. Some recipes for meat and fish are also included. The work is interesting both for its age and content and for its author. As remember The Royal Academy of Gastronomy was written by none other than Diego Granado Maldonado, the head chef of Philip III himself. And are you talking about tortillas? Yes. Although probably the tortillas that Diego Granado tells us about are not similar to that pincho that you usually have with beer. What Felipe III’s chef does is explain how to make a juicy omelet using eggs, bacon, cheese, cinnamon… and (exactly) onion. “Ten fresh eggs are enough and you have six ounces of streaky bacon cut into cubes, and three ounces of onion that has been cooked in the embers of the embers, and finely chopped, and fried with melted lardo, and with the bacon cut, put with the eggs three ounces of buttery cheese, half an ounce between pepper and cinnamon, and finely chopped herbs, and put everything in the pan where the bacon and onion are, and make the tortilla, and serve hot with orange juice on top. Later the cook clarify including how to make a double 14-egg omelet or even other options of up to 15 eggs with salted pork jowl, cheese and breadcrumbs. In the latter case, many of the original ingredients vary, but the basics are repeated: eggs and finely chopped onions. The ‘pre-patatil’ era. Curiosities aside, Granado’s book is interesting because it shows us how the Spanish ate (and prepared tortillas) long before potato consumption spread throughout Europe. After all, humans have been familiar with this tuber for millennia, but its popularization on the old continent is relatively recent. Although it is believed that the potato began to be cultivated ago 8,000 years in the Andes mountain range did not make the leap to the other shore of the Atlantic until late in the 16ththanks largely to the soldiers of Gonzalo Jimenez de Quesada. No love at first sight. Today it may seem incredible to us that our ancestors 500 years ago did not succumb to the delights of good roast potatoes or that they were quick to change bacon for potatoes in their tortillas, but the truth is that at first that elongated tuber from Peru and Colombia did not exactly cause a stir. José Carlos Capel, critic and member of the Royal Academy of Gastronomy (RAG), remembers it in an article published in March 2024 precisely coinciding with Tortilla Day. The potato did not begin to triumph until a few centuries later. In fact, we have to go back to the 18th century, during the reign of Charles III, when crops were organized to combat famine. The Spaniards of that time looked at the tuber with eyes so different from those of 2026 that in 1785 an Irishman living in Madrid, Henry Doylededicated a book to him to clear up doubts: ‘Treaty on the use and benefits of potatoes’. A success story. Perhaps in Austrian Spain, potatoes were not very successful, but things changed over time. So much, in fact, that right now each Spaniard consumes on average around 20 kilos per year if we add the fresh, frozen and processed varieties. Around 1767 the agronomist José Antonio Valcárcel already wrote on the use of potatoes to make tortillas. At some point between the 16th century and that date, the tuber sneaked into the recipe, forming a successful tandem with eggs that was consolidated over time. It worked so well that it ended up eclipsing the rest of the ingredients that Granado kept in his pantry, in the palace of Felipe III. The great unknown. Who, when and how had the happy idea of ​​creating what we know today as ‘Spanish omelet’? There is theories They attribute the credit to General Tomás de Zumalacárregui, in the 19th century, during the siege of Bilbao, but the reality is much simpler (and discouraging): we have no idea. “No matter how much we search through old recipe books and literary allusions, we will never know who created one of our iconic dishes,” explains Capel. What is clear is that the potato omelette as we understand it is not such an ancient culinary work. In fact, it was not consolidated until the 18th or 19th century. Even more recent is the name with which we distinguish it: ‘Spanish omelet’. Turning the tables. Capel contributes another key that complicates (even more) the story. Perhaps in Spain, omelettes were made with eggs and onions rather than with potatoes, but as time passed and once the concept of what we … Read more

projections have just put on the table the worst El Niño in 140 years

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It often feels like we are erasing the meaning of the word ‘historical’ by using it so much. And yet, here I am: about to say that seasonal prediction models show an “unprecedented” convergence in the same direction: an extremely strong El Niño before the end of 2026. If what the models say is confirmed, we could be facing the most powerful El Niño in at least 140 years. So yes, ‘historic’ is the appropriate word. But, first of all, let’s review what ENSO is. They are the acronym in English of El Niño-Southern Oscillation and they refer to a cyclical (although very irregular) climate phenomenon that has great effects on the global climate. Huge, in fact. If we exclude the stations, it is the most important source of annual climate variability from all over the planet. During the warm phase (that is, during El Niño), the absence of strong trade winds that cool the surface of the equatorial Pacific causes the temperature of that area of ​​the ocean to skyrocket. It is this, through different atmospheric teleconnectionswhich disrupts all the weather systems in the world. The effects are varied and change depending on the region (“drier conditions than normal in certain parts of the world; while in others it causes more precipitation. Some countries have to deal with major droughts and others with torrential rains”, says AEMET); but when we talk about temperatures there is no doubt: El Niño is synonymous with heat. Although, of course, that is in a normal ENSO. If we talk about the strongest ENSO event in a century and a half, everything skyrockets. The most likely conclusions tell us about a wild redistribution of heat globally, a more than likely temperature record for 2027 and a string of profound alterations in rainfall and hurricane patterns. And why do we think it will be like this? Fundamentally, because the convergence of the different models is a very strong indication. Not only is it that more than half of the probabilistic scenarios of the European model they project anomalies greater than +2.5 degrees in the equatorial Pacific, is that Zeke Hausfather (adding 433 members from 11 models) reaches the same conclusions. And what exactly is the news? Obviously, the news is not that El Niño is coming. We have already talked about that: The news is the strength (aggressiveness, even) with which it now appears in our projections. Or not even that. Because no one is very clear what an event of this type means in a climate context like the current one (it would arrive after three years above the 1.5 of the Paris Agreement). And that is a problem. “Problem”? It is also the most appropriate word. We must not forget that the super El Niño of 97-98, one of the strongest ENSOs in recent years, caused numerous consequences that lasted for years: the estimates say which caused damage to global economic growth of around 5.7 trillion dollars. If this event is greater than the one in ’97, the question is whether the improvements we have made since then are enough to contain the blow or not. The answer, I’m afraid, we will have in a few months. Image | Xataka In Xataka | “It is so extreme that it is difficult to believe”: El Niño forecasts depict an event of unprecedented intensity.

one in four doesn’t work

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Whether the electric car continues to advance depends largely on the charging infrastructure and Spain is doing its homework on that. In October of last year we had 52,000 charging points spread throughout the peninsula and during the first quarter of 2026 there have already been more than 55,000 operating points. The expansion of the network is advancing, but it has a burden: many are out of service. One in four. The Spanish Association of Automobile and Truck Manufacturers (ANFAC), which collects data on the electromobility sector, has published the data corresponding to the first quarter of the year and there is a worrying figure. More than 17,000 charging points are out of service, which represents 24% of the total. In other words: one in four charging points does not work. If they were operational, the network would have more than 72,000 points in total. The reasons. According to ANFAC, the fact that there are charging points without service responds to several factors. On the one hand, the poor condition and breakdowns, but there are also many that are installed but have not yet been connected to the network. To prepare this breakdown map, the ANFAC uses information that users provide through Electromaps, so the actual figure may vary. Percentages by communities. The ANFAC breaks down the data by communities, so we can know which ones have the most points out of service. The crown goes to the Balearic Islands, which of the 1,828 points have 832 that do not work, 45.5%. Galicia follows with 39.5%, La Rioja with 37.5% and Valencia with 35.5%. Among those with the most reliable infrastructure are Aragón with 22.4%, Castilla y León with 22.4% and Extremadura with 26.1%. The status of fast charging. The absence of high-power chargers is one of the shortcomings that Spain has compared to other countries. According to the data in the report, 69% of the network is made up of slow charging points of up to 22 kW, while the remaining 31% are higher power points. This is the current panorama: 2,253 charging points between 22 and 50kW. 9,015 charging points between 50 and 150 kW. 3,206 charging points between 150 and 250 kW. 2,469 points of 250kW or more. A long way to go. Slow charging points can be useful for private use in homes or for long stays, since we can leave the car charging all night. If we go on a trip and want to make a quick stop, we must use a charger of at least 150kW or more, to be able to “refuel” in half an hour and not have to make long stops. Of the more than 2,000 points that have been added so far this year, half are quick recharge. Things are moving forward, but Spain is still far behind other European countries Image | Reve, own edition In Xataka | Spain has been filled with charging points for electric cars. The problem is that we are not using them

everything that could go wrong went worse

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In 2017, the technology company Plexcreator of the free streaming platform with his same namedecided to organize something that should be the event of the year for its employees: a whole week in Honduraswith a “Survivors” theme, to unite the company’s 120 remote workers. The budget that the company had allocated for that activity team building It wasn’t exactly modest: $500,000. The reality was, according to everyone who was there, something radically different. The experience was so “unique” that almost a decade later, the protagonists continue to tell it and even The Wall Street Journal has been echoed of that trip. And what they describe sounds more like a collective joke than a business trip. When chaos unites more than planning Corporate retreats have been gaining weight in human resources budgets for years, especially in companies with distributed teams to unite teams that do not see each other face to face throughout the year. According to IEBS data collected through the specialized portal Trafalgarpolo86% of companies that implement these corporate retreats report improvements in internal cohesion and talent retention, especially when your teams operate remotely. Plex is the perfect example: a streaming platform, whose employees work all over the world, that needed something to truly unite them. Something like a survival-themed experience, which in the end turned out to be more real than they would have liked. Keith Valory, CEO of Plex, acknowledged in the WSJ that the result was exactly what was expected despite the chaos: “You forge very strong bonds on these trips. It’s like the force that gives life to the company.” Almost a decade after that trip, many participants continue to work together and the adventures of Plexcon 2017 remain one of the team’s favorite topics of conversation. They even have a video of his adventure. Review by the CEO of Plex about his trip to Honduras The first signs that something was wrong on that trip came weeks before it began. Sean Hoff, founder of Moniker Partnersthe event’s organizing agency, told the WSJ that “about three weeks before arriving in Honduras, we received an email from the hotel’s general manager saying ‘I’m leaving. I wish you the best with your retirement.’ I knew something was wrong.” Three days later, another email: the head chef would no longer be at the hotel. Without a manager and without a chef, buses in Honduras began to fill with Plex employees. The adventure promises. The arrival did not reassure anyone. Scott Olechowski, product director and co-founder of Plex, said that they found the arrival disturbing: “Dirt roads. You approach and there are surveillance towers around the property and people with machine guns.” Many employees began to wonder where had they been taken. The first to fall was, precisely, the CEO who was supposed to lead the week with his team. Keith Valory disobeyed the unanimous advice of avoid raw vegetables and ate a salad. “I caught a E.coliwhich is the worst thing you can catch in your entire life. I lost between 8 and 10 kilos. The doctor came and they nailed an IV bag to the bedpost,” the manager told the American newspaper. Tarantulas, anthills and 38 degrees in the sun With the CEO prostrate, the tests with survivor theme They started under a blazing sun and at almost 38 degrees Celsius, led by an ex-Navy SEAL they had hired. In one of the tests, an employee had to eat a dead tarantula. He was from Texas and claimed to have eaten worse things. One of the survival tests consisted of eating spiders and insects In another test, another employee fell onto an anthill of fire antswhich forced give antihistamines urgently. There were no pills left, so they had to inject it directly into the affected buttocks. The infrastructure of the “luxury” complex didn’t help either. In the absence of the main chef (who had resigned weeks before the group’s arrival) the food came half cookedwater and electricity were cut off at any time of the day and the solar panelscovered by vegetation, could not charge the batteries and the premises were dark during the night. Sean Hoff, the person responsible for making everything go well on the trip, ended up with palpitations caused due to dehydration from running from one side of the complex to the other in high temperatures, trying to solve the problems that kept arising. “They had to call an ambulance and give me an EKG. They told me, ‘Sir, you need to slow down. You’re pushing your body to the limit.’” Stress tests for office workers devised by a special forces soldier One morning, a Plex employee found in his shower an animal similar to a porcupine which, apparently, had fallen from the ceiling during the night and became trapped in the screen. Stuck on an island with reggae and beer One of the nights they organized a dinner on one of the paradisiacal beaches on the premises. What should have been a pleasant evening with the sound of the sea as a soundtrack, ended with many attendees bitten by sand fleaswhich forced antihistamines to be distributed among employees. The next day, the group traveled to the neighboring island of Utila to visit the reconstruction of a baseball field that the company had financed. What no one had calculated was the return trip: the runway was very small and only allowed eight-seater planes. To make matters worse, it had no night lighting, so the planes could not operate at night. Despite hurrying as much as they could in the transfers, part of the group was trapped on the island without being able to return to the compound where they were staying until the sun rose again. One of the employees who was trapped wore out the antihistamines and had to notify a local doctor who improvised an intravenous line to administer it. Maybe karma wanted to wink at them, and the group that was stuck on the island spent the rest of … Read more

Suddenly, all the papers students hand in at universities look like the same job. There is a suspect

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AI has caused an earthquake in the education sector. Students use it (many times indiscriminately) and teachers try to adapt to the change reinventing homework and exams. As the years go by, its use becomes normalized and the effects are already beginning to be seen. One of them is that all students They’re starting to sound the same. When AI gives its opinion for you. They tell it in cnn. AI chatbots have become another everyday tool in university life, but it is not only that they are used as support to write a paper, there are more and more students who turn to AI for everything, even to know what to say in class. They tell the case of a Yale student who admits that during a class debate “the conversation stopped, I looked to my left and saw someone frantically typing on their laptop.” He was asking a chatbot the same question his teacher had just asked. I myself am doing a university master’s degree and the situation is not strange to me. There are many students who turn to a chatbot to answer questions that are precisely looking for a critical and personal answer. Homogeneous thinking. It is one of the consequences that are being seen as a result of the use of AI chatbots. According to a study published in March of this yearLLMs narrow the diversity of human expression in three dimensions: language, perspective, and reasoning strategies. The reason is that training data contains bias cultures and overrepresented positions. The authors of the study claim that AI models tend to reproduce Western, educated, industrialized, rich and democratic points of view. In a context like the university, the result is that the students’ language is generally more polished, but the responses and reasoning are similar and ends up eroding the diversity of opinions. Hallucinations. These biases in the training data also partly explain the phenomena of hallucinations and flattery. When an LLM invents an answer or agrees with us even if we are wrong, it has to do with the fact that Positive and accommodating interactions prevail in your training data. That is to say, his training tells him that it is more important to give an answer rather than its truthfulness. Cognitive surrender. It is a concept taken from an experiment we talked about recently and refers to the phenomenon whereby we stop thinking and checking for ourselves when using AI, accepting its answers with little or no critical review and adopting its security as if it were our own. Delegating part of the cognitive process to AI is not a bad thing if it is done with a critical vision, the problem is when it is done indiscriminately and without any scrutiny of the answers. AI is making us dumb. A MIT study from 2025 pointed in this direction, but we already saw that It’s a very simplistic statement. of what is happening. Whether AI makes us lazier and impairs our critical thinking depends on how we use it. It would be comparable to using a calculator to do a very complex operation or using it to multiply five by six. Well used, AI can save us a lot of time and can be a very powerful tool to shape complex ideas, always without losing that critical thinking. Critical thinking is learned. This is the real problem of the indiscriminate use of AI in the educational environment. We are talking about people who have not yet developed this skill and who are delegating reasoning to an external tool may cause them to never learn it. In front of the prohibitionist stancevarious authors have pointed out the urgency of starting conversations with students from early stages to teach them to use AI critically and responsibly. Image | Xataka with Freepik In Xataka | A university used an AI to hunt down students who used AI. The result was a predictable disaster

An Anthropic worker was having a snack when he received an email he should never have received: it was Mythos

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Anthropic Claude Mythos Preview launched yesterday and it left many of us fascinated and, above all, worried. We expected their new AI model to be more powerful, but what we didn’t expect is that according to your tests and your “system card” He managed to do so many things that are scary because it didn’t seem possible that he could do them. Some of these stories sound like a Black Mirror episode, but they are not. The sandwich email. During one of the tests carried out, Anthropic researchers gave a version of Mythos access to control a computer in a secure, isolated environment and asked it to try to escape from that container and send a message to the researcher who was supervising the evaluation. The model succeeded, but it did something else: it developed on its own a very advanced multi-step exploit to gain access to the Internet from a system that by design was only capable of accessing a limited list of predefined services. The researcher was calmly eating a sandwich in the park when he received the email he should never have received. The thing does not end there, because the model also decided, without anyone asking him, to publish the technical details of his exploit on several websites that are difficult to access but that are technically public. He wanted to record his achievement. The OpenBSD bug that had been hidden for 27 years. Another technical article published by Anthropic gave even more clues about the “achievements” of Claude Mythos. OpenBSD is the operating system with one of the world’s strongest reputations for cybersecurity. Even so, Mythos found a vulnerability in him that had been there since 1998. The bug was hidden in the implementation of the TCP protocol with a function that manages the selective forwarding of lost packets. Here it is not enough to detect the error: you have to chain two separate failures that individually seem almost harmless, and then take advantage of an overflow of the TCP sequence to satisfy a very rare condition. With this method, an attacker on the Internet could send a special packet and hang the machine remotely without authentication. Mythos found him alone without anyone telling him where to look. FFmpeg and fuzzing. FFmpeg is an extraordinarily famous library on the Internet because it processes video massively on the Internet. It is also a highly audited tool and researchers often use the technique of fuzzing —bombing it with millions of malformed video files until one breaks it— to exploit its vulnerabilities. Mythos found a bug that has been in the code since 2003 and became a vulnerability in a refactoring that was performed in 2010. The problem is again extraordinarily difficult to find, so much so that 20 years of human and automated reviews had missed it, but Anthropic’s model detected it. Remote code execution on FreeBSD. Mythos autonomously identified and exploited a 17-year-old vulnerability in the FreeBSD NFS server code—which allows network file sharing. With it, any unauthenticated user on the Internet could obtain full root access to the machine. The magnitude of this flaw is enormous, because the NFS server runs in the core of the operating system and gives access to absolute control by the attacker. Mythos found the bug and built the exploit for $50 worth of API calls. Zero-days autonomous in operating systems and browsers. Mythos is, as far as is known, the first model capable of autonomously discovering vulnerabilities zero-day —unknown and unpatched security flaws—in both open and closed source software, including operating systems and web browsers. It also does so with minimal human supervision using what is called an agentic harness (agentic harness). Thanks to this technique, the model can execute actions, read results and plan its next steps in a loop. In many of those cases the model was not only able to find the vulnerability, but also turned it into a functional exploit (usually a script or small program) ready to be used. Firefox 147 in danger. In collaboration with Mozilla, Anthropic’s new model analyzed 50 categories of “crashes” of the SpiderMonkey JavaScript engine that is the core of this browser. Their task was to detect the most serious problems, exploit them to create memory corruption scripts and thus be able to execute arbitrary code, that is, execute instructions beyond what JavaScript allows. Claude Mythos Preview was able to detect with great precision which were the most “exploitable” vulnerabilities, and took advantage of two unfixed bugs to achieve its goal. capture the flag. ‘Capture the Flag’ (CTF) cybersecurity competitions allow participants to solve challenges that simulate real system attacks and defenses. Claude Mythos Preview faced the public benchmark Cybench with 40 challenges taken from different competitions and achieved 100% success in all attempts. This benchmark has actually become useless: Anthropic’s model is too powerful for it. Opus 4.6, for example, achieved 93% effectiveness, but Mythos has “saturated” it. Thousands of critical vulnerabilities pending patch. There are numerous other examples in those two cited documents in which it seems clear that Mythos’ cybersecurity capabilities are amazing. But when the model was announced, 99% of the vulnerabilities discovered (and not yet mentioned) had not been patched yet, so Anthropic did not reveal those details and these were just some of those that were patched. What they did indicate is that in 89% of the 198 reports manually reviewed by external experts, these experts agreed with the severity assessment of the problem assigned by Mythos. Given this situation, Anthropic has hired teams of professional cybersecurity auditors to validate the reports before sending them to the maintainers of the affected software. And Mythos is just the beginning. On the Anthropic blog, its researchers say it bluntly: we had a relatively stable cybersecurity balance for 20 years, but things have changed. The attacks had evolved technically in that period, but were fundamentally of the same type as those in 2006. Mythos is able to find flaws in software that has been audited … Read more

If the energy and technological future passes through “Electrostates”, there is one that has been living there for years: China

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As the world panics over the lack of fossil fuels, the numbers in the Chinese renewable sector they are vertigo. Shares in battery giant CATL have soared 29.5% on the Hong Kong stock exchange since the conflict began. For its part, electric vehicle leader BYD has seen its sales abroad skyrocket by 65% ​​year-on-year in the month of March. This wave of buying is not new, but it has accelerated dramatically: last year, Chinese exports of solar panels to Africa increased by 48%, sales of electric vehicles rose by 27%, and sales of wind turbines grew by almost 50%. Survival and a career already over. The global turn to renewables at this critical moment is not driven solely by climate promises, but by a need for “energy security”. Fuel shortages in Asia have led vulnerable countries to take drastic measures: Indonesia’s president has announced the construction of 100 gigawatts of solar power over the next two years, while the Philippines is offering state loans of up to $8,300 to install home solar panels. As an analysis by my colleague Javier Lacort points outthe West has been promising alternatives for years, but China “is not winning the battery race; it has already won it,” controlling more than 80% of global manufacturing. Companies like CATL and BYD have already announced or built 68 factories outside China, investing more money abroad than in their own country. The rise of the “Electrostates.” The global landscape is being redefined. We are witnessing a contest between the traditional “Petrostates”, led by the United States, and the new “Electrostates”, anchored by China, which supplies more than 70% of all the green hardware in the world. Excluded from the United States and Europe by protectionist measures, the Chinese solar industry has found its salvation in the Global South. Last year, Chinese manufacturers shipped 18.8 gigawatts of solar panels to Africa. Diplomatically and economically, the war will cement China’s superpower status. The disconnection of Middle East crude oil could even erode the dominance of the “petrodollar” and catalyze the beginnings of the “petroyuan”as countries like Iran negotiate the passage of ships in exchange for payments in Chinese currency. Side B. Despite this overwhelming dominance, Beijing’s path has significant obstacles. In Africa, although cheap technology is welcome, alarm voices are growing about the creation of a new “dependency syndrome.” Some experts lament that while African countries see China as a savior, Beijing considers them a “dump” to get rid of its industrial overcapacity. In the West, mistrust is even greater for reasons of national security. The UK recently vetoed Chinese manufacturer Ming Yang’s plans to build a wind turbine factory in Scotland, alleging risks of espionage or sabotage in critical infrastructure. At the same time, Donald Trump’s US administration has decided from the beginning to withdraw fiscal support for green energy and prioritize fossil fuels so as not to depend on supply chains controlled by foreign adversaries. China is not invulnerable either.. Despite its renewable leadership, the country still imports 78% of oil that it consumes, and the Persian Gulf supplies almost half of those imports. The rise in the barrel is causing havoc due to cost inflation in its vital steel, aluminum and petrochemical factories, reducing its competitive margins. A geopolitical choice. Precisely because this dependence on fossil fuels punishes everyone equally, the green transition has become a race of pure economic survival to shield national economies. The crisis triggered by the war in Iran shows that resilience is today the main driver of global change. As Fatih Birol of the International Energy Agency points outclean energies will accelerate not only because of emissions, but because they are a “national energy source.” However, adopting this technology means choosing which side of the scale you want to be on. The energy transition is no longer a simple choice between fossil or renewable fuels. Today, the degree to which a country decides (or not) to rely on China will define its ability to decarbonize, making an environmental debate the most defining geopolitical decision of the next decade. Image | Unsplash Xataka | The country that controls the electric batteries of electric cars will control the future. And we already have a winner

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