Mobile Tech & Gadgets

Bad Bunny deleted his Instagram after the Super Bowl. Everything is part of a larger project

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On Sunday, February 8, 2026, Bad Bunny starred in an unprecedented milestone in Super Bowl history by becoming the first solo Latin artist to star. the concert-show during the intermissionin a performance almost entirely in Spanish that reached more than 100 million viewers. Just hours later, the Puerto Rican artist deleted all of his content on Instagramleaving their more than 51 million followers in front of a completely empty profile. The avalanche of speculation has been immediate. What was seen? Bad Bunny’s approximately 13-minute concert turned the intermission into a visual love letter to Puerto Rico. The artist started walking through sugar cane fields, crossed a Puerto Rican street fair and incorporated La Casita, the iconic traditional Puerto Rican pink house that has become a distinctive element of his concerts. The fluidity of the camera, the variety of topics included, the surprise appearances of Lady Gaga and Ricky Martin, or guests such as Pedro Pascal or Jessica Alba stood out. The irony of the scenario. The choice of Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, California, as the setting for the largest celebration of Latino culture in the history of the Super Bowl takes on an ironic dimension in the context of 2026: California is going through one of the most intense episodes of immigration enforcement in decades. Immigration arrests in San Diego they shot up 1,500% compared to the previous year. For this reason, the political context surrounding the performance was especially tense. In October 2025, when the action was announced, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem declared on a conservative podcast that ICE would be “everywhere” at the Super Bowl and that “only law-abiding Americans who love this country should attend.” The Trump administration had intensified raids in Californian cities while the Puerto Rican artist publicly expressed his fear that “the damn ICE could be outside” his concerts, which is why he canceled several on the US mainland and focused on his residence. Bad Bunny closed his performance with a bright sign that read “The only thing more powerful than hate is love.” Beyond music. ‘‘I should have taken more photos’, the artist’s latest album, has been described as “a cry of resistance” for Puerto Ricans everywhere: it is about preserving a culture in danger of disappearing. It was recorded entirely in Puerto Rico with collaborators exclusively from there. The 13-minute short film that accompanied the release of the album explores themes of loss, displacement and the fading of cultural identity. The project’s mascot is an endangered toad. And songs like ‘What Happened to Hawaii’ address issues like gentrification. This political charge is not new in the artist’s career. In July 2019, interrupted his European tour to return to Puerto Rico and join the massive protests demanding the resignation of Governor Ricardo Rosselló. In 2020, made visible on ‘The Tonight Show’ the murder of Alexa, a Puerto Rican trans woman. The Super Bowl performance was not an isolated event but the continuation of a narrative meticulously constructed across multiple platforms. The visual coherence (La Casita, the flags, the aesthetics) are the constant reminder that each performance is a chapter of the same project: pan-Latin representation in times of adversity. The strategy continues. The emptying of Bad Bunny’s Instagram profile just hours after his performance at the Super Bowl is not a break with his communication strategy, but rather its confirmation. In 2022, before the release of ‘A summer without you’, used the same tactic to generate expectation. That album would become the most successful Spanish album in history. In 2023 repeated the procedure after their world tour, announcing a period of hiatus. The difference in 2026 lies in the political context surrounding the gesture. While previous wipes functioned primarily as a prelude to new musical releases, this one comes on the heels of the most politicized performance of his career, which has included criticism of trump and threats from Secretary Noem. Unlike similar maneuvers that they already did Taylor Swift or Beyoncé, with this Bad Bunny continues with the construction of his transmedia project, whose next step is a world tour that will take the message to Australia, Japan or Spain, among other destinations. Each platform (the album, the stage, social networks) becomes a chapter in a story about Latin identity that transcends the merely commercial. In Xataka | Spotify killed the record and the industry pivoted to concerts. Netflix killed cinema and the industry was left with a “space crisis”

ASML CEO knows the whole world depends on her

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The European Union has announced the inauguration of a new research center dedicated to the development and manufacturing of semiconductors. The project, called NanoIC, wants to become one of the fundamental pillars of the European Chips Act program. 2.5 billion euros on the table. The total budget is 2.5 billion euros, of which 700 million come from EU funds. Another 700 million will come from regional and national governments, and the rest will put ASML on the table and other industrial partners. What is Imec. In reality the project is an expansion of the Imec facilities at its headquarters in Leuven, near Brussels. This body does not manufacture commercial chips, but is the “laboratory” in which rival companies such as Intel, Samsung or TSMC collaborate to define the chips of the future. clean rooms. This is a new clean room (“cleanroom“) of 2,000 square meters which will among other things house ASML’s new next-generation High NA EUV scanner which is expected to arrive in mid-March. The total area of ​​Imec’s clean rooms amounts to 12,000 square meters and the company claims that this makes it a central part of the Chips Act strategy. Imec will soon build another 4,000 square meter clean room on the aforementioned Leuven campus. Everyone loves ASML. ASML CEO Christophe Fouquet highlighted the leading role that your company has managed to achieve thanks to its semiconductor manufacturing machines, the only ones in the world capable of producing the most advanced chips today. As he said, these are the machines “that everyone would like to have.” China sighs (for now). He is right: today the US is a key trade ally but does not have comparable technology of its own, and China has been trying to develop extreme ultraviolet machines for some time. but for now he is still behind in that race. Obviously Europe depends on the US and China in many other areas, but ASML is certainly a clear technological asset for European interests. Inverse dependency. The vice president of the European Commission, Henna Virkkunen, indicated in a interview with Politico that “it is true that we have some of the key technologies, such as ASML, that everyone is dependent on globally.” He explained, of course, that the EU has no plans to turn that into a weapon for potential negotiations, “but it is important to realize that we have those strengths that others do not have.” Changing the story. These statements undoubtedly seek to counteract the idea that Europe depends totally on American technology, demonstrating that the old continent also has its own levers to negotiate. Digital sovereignty. The EU is expected to prepare a second Chips Act which should be presented at the end of March and which would clearly differ from the first. Instead of an emergency response to a project that will turn Europe into a competitive region at a technological level. But. The initiative is striking, but it also has important challenges. We are looking at a research center and that means that its size and budget cannot be compared with those investments in data centers made by large US technology companies. But in addition to that parameter there is another even more relevant one: that of talent. Europe must train and attract enough engineers to operate these centers and develop that work there and not in companies or centers that compete in other regions, including of course the US and China. In Xataka | We already know what the chips that will arrive until 2039 will be like. The machine that will allow them to be manufactured is close

Ten years ago, we were afraid of fast charging. The 10,000mAh batteries are going the same way

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The world of smartphones is divided in two: a Chinese market betting on gigantic silicon-carbon and some “traditional” manufacturers who do not dare to take the leap. This weekend, the controversy was sparked by YouTuber Marques Brownlee, after publishing a video that has surpassed one million views in less than 24 hours. what has happened. “The problem with smartphone batteries”is the title of a video that has spread like wildfire among the community tech. In it, he explained some of the problems that silicon-carbon batteries supposedly suffer from, a technology that China is betting on to boost the capacity of its phones. above 10,000mAh. The problems. Silicon-carbon batteries are not a new technology, but they have been starting to be implemented in smartphones for just two years. During this time, there are several concerns on the table. Possible swelling due to the expansion of silicon: with each charge, a battery contracts and expands. Silicon can triple its volume, generating greater internal stresses in the battery. At the same time, there are fears that this expansion-contraction cycle could cause cracks and leaks in the battery. Need for reinforcement in battery compartment (such as small steel cages) to contain swelling. Long-term reliability not yet demonstrated in smartphones. Yes, but. Concerns about whether silicon-carbon batteries are safe or not are legitimate. Just as, back in the day, we were worried that a mobile phone with “fast” charging like the OnePlus 3 in 2016 (those times when Dash Charge was 30W) could explode. Today there are already mobile phones with 120W. The first commercial mobile phone to incorporate this type of battery was the Honor Magic 5 Pro in its Chinese version. No cases of the slightest problem have been reported to date in its more than two years of life. Manufacturers do not go crazy. Manufacturers are more than aware of the possible dangers that these types of batteries can have, and equip their phones with specific chips to control the charge in real time if excess heat is detected. Some brands, like Honor, go so far as to create microscopic tunnels in their batteries so that lithium ions can reduce chemical friction. Because yes, although carbon silicon batteries are called that, they are not made of pure silicon, they are a natural evolution of lithium batteries themselves. It’s not that easy. The next challenge after the introduction of silicon-carbon batteries has been to take advantage of their ability to store greater energy in a smaller size to achieve barbaric capacities: 7,000mAh, 7,500mAh, 10,000mAh. Energy densities notably higher than those that large manufacturers, such as Samsung, Apple and Google, currently mount in their high-end phones. Here an extra degree is added to the uncertainty: not only do we have more modern and not so tested batteries, but we also have capabilities that make their behavior even more unpredictable. Go deeper. The war for high-capacity batteries adds, apart from doubts about their reliability on the part of some manufacturers, logistical and economic challenges. They are more expensive batteries, and some manufacturers They are not taking them out of China yet. for that same reason. Added to this is that although the spec sheet tells us about milliamp hours, the main measure to determine the energy capacity of a battery is watt hours (Whr). Europe does not like batteries with more than 20 Whr, and they require longer and more expensive transport and authorization protocols. If the RAM crisis threatens to skyrocket the price of smartphones, thinking about incorporating significantly more expensive batteries does not seem like a viable plan to maintain the current margins of large manufacturers. Image | Apple In Xataka | We already know why mobile phones with 6,000mAh are not arriving in Europe: there is a clear person responsible

charge double for more speed

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Anthropic just launched Fast Mode for Claude Opus 4.6a configuration that allows you to obtain model responses up to 2.5 times faster. Of course, it will also affect our pocket, since the price also multiplies. Although right now this is an experiment aimed at professionals who need speed in critical tasks, it is also a move that we are starting to see more and more: monetizing AI tools with incremental improvements with what is already in place. And of course, if this reduces that margin between expenses and income of its operations, better and better. What Anthropic has announced. Fast Mode is neither a new model nor a trimmed version of Opus 4.6. It is the same intelligence, with the same reasoning capacity, but configured to prioritize speed of response over cost efficiency. According to the companyoffers 2.5 times faster responses while maintaining the same model accuracy. At the moment it is available in the testing phase for Claude Code users who have the additional use activated, and also on platforms such as Cursor, GitHub CopilotFigma or v0. The hit to the pocket. While Opus 4.6’s Standard Mode charges $15 per million input tokens and $75 per million output tokens, Fast Mode multiplies those fees: $30 input and $150 output for contexts under 200,000 tokens. In longer contexts, the output rises to $225 per million tokens. Anthropic is offering a 50% discount until February 16, but we’re still talking about a significant increase. The bill especially skyrockets if you activate Quick Mode mid-conversation, as it charges full price for all the previous context. Who does it make sense to? Anthropic says that Fast Mode is designed for interactive work where latency matters more than cost. Real-time debugging, fast code iteration, urgent fixes before a deadline. Situations where waiting breaks the workflow. According to the official documentationit doesn’t make sense for long standalone tasks, batch processing, or jobs where the budget is tight. If Claude is going to spend 30 minutes refactoring code in the background, paying more for speed doesn’t add anything. The signal that sends the market. Fast Mode is not just a premium option. It’s Anthropic testing how far its professional clients are willing to go to achieve fluency. And by the way, sending a message: improvements in speed and user experience are going to cost more and more. The company needs to close the gap between what it spends on computing and what it makes, and it’s doing it faster than its customer base needs to be faster on computing. Fast Mode is billed directly as additional usage, completely skipping the fees included in subscription plans. Between the lines. Anthropic’s move fits into a broader trend. AI models are reaching a level of capability where “revolutionary” improvements are increasingly rare. What remains are incremental adjustments: a little faster, a little more context, slightly more precise responses. But those settings require massive infrastructure and face. So companies in the sector are trying new ways to monetize what they already have. In this case, charge much more to do the same thing, only faster. It is making performance profitable as a premium service. The speed trap. “Speed ​​is addictive”, counted Civil Learning in his Medium article. Once you experience a model that responds instantly without losing reasoning ability, going back is frustrating. Anthropic knows this. Fast Mode doesn’t just sell speed, it sells the ability to maintain flow during intense programming or debugging sessions. And once you get used to it, it’s hard to give it up. And now what. Fast Mode is a research preview, meaning both features and pricing are subject to change. Anthropic plans to expand access to more API clients, but for now it keeps it under control. The key will be to see how many professionals are willing to pay that extra price on a sustained basis. Cover image | Anthropic In Xataka | ChatGPT is increasingly turning to a source that supplants Wikipedia: Elon Musk’s Grokipedia

can’t handle the tourists anymore

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A few years ago the inhabitants of Fujiyoshidaa city in the Yamanashi prefecture, in Japan, realized that they were missing out on a tourist treasure. The town is just a couple of hours by train from the capital and enjoys privileged views of one of the country’s great icons: Mount Fuji. With those wickers and taking advantage of their own landscapes, in 2016 Local authorities promoted a festival focused on the flowering of cherry trees. Now Fujiyoshida has a problem: his plan to attract visitors has worked surprisingly well. So much so that has decided to cancel it. What has happened? That at Fujiyoshida they have encountered a curious problem. In 2016, the authorities promoted an initiative to attract visitors from the rest of Japan and other countries. Now, ten years later, the plan is working so well that its proponents have backed down. In fact they have canceled it. The reason is simple: Fujiyoshida has become a very popular destination among foreign travelers, which in turn translates into the arrival of millions of yen. The problem is that its neighbors have concluded that even that flow of money does not compensate for the inconvenience of being invaded by hordes of tourists. But what about that… why? Basically because Fujiyoshida has ended up becoming a huge photocall outdoors. The city is very close to Fuji and also has large areas of cherry trees that become a real spectacle during the spring, during the flowering season. In 2016, those in charge decided to add both ingredients (the views of Fuji and the traditional Sakuracherry blossom) and promote a festival in Arakuyama Sengen Park. There, tourists will find cherry trees, a pagoda and, above all, impressive views of Fujiyoshida with Fuji in the background. everyone’s dream instagramer who wants to brag about their trip to Japan. What is the problem? That Fujiyoshida hit the nail on the head. Their festival was a success. Tremendous. According to precise According to the Kyodo News agency, during the cherry blossom season the city welcomes more than 10,000 visitors a day. Throughout the year the total count is around 200,000 tourists. Not bad for a population that in 2020 did not exceed 50,000 residents. The avalanche of tourists is so brutal that, despite its enormous economic impact, the city has decided to cancel the festival this year for the sake of something more important: preserving “the quiet life” of its residents, now “threatened”. Is it that serious? It seems so. At least if we pay attention to the local and international press. The BBC speaks from traffic jams, garbage problems and challenges directly related to bad visitor behavior. To be more precise, he cites cases in which tourists have sneaked into houses to use the bathrooms or even defecated in gardens. “We have an intense feeling of crisis,” confess the mayor of the city. From looking for a way to attract visitors, Fujiyoshida has become “overwhelmed” and saturated by an “excess of tourism” that “seriously impacts” the daily lives of its neighbors. And what is he going to do? The authorities have decided cancel the festival this year, although they are aware that after a decade of tradition it is likely that tourists will continue to arrive during the months of April and May to enjoy the views from Arakuyama Sengen Park. Hence they have decided to reinforce security and deploy extra measuressuch as installing portable toilets, strengthening security and establishing a system of temporary parking. Whatever it takes to control the congestion of tourists around the park and prevent the avalanche of visits from altering the lives of the neighbors. Is it a specific problem? No. And that is why the Fujiyoshida case is so interesting. The general recovery of international tourism after the pandemic, the yen weakness and above all the popularity it has gained on the networks has made Japan a coveted destination for tourists from half the planet. In 2025 the country will receive 42.7 million of foreign visitors, almost 16% more than in 2024 and well above the 31.9 million before the pandemic. This boom has not always been easy to digest in the busiest areas, such as in Kyoto, where there have been problems with tourists that harass the geishas. Probably the most popular case is Fujikawaguchiko’sa town that even installed a large screen that blocked the views of Mount Fuji. The objective was the same: to remove the attractiveness of a place that had become a hotbed of tourists. Beyond Japan, other countries such as Italy either even Spain They have moved to protect themselves from the avalanche of tourists and their impact. Images | Giuseppe Milo (Flickr) and Olivier Bruchez (Flickr) In Xataka | Japan has found the three most serious problems with the massive arrival of tourists. And none of it has to do with tourists.

ended up giving away $40 billion in bitcoins

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One of the largest houses in cryptocurrency exchange from South Korea wanted to reward its users with a symbolic promotion for their operations. However, a mistake has made the promotion of the company on everyone’s lips today…and not exactly for the better. For a few minutes, several hundred customers Bithumb They saw their accounts filled with bitcoins worth several billion dollars. What should have been a small promotional prize turned into a mistake that, on his screen, became billionaires to normal users. A conversion error. Bithumb’s original idea was to offer a reward of 2,000 won (approximately $1.37 in exchange) to users who participated in a company promotional event. The equivalent of a welcome coupon for newcomers. The problem came when, instead of sending that small amount in won, the system ended up sending bitcoins to the accounts of the new clients. According to published the BBCthe failure occurred when an employee entered the indicator “BTC” in the payment field instead of “Korean won”, so the platform executed the reward in cryptocurrencies instead of local currency. That simple misplaced piece of information led the company to mistakenly transfer some 620,000 bitcoins, a figure that, at current prices, is around $44 billion. A mistake that destabilized the market. Bithumb estimated that about 249 users of its platform received bitcoins by mistake and the failure affected about 695 clients who operated on the platform. It is estimated+ that, on average, each user was assigned about 2,490 bitcoins, which represents a value of around 144 million euros. Seeing the new balance of bitcoins in their account, several of these new “accident millionaires” rushed to sell, generating an avalanche of orders that caused the price of bitcoin to fall within Bithumb itself. about 10% in a matter of minutes. Bithumb hit the panic button. When the company realized the error, it began to apply restrictions to affected clients, temporarily limiting operations and withdrawals to stop the leak of funds. In its assessment of the incident, Bithumb assures which managed to recover approximately 99.7% of the 620,000 bitcoins that were left by mistake, which would leave about 125 bitcoins still pending recovery. The company also points out that what has already been recovered includes some 1,663 bitcoins that users they managed to sell before the platform’s “panic button” was pressed, which activated transaction blocks. Lee Jae-won, the company’s executive director, assured that the company will take the incident as a lesson and will prioritize “customer trust and peace of mind” over external growth. “Paper” Bitcoin. The case has reopened the debate about the so-called “paper bitcoin”, in reference to those transactions that exist within the internal systems of the exchanges but do not always have the real assets that support them behind them. The sum of bitcoins that suddenly appeared in the accounts far exceeds the $5.3 billion in bitcoin assets that Bithumb claims to be in custody, making it clear to what extent much of that “wealth” was only on paper in its internal books. It’s not the first time it happens. It is not the first time that a banking or financial entity makes its users millionaires in a “magical” way. He Financial Times counted a few days ago how Citibank made one of its clients a billionaire by transfer 81 billion dollars when he intended to send him a payment of $280. As happened with the South Korean bitcoin exchange, the bank realized the error and fixed it (unfortunately for the user) in 90 minutes. However, the simple fact that a human error when indicating a figure or inserting the type of currency can shake the entire bitcoin market has set off alarms in the South Korean Financial Supervisory Service, which has announced reviews and does not rule out opening formal investigations if they detect serious failures in internal controls or signs of illegal activity. In Xataka | Cryptocurrencies were supposed to become “independent” from the power of states. The US just killed him with a stroke of the pen Image | Unsplash (Michael Fortsch)

We believed that imagination was exclusive to humans. Kanzi, the bonobo who drinks “invisible coffee”, has just proven the opposite

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For decades, cognitive science has drawn a firm red line between us and the rest of the animals that is the imagination. Although animals can use tools and even solve complex problems, the ability to disconnect from immediate reality and imagine a scenario that does not exist was considered something exclusive to humans. Until Kanzi arrived. Kanzi. A bonobo that is world famous for its mastery of lexigrams to communicate and that has now starred a published study this week in the magazine Science that could rewrite the books of evolution. And it is no wonder, since Kanzi not only knows how to order food, but also knows how to pretend to eat it when it’s not there yet, and being completely aware of what it does. The tea party. The study published earlier this month presents the strongest evidence to date for the representation of pretend objects in a great ape. And for a human Pretend you are drinking coffee by imagining you have a cup in your hand It is something very simple to do. But until now in apes it was something unthinkable. But to prove us wrong about our exclusive quality, the studio designed an experiment where they sat Kanzi down and interacted with empty objects. Specifically, they pretended to pour juice from an empty bottle into a juice or eat “grapes” that did not really exist. But the best thing is that it was not a simple imitation, but Kanzi followed the game with astonishing precision as if he really imagined it. The juice trick. The objective here was to rule out that Kanzi was simply copying movements without understanding the basic concept, and to do this the team designed three tests. The first of them began with the researcher pretending pouring juice into one of several empty glasses. Kanzi was then asked to interact with them by picking one up. In this case, in 68% of the 50 tests, Kanzi chose the glass that “contained” the imaginary juice, ignoring the other identical but “empty” glasses. Fact versus fiction. This is where the crucial point of the investigation is, since if Kanzi were confused, he would treat real and imaginary juice the same. This was not the case, since when given a choice, Kanzi preferred the real object in 78% of the cases. Something that may seem insignificant, but that shows that it maintains two simultaneous mental representations: the physical reality of the empty glass, and the fake reality where we play that the glass has juice. The same thing happened when imaginary grapes were used instead of juice, where Kanzi maintained a 69% success rate in identifying the location of the pretend food. Decoupling reality. The technical term being discussed here is decoupled secondary representation, which is the brain’s ability to hold an image of the world that contradicts direct sensory information. That is, what is being seen or heard. Until now, it was debated whether this ability emerged with modern human language, but Kanzi’s results suggest that this “spark” of imagination was already present in the common ancestor we share with bonobos and chimpanzees. between 6 and 9 million years ago. This is something that also changes our understanding of childhood play, since when a two-year-old takes a banana and pretends it is a telephone, he is exercising a cognitive muscle that evolution has been refining long before telephones or cultivated bananas existed. Exception or rule. It must be taken into account that these experiments have not been done with just any bonobo, but rather an “enculturated” ape since it has spent its life surrounded by humans and trained in the use of lexigramsmaking it have extraordinary capabilities. This gives rise to some critics, such as comparative psychologist Daniel Povinelli, who usually argue that these results could be the result of intensive training that “humanizes” the ape’s mind, rather than a natural capacity in the wild. Although it is something that the investigation tries to counteract with rigorous controls to ensure that Kanzi was not responding to human clues. Images | Will Rust In Xataka | Humans are evolving live on the Tibetan plateau. And understanding what happens there will be essential in space

Russia has a tank so ugly it seemed like a joke. And the most surprising thing is that Ukrainian drones don’t know what to do

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Since the first months of the invasion, the war in Ukraine has become in a laboratory military “tuning” in real time: armored civilian trucks with steel doors, cars with improvised cages against anti-tank missiles, artillery protected with logs or bars welded in haste. As in other long conflicts, when technology does not arrive or is not sufficient, armies resort to bungle creative. From this ecosystem of ugly, urgent and desperate solutions is born the story of the strangest tank of this war… and also one of the most disconcerting for its enemies. Strange but armored. It we have counted other times. On the Ukrainian battlefield, Russia has led improvisation to an extreme almost cartoonish, deploying tanks covered in cagesspikes, cables, rods and metal layers that have earned them nicknames such as “turtle”, “hedgehog”, “furry” or, now, “dandelion”. At first glance they seem like a joke or a symptom of industrial decay, grotesque artifacts closer to scrap than to modern military engineering, but their proliferation responds to a brutal reality: Ukraine’s FPV drones have made classic armor insufficient, forcing Russia to add outer layers whose sole objective is to gain centimeters, time and confusion against attacks that were previously lethal. Origin and evolution. These protective screens, popularly known like “cope cages”began to be seen months ago, when the proliferation of drones transformed land warfare. Initially they were installed only on battle tanks and armored vehicles, but soon they spread to a wide range of systems. Your designs vary greatly: Some structures are crude and heavy, others are better planned, incorporating metal cages, steel plates, chains, spikes, camouflage nets and even reactive armor to reinforce the most vulnerable areas. In the Russian case, some tanks have become completely coveredwhich has earned them the nickname “turtle tanks” due to its resemblance to the shell of these animals. The simple principle that unsettles drones. The logic behind these designs is so rudimentary as effective– If the drone explodes before hitting the main hull, the shock wave loses much of its destructive power. In that sense, the “latest” model, the “dandelion tank”, with branched metal rods and tensioned meshes, works as a three-dimensional barrier that detonates the FPV from a distance, while there are already versions with cables, chains or spikes that seek the same effect from different angles. There has even appeared a sort of brush cutter tank Russian. Every extra centimeter between the explosive charge and the armor increases the chances of survival, and in a front saturated with cheap drones, that minimal advantage can make the difference between a disabled vehicle and one that continues fighting. In fact, this Russian anti-FPV system has migrated to its UGVs. In a video Seen on networks, the Russians claim that this “Courier” UGV survived the attack by a Ukrainian FPV and was recovered, although remembering that the additional weight of the cables will reduce the capacity vehicle loading. From the initial mockery to the silent cup. Yes, because what began as an object of ridicule among Ukrainian soldiers laughing at the welded cages and absurd profiles, has ended in imitation. The Ukrainian forces themselves have begun to equip some of their vehicles with similar protections, and the concept has even spread to NATO armies, with Western French vehicles. testing solutions inspired by these “dandelions”. The implicit message is, above all, uncomfortable: it may be ugly, crude and inelegant, but in real war is working better that many sophisticated solutions that have not yet come to the forefront. Hidden costs and obvious limits. There is no doubt, like so many other extravagant designs in the Ukrainian war, these improvised capes are not a panacea. They add weight, raise the profile of the vehicle, reduce mobility and they offer no real protection facing precise artillery or attacks from below, a tactic increasingly exploited by Ukrainian drones. Furthermore, and here the modus operandi of war, the more time passes, the more operators learn of FPV to identify gaps, adapt trajectories or use new techniques to avoid these metal shields. They are temporary defenses, effective but doomed to lose ground as the adversary figures out how to break them. An absurd race that defines modern warfare. Still, the central fact remains: Russia has created tanks so strange that they seemed like a jokeand for a time they have achieved something unthinkable, leaving enemy drones without a clear answer. In a war of attrition, cheap and experimental, where every day they look for emergency solutionsthese grotesque layers symbolize the current conflict better than any doctrine: a constant race of trial and error, in which even the most absurd can become, even for a moment, the best defense available. Image | Telegram In Xataka | The cold is so savage that Ukraine has activated the most kamikaze option: the “50,000 Russians per month” or giving Moscow what it wants In Xataka | “A human safari”: going outside in a Ukrainian city is now equivalent to being a shooting target for drones

The new Ferrari Luce is much more than Ferrari’s first electric car. It is a desperate cry to find a new audience

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We thought of 2026 as the year in which we would see Ferrari’s first electric car. Boom. As of February 9, we already know the first details of its interior. The company itself has made them public in what is the first of the many appetizers that they will provide us before knowing the final bite. At the moment we already have its name, its interior and a bomb: the design of the cabin has been carried out by Jony Ivewho led Apple design until his departure in 2019. He Ferrari Lucewhich will be the company’s first electric car, has been seen with an interior that breaks with the entire collective imagination of what a Ferrari should be and, at the same time, draws on its history. Why an electric Ferrari? We have been talking about Ferrari’s first electric car for more than five years. Do you remember what life was like before 2020? The electric car seemed like the future, brands were striving to make the leap to zero emissions and the European Union warned that in 2035 we would not have a single car on sale with a combustion engine. Five years later, regulators have accepted that cars with combustion engines can be sold. Of course, the common mortals will not touch them. Or, at least, we will not be able to go to the dealership and order one because the real demands regarding emissions dictate, right now, that if a brand does not want to pay fines it will have to sell many (very many) electric cars for each pure combustion car. And that leaves two paths: either the brand sells those electric vehicles or it puts cars on the market that are expensive enough for the customer to pay the fine and continue to get an economic return from them. Come on, what Combustion cars will be a thing for the rich. But this change in regulation comes late for most brands. Because almost all of them had launched a 100-meter dash race to have their electric cars ready as soon as possible. This career has come hand in hand with enormous investments that, except in very specific cases, were no longer worth stopping. One of them is Ferrari. The brand has needed to move forward with Luce, its first electric car. A car that will not only take advantage of the advantages of electric motors. The first thing its interior tells us is that the Ferrari Luce will be much more than a sports car. It is one of the most important cars in its history. And Ferrari wants to make it a before and after. Ferrari Luce interior Much more than an electric Ferrari In its first electrified car, the Ferrari LaFerrari, the Maranello company sent a clear message: its first electrically powered car was going to be the most cutting-edge and wildest Ferrari ever built. With its first fully electrified car, the first to be sold without an exhaust pipe, Ferrari sends another clear message: techie customer, customer who wants to be fashionable, we are here. It is no coincidence that the cabin of This Ferrari Luce was designed by Jony Ive. Whoever was the head of design at Apple is considered one of the legends of industrial design, with decisions in which he clearly opted for form over functionality. The beautiful over the practical. The Ferrari Luce is everything we could expect since the relationship between Ive and those from Maranello is known. The cabin plays with a neo-retro design, with a steering wheel that recalls the simplicity of the extreme sportiness of a Ferrari F40 or an interior where the buttons have been replaced by aviation-style keys. There are just a few buttons on the center console to raise and lower the windows or lock them. A kind of joystick acts as a gear shift lever. Ferrari Luce gear selector Detail of the central screen button panel The interior of the Luce does not forget that a Ferrari is a sports car with paddles behind the steering wheel rim. But the small islands that shelter the selection positions here forget about the most sporting details to prioritize more day-to-day functions. And this is important. It still has a manettino to select the driving mode but it has a second lever to select what, we assume, will be the degree of power delivery to extend the battery’s autonomy. We have a direct button to control the wipers and another to, we suppose, deactivate the beeps of the wipers. ADAS systems. The turn signals, on what look like touch surfaces but I’ve explained to Top Gear which are physical, are integrated into the spokes of the steering wheel itself instead of having physical buttons and routes as in the brand’s latest models. But, of course, what draws the most attention are its two screens. We have long accepted an instrument cluster and a central screen for a Ferrari. What we did not imagine is that the main screen would be the absolute queen of the cabin with its 10.12 inches and a mobile solution at the bottom that balances between genius and purist horror. The handle is pure Ive design. The graphics displayed by Ferrari are so reminiscent of Apple that one would almost think they have embraced CarPlay Ultra. And at the same time, its 12.86-inch OLED instrument cluster screen is displayed as it would in a classic Ferrari, with its clocks well separated and extraordinary clarity for reading. The whole set is a sample of where Ferrari is right now. The company could have chosen to put an electric car in the body of a combustion Ferrari. Instead he has embraced another proposal: if I can’t convince you to jump to an electric car, I will look for new customers. Although those from Maranello have cars that are more or less usable on a daily basis, until now their proposals have always been consistent. racing Inside, a clear reminder that … Read more

Apple begins the reconquest of China thanks to the strong point of the iPhone 17 Pro: it is orange

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Color psychology is a tremendously studied field. Something as simple as a color can trigger feelings subconsciouslybeing the use of green color in the scenes of the villains of classic Disney one of the best examples. It also depends on our languagebut I feel such a powerful weapon, it is evident that it is used consciously in the marketing and colors of the products. And there is nothing that exemplifies it better than China’s fever for the iPhone 17 Pro. For one in particular: the orange iPhone. In short. China is a market with immense potential for companies that want to exploit it. They are simple numbersand Apple has just witnessed what happens when they hit the key. How do they count in Financial TimesIn Apple’s recent financial presentation, Tim Cook welcomed the rebound in iPhone sales in China during the fourth quarter of 2025. The last and first sections of each year are the strong points of an Apple that usually launches its new devices between September and November of each year, but in the last quarter of 2025 they have experienced something unusual: income of 26,000 million dollars, marking a growth of 38% year-on-year in China and accounting for a fifth of the company’s total income. Taking into account the continuity in terms of specifications and fierce competition with Xiaomi, Alive and one Huawei that has returned on its ownit’s… curious. But it seems that the person responsible is none other than one color. cosmic orange. It is the model we analyzed, clearly the most striking of Apple’s colors for the latest batch of iPhone and the one that is causing a stir in China. Orange is a color that distills energy, happiness and vitality. It is a warm color, and in China it also has a meaning positive related to the vitality of the crops, but also with spirituality and with the association of “orange” and “success” due to the similarity in Mandarin. And it seems like a joke, but it’s not. As we said, the colors of a device are not chosen at random, and this one has also landed on the right foot in the Asian giant. Nabila Popal, research director of the analyst group IDCnotes in the FT that “it sounds simple, but iPhone sales respond to obvious external changes in the design, which include the introduction of a garish orange color.” Viral. But it is no longer that Chinese consumers are buying the orange iPhone because it symbolizes that vitality, but because it symbolizes status. The shade of Apple’s ‘Cosmic Orange’ is very, very similar to the classic Hermès Orange, a luxury brand with which Apple itself has collaborated on some occasions (for Apple Watch straps, for example). It is something that has made the orange iPhone Pro transcend: from being a premium range phone to a luxury accessory. And of course, it is only in the most expensive model, the Pro, which increases that even more. perception to have a luxury accessory. “Choosing orange means that everyone knows that you are using the latest iPhone. It is a statement of identity,” said an influencer in one of the -many- unboxings of the orange iPhone that are seen on Chinese networks. Beyond color. Aside from the fact that color has had an impact on the sale of iPhones in China during the last period, the interesting thing is that Apple has managed to turn the tables. It has presented its strongest quarter since the first of 2022, the year in which it stood out and which has been followed by three periods of dcadence compared to national competition. Huawei, in particular, was very strong after recovering from the US veto and starting to launch high-end mobile phones again, this time with home-made chips. Apple should not be too amused about calling the orange iPhone “the Hermès iPhone,” but seeing how viral it is, it’s not like this mix of identities should be a headache in Cupertino. Now the question is whether they will start launching other devices and models in orange to try their luck in China… or if they will withdraw it, leaving the color as an exclusive to the iPhone 17. It wouldn’t be the first time. Image | Xataka In Xataka | For Apple, the price of its iPhones was sacred. Until it began to fall into the void in China

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