Mobile Tech & Gadgets

In the 16th century someone decided that Da Vinci’s notebooks had to be dismembered. It took us 400 years to solve their mistake.

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Upon his death, in 1519, Leonardo da Vinci He left more than just paintings and frescoes that crown him as one of the great references of Renaissance painting. Just as (or even more) important to understanding the depth of his genius are his personal notebooks, full of notesillustrations, graphics… come from his own handwriting and sprinkled with his characteristic mirror writing. By chance of history, in the 16th century this bibliographical treasure suffered a ‘act of editorial vandalism’ that has conditioned the way we understand Leonardo. Until now. An unfortunate legacy. The name of Francesco Melzi Maybe it doesn’t tell you much. And it’s normal. Melzi was an Italian painter of the 16th century whose memory has been eclipsed for posterity by geniuses of the stature of Michelangelo, Raphael Sanzio and Leonardo Da Vinci, of whom he was a disciple. However, Melzi does stand out for something, a role that has conditioned our way of understanding the author of ‘La Mona Lisa’: upon Leonardo’s death, Melzi became his executor, responsible for looking after his manuscripts. That enormous legacy made up of hundreds and hundreds of manuscript sheets ended up in the hands of Pompeo Leoni (1533-1608), a sculptor from Arezzo, in Tuscany, who one day decided to dismember Leonardo’s notebooks. The result was disastrous, although to be honest Leoni’s objective was not to destroy the notebooks, but to ‘reorganize’ them following an arbitrary criterion. And what was the result? Basically Leoni dedicated himself to separating, classifying and putting together sheets of Leonardo’s notebooks and loose pages in a whimsical way. Based on what he considered best. The result was that many of the annotations that Da Vinci had recorded in the same set of manuscripts between the mid-1470s and his death in 1519 were divided into two different codices. In one, the largest, Leoni included all material (drawings and writings) of a technical or scientific nature. The second, smaller codex was reserved for material that in his opinion had an artistic and figurative character. From Italy to England. Leoni’s ‘attack’ did not end there. At the beginning of the 17th century his son-in-law, Polidoro Calchi, decided to get rid of the material he had inherited from the sculptor, which caused Da Vinci’s old notebooks to end up scattered around the world, separated by hundreds of kilometers. The first codex, that of technical annotations, today known as Codex Atlanticusended up in the hands of Count Galeazzo Arconati, who in turn donated it in 1637 to the Veneranda Biblioteca Ambrosiana. The second codex traveled even further. Around 1620 he ended up in England and half a century later was integrated in the Royal Collection at Windsor. Righted the wrong. More than four centuries later that capricious dismemberment of Da Vinci’s annotations has been amended at last. At least in part. A few days ago the Italian embassy in the United Kingdom, the Ministry of Culture and representatives of the Galileo Museum, the Veneranda Biblioteca Ambrosiana and the Royal Collection Trust presented in London a new tool named ‘Leonardotheka 2.0’. The name gives a clue to its approach: it is nothing more nor less than an immense ‘library’ digital of Da Vinci’s legacy, a resource that allows many of the manuscripts of the Renaissance genius to be consulted in an accessible and agile way. The Galileo Museum slide that from now on, whoever wishes will be able to explore the material by accessing the archives independently or with cross searches, in addition to “the results of more than 200 years of research” on Da Vinci’s career and work. 3,500 pages. Beyond that advantage, what is really important about Leonardotheka 2.0. is that, as remember The authorities of Florence have gathered around 3,500 manuscript pages by Leonardo that in some cases had been separated since the end of the 16th century. It is a virtual union, not a physical one, but it is still a milestone and helps to right the mistake made centuries ago by Pompeo Leoni. In total, the digital library brings together the 1,119 folios of the Codex Atlanticus and 550 pages from the Royal Collection of Windsor. Some sources specify that it is about one third of Da Vinci’s entire surviving legacy, which also includes the codices preserved in Madrid. Is it that important? Regardless of what it may mean for researchers, Leonardotheka 2.0 is important for several reasons. The main one is that it has allowed us, in words of the Galileo Museum, “reconstruct the original state of Leonardo’s manuscript legacy before Leoni’s disastrous intervention” in the 16th century. And that is not a minor detail. Although the separation between art and science might make sense to Leoni, the truth is that goes against of the Renaissance mentality that Leonardo embodied. “It offers a new perspective on his thinking, vision and working methods,” they underline from Florence. “The platform highlights the connection between scientific studies and the figurative drawings of the Tuscan genius.” Beyond Leonardo. “This project not only helps to recover the complexity of Leonardo’s work in its original form, but also contributes to the new interpretation, in development for several years, of this crucial period in European history. Using digital tools designed to analyze the original texts, Leonardotheka 2.0 will make this challenge possible,” highlights Michele Ciliberto, from the National Institute of Renaissance Studies. Filling gaps. The second reason why the project is so important is that it has allowed us to recover pieces that had been damaged when the notebooks were dismembered in the 16th century. To be more precise, those responsible for the Leonardotheka they assure who have been able to “reconstruct” 50 manuscripts “thanks to the insertion of fragments preserved in Windsor within the pages of Codex Atlanticus, restoring their original context.” One of the reconstructions carried out by the experts has made it possible to “reconcile” the drawing of a horse preserved in the British collection with a note on an equestrian monument preserved in the Codex Atlanticus. “The restored folio probably … Read more

The European fighter may have died, but there is a plan B to avoid the F-35. One with Spain, Germany and an unexpected guest

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While Europe was still trying to convince itself that another great war was impossible, Germany blew up for the first time the Messerschmitt Bf 109 in 1935: the fighter that would become the backbone of the Luftwaffe. Ninety years later, the continent is once again debating the same underlying question: who will build its next air superiority. The death of the great European fighter. The great European dream of building a common sixth generation fighter has crashed. The manned core of the FCAS program, the so-called NGF, had been blocked for years by the industrial war between Airbus and Dassault Aviation, but now it’s official now: the Franco-German formula has collapsed. What was supposed to be the joint heir to the Eurofighter Typhoon and the Rafale has been broken by something very European: distribution of power, money and technological sovereignty. France wanted to lead it, and Germany did not agree to be a secondary partner. The danger of emptiness. When a program like this dies, the risk is not only industrial. It is also strategic. Europe need a substitute for its current fighters between 2040 and 2045, and the clock is ticking. The quickest way out would be to buy more Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning IIs, something that is already on the table in Berlin. But that would mean assuming that European air sovereignty has failed and that dependence on Washington is irreversible. At a time when America looks increasingly towards Asia and less towards Europe, that has much deeper implications than simply buying airplanes. Plan B exists. Here comes the real twist, because the great European fighter has died, but not the idea of ​​building one. Germany and Spain they have made a move with the so-called “Team Gen 6”a new industrial alliance led by Airbus that tries to rescue what is useful from FCAS and turn it into something else: a more agile, less political and more realistic project. It is not a restart from scratch, since the engines, combat networks, guided weapons and accompanying drones are still alive, and what has died is the original political architecture. Spain is no longer secondary. On this new board, there is no doubt, Spain I would gain weight. Until now it was the junior partner in a project dominated by Paris and Berlin, but the collapse has changed circumstances. Companies such as Indra Sistemas, GMV, ITP Aero or Sener become part of the hard core of the new design. For Spain, this is not just a matter of defense, It is also industrytechnology and presence in the value chain of future European air combat. In other words, if the plan succeeds, the Spanish nation will cease to be a companion and become a central actor. Sweden as an unexpected piece. The big problem by Team Gen 6 is the size. Germany and Spain together hardly economically justify a program worth hundreds of billions. That’s why the name that begins to sound strongly It’s Saab AB. Sweden fits better than the United Kingdom or Japan because its needs they are more similar: a more contained, cheaper and less gigantic plane than the Anglo-Japanese GCAP. If Berlin, Madrid and Stockholm converge, there could be a third way European very different from the French and the British. One bullet remains before the F-35. If you want too, that’s what’s really important. He collapse of the NGF It does not mean that Europe has lost its last chance. It means that the old formula has died and another is trying to be born from the rubble. In that sense, Germany, Spain and Airbus know it. That is why the real plan B is not to buy the American F-35, that is el emergency plan. The real plan B is to try to save a European industrial autonomy with another coalition, another logic and another calendar. And although it may seem like a desperate maneuver, it is actually the last attempt to prevent the future of European air combat from being designed (again) in Washington. Image | Robert Sullivan In Xataka | Spain refuses to buy the F-35 from the US, so it has gotten something in exchange: Harrier pieces as LEGO In Xataka | The US opted for the quality of the F-35 rather than quantity. China opted for the opposite and it is already a problem

In 1999, a farmer donated his land for a children’s playground. Now the city council has sold them for millions for a data center

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There are times when a good deed turns against you. Or against an entire town. In 1999, a Texan farmer named Charles Bland decided it was time to give something back to his town, a small town called Taylor. It occurred to him to donate about 35 hectares of his land to the city of 15,000 inhabitants with one condition: The city council had to use those lands to create a public park. To formalize the transaction, the city paid a symbolic amount of $10 to the farmer. 27 years later, the accounts come out in favor of the city council: it has sold part of the property not to create the promised park, but for a data center from the Blueprint company. The operation? one of 10 million dollars. And the neighbors were quick to light the torches. An offer that could not be refused This story is one of the most bizarre that we have seen in this matter of relationship between cities and data centers. The middle 404 has echoed the situation and the anger that is being aroused by both Bland’s initial objective and the fate of the land and, above all, the vague explanations of the city council is logical. The farmer initially donated his land to the Texas Parks Foundation, a nonprofit organization, with the goal of holding it in trust for future use exclusively as a playground. This is what appears in the documents and in the land deed, but there is a problem: in the following years, the property changed hands. The Parks Foundation gave it to a different nonprofit called the Williamson County Parks Foundation in 2003, but a month later, it gave it to the city itself. In 2008, the land changed hands again after a $15,000 sale to the Taylor Economic Development Corporation (TEDC). According to your page government, it is a non-profit corporation funded by the City of Taylor and, although it is a separate entity, it is the city council that appoints the five members of a Board that change terms every three years. Is this important? Well yes, since as 404 points out, it was this TEDC that, last year, sold part of the plot to Blueprinta company that plans to build a data center next to the town for those aforementioned 10 million euros. For a non-profit, the business has been successful. When they found out about both the sale and the plans to build a data center, the neighbors took to the streets to protest. Not only was the intention of that farmer who gave his land to the city with the sole interest of children having a place to play being violated, but an installation was going to be built that heats the air and that increase the electricity bill for the neighbors. Because of this, the TEDC has published a document in which he explains what is going to be done and what the city is going to get out of all this. They state that Blueprint’s data center will be used “for a wide variety of purposes including data storage, website hosting and artificial intelligence processing” in a facility that will have a total investment of 1,000 million dollars both to construct the main buildings as well as an electricity substation, backup generators and a closed-loop heat cooling system. It’s… too close to the city In a very brief way, The document addresses the complaints and concerns of neighbors referring to a report that ensures that the facilities will comply with everything necessary in terms of emissions and impact on air quality, noise pollution, light pollution, fire risk and water consumption. Always, of course, stating that the risk and consumption is minimal and that everything will go in the best possible way. Yes, the project will be connected to the electrical network for power supply. They expose that there is no way to go back and that, basically, that is what it is. Doesn’t anyone think about the children? The City Council does There will be no park, but it will be a great benefit for the city. As we see in Straight to the Palatethe facility will not occupy the 35 hectares donated by the family, but 21 hectares. The other 14 continue to belong to the city and the intention is to build a barrier to limit the impact that this data center may have on the neighbors. In addition, and as detailed in the aforementioned document, “the City expects to receive up to 30 million in total additional income that can be used to reduce property taxes and invest in streets, sidewalks, parks and other services”. With more conditionals on the list, they say that “the school district projects up to $20 million that could be used to improve facilities, increase teacher salaries and provide a better education for our students.” The truth is that the justification could well come from an episode of ‘The Simpsons’, but if we pay attention to that phrase that points out that, no matter what happens, the decision is irrevocable, the options for the neighbors do not seem very hopeful. The United States is currently experiencing two speeds in this artificial intelligence infrastructure. On the one hand, Big Tech raising monumental data centers. On the other hand, the people and political parties (both Republican and Democrat) that are rising in some states against these facilities. Studies are already appearing that leave aside tabout water consumption (minor one that was talked about a few months ago) as energy consumption (this one is tremendous) to point to the havoc on the environment what these “giant computers” cause. But hey, in the end Taylor won’t have a new park, but he will have a few million that could be used to make a park next to a giant radiator. In Xataka | AI has caused the collapse of even a non-AI industry: gas turbines

This is what the chilling lyrics of ‘Computer God’ say

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Nothing surrounding the creation of Black Sabbath’s ‘Dehumanizer’ album looked like it was going well. However, the song that opens that album, ‘Computer God’, remains 34 years after its recording one of the most dystopian and terrifying lyrics about how technology replaces the human. A topic that resonates especially disturbingly in these times. A tortuous process. The first sessions of ‘Dehumanizer’ were done in Birmingham with Cozy Powell on drums, but an accident forced him to be replaced by Vinny Appice, who had not played with the legendary band since 1981. In the process, it was even considered to replace Dio himself, who had been occupying the place of Ozzy Osbourne as a vocalist since 1979. Finally, ‘Dehumanizer’ was produced by Reinhold Mack, famous for his work with Queen. A twist in Dio’s work. Until the arrival of this album, all of Ronnie James Dio’s lyrics in his other band Rainbow, in the first albums with Sabbath or in those he signed as Dio deal with warriors, wizards and Tolkienian references, which made him one of the classic emblems of the most epic and hairy heavy metal. However, with ‘Computer God’ he took a turn to talk about topics more linked to reality. This is how he describes it Dio himself: “Technology has eliminated the humanity of the human being. And when the day comes when we are completely exhausted as a race, God will be a computer. Great writers like Isaac Asimov and Arthur C. Clarke inspired this song.” It was the first time that Dio cited two fathers of the hardest and most classic science fiction as a direct source of inspiration for his lyrics. What ‘Computer God’ is talking about. The opening verse of the song sends us to a present of dark future: “Waiting for the revolution / New clear vision, genocide”, “new clear” being a phonetic play on “nuclear”). And he continues: “Computerize God, it’s the new religion / Program the brain, not the heartbeat”, talking about how the logic of computers occupies a space that other things previously occupied. The verse that Dio identified as the most important on the album is “Man’s a mistake, so we’ll fix it.” Dio spoke of this verse stating that “the computer thinks humanity is a mistake, so it corrects it. Let’s hope we’re not there when they want to correct us.” A process that had already received its name in 1992 (transhumanism) and that some critics confirm as the central theme of the album. The most disturbing thing. The lyrics are not at all obvious, because they do not describe catastrophes in the style of a classic science fiction film, but instead describe erosion. When he says “Digital dreams and you’re the next correction,” he’s not talking about robots replacing humans, but about something more gradual: systems that treat people as variables that need optimization. In 1992 that was an abstraction, but it is becoming less and less so. 1992, what a year. The album did not do well commercially, because the world was looking in another direction: ‘Nevermind’ by Nirvana and ‘Ten’ by Pearl Jam had come out in September 1991, and had transformed rock into introspective and somewhat abstract music. However, over time, this song from a group that was already considered an old glory at the time has a more consistent basis in reality than many of the things with which Seattle revolutionized alternative music that year. On July 18, 1992, the first image would be uploaded to the World Wide Web. And from there, every man for himself. In Xataka | A trip by a teacher from Cartagena to meet John Lennon forever changed how we study English

Noah Praamsma, nutritionist, “many ultra-processed foods are actually beneficial for health”

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Noah Praamsma is a dietitian Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine American and is about to become the number one enemy of the supporters of “real” food. Saying that some ultra-processed foods are healthy (although we have known this for years) has become almost taboo. And Praamsma, like most experts, is restrictive regarding the weight of this type of products in our diet. He latest HER report from Duke University for the USestimates that ultra-processed foods represent 53–58% of the calories of adults and 62% of those of children and adolescents. Therefore, it proposes measures to limit its exposure and consumption. But, immediately afterwards, he adds “with the reception of healthy ultra-processed foods.” That is the heart of the artichoke. But what is a ‘healthy ultra-processed’? Right now, the exception criteria are very demanding, to be honest. We are talking about products that provide adequate amounts of recommended food groups, that keep sugars, salt and saturated fat below recommended thresholds and that do not contain non-caloric sweeteners. That is to say, right now many breads or cereals that are sold as healthy (or ‘realfooder’) would not make the cut. And this is not a minor detail. Because right now there is a lot of noise about ultra-processed foods and health because, although we have known for a long time that “not everyone is the same”, In the US, a new regulation is being discussed and the “regulatory frontier” is going to be key for many industries. It is not, therefore, an academic debate, it is a pitched battle to get the Administration to leave certain industries in a good place. But we digress… The interesting thing about Noah Praamsma’s idea is that, if we look at the data, he is right. In 2024, Kenny Mendoza and his team at Harvard University analyzed all available evidence on the impact of ultra-processed foods on health and reached an interesting conclusion: while sugary/sweetened beverages and processed meats are associated with a higher cardiovascular risk, whole grain bread and cereals, yogurt and some salty snacks show an inverse association. That is, the idea that ultra-processed foods are bad is a heuristic. A very useful one, but a heuristic: a simple ‘mental shortcut’ to make better decisions or achieve good results. That is to say, and for that very reason, something that admits nuances. But why do you say that the heuristic is useful? Because the message “we can establish differences within the category” does not mean that the category is harmless. He The same Harvard study pointed out that the more consumption of ultra-processed foods (regardless of whether they are good or bad) is associated with a 17% higher cardiovascular risk, 23% higher coronary heart disease and 9% higher stroke risk. That is, you can recognize that there are healthy ultra-processed foods and, at the same time, recommend that they be consumed as little as possible. In fact, that is what I take advantage of this space to do. Because, at the end of the day, large epidemiological studies they are warning us that eating large amounts of ultra-processed foods is associated with more health problems, lower quality of life and, ultimately, a higher chance of premature death. Image | Noah Praamsma / Fish Huang Xataka | Making extra rice is no longer a mistake: cooling and reheating it can reduce its calories according to some nutritionists

“China sets the pace in technology, costs and development times. We have to learn from them”

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Company with problems, company that looks to China. Not so much to sell more cars in a very complicated market (that too), much more to see how to learn from them and get greater performance from their products. Survive by achieving wider profit margins by producing cheaper and faster. For Nissan, China holds the key. “We have to learn” “China shows us the future of the industry in terms of technology, cost competitiveness and development times. We have to learn from China and export its technical knowledge” This is what Iván Espinosa, CEO of Nissan, has expressed in statements Nikkei Asia. In an interview with the Japanese media, Espinosa has made it clear that Nissan needs to copy China if it wants to survive. The Japanese automaker is going through a very bad economic time and to get out of the hole it wants to look at its neighbor. https://www.xataka.com/movilidad/nissan-leaf-opiniones-primera-toma-contacto-fotos What’s wrong with Nissan? Nissan is going through one of the worst financial and reputational moments in its history. At the end of 2024, the company accepted that it had entered a stalemate from which it would be difficult to get out. Sales were declining, the US market (with its tariffs on Japanese cars) It got complicated, at home they didn’t get back on their feet and in China they were missing. Solution: lay off 9,000 employees. Those days, after a few days of rumors (and everything indicates that with the Japanese Government putting pressure), Nissan and Honda announced an agreement to unite their paths. The idea, it seemed, was that the second company would take over Nissan and take it under its umbrella. That idea was dissolved just a few months later.. We now know that Honda gave, for the first time in its history, losses in 2025 and that its strategy has focused on canceling its electrical projects. In March of last year, the Mexican Iván Espinosa took control of Nissan and has focused its future proposal on a new launch plan and the objective of recovering part of its prestige. Last year, the company continued to lose sales worldwide but the 13% drop in Japan is especially worrying. Reduce times. For Espinosa, one of Nissan’s big problems is in the development and production times of its models. Right now, he explains, the development of a car from when it is drawn on paper and given the go-ahead until it reaches the street is 55 months. Espinosa wants to reduce this to about 30 months. According to their calculations, these long developments prevent them from getting the economic performance they need from their cars and that is why they have proposed that the next Nissan Skyline, the return of a legendary model of the company, has set a deadline for its development of 26 months, they point out in Nikkei Asia. China has demonstrated an ability to develop, modify and produce in record time. Renault has also gone to China to learn how they work there and they presume that The Renault Twingo was developed in 20 months. From Chery they already made it clear that its high capacity to develop and produce in record time is key when it comes to prevailing over Western competitors. More and more notices. These statements by Espinosa demonstrate that traditional firms are doing everything possible to quickly adapt to China’s way of working. Some consultants have already pointed out Japanese brands that their obsession with perfection hinders them when it comes to producing faster and cheaper, which has been taken advantage of by Tesla and Chinese companies. Toyota also sent a similar message a few weeks ago. The company has detected that it is losing money because products with aesthetic defects are sometimes discarded even though these parts are fully functional and are never seen by vehicle customers. This weighs on their production costs but also on the time it takes to produce the car. More cars, more prestige. Account Nikkei Asia that Espinosa’s project involves launching new cars on the market that update the company’s range of products but, above all, it will be based on the search for its own identity with a clear intention of recovering the lost prestige. In fact, in recent weeks it has been rumored that Nissan could bring the latest Z to Europe (now only sold in Japan and the United States so as not to penalize the company’s emissions count) with the aim of attracting the public to the dealership and positioning it as a halo product. On the horizon is also the new Skyline and a future GT-R that has gone through all possible phases when it comes to defining it and moving it forward, from project it as an electric sports car to launch it again with a combustion engine. “We will provide more details in the future,” Espinosa said on this topic. The CEO of Nissan has even referred to the fact that “some of my predecessors only talked about finances all the time”, in a clear message that not everything can be done to save costs if you want to maintain the attractive image of the product. A move that diluted Nissan’s imagethat Stellantis ballast and an idea that Akio Toyoda, CEO of Toyota, has also rejected. Photo | nissan In Xataka | “We will not survive”: Toyota wants to add the turbo to match the pace of the Chinese brands

up to 144TB of storage at a 20% discount

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Having years of photos and videos saved in digital format is great, but where do we store them? That requires a huge amount of storage. Mobile phones, tablets or computers have good capacity today, but there are many people who choose to centralize everything in a cloud. But of course, That forces us to do two things.: have our data stored on a company’s server and also add a subscription to our portfolio. Or not, because there is also the alternative of riding a NAS server at home. Broadly speaking, it is about creating a private cloud at home so that we can have full control over our data and avoid paying an extra subscription every month. If you are right now in the middle of searching for a NASwe bring you two from Ugreen which, in addition to being very interesting, they have a 20% discount. The first of these NAS is called NASync DXP2800 GT and is the cheaper of the two. It has 2 main bays for us to place 3.5 and 2.5 inch HDDto which we must also add two slots to place M.2 NVMe SSD. In total, this means that It can offer us up to 80 TB of storagemore than enough for us to have photos, videos, backup copies and basically whatever we want stored there. Beyond the capacity, it should be noted that it has two 10 GbE LAN ports, which will offer us very fast data transfer. In addition, it does not lack anything in terms of connectivity with USB-A 3.2, USB-C 3.2 ports and even a 4K HDMI output at 60 Hz. All without forgetting its Ryzen processor and 8 GB of RAM (expandable to 64 GB), which will give us fluid performance. Its RRP is 509.99 euros, but if we use the code ‘XATAKAGT‘, we can take it home for 407.99 euros. The price could vary. We earn commission from these links If you are looking to take a step further, then perhaps its older brother is better suited for you: the NASync DXP4800 GT. This model is similar to the previous one (in fact, it has the same processor), but doubles the main HDD bays. These, which are four, added to the two M.2 NVMe SSD slots, will help us have up to 144TB of storage. Otherwise, we can expect the same performance as the previous Ugreen NAS. This, by offering the possibility of having much more storage, can be ideal for professional users or for people with a small business. Also if, for example, you want to ride a cloud at home for the whole family. As with the previous one, we can get it for 527.99 euros if we use the code ‘XATAKAGT’ (its RRP is 659.99 euros). The price could vary. We earn commission from these links Some of the links in this article are affiliated and may provide a benefit to Xataka. In case of non-availability, offers may vary. Images | ugreen In Xataka | How to choose a NAS to set up your own home cloud. recommendations and seven featured models from 100 euros In Xataka | Google Drive alternatives: the best cloud storage services for your files

The world’s leading expert in identifying deepfakes has a big problem. No longer able to identify them

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Is called Hany Farid and is considered one of the world’s leading experts on deepfake videos. This digital forensics expert was capable of uncovering videos manipulated by governments, for example, but now he has decided to leave Silicon Valley for one simple reason: It is no longer able to differentiate the real ones from those that are being generated with AI tools. And we are not surprised. Deepfakes indistinguishable from reality. In the last two decades Farid, 60, has specialized in identifying fake videos. This professor at the University of California at Berkeley has confessed that advances in generative AI have made traditional detection methods are no longer of any use. Their conclusions confirm the feeling that we have had for a long time with this type of content: AI has advanced so much that the problem is no longer just deepfakes: it is that we distrust even real photos. Farid’s reputation precedes him. His father worked for 50 years as a chemist at Eastman Kodak, and Farid grew up visiting the dark room often, watching photos become photos as they passed through the different liquids. He ended up designing a “digital fingerprint” system that made it possible to detect cases of child pornography hidden on the Internet. In fact, its technology has led to 30 million cases of potential abuse being reported each year, as well as leading to hundreds of arrests and several rescues. I surrender. Faced with the avalanche of perfect deepfakes generated with AI, Farid has decided to leave his job to take refuge on a farm in Vermont. His surrender is the latest demonstration of a harsh reality: We can no longer trust what we see on networks. Now he is dedicated to working with wood, and has distanced himself from networks and technology. The missile that changed everything. The turning point that demonstrates this crisis of this digital forensic task occurred after the viral spread of a video showing the alleged impact of a US missile on a school in Iran. Farid spent an entire day breaking down the sequence frame by frame: analyzing the geometry of the shadows, the sound delay rate of the explosion according to the laws of physics, or the pixel length of the projectile. Impossible to decide if it is false or not. He found nothing that could prove that the video was fake, and the same thing happened to other specialists. None could issue a clear verdict of authenticity, and that made it clear that AI video generation is currently so advanced that real content is indistinguishable from a deepfake generated with these latest generation models. Verifying is too complicated. There is another problem here: generating a fake video, whether toxic or not, with cloned voices that are perfectly synchronized with the interlocutor is easy, fast and cheap. Carrying out a forensic investigation to try to detect whether the video is real or not takes hours of computational and direct analysis by specialists. Given that deepfakes manage to go viral in just 20 minutes if they are successful, the methods to contain this spread are useless for a simple reason: they arrive late. The biter bit. The researcher himself was a victim of this reality: cybercriminals cloned his phone number and used AI to generate his voice and thus impersonate his identity. With that clone, they called a close contact who was involved in a court case and managed to extract confidential information. Farid and his wife, a vision researcher at Berkeley, they had to create a secret safe word at the beginning of each family call to certify that each interlocutor was who they said they were. The situation generates a disturbing paranoia and mistrust. “I’m going blind”. In the report of The New York TimesFarid explained that his studies show that most people can no longer differentiate a real photo from a digitally created one. “I feel like I’m going blind,” he indicated, showing his concern about an AI that is managing to obscure the truth and distort reality. Watermarks as a solution. Faced with this avalanche of images and videos generated by AI that are indistinguishable from reality, one of the potential ways to mitigate the problem continues to gain strength. It is, of course, the watermarkstotally invisible and which are part of the metadata of those files. Two promising initiatives. There are several initiatives in this regard, although the most notable It is that of the C2PA coalition which includes, for example, Google and OpenAI. AI tools should add those watermarks identifying those contents (“This video has been generated with this AI application, this image has been generated or edited with this other one”), but at the moment that type of option is not applied by default. Another important project in this sense is SynthIDGoogle’s technology to “mark” these contents as created with AI. Image | Bild (CC0) In Xataka | What happened to Technicolor: evolution and death of the company that changed cinema and was overwhelmed by its ambition

The trackpad on laptops is a real pain. So Logitech has invented the foldable mouse to put an end to it

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I have always thought that technology should be used to solve everyday problems, not to create artificial needs. And one of those small problems that I had in my daily life was not finding a mouse that could truly accompany my laptop without taking up space or being uncomfortable when carrying it. It turns out that Logitech has just solved this problem, knowing that many of us are fed up with trackpads. The pot. I am not from wallet easy, but when a product comes on the market whose purchase I don’t hesitate for a second, it’s usually for a reason. Logitech just released the Mobi Folda foldable and ultra-compact mouse. Specifically, we are talking about a mouse that, when folded, has a height of just over two centimeters and a length of six. Pretty crazy. When unfolded, it doubles its length, all while weighing just 79 grams. The tech. The Mobi Fold has simple specifications, with a sensor resolution of 4,000 DPI. In case it sounds Chinese to you, DPI (Dots per Inch) basically indicates the sensitivity of the mouse and the more the better. In fact, if we compare with high end mice of the brand, such as MX Master 3we have just half the DPI. What is it noticeable in? In that the greater the amount of DPI, the less we have to force our hand. What sets it apart. A mouse is a mouse. Or that’s what you think until programmable buttons are discovered. This is one of the main features of Logitech mice, and despite the ridiculous size of this Mobi Fold, two programmable touch buttons have been incorporated under the sliding surface. For example, as I write these lines I copy and paste links with the two programmable buttons on my mouse. But you could also take screenshots, open applications, or adjust any app or shortcut to these buttons. For what and for whom. In my particular case, I usually take my laptop out of the house a lot. Events, travel, working away from home… And carrying a bulky mouse like the MX Master 3 (or any other high-end mouse) is not a realistic option. This Mobi Fold completely solves this problem: if your office mouse is horrible and you want a small, programmable and quality one, this is an option. How long does this last?. Durability is one of the keys in any folding product. In the case of this mouse, 50,000 folds are promised. According to Logitech, if we folded and unfolded it eight times a day, it would last a whopping 15 years. In addition to this, the device is capable of detecting how much it is raised and when it is not so that, when closing it, we cannot make accidental presses. And yes, when you fold it it turns off by itself, so you don’t even have to keep an eye on the battery (which lasts 32 days according to Logitech). Price and availability. The Logitech Mobi Fold It can be purchased now for 79.99 euros, in the colors Lilac, White and Graphite. Image | Logitech In Xataka | Best gaming mice: which one to buy and 8 recommended models

If the question is how much money is necessary to be happy, we already have the answer for Spain: double

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We have all thought at some point that with a little more salary we would be happier. We wouldn’t have to worry about unforeseen events, vacations would have more “extras” and shopping wouldn’t be a constant search for the best price on meat or eggs. But to what extent is that true? How much money would it take to be happy? That’s precisely what they asked themselves. in a studio from Purdue University. Now, a report from Remitly has crossed the data obtained in that report with the real cost of living data and we can put concrete figures to happiness in Spain. Money doesn’t make you happy, does it? The Purdue University research analyzed data from more than one and a half million people in 164 countries and the conclusion they reached is similar to the one they reached other investigations: that happiness increases proportionally to the level of income. However, it only does so up to a certain income level. From this ceiling of happiness, what the authors of the study call “income satiation” occurs. That is, earning more money from a certain ceiling no longer improves how you evaluate the happiness in your life nor in your day-to-day emotions. However, the most interesting thing, and the part in which the Remitly payment platform has intervened, is that this economic ceiling for happiness is not the same everywhere. It depends on the cost of living, the culture and the purchasing power of each place. The key to understanding the figures: salaries adjusted to purchasing power. Before continuing, there is an important nuance. One of the key data in the study is the average salaries that people receive in different countries. That is why the income figures you are going to read do not correspond to real salaries as someone would see them on their payroll. These are adjusted figures for each country. according to your purchasing power (PPA). This means that a conversion has been made to compare very different economies with each other to more realistically represent each person’s ability to purchase products. A salary of 40,000 euros in Spain don’t buy the same than one of $40,000 in the United States, so these data seek to balance that difference. The Remitly team took the satiety points calculated by Purdue and adjusted them according to local purchasing powerusing International Monetary Fund ratios and updated inflation data. The result is a map that allows you to compare the “price of happiness” between countries in a realistic way. The global data: Iceland up, Ethiopia down. With this methodology, the country where it is most difficult to reach that happiness ceiling is Iceland, with $163,579 per year. However, their high salaries and the quality of life provided by the State position them as the second happiest country in 2025. Slovenia, with adjusted salaries of $42,800 per year, is the only country in the world in which, on average, the salary that its citizens would consider sufficient to be happy ($36,800) would be 16.3% higher. Luxembourg’s salaries ($109,900 per year) would cover 92.8% of that “happiness figure”, followed by Estonia and Singapore, whose salaries come close to covering 92.8% and 90.5% respectively of that happiness threshold. At the opposite extreme is Ecuador, whose adjusted annual salary of $6,500 per year would only cover 32.9% of the $19,700 per year that Ecuadorians consider an adequate figure to be happy. Spain: we need double. If we focus on Spain, the average salary adjusted for purchasing power is around $42,500 annually. However, the price of happiness is set at about $87,900 a year. That is, the salary would only cover 48.4% and it would be necessary to double salaries to reach the desirable threshold for money to bring happiness. Spain remains, once again, in the area where work does not translate into the economic tranquility that many seek and the concern to make ends meet It continues to be a brake on achieving full happiness. Happiness also depends on the zip code. The Remitly report goes a little further and analyzes the impact of salary on happiness even within each country, and has discovered that in Spain there are important differences between cities when establishing the amount of money they would be happy with. Madrid tops the list with a price of happiness of 89,759 euros per year, slightly above the happiness threshold established for the country as a whole. Barcelona (88,562 euros) and Palma de Mallorca (88,263 euros) follow very closely, three cities that also coincide among the cities with the most expensive housing prices in the country. At the opposite extreme we find Granada, with 73,153 euros per year. It is 18.5% less than in Madrid. The climate, architecture and a lower cost of living help lower the economic bar. That doesn’t mean that life is easier in Granada, but less money is needed to reach that ceiling of well-being and happiness that the study indicates. And now what? Beyond the numbers, what this report shows is that, in the majority of the planet, salaries are below what would be needed to feel fully satisfied. However, the authors of the Purdue study themselves warn that even if someone reaches that economic threshold for happiness, that does not mean they will suddenly be much happier. The researchers highlight that there is what they call “hedonic adaptation“, the tendency to always return to a similar level of spirit, readjusting our demand for well-being, no matter what happens and no matter what salary is earned. Money helps, a lot, to a certain point. But from there, it seems that happiness begins to also depend on other things. In Xataka | If the question is whether money brings happiness, a Harvard expert answers: it’s not having money, it’s what you do with it Image | Unsplash (Christian Dubovan), Remitly

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