Mobile Tech & Gadgets

unite the Internet under the same cause

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A macaque Japanese man abandoned by his mother at the Ichikawa Zoo receives a stuffed orangutan from Ikea. From that point, we have witnessed a new example of the power of the internet to exalt the emotional and the absurd: the global stock of the doll runs out, the shares of the Swedish brand skyrocket and a $30 million cryptocurrency is born. The Punch story is an instruction manual for success in the era of the attention economy. Who is Punch? Punch was born on July 26, 2025 at the Botanical Zoo in Ichikawa City, Chiba Prefecture, outside Tokyo. Its mother was a first-time female who gave birth during a heat wave and showed no caring response toward the calf. The zoo chose to raise the animal manually, separated from the group, something that left it without the physical contact essential for the social development of these animals. Dolls. At the first signs of anxiety and isolation, the caregivers made a practical decision: to give him a stuffed orangutan from Ikea, the Djungelskog model, covered in synthetic fur and with very long limbs, ideal for Punch to hug and carry. Apparentlythe monkey adopted the toy as a maternal substitute: he carried it with him everywhere, protected himself with it when he was scared, and rarely let it out of his sight. It was not a strange decision on the part of the zoo, on the contrary: in macaques, physical contact is a need as basic as food (studies on the subject They date back to 1958) Return home. In January 2026, the process of gradual reintegration of Punch into “Monkey Mountain”, the enclosure where his peers live, began. The first months they were difficult: The other macaques rejected him when he tried to get closer. A video widely circulated a few days ago on social networks seemed to demonstrate the rejection: an adult dragged Punch across the floor, which aroused the immediate empathy of millions of people. The zoo had to clarify that the behavior was part of the natural socialization process, not sustained aggression. Later, one of his caregivers would confirm that the animal had begun to receive grooming from an adult in the group, an unequivocal sign of acceptance in the social hierarchy of Japanese macaques. Two booms. The phenomenon of Punch going viral has had two successive explosions. One in early February, when an X user shared a Punch video playing with his stuffed animal. Another in the middle, when it was seen the video of the alleged assault. Preonto began to spread this latest video, which reached 30 million views. Punch fan-art sprouted and the hashtag #がんばれパンチ (something like #AguantaPunch, which was translated and circulated in English) was born. The zoo statements in Xexplaining that the adult was acting as a mother to another offspring, not as a mere aggressor, asking the audience to interpret the situation as part of the natural socialization process, further amplified the scope of the story. Shortly after, a summary video of the entire process with the structure ‘How it started / How it’s going’ and which finally showed how Punch was accepted, it achieved more than three million views in a single day. Teddy theme. The Djungelskog plush has been in the Ikea catalog for years. It costs 16.99 euros in Spain, measures 36 centimeters and its name literally means “jungle forest” in Swedish. Until February 2026, it was just another article among the thousands in the children’s section of the chain. In less than a week, stocks have been sold out in Japan, the United States and South Korea without the company having to invest a single euro in advertising. Resale exploded until reaching 350 dollars. Illustration by chimiwangillustration Ikea has seen a unique opportunity to get some publicity without too much investment. On February 17, Petra Färe, president and director of sustainability at Ikea Japan, personally visited the Ichikawa Zoo to deliver 33 stuffed animals and material for the children’s area. In addition, it adapted the name of the product on its platforms, now having the description “Punch’s comfort orangutan.” An artificially irreplicable advertising bombshell. And a cryptocurrency. On February 7, 2026, when Punch videos began to become popular, someone launched a token called $PUNCH on Solana’s Pump.fun platform. The launch price was practically zero. In just fifteen daysthe token rose more than 80,000%, reaching an all-time high of $0.04847. The market capitalization was close to $30 million and the daily trading volume exceeded $20 million at peak activity, placing $PUNCH as the the asset with the highest daily profit on CoinGecko. A bombshell that of course is already fading after the corresponding speculative explosion (“the token bubble map was ‘too perfect’ to be organic”, one analyst said). Another momentary internet fever that should warn us about how memes have worked for some time now: emotional outburst, spontaneous growth and fever of those involved to get something out of the phenomenon. Nothing new under the sun, but along the way we have seen some beautiful videos of a macaque hugging a stuffed animal. Something is something. In Xataka | The challenge of moral limits in the case of the 132 human and monkey cell embryos: human organs in exchange for more animal experiments

AI enters clinics to tell you its real potential

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For years, freezing eggs meant also freezing an unknown. Women who opted for vitrification as a strategy to preserve their fertility knew how many oocytes they stored, but not what real potential they had. The estimate depended almost exclusively on age and population statistics. There wasn’t much else. That’s starting to change. Artificial intelligence has begun to be used in reproductive medicine not only to optimize technical processes, but also to offer patients more precise predictive information about their real chances of becoming mothers in the future from their own vitrified eggs. From visual intuition to algorithmic precision. Before the introduction of AI, the quality of an oocyte could hardly be objectively assessed. According to Dr. Marcos Meseguer, Global Director of Embryology Researchin an interview for Xatakathe assessment depended on general morphological criteria and the embryologist’s subjective impression, often based on whether the egg “looked pretty or ugly.” There were no solid quantitative standards or models capable of estimating the biological competence of the oocyte. The prediction was extremely limited, almost equivalent to chance. The technological leap has not been incremental, but qualitative. “We have gone from having practically no prognostic tools to having models with real prediction capacity,” Meseguer details. Today, algorithms are introducing a layer of quantitative analysis that transforms that scenario. More in depth. The change is not minor. As Meseguer explains to us, AI allows us to analyze thousands of images of oocytes whose subsequent clinical results are known—if they formed an embryo, if they reached a blastocyst—and learn patterns associated with reproductive success. The algorithm always evaluates the same parameters in a standardized way. This systematization eliminates variability between observers and converts a subjective assessment into an objective and reproducible evaluation. In other words, for the first time a probabilistic estimate can be offered based on data and not just general statistics by age. It’s not magic: measure better, don’t see more. It is important to clarify what exactly AI does and what it does not do. The algorithm does not detect hidden genetic abnormalities nor does it replace tests such as preimplantation genetic diagnosis. As the specialist clarifies, the genetic analysis is not performed on the oocyte, but on the embryo after fertilization. The AI ​​applied to the oocyte analyzes the same images that the embryologist sees, but in a quantitative way. It accurately measures parameters such as oocyte diameter, the thickness of the zona pellucida or certain characteristics of the cytoplasm. “The difference is not seeing more, but measuring better and in a standardized way,” says Marcos Meseguer. Furthermore, the oocyte is not evaluated dynamically, as is the case with the embryo, but rather statically. It is not about choosing an “ideal candidate”—all mature oocytes are used in assisted reproduction—but rather about stratifying their biological potential and offering probabilistic estimates of competence. More information, but no guarantees. This advance does not imply that laboratories “select” only the best oocytes. All mature oocytes (metaphase II) continue to be used. The difference is in the stratification of their biological potential. In fertility preservation—women who vitrify eggs for use years later—this information takes on special relevance. Instead of basing expectations solely on age, personalized data derived from algorithmic analysis can be incorporated. However, caution is key. Age continues to be the most determining prognostic factor. AI does not modify biology or compensate for physiological limitations. It is a support tool, not a miracle solution, warns the expert. What it does achieve is reduce uncertainty. And in a field marked by emotional stress and complex decision-making, having quantified and objective information can change the clinical conversation. A global trend towards automation. The incorporation of artificial intelligence is part of a broader transformation of fertility laboratories. A recent example picks it up The New York Times from a study published in Nature Medicine. The work analyzes a microfluidic device called OvaReadycapable of recovering eggs that the conventional method did not detect after follicular aspiration. In the study, the device analyzed follicular fluid that had already been examined manually. In more than half of the patients, additional oocytes were found that were going to be discarded. The birth of a girl was even documented from one of those recovered oocytes. Although this technology is not exactly a predictive system like image analysis algorithms, it illustrates a clear trend: laboratories are incorporating automated tools that standardize processes and reduce exclusive dependence on human judgment. Experts quoted by the American newspaper highlightHowever, larger studies are still needed to confirm that these additional eggs consistently increase the live birth rate. The real impact: better managing the “biological clock”? Technological enthusiasm, however, has boundaries. “AI is a tool to support diagnosis and decision-making, not a miracle solution,” says the specialist in the interview. It can optimize decisions and reduce variability, but it cannot modify the intrinsic quality of gametes or alter biological limitations. In other words, it improves the information available, but does not change the biology. The next step. Development does not stop at the oocyte evaluation. According to the embryologist, the next big leap will be the progressive optimization of ovarian stimulation protocols through predictive models that integrate clinical, hormonal and previous response data. More than “absolute customization”, it will be a continuous improvement in precision. Reproductive medicine is moving toward increasingly data-driven decisions. In economic terms, technological incorporation may initially entail a higher cost, but in the medium and long term it could reduce failed cycles and make the system more cost-effective. Freezing eggs without freezing uncertainty. Vitrification will continue to be a bet with a margin of uncertainty. No algorithm can promise a future pregnancy. But it can offer a more refined estimate of the biological potential of those frozen eggs. For years, fertility preservation was a decision supported by general statistics. Today it is also beginning to rely on personalized predictive models. Artificial intelligence does not eliminate the passage of time or guarantee motherhood. But it does introduce something new to a discipline historically marked by probability: … Read more

In the middle of Valentine’s week, strawberries have reached figures never seen before in half of Europe. The problem is not love, it is Spain

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Hearts, chocolate, bouquets of flowers and pink decorations everywhere: Valentine’s week is synonymous with many things, but above all with crazy prices. What was not expected in half of Europe is that strawberries were going to rise so much. And when I say ‘so much’, it’s ‘so much’. What happened to the strawberries? The peak in demand is predictable: every year, coinciding with Valentine’s week, the demand for strawberries skyrockets. And, furthermore, it is a very inelastic demand: since it is a “special” day, people continue buying them “almost” independently of the price. That has not changed in 2026: what has changed is that the supply has suffered a huge shock. A shock called Spain and Portugal: And more specifically its meteorology. If the frosts of a few years ago caused the shortage of red peppers throughout the European continentthe historic rainfall in recent months has reduced strawberry production, its quality and shelf life to almost historic lows. To give us an idea of ​​the collapse: in Huelva, production has fallen by half compared to 2025. And despite efforts to catch up, production is 38% below from that of the 24/25 campaign. This has meant that strawberries are arriving in the Netherlands at 5.83 per kilo and in France at 6.44. The problem naked. In this case, the problem is that Europe depends completely on Huelva and, in recent decades, it has not been able to do anything to avoid it. Huelva producers have demonstrated an impressive capacity to produce with very high quality at very low prices. That (and the constant rise in production) has meant that no one can build a parallel agribusiness. The problem is that the climate becomes increasingly volatile, the ‘security’ of the Andalusian countryside decreases. and this episode has only confirmed it. What’s behind the story. So what is hidden behind the strawberries at seven euros per kilo in a market in Alicante is the story of the loss of hegemony of one of the most solid and refined economic pillars in southern Europe. That is to say, while strawberries are on their way to becoming an ‘ultra-luxury’ product, Andalusia’s competitive advantage is fading. Are a giant with feet of clay. Image | Alba Otero In Xataka | Spain’s problem with its supermarkets: Huelva strawberries are now cheaper in Germany

Not even the judge who granted him this wish even knows if this is possible.

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LaLiga has obtained that a court in Córdoba order NordVPN and ProtonVPN to block certain IPs associated with the broadcast of football matches without authorization. The situation, which has intensified over the last few years, and which has led to malfunction of many websites every time there is a match, it has even led to the services of VPN are involved in this crossroads. The problem is that no one knows entirely if that is technically possible, not even the judge who signed the resolution. What exactly happened. The Commercial Court No. 1 of Córdoba recently issued several orders granting LaLiga and Telefónica precautionary measures “unheard of”, that is, without the affected companies being able to defend themselves. The recipients are two of the most popular VPNs on the market: NordVPN and ProtonVPN. The order requires them to immediately implement mechanisms so that certain IP addresses, in which, according to LaLiga, “illegal broadcasting of protected audiovisual content” were found to be inaccessible from Spain. Because it is important. Until now, LaLiga’s battles against those websites or organizations that broadcast football without authorization were fought involving teleoperators and broadcast providers. services like Cloudflarewith the goal of blocking those IP addresses in which it was confirmed that LaLiga content had been broadcast without authorization. Bringing VPN providers into that equation means that the pursuit of those IP addresses jumped to a whole new level. The reasoning The judge’s opinion is that these companies are “technological intermediaries within the scope of European Digital Services regulations” and, therefore, have the obligation to prevent infringements from being committed through their infrastructures. LaLiga further argues that these VPNs not only facilitate access to blocked content, but even “actively advertise that ability.” The technical trap. Blocking a specific IP is relatively simple for a traditional operator. But asking a VPN to block only “illegal” traffic associated with an IP, without touching the rest of the traffic passing through its servers, is a completely different problem. The magistrate responsible for the resolution, Antonio Fuentes Bujalance, recognized in a publication on LinkedIn that the order only requires action “in the sole and exclusive case that it is technically possible to make this discrimination between legal and illegal traffic by the VPN provider without affecting in any way everything that does not have to do with illegal soccer streaming traffic.” “Whether or not it is technically possible will be seen, but if it is not, the order is only to do it if possible,” he added in the publication. What it means in practice. In other words, what the judge meant is that, if NordVPN or ProtonVPN determine that they cannot make this traffic discrimination without compromising the service of their users, the resolution ceases to have effect. This opens up room for maneuver for both companies, although it also raises the question of who evaluates and certifies whether this technical separation is possible or not. How VPNs have reacted. ProtonVPN counted to Xataka Móvil that he was not aware of any ongoing proceedings before the news broke, and that any order issued without due notification to the affected parties would be, in his opinion, “invalid from a procedural point of view.” NordVPN, for its part, Indian that he had not received the judicial documents either, so he could not comment in detail. Although the company maintained that “domain blocks are ineffective in combating piracy” since these blocks can be “easily bypassed using subdomains.” Furthermore, NordVPN said that these types of measures “mainly affect reputable paid VPNs, leaving free VPN services practically intact,” which are used precisely by those who do not want to pay for content. And now what. Everything indicates that the issue is still quite far from being resolved. What has become clear is that LaLiga has opened a new front in its particular fight against those who broadcast matches without consent, and is going to use every possible legal instrument to make their requests possible. Cover image | Peter Lagson and own assembly In Xataka | You will only be able to get to the World Cup stadiums in the USA and Mexico by car. And they are going to charge you 300 dollars to park it

The European Commission did not like how Spain has imposed the V16 beacon. That has potential consequences.

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The V16 beacon has generated all a wave of criticismboth because of its obligation, and because their capabilities and legislation around it. In this last aspect, the European Commission has confirmed that Spain did not follow the mandatory notification procedure before imposing the connected beacon. From here, the consequences can range from a formal infringement procedure to Spanish courts refusing to apply the rule. It is mandatory, but Brussels has a different opinion. Since January 1, 2026, drivers in Spain are required to carry a V16 beacon connected that, in the event of a breakdown or accident, allows the DGT to geolocate the vehicle. Just like account the executive vice-president of the European Commission, Stéphane Séjourné, in response to the parliamentary question of the PP MEP Dolors Montserrat, this obligation was established by two royal decrees: the 159/2021 and the 1030/2022. The problem is that, according to Séjourné, neither of them was communicated to Brussels before their adoption, something that European legislation expressly requires. Why does that matter? There is a European directive, 2015/1535which obliges Member States to notify the European Commission of any draft technical regulation before approving it. The objective is that both the Commission and the rest of the EU countries can analyze it and detect if it could cause problems for trade or contradict community law. If a State does so, it has a waiting period of three months before being able to adopt the standard. And Séjourné suggests that Spain would have skipped this step entirely. What the Commission has said. The executive vice president of the European Commission confirmed in its response expressly that the Spanish royal decrees “have not been notified in accordance with the procedure of Directive (EU) 2015/1535”. Furthermore, it also warns that, if a Member State fails to comply with this obligation, the Commission “may open a formal infringement procedure under the article 258 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the EU”. lJudges may not apply the rule. Beyond the sanctions that the alleged infringement may entail, the Commission recalls that the Court of Justice of the EU has already established in its jurisprudence that “national courts must refuse to apply technical regulations that have not been properly notified.” In other words: if you as a Spanish driver They fine you for not carrying the V16 beacon You could, in theory, challenge that sanction by alleging precisely this failure to notify. Minterior market Brussels also warns of another aspect. As the use of danger signaling devices is not harmonized at the European level, each State can regulate according to its traffic regulations. But when very specific technical requirements are imposed on what that device must be like, as is the case with the beacon and its mandatory connectivity, Séjourné warns that this can “become a restriction on free trade within the internal market”, something that would violate article 34 of the TFEU. And now what. The issue, like many others in the country, has become another debate of political colors. Montserrat has demanded the Government to “immediately clarify this situation and act with transparency.” In the absence of knowing more details about it, it seems that we will have to wait to find out if the beacon may end up causing more problems than necessary. Cover image | Guillaume Perigois and DGT In Xataka | The RAM crisis has put the future of smartphones, consoles and computers in check. And the cars are not going to escape either

We have been looking for the end of Neanderthals in weapons and climate for decades. A study proposes to look for it in the placenta

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For decades, we have tried to explain why our species has persisted over time and Neanderthals don’t. We have blamed climate changeto competition for resources, to a supposed cognitive inferiority and even to the genetic assimilation. However, a new study suggests that the answer might not lie on the battlefield or in the weather, but in something much more intimate like the placenta. A new idea. In this case, science proposes a hypothesis controversial, since it suggests that Neanderthals could have become extinct, in part, due to genetic susceptibility extreme to preeclampsia. a disorder which is heard a lot today and which is nothing more than a hypertensive condition in pregnancy that can be lethal for both the mother and the fetuses. A price to pay. To understand the hypothesis, we must first understand the human “obstetric paradox”, since in our species we have an almost unique characteristic, which is deep hemochorial placentation. And it is something that may sound very bad, but it is actually necessary to feed a fetal brain as demanding as ours and that of Neanderthals. In this case, the placenta needs to aggressively invade the arteries of the uterus maternal to obtain maximum blood flow, although the problem is that it is something that carries a great risk. The possibilities. Faced with this invasion, the possibilities that open up are several. The first of them is that it works and that the fetus can develop its massive brain. But in the event that this fails, a great immunological and vascular reaction is unleashed in the mother, which is what we know as preeclampsia. This presents with severe hypertension, organ damage and risk of death for both the mother and the fetus. And it is a problem that today is quite significant among human pregnancies, but now science indicates that, although the Homo sapiens evolved a physiological “safety mechanism” to mitigate this impact, Neanderthals were not so lucky. A demographic winter. This study suggests that, as the Neanderthal brain grew, becoming larger than ours, its metabolic needs forced a increasingly aggressive placentation. The fact of penetrating further into the placenta significantly increases the risk of preeclampsia, and the problem is that Neanderthal women lacked the immune mechanism to tolerate this invasion. This is where researchers have created a scenario in which rates of preeclampsia and eclampsia in Neanderthals could have reached between 10% and 20% of all pregnanciescompared to much lower rates in preindustrial humans. The meaning. This scenario translates into logically devastating maternal and fetal mortality, and the direct consequence is that small and dispersed hunter-gatherer populations had a constant decline in reproductive success. And this is a much more effective death sentence than any war, since a sudden catastrophe is not necessary, but it is enough for more mothers and babies to die than are born over a few millennia for a species to end up disappearing. There is skepticism. Within the scientific world there are doubts about what is said in this study, since there is a lack of physical evidence to support this hypothesis. The first thing they point to is that there are no markers in the fossils that have been found that allow us to diagnose preeclampsia in a Neanderthal woman from 40,000 years ago. In addition to this, although we know genetic variants associated with the risk of preeclampsia in modern humans, such as genes linked to FLT1systematic screening of Neanderthal DNA has not yet been performed to confirm whether they possessed the “high-risk” variants or lacked the protective variants. Also like it. What makes this hypothesis attractive to biologists is that it fits with maternal-fetal conflict theory. As different previous reviews point out, pregnancy is not always a perfect cooperation, but rather a tense biological negotiation. In this case, the fetus “wants” more resources to survive, and the mother “wants” to limit that investment to survive and have future children. Preeclampsia is often the result of this conflict getting out of control, and so, if Neanderthals took the “big brain” strategy to the limit without developing the biological counterpart to protect the mother, their own reproductive biology could have become an evolutionary trap. Images | Nanne Tiggelman freestocks In Xataka | A mixture of 4,000 kilometers: we have the first detailed map of the coexistence between Neanderthals and Sapiens

The best TVs to play and get the most out of your PS5 or Xbox Series

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You buy a television thinking you’ve hit the nail on the head and suddenly your friend tells you that it’s not good for gaming. That if your screen offers 60 Hz, that if it does not have HDMI 2.1, that the future is in the cloud and the television does not support it… But what is all this? What TV should I buy to have a good experience with PlayStation and Xbox consoles? We’re going to get technical, but we’re going to explain in detail what each thing is so that now you can hit the nail on the head with your purchase. What is necessary to squeeze out the features of the consoles 4K, Full HD or HD resolution. The most important thing when choosing a TV, as long as we do so to take advantage of the features of the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series Xis that its screen offers 4K resolution. This should not be a problem if we choose a television larger than 40 inches, since this is normally the resolution that has become the standard for a few years. Although they are gradually disappearing, there are televisions below that diagonal, especially less than 30 inches, that offer Full HD resolution or, where appropriate, HD. In this case, we recommend that beyond 40 inches it be 4K to have better visual quality, so as not to notice the pixels as much. To make everything clearer, both the PlayStation 5 and the Xbox Series X offer: Resolution up to 4K. Support for a refresh rate of up to 120 Hz. HDMI 2.1 support. Hertz and the relationship with fps. The second most important thing is that the television is capable of offering a refresh rate of at least 120 Hz. But be careful, not all video games offer a 4K/120 Hz ratio, so you have to pay attention here. In many cases, games allow us to choose various quality/performance modes, which is usually 4K/30 fps or Full HD/120 Hz. But… am I confusing hertz (Hz) with Frames per Second (FPS, frames per second)? It is not the same, but it is closely related. Stay with this: if the console offers 120 fps, but the TV only has 60 Hz, we will only take advantage of the fluidity of 60 fps. On the other hand, if the television offers a rate greater than 120 Hz, we will take advantage of 120 fps. While fps is the amount of images that the console can generate, Hz is the frequency with which the TV updates the image. For this reason, they are different concepts, but they are closely related. HDMI 2.1 or HDMI 2.1b. When buying a television, we should pay attention to the version of its HDMI ports. The consoles are compatible with HDMI 2.1, so the ideal is that we choose this same version if we are looking for the best experience. Now, you may come across a similar version called HDMI 2.1b. It is more designed for very large televisions or screens, such as those in shopping centers, since they offer compatibility with a higher resolution. Keep these differences: HDMI 2.1: supports 8K at 60 Hz and 4K at 120 Hz. HDMI 2.1b: Supports 8K at 60 Hz, 4K at 120 Hz and 10K at 120 Hz. There are more differences, but in practice they are not usually taken advantage of, at least on consoles. Do not buy a television prioritizing this HDMI 2.1b standard, especially if it is more expensive. The important thing here is that it at least has HDMI 2.1 and not HDMI 2.0, which in the latter case offers a lower resolution/hertz ratio, so you would not take advantage of the features of the consoles. HDMI 2.1 at 60Hz. Although the ideal is that we opt for a television that offers 4K resolution and a refresh rate of 120 Hz and that has HDMI 2.1 ports, this is not always the case. My example: I have a TV with HDMI 2.1 and a 4K display, but its refresh rate is 60 Hz. I don’t get the most out of my PS5, so I wouldn’t recommend this TV for gaming. Depending on the prices we see on televisions, it is advisable to spend a little more to have a good resolution/hertz/HDMI 2.1 ratio. Latency or input lag. Although this is something that is usually looked at more closely with monitors, here it is advisable that we take a look at the specifications of the televisions to know what the response time is. In some cases, brands may not mention it, but if they do, at least this latency is less than 5 ms. In this way, when you press a button on the console controller, the video game character will move practically instantly. The higher the latency, the more we will notice the “delay” between pressing the button and the character moving. As a summary, in this table we leave the essentials with a brief explanation of what each thing is: The best option What is it for? Resolution 4K So that the images are of higher quality and the pixels are not noticeable. Hertz 120Hz So that the images look more fluid. HDMI HDMI 2.1 So that televisions can offer higher resolution at a high refresh rate. Latency Less than 5 ms So that there is not too much delay between pressing the button and the action being displayed on the screen. The functions and technologies that are a good addition We have already talked about the essentials, now we are going to give way to those functions or technologies that only add. Variable Refresh Rate. The VRR It is a technology that allows us to adapt the refresh rate of a television or monitor to the fps rate of the game we are running. This ensures a smoother experience. But it does not do it alone, but through two technologies: AMD FreeSync via software. Nvidia G-Sync via hardware or Nvidia G-Sync … Read more

China has concentrated thousands of fishing boats off Japan, and its idea is not to fish

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The East China Sea is one of the more sensitive scenarios of the strategic balance in Asia for decades. territorial disputes, historical rivalries and the growing weight of new powers have turned these waters into a space where every movement is observed with a magnifying glass. There, apparently minor gestures usually fit into dynamic much deeperand China has just made a move. The diplomatic fuse. Japan’s detention of a chinese fishing boat within its exclusive economic zone, about 170 kilometers from Nagasaki, has rekindled a relationship already deteriorated between Tokyo and Beijing, with a certain island as a backdrop. He captain’s arrestafter refusing an inspection, occurs in a context of growing dispute marked by Japanese statements on Taiwan and the subsequent Chinese warnings its citizens to avoid traveling to Japan. Therefore, it is not an isolated episode, but rather the visible spark of a maritime tension that had been building for weeks. Images from space. AIS system data and the images by satellite show unprecedented concentrations of up to 2,000 fishing boats Chinese aligned near the median line between the two countries in the East China Sea. The formations, hundreds of kilometers long and with vessels separated by less than 500 meters, remained more than 24 hours in static positions despite adverse weather conditions. In other words, China was concentrating thousands of fishing boats off Japan, and its idea is not exactly to fish. The maritime militia and the “gray zone”. They counted on Nikkei that the vast majority of these fishing vessels are part of the so-called chinese maritime militiaa civil network that cooperates with the State and the Army in operations that do not reach the threshold of armed conflict. A priori, this strategy allows pressure to be exerted without formally deploying naval forces, thus making a direct response difficult. In other words, as we count A few weeks ago, what was presented as economic activity could become a test of maritime control or even the interruption of trade routes in the first island chain. Taiwan as a backdrop. Impossible to ignore it. The maneuvers coincide with statements by the Japanese government warning that a crisis in the Taiwan Strait would be an existential threat for Japan. Beijing, for its part, considers the island part of its territory and does not rule out the use of forcewhile Tokyo reinforces its deterrent posture. In this context, each movement in the East China Sea takes on a meaning that goes beyond fishing and is integrated into the regional strategic calculation. A pattern of sustained pressure. Furthermore, the activity is not limited to civil fleets. I remembered the Guardian that the Chinese coast guard has broken presence records around to the Senkaku Islandsalso known as Diaoyu in China, and has released images of patrols in disputed waters for the first time. Plus: the Liaoning aircraft carrier has expanded its radius of operations near Okinawa, while Beijing advances infrastructure on its side of the maritime median line. More than boats, an essay. Analysts interpret these concentrations like exercises of mobilization and coordination within the civil-military fusion plan promoted by Beijing. There is no doubt, the capacity of gather thousands of boats civilians at a strategic point in a short time sends a fairly clear message about the possibility of, for example, saturating maritime spaces without openly resorting to force. In this way, the pulse is no longer so much or only bilateral, but rather a warning to the entire region: China is perfecting tools to shape the balance of the Indo-Pacific, and it is doing so without firing a single shot. Image | Planet Labs, Marine Traffic, Anna Frodesiak, Micromesistius In Xataka | China’s best weapon doesn’t fire a single bullet: 300km ‘moving wall’ to close sea routes instantly In Xataka | China has turned deep-sea salmon farming into an engineering feat. This state-of-the-art boat proves it

85% hide a “cocktail” of pesticides and PFAS that current regulations ignore

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If we think about a healthy food, the truth is that the apple is at the top. However, a recent published analysis by the NGO Pesticide Action Network Europe, in collaboration with 13 other organizations, has put an uncomfortable reality on the table: a good part of the conventional apples that reach our supermarkets are contaminated by multiple pesticides. The data. The report was based in this case on the analysis of 59 fresh samples of local production collected in September 2025 in 13 European countries, which also includes Spain. In this case, organizations like Ecologista en Acción have been able to corroborate The results have pointed to the following: 93% of the apples analyzed had at least one chemical residue, that is, only 7% were completely free of pesticides. 85% contained more than one pesticide, with an average of three different substances per fruit, reaching up to seven in the most extreme cases. By countries. While in Denmark only 20% of samples had multiple residues, in Spain, France and Italy the figure shot up to a worrying 80%. And when asked where so much chemical comes from, the answer suggests that apples can be sprayed with agrochemicals up to 30 times a year. The toxic ones. What worries the scientific community most is not only the quantity, but the quality of these toxins, since the breakdown of the substances found ignites several red flag: 71% of the apples contained pesticides classified by the European Union itself as “substitution candidates”, that is, the most toxic on the market that should be gradually removed by safer ones. 64% had PFAS wasteknown as “forever chemicals” for their persistence in the environment. The most common is fludioxonil, which is a known endocrine disruptor found in 40% of the samples. The consequences. The data here indicates that 93% of these commonly consumed apples did not comply with the strict legal limits required for the production of processed baby foods, highlighting the risk for children, who are especially vulnerable to these substances because they are much more sensitive as their livers do not have fully developed. The cocktail effect. If apples have a toxin on their surface, the question seems inevitable: why are they legal? This is where the European Food Safety Authority comes in, analyzing the substances individually, estimating that in the vast majority of cases the concentration of each pesticide separately is below legal limits allowed. In fact, the EU Annual Report on waste prepared by EFSA guarantees that exceedances above the standard are low. but the problem It’s in the ‘cocktail effect’ because the current regulations ignore the fact that when three or four toxins are combined, their effect is multiplied. However, despite the fact that the EU has had a legal mandate for 20 years to assess cumulative risks, to this day it still does not apply it rigorously, and if that were not enough, at the end of 2025 the European Commission put forward proposals that could further weaken these toxicity reviews. There are precedents. This study is not an isolated case, since other entities such as the OCU have already published information that pointed to the high level of toxic waste that is in some foods. Even EFSA itself It records this multiple contamination year after year in its databases, although it limits itself to validating that individually they do not break the rule. Faced with this panorama and waiting for European regulations to be updated to protect consumers from the cocktail effect, experts and environmental organizations agree on a clear recommendation: for those seeking to minimize their exposure to these hormone disruptors and persistent chemicals, organically produced apples, which according to studies are usually free of these residues, are currently emerging as the safest alternative. Images | Ilham Wicaksono In Xataka | We are surrounded by “eternal chemicals” that we could only destroy with cannon fire. It turns out that we have an ally in the intestine

AI agents have indeed changed work and the economy forever. But for now only in one sector: programming

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AI agents are beginning to demonstrate their capabilities, but the only area in which they do so is programming. An Anthropic report reveals how software engineering is where half of the activity of AI agents is currently concentrated, and that proves two things. The first, that AI can effectively enhance work. The second, that there is a huge opportunity for hundreds of verticals where AI has barely landed. what has happened. If there is a sector that has embraced AI and AI agents, it is programming. Platforms like Cursor or WindSurf first and like Claude Code, OpenAI Codex or Antigravity today have made all kinds of people —whether they know programming or not— can turn their projects into reality in a really simple way. It’s a clear case of how AI can contribute to a field, but there’s a problem: it’s practically the only case where it has actually done so. Distribution of requests to AI tools by segment. Software engineering is almost responsible for 50% of those calls or requests, at least in the case of the Claude platform. Source: Anthropic. Verticals with a lot of margin. As can be seen in this graph, the presence of AI agents is very reduced or practically non-existent in a large number of verticals in which it is evident that there is a notable opportunity to take advantage of these tools. The automation of office tasks is the second main protagonist with 9.1% of the function calls of the Anthropic AI model in this report. Below it we find segments such as marketing, sales, finance, business analysis or scientific research. And others who are ignoring AI. There are quite a few sectors in which AI agents seem to be barely present. The travel, legal, medical, e-commerce or education segments seem perfect to start taking advantage of these tools, but at the moment this is not the case and this presence is very, very small in all of them. Claude Code can work longer and longer. Double what it was three months ago, in fact. Source: Anthropic. Models can now work autonomously for a long time. In these scenarios it is true that the models used to be limited by the time they could function autonomously and “chain” actions and self-analyze progress to continue acting. That’s not so true now. Claude Code, for example, has doubled the time of his longest sessions in just three months: from 25 minutes in October 2025 to 45 minutes in January 2026. And they need less human intervention. Another of the revealing data of the study is that the evolution of these agents not only means that they can function autonomously for longer periods of time, but that this also implies fewer human interventions. Those situations in which an agent “needs human help” to continue with the process are becoming limited. In August 2025, the average was 5.4 human interventions per session. In December that average dropped to 3.3 interventions. We trust more and more in AI. At Anthropic they have also noticed a unique behavior among users: they are increasingly trusting AI agents. In programming, novices approve each new step before it is executed, but veterans delegate and intervene when something goes wrong: they have gone from pre-approving everything to exercising active and constant monitoring. As they say at Anthropic“Users develop confidence as they work with the model, and change their monitoring strategy based on that growing confidence.” From programming to other fields. What has happened with programming could happen in other scenarios. The challenge is to build AI agents that adapt to each segment using that specific data from said vertical. If an AI wants to help in the legal segment, it must be specifically trained for that segment. What the AI ​​did when trained with thousands of code repositories on GitHub It was learning and improving. Well, the same can be applied to other verticals, although the challenge is certainly notable because programming was a perfect segment for the application of AI: it is very deterministic. It either works or it doesn’t, and whether it does or not, execution logs allow you to fine-tune that operation. The new unicorns await. As entrepreneur Garry Tan points out in your newsletterin the last two decades SaaS platforms have managed to capture 40% of venture capital investments and that industry has more than 170 unicorns. “The thesis is simple,” Tan concludes, “all of those unicorns have an equivalent in the form of vertical AI waiting.” Promises and realities. The AI ​​agent segment therefore promises many changes in a multitude of segments, but the reality is that today the practical success (there is no economic success at the moment) of AI is limited to the world of programming. Will we be able to transfer it to other segments? The opportunity is there, but it is one thing to say it, and quite another to do it… even if it is with AI. Image | Joshua Reddekopp In Xataka | Every time Facebook had a competitor, it bought it: it is exactly the same thing that OpenAI is doing

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