Mobile Tech & Gadgets

the bureaucratic absurdity behind mercury pollution

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When environmental prosecutor Carlos Chirre and his team arrived at the port after destroying 15 illegal dredges in the Colorado River (Madre de Dios), they did not find justice, but a mob. About 80 people armed with sticks cornered them, burned their boats and threatened to kill them. “This is how the people interdict,” one of the women leading the riot shouted. This scene, documented in an extensive report by Mongabay Latamillustrates a harsh reality: the Peruvian State has lost control of the territory. The gold rush doesn’t stop. As they warn in AP Newsillegal mining is spilling over into new areas of the Peruvian jungle, such as the province of Tambopata and virgin corners of Madre de Dios, leaving in its wake devastated jungles and rivers converted into toxic mudflats. Nobody is safe. The historic Panguana scientific station—with more than 60 years operating in Huánuco— has been surrounded by backhoes that operate day and night. Death threats against scientific personnel forced the area to be evacuated. Researcher Eric Cosio warns about the magnitude of this enemy: the degree of logistical sophistication of these miners far exceeds that of drug trafficking. They operate in broad daylight, extracting gold on a medium scale and in full view of everyone. The great legal trap. The tributaries are public and intangible goods, but the State itself is the one that has facilitated their invasion. According to the researchthere are at least 215 current mining concessions that cross five of the main basins in the region. The legal trick is perverse: although the concession title does not authorize the extraction of the mineral without having previously obtained environmental permits, in practice it is enough to have that paper in hand to install dredgers and deceive the indigenous communities, stating that the State has granted them that right. But the definitive shield of impunity has a name: the Comprehensive Registry of Mining Formalization (Reinfo). As detailed Wiredthis temporary registration (whose validity Congress has extended until 2026) grants criminal immunity to registered miners. As long as they appear “in the process of formalization,” they can be removing the river bed and using mercury—acts prohibited by law—without being able to be prosecuted as illegal miners. Political complicity. Here comes the factor that clearly explains the situation: Luis Otsuka, current regional governor of Madre de Dios and former mining leader, owns a concession called K-1 that overlaps the Tres Islas native community. Although the Judiciary ordered the annulment of these concessions to protect the indigenous territory, it was the Otsuka regional government itself that, years later, reactivated them. The imminent future. In the Loreto region, where mining is just beginning to emerge strongly, the health tragedy is already underway. According to research by the Amazon Scientific Innovation Center (Cincia), 79% of the residents evaluated in the Nanay River basin already have mercury levels in their bodies higher than the limit recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO). Claudia Vega, Cincia researcher, issues a terrifying warning: Because communities in Loreto eat fish daily, an expansion of mining would bring them closer to suffering levels of mass poisoning comparable to the historic Minamata disaster in Japan. At a global level, the crisis also takes its toll on the climate. The Pontifical Catholic University of Peru emphasizes that the paralysis of the measurement tower in Panguana directly commits to the international AndesFlux project. Without this key station in central Peru, the world loses vital long-term data to understand how rainfall forms and how the carbon cycle works across South America. From the river to the blood. According to Deutsche Wellepollution punishes indigenous peoples with greater cruelty. Julio Cusurichi, leader of the indigenous organization AIDESEP, denounces that studies in Madre de Dios already show mercury levels well above what is allowed in pregnant women, causing children to be born with severe neurological problems and malformations. This bioaccumulation is lethal. As Claudia Vega (Cincia) explainsmercury thrown into the waters is transformed into methylmercury and enters the food chain through carnivorous fish. But not only that: the burning of gold amalgam releases vapors that travel for kilometers, poisoning the air of urban areas and forests that do not even have direct mining activity. Behind this ecocide there is a thirsty international market. The German media points out that there is a multimillion-dollar traffic of mercury from Mexico to the Amazon. Furthermore, it exposes a global vacuum: the Minamata Convention—designed to stop this toxic substance—does not completely prohibit its trade, allowing it under certain exceptions for artisanal mining, a loophole that is ruthlessly exploited by mafias. Behind this ecocide there is a thirsty international market. The German media points out that there is a multimillion-dollar traffic of mercury from Mexico to the Amazon. Furthermore, it exposes a global vacuum: the Minamata Convention—designed to stop this toxic substance—does not completely prohibit its trade, allowing it under certain exceptions for artisanal mining, a loophole that is ruthlessly exploited by mafias. A perpetual damage. Mercury is not a problem that time can erase. “Mercury, since it is an element, we do not destroy it,” remember Claudia Vega. It doesn’t go away; it simply travels, filters down, and is passed down to the next generations. The gold that today leaves the Peruvian Amazon for global markets is stained by something denser than mud and mercury: it is stained by deliberate legal loopholes. The State has created a bureaucratic monster where being registered in a registry or having a concession on paper is worth more than the health of a native community or the natural channel of a river. As long as the laws continue to protect the destroyer rather than the destroyed, the Amazon will continue to lose the battle. Image | Marco Milon Xataka | There are two global superpowers fighting to gain a foothold on the coast of Peru: the United States and China.

The low cost companies of the United States are already suffering from the new oil crisis

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2.5 billion dollars. That is the figure that low-cost airlines demand from the United States Government in order to continue operating in the country. The rise in fuel prices has reached such a point that a handful of companies are beginning to see the wolf’s ears. And that wolf is called: bankruptcy. 2.5 billion dollars. The Association of Value Airlines, made up of Allegiant Air, Avelo Air, Frontier Airlines, Spirit Airlines and Sun Country (all low-cost airlines operating in the United States), have asked the United States Government to create a liquidity fund of $2.5 billion to pay for the fuel they need to offer their services. At the meeting, they assure from Reutersairline executives, Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy and Head of the Federal Aviation Administration Bryan Bedford met. 111 dollars. It is the average ticket price offered by the low-cost airlines that attended the meeting. A figure that, they say, is impossible to maintain if the price of fuel continues to increase. And, according to his calculations, those 2.5 billion dollars It will be the increase in prices at the end of the year that they will have to assume if the market continues to be as volatile as it has been until now. According to their calculations, the rise in the price of oil has been such that it is forcing them to pay for fuel at twice the price they normally did. This puts their operations at risk to the point that, they say, the profit margin is so narrow that it puts the viability of the companies at risk. Ravine. Neither the White House nor federal aviation officials responded to questions from Reuters but by then it was already known that talks had been initiated to provide $500 million to Spirit Airlines. The airline, however, ended up bankrupt this weekend. The company, they explain in BBChad operated in the country for more than 30 years but since the hardest years of the Covid-19 pandemic, it was going through severe financial difficulties. The rise in fuel prices has been the last straw that has ended up leaving passengers on the ground. The Secretary of Transportation of the United States, Sean Duffy, has assured that the company already had serious problems before the country launched its first attacks against Iran. Now, 17,000 workers have lost their jobs overnight. It’s not the only one. Although the Spirit case has been the most striking (its business became such that in 2014 Morgan Stanley pointed it out as the airline with the greatest potential for its investors). but he withdrew his support in 2023), this airline has not been the only one in which bankruptcy due to the enormous cost of fuel has weighed on the heads of hundreds or thousands of workers. Latvia has had to rescue Air Baltic with a loan of 30 million euros and airlines such as Lufthansa or SAS have had to cancel thousands of flights to try to contain the hemorrhage. In the case of Lufthansathe company has focused on short-haul flights where profit margins are narrower, canceling more than 20,000 of them before the end of the year. For its part, SAS canceled more than 1,000 flights only last April. A warning (with buts). Michael O’Leary, CEO of Ryanair, has also not missed the opportunity to attack his rivals. In The Spanish They report that O’Leary predicts the bankruptcy of two or three European companies before the end of the year if the oil crisis continues. For the manager, WizzAir and Air Baltic would be the main candidates. However, some analysts have pointed out that they consider that the risk of reaching this point is lower among European companies. They point out that in the United States the strength of long-haul airlines is still very high and that, unlike in Europe, low-cost airlines have much less business. What they do not rule out, of course, is that flights will continue to be canceled en masse. less margin. The airline problem low cost It is similar to that of the gas stations serving cheap fuel. In both cases, very narrow profit margins are played in exchange for adding a large number of operations. However, the increase in the cost of fuel kills its business because it places its rates at the prices of its rivals. premium. In the case of airlines, as in the case of gas stations low costhave the added problem that fuel stock is usually small. Furthermore, in the case of aviation, variations in its price tend to be more damaging because its refinement and storage is so expensive and complicated that stocks are usually very small. Photo | Forsaken Films In Xataka | Ryanair asks to suspend the new EU border control system: many are missing flights due to the queues it generates

this is how our body really perceives excesses with alcohol

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Theory (and experience in some cases) tells us that when we overindulge in alcohol, the next day is literally hell. However, despite being one of the most common afflictions in many societies, science continues to reveal the exact mechanisms that are activated in our body when the party is over. And far from being a simple problem of dehydration, the “morning after” is a complex chemical, immunological and cognitive breakdown. A body map. Here science has wanted create a map with all the effects that there are on the body after a drunkenness, and for this the Catholic University of Leuven used a simple mobile app to be able to monitor a total of 34 young adults who are habitual drinkers. Through this app, participants could cross-check questionnaire data, indicate the intensity of their hangover and even the quality of their sleep. But in addition, users pointed out the exact areas that hurt, felt weaker or numb in real time to clearly see that a hangover is more than a slight headache or having a dry mouth the next morning. The result. Once all the participants had painted the areas where they experienced these physical sensations, the truth is that it was quite clear what was happening in the muscles. And in general terms, it was seen how the pain mainly affected the temples of the head or even the stomach discomfort that was felt as a hyperactivation of motility. But at the other end of the spectrum we have the deactivation effect, which were areas painted with cold colors that signaled numbness or heaviness in the extremities. Although the fascinating thing about these “hangover maps” is that they are not purely psychological, since here science shows that these maps have real physiological correlates. That is, the areas that participants color align with measurable physical alterations, such as modulation of heart rate and visceral signals. He leaves the laboratory. Traditionally, tests on the effect of alcohol have been done in a laboratory, analyzing all the variables that could change, but the reality is that no one drinks in such a measured way in the real world. That is why now going out into a much more real environment gives you a naturalistic touch which offers much higher validity. Now an authentic representation of the multi-systemic hangover experience is literally being captured, balancing scientific rigor with the reality of how alcohol consumption occurs in our daily lives. A risk pattern. Behind this study of hangovers lies a key neuroscientific concept, which is called interoceptive phenomenology. This is nothing more than our brain’s ability to perceive and process the body’s internal signals, so mapping how we feel alcohol and a hangover is of great help in identifying a risk pattern for alcoholism. The key is in the literature that suggests that the way in which these physical sensations are processed is directly linked to our vulnerability to addictions. Here, interestingly, people who don’t have as many physical effects during a hangover may be at higher risk of developing an alcohol use disorder, since it may not feel too bad for them to draw a line. And this can be essential to be able to detect early in the future this serious problem that can literally destroy a life. Images | wirestock at Magnific In Xataka | There are scientists dedicated for decades to studying hangovers: what thousands of drunken binges (analyzed) have concluded afterwards

The most opaque business in Silicon Valley has just published its best results. This is exactly what Palantir sells

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Palantir has published some quarterly results that have surprised even its most optimistic analysts: revenues of $1.63 billion in the first quarter, 85% more than a year before. The company has also raised its annual forecast to almost 7,660 million. These are numbers that place Palantir in another league. And yet, many people don’t know exactly what they do. That is not an accident when it comes to this company, with such a specific type of activity. The context. Palantir has been building data analysis software for more than twenty years for governments and institutions that prefer not to make the headlines: the CIA, the FBI, the Pentagon, the United States immigration services… The company was founded in 2003 by Peter Thiel, the investor who also put money into Facebook and which today orbits in the power constellation. Trumpian, and by Alex Karp, its CEO, a notably eccentric figure with a PhD in Social Theory from Frankfurt. The combination of American intelligence money (In-Q-Tel, the CIA’s venture capital fund, was one of its first investors) and German university campus philosophy perfectly defines the moral ambiguity in which the company lives. In detailand. Palantir’s business has two legs. The first, and the one that is growing the most, is the American government: 687 million dollars in this quarter alone, 84% more than the previous year. The second leg is the commercial business with private companies, which has grown even faster (133%) to 595 million. But to understand how Palantir makes money you have to understand what it sells: Palantir Gotham It is its star product for governments and defense. It integrates dispersed data sources (satellite images, interceptions, movement logs, social networks, intelligence databases, etc.) and turns them into a coherent map that an analyst can interrogate. That is, it transforms oceans of noise into manageable information environments on which to make decisions. The screenshot that heads this article is an example. Palantir Foundry It is the business version. It does the same thing but for large companies: it unites data from different departments, cleans the information and allows automated workflows to be built on it. Maven AI It is their most recent and most controversial product. It is a command and control system that analyzes battlefield data and identifies targets in real time. The Pentagon is in the process of making it an official program of the American army, which would guarantee succulent long-term contracts. Between the lines. CEO Alex Karp This week he addressed his shareholders to explain to them that “the United States remains the constant core of the business. And that business is exploding.” Palantir’s rise is directly linked to increased defense spending, escalating geopolitical conflicts, and the growing use of AI in military contexts. In other words: when the world becomes more dangerous, Palantir makes more. Its business model is, to some extent, a barometer of global tension. Yes, but. Palantir Stock fell 1.5% in the aftermarket despite the good results, and they have accumulated a drop of around 18% so far this year. Investors have two questions without clear answers. The first: is 85% growth sustainable? The second, the most uncomfortable: what happens if the administration changes, if defense priorities change or if Congress tightens spending? A company whose main engine is a single client (the US government) has a concentration of risk that does not appear in the metrics they boast about. The money trail. The perennial debate about Palantir is not the financial one but the ethical one. The company has been at the center of some controversies for its work with ICE (the American immigration service) in identifying undocumented people, and for the role that its tools have played in military operations in different parts of the world. Karp does not shy away from these questions: he openly argues that the West needs companies willing to do this work, and that those who refuse simply leave the field open to others. It is an argument that its investors accept without many questions. And the results, for now, prove them right. In Xataka | AI is crucial for the US military. So he’s naming OpenAI and Palantir leaders as lieutenant generals Featured image | Palantir, Xataka with Mockuuups Studio

clean Windows of so much garbage

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Over the last few years, Microsoft has flooded Windows 11 of AI-based functions. Many of these tools have not gone down well with the community, not to mention the invasive advertising that has surrounded the operating system all this time. The result of this strategy without clear direction has led to fed up users, a damaged reputation and a nickname that has gone viral: “Microslop”. Now the company wants to regain the trust of users, and its own CEO has had to come out and say so in public. The problem has its own name, and it is “Microslop”. In recent months, Microsoft’s obsession with integrating AI into absolutely everything (Windows, Edge, Bing, Notepad, the Start menu) has generated great rejection from users. On social networks there are already many who nickname the company “Microslop”, a play on words between Microsoft and the term AI slop (content of dubious quality generated with artificial intelligence). The company tried to delete the term blocking it on their official Copilot Discord server, which sparked even more controversy and ended up forcing them to close that server directly. As we mentioned a couple of months ago, the maneuver was a perfect example of how to aggravate a problem instead of solving it. Recall: the straw that broke the camel’s back. Microsoft’s flagship feature for Windows, which promised a kind of AI-based PC photo memory, became the symbol of everything that was going wrong: an intrusive feature, with serious privacy implicationslaunched without anyone asking for it. She wasn’t the only one. Notepad, one of the simplest and most beloved Windows tools, also received AI functions that many users considered nonsense. The community responded, among other things, creating third party applications to eliminate all that unwanted content in one fell swoop. And in fact, if you want to eliminate everything you don’t like about Windows 11 suddenly, there is a tool that we have recommended in this house more than once: Win11Debloat. Pavan Davuluri was the first to admit it. In March of this year, the head of the Windows division published a text on the official blog of Windows acknowledging the existence of “pain points” regarding the AI ​​functions integrated into the operating system, and committing that the company will only integrate artificial intelligence where it is “truly meaningful.” He also promised an overhaul of the Feedback Hub, the tool for users to submit suggestions, to make it easier for complaints to better reach internal teams. what he said Satya Nadella. During Microsoft’s fiscal third quarter earnings call, the company’s CEO stated that Microsoft is carrying out “the critical work needed to win back fans and strengthen engagement” with Windows, Xbox (which also has its own now), Bing and Edge, and that in the short term the priority is “quality and better serving core users.” Nadella cited improvements such as better performance on devices with low RAM and a faster Windows update experience. The situation is quite serious in itself, and the fact that Microsoft’s own CEO has come to the fore to calm the waters in this way is an indication of this. Inside, the project is called Windows K2. According to they count From Windows Central, there is an internal initiative underway under that name whose objective is to undertake profound improvements in performance, reliability and user experience. It will not come as a big update with its own name, but as continuous and gradual improvements. The File Explorer, one of the elements most criticized for its slowness, is one of the priorities. So are the taskbar and greater control over widgets and the news feed, two of the most controversial additions to Windows 11. There are reasons for optimismeither and for skepticism. as well they point From TechRadar, it is striking that Nadella mentions Bing and Edge in the same breath as Windows when he talks about recovering ordinary users, since they are precisely the two tools that Microsoft has been trying to sneak into the operating system for years without anyone demanding them. On the other hand, the promise to reduce advertising and banners within Windows, something that Davuluri also included in his March commitment, will be the real test of cotton. And now, let’s see if there are facts. Microsoft has 1.6 billion active Windows devices per month, a figure that Nadella took the opportunity to remember at the same conference. That means that no matter how much Linux or macOS gain ground in the public debate, Windows remains the dominant operating system on the desktop. But that position of strength does not guarantee fidelity. The company knows this, and that is why this discourse towards quality and user feedback is more about necessity than strategy. We will have to wait to find out if the company is serious about it. Cover image | Microsoft and Wikimedia Commons In Xataka | The MacBook Neo is the biggest existential threat to the Windows laptop market. And the manufacturers have no answer

This is the new Movistar Plus+ plan that you can even share with a friend

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The more options a company gives us, the better. Movistar Plus+ has been offering all its content for a monthly or annual subscription for a long time, although just a few weeks ago it added its Free Plan. Did it seem like little to you? Well, a new option has just been released: it is a plan that we can subscribe to for only 4.99 euros. Without permanence and whatever operator you are. Monthly subscription to Movistar Plus+ – Cinema and Series The price could vary. We earn commission from these links Less than five euros without permanence and regardless of which operator you are This streaming platform is one of the most complete that we can choose today. The reason for this is that, in addition to offering a lot of movies, series or documentaries (many of them original and exclusive to the platform), it also broadcasts football and other sports in general. But, What if you don’t like them? Well that’s where this new plan comes in. What exactly does it offer? This plan, which, remember, only costs 4.99 euros per month, remove sport from the equation. In other words, it gives you access to movies, series and documentaries of all kinds, as well as more than 70 television channels. In addition, it maintains three key attributes of the 9.99 euros per month: we can subscribe regardless of the operator, it has no permanence and we can share it with a friend without problems. And you only need a card and an email. There is a lot to do with this plan. For example, if we focus on cinema, there are films awarded at the Goya (such as ‘Sundays‘ or ‘Dinner’) or Oscar winners (such as ‘The Sinners‘ either ‘Weapons‘). And series? There’s the newcomer ‘I always sometimes‘, as well as ‘Empathy’ or the final season of ‘Outlander’. Furthermore, the good thing is that this plan does not replace the one that the platform was offering. If you prefer to have matches like the next Bayern Munich-PSG or the Clásico next weekendyou will also be able to see them on Movistar Plus+ for 9.99 euros per month. In this case, you also have the option of taking the annual plan (which is worth 99.90 euros) and save two months. 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 | Movistar Plus+ In Xataka | Movistar Plus+ activates its Free Plan with complete programs and a lot of content, regardless of which operator you are In Xataka | Movistar Plus+ for non-Movistar customers: what it is, how much it costs, channels, additional services and how to contract it

set a flight ceiling

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In 2025, just over 33.8 million of passengers. The one from Ibiza scored 9.1 and the one from Menorca 4.2. Although this enormous flow of travelers includes both residents and people who fly for family, work or study reasons, a good part are tourists who want to spend their vacations on the islands. That makes Aena terminals the great gateway to the Balearic Islands. Also in the new goal of efforts to prevent mass tourism from devouring the archipelago. In fact, there are those who are already talking about setting a flight ceilingjust as it has been proposed to reduce the limit of tourist placesthe vehicle entrance or the cruises. What has happened? What the Balearic Islands want have more weight when deciding what to do with their airports. A few days ago your Parliament gave the green light (with the votes of PP and the Més formation) to a proposal which reinforces the voice of the autonomous community in the management and planning of Aena’s infrastructure. To go ahead, the measure must still obtain the approval of Congress, something that is by no means guaranteed, but it shows a key objective of the Balearic Government: to prevent its airports from continuing to be an unlimited drain for mass tourism. What exactly do they want? The original proposal It started from the eco-sovereignty Més formation and has moved forward after incorporating amendments proposed by the PP, the party that heads the regional Government. Its objective is very simple: to give more weight to the Balearic authorities when deciding what happens to its airport network, in the hands of Aena. It is not about transferring ownership of the terminals, which now depend on the State, but about moving towards a “co-management” when it is time to set rates, frequencies or operational capacity. Aena already works with coordination committees in which different administrations sit, but they are only advisory bodies. That is, the airport manager does not have to follow their recommendations. In the Balearic Islands they want to apply two big changes to that model. First, reinforce the weight of regional institutions in the archipelago. Second, that their reports are binding in certain cases. Why is it important? Because beyond reinforcing the capacity of the Balearic Islands to decide what happens with one of its great entry and exit doors, the proposal has a much more specific objective: to become a tool to combat tourist overcrowding. In fact, that idea flies over the original textpresented by Més per Mallorca and Més Menorca in 2025. “Airport policy conditions the balance between visitors and residents, to the extent that the intensity of the flow of tourists and the average period of stay impact human pressure on the islands and, therefore, the satisfaction of residents with tourism and of tourists with the destination,” collect the initiative. Do they argue something else? “In recent years, an evident disconnection between tourism policy and airport policy has been revealed, which has resulted in a progressive increase in the number of flights and arrivals to the Balearic Islands, in a context of containment of the number of tourist places,” affects Més’s proposal, which states that one of the objectives of the new organization would be to set a “ceiling” of flights, passengers and merchandise. The training recalls that the Balearic airports have gone from moving 31.9 million travelers in 2014 to 47.4 in 2024. 48% more in ten years. Is the debate settled? No. Although the proposal has gone ahead in the Balearic Parliament thanks to the PP amendments that have rethought part of the original document (a red line What remains is the binding nature of the committee’s decisions), there is still a process that is as necessary as it is complex: the approval of Congress. Vox has already rejected the proposal in the Autonomous Chamber and PSOE and Unidas Podemos have opted to refrain. The truth is that the Balearic initiative is even more ambitious than the recently agreed between the central government and the Basque Country, which involves creating a “bilateral body for collaboration, coordination and management” focused on the three airports in the region. What makes the Balearic Islands different? From Mes it is alleged that the fact that the Balearic Islands is an archipelago gives even more relevance to airport traffic management. Mallorca, Menorca and the Pitiusas are, however, more than just part of an archipelago. They are also a destination they pass through every year. millions of visitors and in which tourism leaves one of lime and another of sand: although the sector moves billions of euros also has stressed the residential market and caused friction with the local population, who already has gone out into the street to protest against overcrowding. Més herself has demanded in the past curb uncontrolled touristification. Do you only look at airports? No. The debate on the overcrowding of the Balearic Islands and the measures to limit it has also extended to the tourist places of the archipelago, the vehicle entrance or the cruise traffic. In its original proposal, Més focuses, however, on the “complete disconnection” between these initiatives and the activity of the island airports. “The existence of these seat ceilings has not translated, in any case, into a containment of the flight schedule, which has been growing year after year, even in high season,” argues. Now the region wants to provide itself with a new tool that gives it greater control over its terminals. Images | James Stevenson (Unsplash) and Wikipedia In Xataka | Europe is back in “February 2020”: Lufthansa has canceled 20,000 flights and it is just the beginning of the crisis

This is the robot that the creator of the Roomba has been wanting to develop for 30 years

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Colin Angle, co-founder of iRobot, left the company in a somewhat abrupt manner after the breakdown of the Amazon agreement. However, the topic of home robotics has never disappeared from his mind, and in fact it has returned with a somewhat peculiar proposal. Does not clean floors. It has four legs, moving ears and is designed to make you get attached to it. The story behind the return. Angle left iRobot in 2024, after the failure of its sale to Amazon and after almost three decades at the head of the company. Shortly after, he founded Familiar Machines & Magic with Ira Renfrew and Chris Jones, two iRobot veterans. Last week at the Wall Street Journal’s Future of Everything conference, he unveiled his first creation: a furry-looking quadruped robot they call “Familiar.” According to they counted told the WSJ, the choice of name comes from modern European folklore, where the term was used to describe supernatural animals that accompanied witches. What exactly is it. The truth is that it is difficult to classify. He does not speak, he is not a smart speaker with legs, and it is not a typical robotic pet either (despite having a similar size). It has 23 degrees of freedom that allow you to move your head, neck, ears, eyes and eyebrows. It walks on all fours at a calm pace, cannot climb stairs or grab objects, and its communication with the user is completely non-verbal: it meows, purrs and expresses emotions through its body and face. “By design, you will avoid giving factual advice on things that perhaps you shouldn’t give factual advice on,” explained Angle to The Verge, in a direct reference to the problems that chatbots based on large language models have. Its face has been designed unrelated to any specific animal, and this decision is deliberate, because if the robot looked like a dog or a cat, the user would bring preconceived expectations that the robot might not be able to meet. So, yes, it is a somewhat complicated pet to describe. What technology does it have inside? According to those responsible, the Familiar works with the chip Jetson Orin from Nvidia and a small, custom multimodal AI model that processes vision, audio, language and memory directly on the device, without sending data to the cloud. It has a camera, microphone and a touch-sensitive touch casing. It can work without an internet connection. Morgan Pope, creative director of the company and former researcher at Disney Research, points out in an interview with IEEE Spectrum that were two recent advances that made the project viable: the use of reinforcement learning to achieve fluid movement without very expensive hardware, and the Generative AIwhich, in his words, “is perfect here because it creates the plausible assumption of intelligence, which helps the character feel coherent and alive.” What is it for and who is it for? Curiously, the Familiar is not intended as a toy or as a home assistant. Its purpose, according to the companyis to reinforce healthy routines and actively accompany its user. Angle focuses above all on families with small children, older people who live alone or people who want to better manage their well-being. The robot observes, learns and acts. The example that has been given is that, if it detects that you have been looking at your mobile screen for too long, it will try to get you to pay attention to it. Or if someone comes into the house carrying bags and in a hurry, they will know how to stay still and not get too angry. AI is not designed to always obey you. “Training him to obey you perfectly would break the illusion that he has his own personality,” Angle explained. to IEEE Spectrum. The goal is for the robot to have its own goals, not to execute orders. A history of failures. The trajectory of companion robots for the home has not been very encouraging to date. Jibo, Kuri, Anki Vectorhe Aibo original from Sony… they all promised something similar and they have all ended up being discontinued. The common denominator of their failures always ends up being the same: entertaining the first few days until they are forgotten in a closet. Angle thinks AI can change the equation here. “If this ends up being a toy, we will have failed. If it is a creature you want in your world, we will have succeeded,” counted to The Verge. We have questions. The robotic mascot presented at the WSJ event was a prototype that they controlled partially remotely, but Angle promise which will hit the market completely autonomously in 2027. The price, for now, is vaguely described as “similar to the cost of having a pet”, a range so wide that in practice it says nothing. On the other hand, carrying a camera and microphone always on around your home raises some questions about privacy. Although the team states that data is not shared in the cloud, these are issues worth keeping in mind. And now what. Familiar Machines & Magic has brought together talent from Disney Research, Boston Dynamics, MIT, Bose and Sonos. Angle has been wanting to build artificial life for thirty years since the time when iRobot’s original name was, precisely, Artificial Creatures Inc. The technology that did not exist then now exists. So now we need to know if they can materialize that promise into something that people want to have in their living room. Images | Familiar Machines & Magic In Xataka | The end of Nvidia in China seems to be very near: its current market share is 0%

Spotify and Apple Music have a problem with AI-generated music. And the real musicians are paying for it

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Music generated by AI has flooded the large platforms of streaming without anyone having asked for it. Deezer says it detects 75,000 AI tracks uploaded every day, and the number is growing. Spotify has uploaded 75 million songs of that type in the last twelve months. And Apple Music recognizes that more than a third of everything that comes to it is “100% AI”. Why is it important. It is not only a quality problem for the catalog or the reputation of the platform, but also an economic problem. Spotify, Apple Music and most platforms operate with a proportional distribution model (pro-rata): each artist receives a percentage of the total pool royalties equivalent to your reproduction quota. The more AI songs that accumulate listeners (even if they are fraudulent, generated by bots) the more it dilutes what a real musician earns. Between the lines. Although more and more music of this type is uploaded, almost no one listens to it, at least on purpose (sometimes AI songs sneak into algorithmic discovery lists). The problem is not the demand, which does not exist, but the brutal and increasing amount that distorts the algorithms and erodes the income of real artists even though their songs are still the ones that people do want to hear. Someone is uploading music that no one asks for to collect money that they do not deserve because the listeners arrive via bots. And that is money that the real artist stops earning. The background. The most extreme case, at least documented so far, has been that of Michael Smith, an American businessman who between 2017 and 2024 generated more than 10 million dollars in royalties wearing Suno and other tools to create hundreds of thousands of songs and armies of bots to play them automatically. That was the first case of fraud streaming with AI criminally prosecuted in the United States. According to the accusation, it accumulated 660,000 views a day. One billion views and zero fans. Yes, but. The platforms are already facing this wave. Deezer has been the most aggressive: it has implemented AI automatic detection, excludes those songs from algorithmic recommendations and has demonetized 85% of its views. Bandcamp has outright banned AI-generated music. Apple Music has begun to roll out its ‘Transparency Tags‘ (optional for now), and Spotify has released a verification stamp ‘Verified by Spotify‘ to ensure there is a human behind every artist profile. The problem is that both Spotify and Apple have opted for voluntary systems: it is the labels and distributors who must declare whether they have used AI. Nobody who lives off fraud is going to do it. There is an important distinction: It is one thing for a musician to use AI as a tool within their creative process (to refine a lyric, generate a base, experiment with sounds…) and quite another for an entire song to come out of Suno or equivalent with a pair of prompts and without real human intervention. The platforms, at the moment, do not distinguish between one thing and another. And Spotify has also left a door open by noting that “the concept of artistic authenticity is complex and rapidly evolving,” which in practice means that AI artists could end up being verified one day. Featured image | Xataka In Xataka | Science has measured how music impacts us during exercise: choosing the right Spotify list is essential

‘The Devil Wears Prada 2’ is simply a very long advertisement for fashion brands

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Twenty years ago, the click of heels echoing through the offices of runway It was enough to make us tremble and laugh in equal measure. The original 2006 film emerged as a scathing critique, a sharp portrait of a frivolous world ruled by a toxic, hilarious and biting boss. However, two decades later, the industry has decided to betray its own work. The relentless public relations campaign of The Devil Wears Prada 2 suggests that the story’s original satire has been “defanged” and deliberately sanitized. What was once a clever mockery of the fashion industry is today a giant, shameless promotion for luxury brands like Dolce & Gabbana, Balenciaga and Dior. The sequel has been stuck in an uncomfortable limbo, torn between the hypocritical sanitization of its own mythology and the absolute glorification of that amoral universe that, paradoxically, gave it success in the first place. The film as a luxury catalogue. The hype that has surrounded this sequel is unprecedented, transforming the plot into a mere vehicle to sell products and experiences. As the criticism of Le Mondeproduct placements and cameos They are much more elaborate than the script itself; the parade of outfits orchestrated by the wardrobe department matters far more than any narrative thread the film attempts to weave. disney has worked for years to secure partnerships with top-tier brands, with the goal of building the best marketing program ever launched. Executives boast of having created a “fashion collection” where each brand fits perfectly. And the celluloid is the least important thing; the premiere has been conceived like a huge playground for advertisers. We see Starbucks create menus inspired by characters, while giants like Diet Coke, Samsung and Lancôme engulf the narrative of the universe runway. The paroxysm of this bargain sale reaches pharmacy productsstamping the movie logo on Tweezerman brand nail clippers; an ordinariness that the real Miranda Priestly would never have tolerated. When consumption devours fiction. The industry has crossed the Rubicon: brands no longer make a simple product placement In essence, they now demand a “full narrative participation”. The film’s intellectual property has been hijacked as a long-term sales strategy. All this perfectly represents what the philosopher Guy Debord defined in his work The Society of the Spectacle. For Debord, “the spectacle is capital in such a degree of accumulation that it is transformed into an image.” The film is no longer fiction, it is a commercialized social relationship, mediated by images designed to sell. The world we see on screen is purely and exclusively the world of merchandise, confirming that all human and social life has been reduced to simple appearance. The spectator enters the cinema believing he is consuming culture, but becomes a “consumer of illusions”where the merchandise is the only thing that is actually real. Visual coldness: cinema without soul. This commercial colonization requires a corresponding aesthetic, that is, aseptic and prefabricated. Today’s romantic comedies have no soul because They operate under financial profitability algorithms. We’ve lost the real, imperfect characters of the ’90s and ’00s, replaced by mannequins holding cell phones. On a visual level, the screen oozes coldness. Modern films abuse darkness and blur, using shallow depth of field and an excess of digital effects (CGI) that make environments appear a plastic decoration. For the theorist Fredric Jameson, in his essay on postmodernismthis cultural phenomenon reflects a new “lack of depth” (depthlessness) and a “fading of affections” (waning of affect), where the flat surface and the culture of the image or simulacrum replace historical reality and genuine emotion. The film looks dead because, narratively, it is. The nostalgia trap. Where does this model take us? Directly to a “capitalist necromancy”. Hollywood, mired in an alarming creative drought, resurrects dead franchises like cultural zombies, stripping them of their original risk to squeeze the box office. We’re stuck in what Jameson calls “nostalgia mode.” in the magazine The Drum They argue that this extreme dependence of brands toward nostalgia is diluting genuine emotional connections, trapping culture in an amnesiac loop unable to imagine anything new. As he explains Mackenzie Groffcommodified nostalgia is a trap that deceives us into believing that the lost past can be recovered simply through consumption. It is the era of “pastiche”, a term that Fredric Jameson uses to describe the neutral imitation of dead styles or masks of the past. Unlike the original parody, which had a critical and satirical purpose, the pastiche of this sequel is a “blank parody” lacking conviction, condemning us to consume a mirage of our own past through prefabricated pop images. They sell us the illusion of recovering the comfort of the 2000s, but they only give us a purchase receipt. The triumph of ‘fandom’. Despite the obvious lack of soul and visual flatness, the machinery works. The paradox is that the general public continues to buy the illusion. The sequel has achieved an outstanding rating A- in Cinemascore, far surpassing the rating that the original installment obtained from viewers. The premiere sparked a wave of massive digital conversationdemonstrating that talent (Meryl Streep, Anne Hathaway) and nostalgia are unmatched organic communication assets that brands know how to capitalize on perfectly. psychology behind this blind success: fan phenomena (the fandom) provide avenues for escapism, emotional regulation, and identity formation. These parasocial connections with fictional worlds and characters are deeply satisfying for an audience seeking refuge from an increasingly uncertain world. The triumph of the two-hour spot. The real tragedy is that the machinery works. The public, anesthetized by the fan phenomenon, continues to flock to theaters, seeking refuge in nostalgia from an uncertain world, and giving outstanding ratings to a product designed in a boardroom. The sequel to The Devil Wears Prada It is the definitive and obscene triumph of our era. We no longer laugh at consumerism; We give in to him. Today we gladly pay for a movie ticket to sit in the dark and binge a 120-minute infomercial. If the film is perceived as empty, it is not due … Read more

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