Mobile Tech & Gadgets

The ChatGPT Atlas agent made my purchase at Mercadona and now I have a pantry full of garlic

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a week ago I tried the new ChatGPT Atlasthe new OpenAI browser and, although it has a lot to improve, it seemed like a threat to Google’s dominance with Chrome. Today I put it to the test again, this time with a Plus subscription, and I wanted to check if agent mode is capable of hmake the purchase at Mercadona. Posing the situation It was the first time I used ChatGPT for something like this and I didn’t want to just give you a list. of the purchase, so first I asked him for ideas to make healthy recipes that are delicious. He offered me several options and when I decided on one of them, I activated agent mode and asked him to buy the ingredients at Mercadona. We have already talked about AI browsers are vulnerable to prompt injection attacks and OpenAI knows it. Before starting, a message appeared alerting me that using agent mode carries risks and I could use it with or without the session logged in. In my case I have chosen the logged in session because I wanted to see it work more easily, but as a precaution I have first deleted my payment details on the Mercadona website. Making the purchase Once the risks have been accepted, agent mode has been activated and the mouse has started to move through the Mercadona website interface. The sidebar shows the model’s entire thought and decision-making process while buying the ingredients to make a chickpea curry. In the video you can see the entire purchase process. The agent has been making decisions when he has found several items to choose from. For example, the recipe required an onion, but decided that it was more practical to buy a 1kg package. However, when choosing spinach, he decided that a package of baby spinach was better than the large package that is much cheaper. When he finished choosing ingredients he asked me to check it and I asked him to change the spinach. He has done it without question. The process has stopped when it has run into an insurmountable obstacle: it only had 10.28 euros and the minimum order on the Mercadona website is 50 euros, so I asked it to also include the ingredients of another of the recipes that it had suggested to me at the beginning, one for baked salmon. Since that one didn’t reach the minimum order either, I told him that I wanted to make it for four people and please don’t give me frozen salmon, but fresh ones. The agent adjusted the quantities and changed the salmon for a fresh one, but it still didn’t reach 50 euros, so I asked for something more creative.: to look for the most viral Mercadona products recently and add them to the basket. The purchase is made for you, but there is a problem When he was done, it was time to check the basket. I found that I had added garlic and also purple garlic. The normal garlic was fine, but the purple ones? I have reviewed the chain of thought and he was confused looking for purple onion. Mercadona calls it “red onion” and the agent has decided that it was better to add purple garlic because the color matched, even though they were a different ingredient. Regarding the viral products, I have chosen an advent calendar with makeup, smoked raclette cheese, cookie nougat and pistachio cake. The total amount was 66 eurosit is true that I have not expressly told you to adjust to 50 euros, but it seems to me that you have gone a little overboard. The agent has taken control of the browser and done exactly what he wanted: make the purchase for me. However, there is a problem and that is It’s very slow. I haven’t helped much either. Not having anticipated that there was a minimum order and the additional requests that I have been making, such as changing the quantities or choosing products by itself, has made it even slower. In total he has been thinking for almost 15 minutes, but if we take into account only the first part of the purchase for the chickpea curry, it has taken 2:14 minutes. More than two minutes to add eight items to cart. All the time I had the feeling that I would already have the order finished and paid for. Regarding reliability, I have to say that He has made fewer mistakes than I expected, but it is still necessary to check what you have added to the basket at the end because you can sneak in some garlic instead of onions, and I already have enough garlic in the pantry. Much more practical in other scenarios One of the use scenarios that OpenAI gave in the presentation of its new browser was precisely to make the purchase. After trying it, it is clear to me that the ChatGPT Atlas agent mode has a lot of potential, but not for making the purchase, that’s why I have tried another scenario where it can be much more useful: organize a trip. I asked him to find places for me to go on a getaway over the December long weekend, that were less than 2 hours by car from Valencia, with a specific budget and to look for them on Booking and Airbnb. In six minutes he gave me options for two different destinationsorganized in a table with price per night and highlights. Once I have decided, I only had to give him the personal information to complete the reservation. To organize a trip it is practical. Making the purchase is simply adding things to the cart, a much more mechanical process that we can do manually in a very short time. If we also encounter obstacles such as the minimum order or we are not completely clear about what we want, we end up losing more time than gaining it. Where the agent does offer more … Read more

It is a gigantic jug of cold water for Spain

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Production of the current Citroën C4 and C4 in The Automotive Tribunewill move to Kenitra, in Morocco. It is a hard blow for automobile production in our country. what has happened. According to “solvent sources” cited in this specialized newspaper, the new generation of these vehicles will begin production in December 2029 at the Stellantis plant in Morocco. The company has not confirmed the date, but has indicated that “the C4, like any other vehicle, has a life and production cycle, but that does not mean that the factory does not have other possible projects on the table that guarantee its viability.” New platform, new strategy. This fourth generation of the C4 and C4 X will be mounted on the platform STLA Small —the last of that family— and will foreseeably start at the end of 2029. This platform has already been awarded to the Vigo and Zaragoza plants, but in a official announcement January 2025, those responsible for Stellantis pointed out that “the Madrid plant will have a future in Villaverde beyond the current Citroën C4, for which the Group is working on several scenarios that will be communicated in due time.” Villaverde’s future is uncertain. The future of the Stellantis plant in Villaverde (Madrid) now seems more uncertain than ever. The company has not given details about that future, but several hypotheses are being considered. On Autoblog they point out that the group plans to transform this plant into a satellite structure of the Figueruelas plant (Zaragoza), as the one in Mangualde (Portugal) is in Vigo. That would see the adoption of the STLA Small platform dedicated to compact electric vehicles. But there are favorable comments. At least if we pay attention to the statements that Carlos Tavares, CEO of Stellantis, made a year ago expanding. He then commented that “Madrid is a very good example of a factory that over the last ten years has made a great transformation to improve costs, quality and performance.” The then CEO of Citroën, Thierry Koslas—relieved this summer by Xavier Chardon—agreed with these assessments, stating that this plant “is taken as a reference in costs and quality.” The same thing already happened in Italy. In summer we already reported how Stellantis had announced an investment of 1.2 billion euros in Morocco to expand the production capacity of its plant in Kenitra. The objective: to be able to produce 535,000 cars a year there, which would place it at the level of Vigo. The company already produces the Citroen AMI either Fiat Topolinoand the latter, by the way, began their journey with controversy. Stellantis, which has historical brands like Fiat or Alfa Romeo, has gone leaving aside car production in the transalpine country. Why Morocco. The transfer of the manufacturing process to Morocco seems to respond to the search for a stronger presence in the Mediterranean region and also in its intention to increase its competitiveness. Or what is the same: rationalize production costs and capacities. The European industry is moving towards countries with lower labor costs, less strict regulations and greater tax advantages, and Stellantis is no exception. Already in 2022 they had invested 300 million euros to update the Kenitra plant and introduce the Smart Car platform. Morocco is positioning itself as a rival to beat when it comes to manufacturing cars at a very low price, and even China is taking note. In Xataka | Europe has been filled with Stellantis cars that are not selling. And Madrid and Zaragoza will pay the consequences

features, price and technical sheet

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Nothing does not want to stop competing in one of the juiciest and most complicated segments in the world of smartphones: the affordable mid-range. The firm, which recently launched its first high rangechanges course completely with the Nothing Phone (3a) Litea terminal that seeks to offer the design that so characterizes the brand at a much more affordable price than its older brothers. And the Nothing Phone (3a) Lite is a missile to the waterline of the rest of the manufacturers, since for 239 euros this device offers a different design, AMOLED panel, a MediaTek Dimensity 7300 Pro very capable and a sufficient camera. With the introductions made, let’s get to know him better. Data sheet of the Nothing Phone (3a) Lite Nothing Phone (3a) Lite dimensions and weight 164 x 78 x 8.3mm 199 grams screen 6.77-inch Flexible AMOLED FullHD+ resolution (2,392 x 1,080 pixels) 387 dpi 10-bit color Refresh rate: 120 Hz adaptive Touch sampling: 1,000 Hz PWM Dimming: 2,160Hz Billo peak: 3,000 nits Maximum brightness: 1,300 nits processor MediaTek Dimensity 7300 Pro 5G Mali-G615 GPU RAM MEMORY 8GB Virtual RAM: up to 16 GB INTERNAL STORAGE 128/256 GB expandable with microSD cards REAR CAMERA Wide 50 MP, f/1.88, OIS+EIS, PDAF Wide angle 8 MP, f/2.2, FOV 119.5º front camera 16MP f/2.45 battery 5,000 mAh 33W fast charge 5W reverse charging OPERATING SYSTEM Android 15 with Nothing OS 3.5 3 years of major updates 6 years of security updates CONNECTIVITY 5G NSA/SA Bluetooth 5.3 NFC Wi-Fi 6 GPS USB type C OTHERS Fingerprint sensor on screen Glyph interface IP54 certification Essential Key Essential Space PRICE 8/128 GB: 239 euros 8/256 GB: 279 euros As striking as its brothers, but cheaper Nothing Phone (3a) Lite | Image: Nothing The Nothing Phone (3a) Lite has a thickness of 8.3 millimeters and its weight remains at 199 grams. As is customary in Carl Pei’s brand, its back is anything but discreet, with an industrial and transparent finish in which the Glyph interface stands out. This time it is not a set of LEDs that illuminate in full color, but a more modest and discreet implementation: an LED in the corner whose lighting patterns we can customize. The screen consists of a fairly generous AMOLED panel in size with FullHD+ resolution and 120 Hz refresh rate. However, the most striking thing is its brightness level: 1,300 nits indoors and peaks of 3,000 nits outdoors, figures more typical of the high range than a 240 euro terminal. On paper, the truth is that it doesn’t look bad, although yes, no HDR technologies, for example. Nothing Phone (3a) Lite | Image: Nothing Inside we find a MediaTek Dimensity 7300 Pro processor, an eight-core SoC with a maximum speed of 2.5 GHz. It is combined with eight gigabytes of RAM and up to 256 GB of storage which, in 2025, are expandable with microSD cards. A rare bird, definitely. With this combination, performance should be sufficient for everyday tasks and gaming. The operating system is Android 15 with Nothing OS 3.5, although Nothing OS 4 (and surely Android 16) will arrive in the first half of 2026. In that sense, it is worth noting that Nothing is committed to offering three years of major updates and six years of security updates. AI, of course, makes an appearance again through the Essential Space that we already saw in previous models. Nothing Phone (3a) Lite | Image: Nothing Regarding the battery, 5,000 mAh with which Nothing promises up to 9.5 hours of gaming and 22 hours of YouTube playback. In any case, we already know that autonomy depends a lot on the use we make of the device. As for charging, 33W which, according to Nothing, charges half the battery in 20 minutes. Finally, and with regard to the camera, the terminal has a simple set: a 50-megapixel Samsung sensor under one angle and an eight-megapixel sensor under a wide angle. The most striking is the first, since it has OIS and EIS (something that is not seen every day in this range) and is compatible with Ultra XDR, the standard co-developed with Google. It is not the most complete camera, but it is enough for basic use. Versions and price of the Nothing Phone (3a) Lite Nothing Phone (3a) Lite | Image: Nothing He Nothing Phone (3a) Lite It can be purchased starting today, October 29, in two colors: black and white. The model with 8/128 GB costs 239 euros and the higher one, with 256 GB of storage, amounts to 279 euros. Images | nothing In Xataka | I had no idea what the future of the smartphone is. Until I spoke to Carl Pei

Microsoft seemed to be the ‘paymaster’ of the AI ​​industry. His divorce from OpenAI is proving just the opposite

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OpenAI now has completed its transition to a for-profit organization after years after that, and Microsoft has in the process sealed the agreement that redefines their relationship. It maintains a 27% stake (valued at $135 billion) and also gains something potentially more valuable: autonomy to develop AGI on your own. Why is it important. Microsoft has gone from being a kind of AI “pagafantasy”, seeing how OpenAI was the one who took the spotlight day in and day out, with the only benefit of Azure rise; to become the player best positioned to dominate its infrastructure, its models and its commercial application. You have paid for access… and you have ended up buying independence. In detail. The new framework extends Microsoft’s intellectual property rights until 2032, including on post-AGI models. You will also be able to use some of OpenAI’s intellectual property to advance your own projects—albeit with computational limits—and collaborate with third parties. Before I couldn’t. Now yes. The panoramic. Microsoft stops depending on the rhythms, decisions and crises of OpenAI. It remains its main infrastructure partner (with an additional contract of 250,000 million in Azure, a quarter of a billion with a ‘b’ for ‘barbarism’), but it no longer needs to wait for Sam Altman to declare that it has reached the AGI. You can do it on your own. Or better yet: with others. The pact buries the clause that most irritated Satya Nadella: the one that prevented him from competing for the AGI. That limitation turned Microsoft into a kind of patron with its hands tied. It is now a co-owner, supplier and potential competitor. In perspective. The turn does not break the alliance, in fact it consolidates it: OpenAI gains freedom to raise capital, essential to finance his 1.4 billion plan in data centers. And Microsoft maintains preferential access to its models until 2032. Both companies, in any case, are preparing for the phase in which AI stops being software and definitively becomes infrastructure. In Xataka | OpenAI started out as open and non-profit. That company no longer exists, and Microsoft has gained from it Featured image | Xataka

They have closed a door on Luzia on WhatsApp, but her bet was already going the other way

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The news was an expected splash of cold water: Meta will close general chatbot access to its WhatsApp business API starting January 15, 2026. ChatGPT, Perplexity, Poke or Luzia will be left out. Only Meta AI, the company’s own assistant, will remain. For Luzia, the Spanish chatbot that reached one million users faster than Instagram thanks to its viral function of transcribing WhatsApp audiosthe measure is a setback, they admit, but minor. “It is not the news that makes us most amused,” admits Álvaro Higes, CEO of the company. “It is not our main channel, but it is one of the secondary channels” where they find users who, due to having modest phones or data problems, depended on WhatsApp as a comfortable and convenient access point. Luzia already has more than 70 million downloads on its mobile applications, its main channel, and maintains “very healthy” organic growth on WhatsApp as well. The platform continues without charging its end users, financing itself with the 30 million euros raised in investment rounds. But that is changing. Contextual ads and in-chat purchases The startup has begun to monetize through contextual ads inserted into conversations“marking very clearly that it is an advertisement,” according to Higes. The logic they apply is that of commercial intent: “If you go to Amazon, you go looking for a specific product. But if you go to Leroy Merlin, you go with a problem and you come out with a product to solve it.” Luzia is in that whole part of the commercial funnel. Brazil is the laboratory. There they have launched a shopping tool integrated into the chat that allows you to browse and buy products from Amazon, Mercado Libre and other stores. When the AI ​​detects that it can recommend a product, it opens a catalog with which you can chat until the purchase is completed. This is where they want to move: pure transactionality. “Eventually we will also release a premium plan,” adds Higes. Better models, better generated images, without limits. But the CEO is skeptical about the paywall as a main model: “It is going to be very difficult to monetize via paywallthe differentiation between AI products is complicated,” he says in line with something we have commented on more than one occasion: the commoditization. Álvaro sees it more as a tool to close distribution agreements in bundle with other services, in the style of Perplexity with Telefónica just a year ago. The two routes are complementary: Contextual ads and transactions on the one hand. Distribution agreements by another. “It is still not a priority, we prefer to prioritize growth,” says Higes, “but it is something we have already started to do.” Forty people, more than half in engineering Luzia’s team is around forty people, distributed mainly between Spain and an emerging presence in Brazil. 60% work in engineering and product. The rest focuses mainly on branding, a department of five people that Higes considers essential: “Unless you are a super technical runner, people usually buy Nike because they think it’s pretty and because they know the brand. In AI it’s a bit similar,” he says as a simile. The analogy makes sense in a market where models are becoming trivialized. Higes invests a lot of effort in what they call the classifier, a system that identifies in real time the topic and the user’s intention to direct them to the most appropriate model. “If you say ‘hello’ to me, I’ll send you a very basic model. If you ask me about mathematics, I’ll send you a different model and give you different tools,” explains the CEO. That optimization is relevant because cost per user is a delicate balance. On the one hand, the price per token of a model equivalent to GPT-4 (more than suitable for the most basic queries) has fallen 90% in two years. On the other hand, the market has also been launching more expensive products that require more inference. “One force counteracts the other,” he summarizes. Higes recently wrote about this idea: There comes a time when the models are good enough for most use cases and there is no longer a need to always play with the most powerful one. “If someone says ‘hello’ to me, we are not going to use GPT-5 to answer ‘hello.’” Instead, the flows of e-commerce that they are building have a higher inference cost, but also direct monetization potential. AI for the 70% who “do not spend the day on a computer” The competition is evident: ChatGPT and Gemini They dominate the market. But Higes sees them as tangential rivals. “We make AI for the 70% of people who are not in front of a computer all day.” The bet is on presenting AI in a more accessible, more intuitive way. They have a specific tool for solving mathematics that generates four times more use than if the user had to ask the question in a blank chat. “We see that people solve more math if you are super clear and say: ‘I can help you solve math.’” It is the lesson they have learned by observing OpenAI data on how people use ChatGPT: Percentages by topic have barely changed from GPT-3.5 to GPT-5. “The level of use is still very limited,” says Higes. “There is a lot of work to present the product in the most intuitive way to the user and remove that cognitive load.” The biggest initial challenge was to change the mental model of users who arrived thinking that the AI ​​was Alexa or Siri. “They asked us the time and asked us to set timers. Many people said ‘this is rubbish, why doesn’t it tell me the time?’, when it can tell you many more things.” Presenting what AI can do is more relevant than the jump from GPT-5 to GPT-6. Maybe people don’t care about that as much as they care about having their problems solved. 2026: transactionality as focus The plan for next year is clear. … Read more

Tricks, tips and tools to know if offers are really offers

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We are already in the week of Black Friday, today and until the sales end next week we are going to have a barrage of promotions and offers. Therefore, we are going to try to give you tips to make the most of Black Fridayto be able to identify the offers that are really worth it and try to avoid falling into the typical traps that are common in these events. Because stores use a lot of trickery to pretend that their sales are better than they really are. Sometimes they tell you that they have reduced a product by 150 euros, for example, but then it turns out that it is only 50 if you take into account the price it was at until now. In addition, there are also signs with misleading percentages, many things. Join our Telegram But before starting with our advice, we remind you that we have a whole team that is searching the internet all year round in search of the best offers. They are the companions of Xataka Selection that these days they will give everything so that you don’t get lost the best offers for Friday and the weekendsince they will cover all the offers that happen from Black Friday to CyberMonday. And if you’re too lazy to visit their website, you can enter the official channel of Xataka Selección on Telegram, on t.me/xatakaseleccion. When you enter the link, Telegram will open on your mobile or computer, and you will have the button Jointo enter the channel and see the publications of the best offers. The Xataka Selección channel works every day of the year, so you can stay to always see the offers that come out. But during Black Friday, we are also going to offer you special content such as compilations with thematic offerswhich can help you even more than individual offers. The idea is that you don’t need anything else so as not to miss out on the best offers. Always compare offers Let’s get into the matter. The first thing is always compare the price of products that you see on offer with what they have in other establishments. This will help you give greater context to this offer, no longer based on the supposed previous price of where the product is discounted, but by seeing what others are doing. Because one store may tell you that this product at 100 euros is a stratospheric offer, but other stores have it at 110. In addition to giving you this context, you will also see that many stores match the offers of its competitors in periods such as Black Friday. This means that if you find the same offer in several places, you will always be able to choose the store whose conditions convince you the most or that conveys greater reliability. Be careful with price increases and decreases As we have told you, some establishments can be rogue, and many will use tactics to mislead customers or make it seem that the offer is better than it really is. A common tactic is raise the price of a product a few days before before the sales begin, so that they can later indicate that the discount is much greater than it really is. Another common practice is to put as the previous price one that did not existsuch as the reference one. Imagine a product that when it came out did so at a recommended price of 600 euros, but that is always sold at 450. So, if they lower it to 400 they can say that the reduction is 200 euros instead of the 50 that they have actually lowered it. This is done a lot. You should also know that prices vary greatly over timeand that a supposedly very good offer may be worse than another that the same product had last, and the price may even be higher than that of other establishments. That is why the context of the offer is important to make the decision, and as we told you before, also compare the price with that of other sites. Don’t be carried away by temptation Always be careful with impulse purchases, because many establishments will use language in their sales designed to increase temptation. Therefore, it is important to have a cool head and have a list of priority purchasesof types of products you really want or specific models. For each product you can set a target price so that, if you see that the sale is approaching, then you can go for it. This can help you avoid jumping in if the discount is small and remains at prices that you can bet on any other day. With a list of these you will also save yourself work on Black Friday, because you can go directly to look for these products and see if any of them have been lowered. You can also add others that are less essential but that also interest you, just to have a little order. It doesn’t hurt either set a budget and force yourself to stick to it. To do this, take into account the products you do want to buy and the possible ones. The main thing is to set a fixed ceiling, but then you can make levels depending on possible priority purchases, or even establish the fixed budget for non-priority purchases. It’s all about organizing. Review return policies Both on the Black Friday weekend and at the end of any purchase you are going to make, it is important review the store’s return policyboth physically and online. This way you cover your back, for example, if today you buy something impulsively but tomorrow another establishment discounts it even more. You can return the first one. There are some stores that will charge you for the return, you will have to pay for the return shipping, and other stores will take care of all the costs. Others may even have problems with … Read more

Mexico forgets about the 48 hours per week

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According to data OECD 2024, Mexico is one of the countries with the longest working day in the world with an average of 2,193 hours worked per year, compared to the 1,736 hours worked on average in the countries of this group, or the 1,634 hours worked on average in Spain. On average, Mexicans they work 48 hours a week in six business days. For this reason, one of the purposes on the legislative agenda of the current president Claudia Sheinbaum is the reduction of working hours as a way to improve the conditions of the workers and boost the productivity of the country’s industrial fabric. The reduction of working hours will be a reality. In statements to The Countrythe Secretary of Labor of Mexico, Marath Bolaños, assured that the proposal to reduce working hours had been on the table since 2022, but it has been postponed to give priority to other labor reforms such as the increase in minimum wagethe outsourcing reform and the approval of the Chair Law. However, the Mexican executive has taken up the initiative with force and since May 2025 there has been a firm determination on the part of its president to implement this reform before the end of the year. “The objective is that in 2030 all workers are within the 40-hour limit. Our limit is January 2030, but we could reach that objective in less time, in 2029, for example,” Bolaños pointed out in his interview. This spirit of reform is also noticeable in the Chamber of Deputies as a whole, where up to 16 reform initiatives for the working day have been presented by different political groups, according to collected The Economist. What is the work day like?. In Mexico, the Federal Labor Law (LFT) establishes different types of work days with specific time limits for each of them: The daytime shift is the most common and is between 6:00 a.m. and 8:00 p.m., with a maximum duration of eight hours a day. On the other hand, the night shift ranges from 8:00 p.m. to 6:00 a.m., but in this case it has a limit of seven hours a day due to its nocturnal nature. Lastly is the mixed day, which includes parts of both time slots (for jobs as a baker, for example), as long as the night period does not exceed three and a half hours. In this case, its maximum duration is seven and a half hours per day. How do they want to reduce it?. One of the keys to this reduction is the modification of section IV of section A of article 123 of the Political Constitution proposed by deputy Susana Prieto Terrazas, from the Morena parliamentary group. This article establishes: “For every six days of work, the operator must enjoy at least one day of rest.” Instead, the proposal contemplates adding one more day of rest, so that the full-time working day would be five days, but maintaining eight hours, which is the maximum allowed by law for daytime work. The text of the rule, therefore, would read as follows: “For every five days of work, the worker will enjoy at least two days of rest, with full salary” How it will be applied. Last May, President Sheinbaum ordered that social agents, unions, employers, consultants and the executive branch begin a series of negotiating tables where they would study how to implement the measure that, relentlesslywill come into force on May 1, 2026, coinciding with Workers’ Day. The Ministry of Labor and Social Welfare will be in charge to present the final proposal for the labor reform in November 2025, which represents the first step towards its implementation. President Sheinbaum’s plan is to implement the new reduced working day progressively from its entry into force in 2026 until 2030 so that two hours per year will be cut until 2029, ending in 2030 with 40 hours per week: 2026: 46 hours 2027: 44 hours 2028: 42 hours 2029: 41 hours 2030: 40 hours Reduction in working hours, not salary. As happened in the proposal to reduce working hours presented in Spain by the Ministry of Labor, the measure in Mexico is proposed as a reduction in hours that provides better balance and well-being for workers, which is why the reduction in working hours does not imply a salary reduction. “Reducing working hours does not reduce productivity, nor does it reduce the value generated, what it does is signify the existence of workers, giving them back hours of their life and valuing the work they do week after week,” assured the person in charge of the Ministry of Labor and Social Welfare. How it affects part-time work. The reduction in hours is carried out based on the calculation of the full day, so those employees who work part-time hours will apply the modification based on it. That is, if an employee’s working day was 24 hours per week (50% of a full day), they can maintain that working time by increasing the salary in proportion (60% of the full-time salary) or reduce their working day to 20 hours while maintaining 50% of a full day. In Xataka | Airbnb and digital nomads brought dollars to Mexico City: they have also brought the biggest housing crisis in years Image | Unsplash (Jesus Herrera, Nihar Reddy Jangam)

Correos is desperate to find the business that will save it from the red numbers. And that has led her to selling insurance

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There was a time (not so long ago) when Correos was basically an intermediary, a company you went to to send letters, postcards or packages. That’s how it grew. And thus he strengthened his brand for decades. The changes in demand and fierce competition in the logistics sector have, however, forced the public company to reinvent yourselfan endeavor in which he has been engaged for years without this having allowed him to abandon the red numbers that weigh down their accounts. What has altered is its relationship with users. The last (and most revealing) example is left the decision of Correos to market insurance taking advantage of its vast network of offices and postmen, which has already earned it the union reproach. What has happened? That Correos has led a curious movement in its efforts to diversify income and leave behind the red numbers. a few months ago reached an agreement with the company AXA to market its private insurance. The alliance was announced in spring, when it was applied in 32 offices with a view to expanding to more than 800 branches throughout the country over the months. At that time, the Post Office detailed which would initially be dedicated to distributing policies for vehicles, homes, health and life and death insurance, although without closing the doors to expanding that offering to “any product” from AXA. Why is it news now? The agreement It closed in February and Correos began to market AXA insurance in mayupon registration as exclusive agent. The initiative has now made headlines again for a reason that has more to do with form than substance, although it gives an idea of ​​the extent to which the public company is committed to diversifying its services. CCOO has denounced that the company is entrusting postmen in rural areas with the task of selling policies, “a function completely unrelated to their traditional delivery work.” “Instead of strengthening the public service and hiring more staff, the management is dedicated to improvising and diverting work towards commercial tasks that have nothing to do with Correos’ mission,” ditch CCOO, which warns from its office in Castilla y León: “The viability of the company cannot be reduced to the sale of insurance by rural postmen. Correos cannot become a network of street vendors. Its function is to communicate, connect territories and guarantee rights, not do business with private insurance.” Why is it important? Because of the context, which is as or even more important than the measure itself. Insurance is not the public company’s first bet to strengthen its accounts in a challenging context, marked by the collapse in postal demand and an increasingly disputed parcel sector, in which it has to compete with multinationals and is losing market share. It’s nothing new. Years ago the company already launched one of its bets more ambitious: Post Marketa space of its own e-commerce who aspired to become ‘Amazon Post Office’. The objective: to take advantage of the boom in online commerce with a differentiated commitment to mark distances from giants such as Amazon or eBay, a “market for local products in which national producers and artisans (…) come together with online buyers.” In the presentation of the platform, in 2020, in fact focused on those two concepts, “local” and “artisan”. Today in Post Market It can be found from food and drinks to beauty, home, toys, fashion and pharmacy items. Have there been more initiatives? Yes. A few. In an attempt to find its place again, the company has opted for prepaid cardsthe telephony and fiber or the marketing of O2 servicesfrom Telefónica. In recent years he has also experimented with such ambitious projects as Correos Cargoan air parcel transport service in the Latin America-Europe-Asia axis, and even studied launching to commercial rail transport with the help of Renfe. Why this effort? Because Corres is very big. A lot. And the scenario in which he has to deal has changed. A lot too. With more than 50,000 employees and 2,000 offices it is usually said which is the largest public company in Spain. And how recently recognized to elDiario its strategy director, José Miguel Moreno, the company has been faced with the delicate situation of reinventing itself or disappearing. “Society is transforming and postal operators either do it or die.” It’s not just theory. According to the data revealed a few months ago by ABCLast year, Correos recorded losses worth 95 million euros, a hole that widens the carryover in previous years and that even has taken its toll to the accounts of the State Industrial Participation Company, to which it is linked. And how to turn it around? The million dollar question. That is what Correos has sought in part with its Strategic Plan 2024-2028, validated a little over a year ago by SEPI and that aspires to “transform, recover and reposition” the company to “change its business model.” With this purpose, it aims to reinforce its weight in the postal sector, give a boost to parcel delivery and “increase and diversify income” through “new activities, such as financial services, administrative procedures, insurance marketing or logistics services.” If in 2023 the postal business represented around 66% of income of the public company, followed by 24% from parcel delivery and 10% from “diversification” (“new lines of business”), the idea for 2028 is to turn the tables by making these quotas represent (respectively) 49, 35 and 16%. The goal: “Reverse the losses to end the period with an Ebitda margin of 6%, a consolidated profit situation and a healthy financial position.” Are they all challenges? No. The scenario may be complicated, as demonstrated by the fact that Correos can’t quite find the key to gain market share or the challenges it has encountered in its commitment to insurance marketing, but the company still has two good assets. Both closely interconnected. The first is its geographic penetration and vast network of operators and offices. The second, its focus as a “provider of essential services.” … Read more

This humanoid robot promised to do our housework. For now it’s a $20,000 puppet

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Neo is 5’6″, weighs 30kg, is dressed in some kind of beige work overalls and moves slowly and clumsily. It is one of the most advanced humanoid robots in the world—so it seems in the official websiteof course—and it costs $20,000, but despite all this it has a big problem: it is not really autonomous, and is controlled by another human being, as if it were an ultra-modern puppet. There is a long way from saying to doing. We talked about Neo a year ago. The company that develops it, 1X, boasted of beginning to test it in the real world. The version they used then, Neo Beta, had an autonomy of up to four hours and had sensors that allowed it to boost its “embedded learning” system. Already then it was indicated that a teleoperator would connect to the robot to show it how to do something. Robot-puppet. In reality, the teleoperator is the key to everything, because this robot, like its current version, does not work autonomously, but is controlled remotely by a human operator. Said operator puts on mixed reality glasses and uses controls to perform this control. In The Wall Street Journal have had the opportunity to try it and to see how the future that robotics companies paint for us seems to be still very far away. a robot clumsy and slow. In the video that accompanies the article it is clearly seen how the robot’s movements are erratic and slow. It took him forever to open the refrigerator to get a bottle of water and he managed to put two (plastic) glasses in the dishwasher, but it also took him a long time to get it. Folding a sweater took him two minutes. All these operations show that the dexterity of these robots is still very far from equaling that of humans, especially when it comes to emulating our hands. And on top of that, privacy. During the tests it became clear that one of the problems of using this robot is that the user sacrifices part of his privacy, because he must give permission for the teleoperator to see through the robot’s cameras to complete his tasks. And that means “getting into our house.” 1X CEO Bernt Børnich explained in WSJ that Neo “is not for everyone. If you buy this product, it is because you agree with the social agreement. If we don’t have your data, we can’t improve the product.” Even so, those responsible say, “you will always have control” and for example you can establish prohibited areas or blur faces in the transmission. See to learn. They precisely need all that visual data: so that the Neo’s neural network system can learn from trying to complete those household tasks and, from there, solve them more accurately. It is something similar to what happens with Tesla’s fleet of cars, which also “learns” thanks to all those kilometers that the cars travel to perfect their autonomous driving system. “Probably safe”. Another key element of these robots is the security they offer in an environment as private as our home. It’s not particularly heavy, which helps minimize risks, and 1X says Neo is “probably safe.” In 2026 it will be much more autonomous. Børnich’s promise is that Neo will “do many of the household tasks autonomously,” although he admitted that the quality with which those tasks are completed will be somewhat poor initially. He compared the situation with that of the first images and videos generated by AI: now those images and videos are practically indistinguishable from reality, and something similar will happen according to him with Neo. The promise may never be fulfilled. Neo is the latest example of how the robotics segment is the other great seller of expectations (along with AI) for the future. The challenge here is just as enormous, but the fact that Neo is not truly autonomous is disappointing, as was what happened with Tesla’s Optimus or the recent news of the Japanese store robots. Yann LeCun, one of the top AI managers at Meta, indicated at a recent conference at MIT that these robots could end up going nowhere. According to him, the companies that are investing billions of dollars in humanoid robots “have no idea” how to make these machines “smart enough to be generally useful.” In Xataka | Amazon has calculated how much it costs to lay off 600,000 employees: 30 cents per item sold and many robots

the Russians are already everywhere

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In war, surprise is possibly the most effective tactic for wearing down enemy defenses. In Ukraine we had seen everything, from helmets with antennas to surprise, even lures in the form of drones, optical illusions or even hide under the ground. The latest: Russia has found a way to appear among the Ukrainian forces “out of nowhere.” The wear. Ukraine has described a quiet but profound change in the Russian tactical pattern: it begins with a hum and small infiltration equipment who, hidden and guided by drones, slip between the lines to sow chaos rather than to gain visible territory. They are micro-units of a few men camouflaged, treated, according to Ukrainian forcesas expendable material, that break through uncovered points of a 1,300-kilometer front that is impossible to seal continuously with exhausted and scarce troops. Your mission is variable: capture positions and hold them until reinforcements, or degrade defense revealing Ukrainian drone nodes, or laying mines directly inside the positions. What was recently contingent is now becoming the norm, especially in Donetsk, where Ukrainian operators admit that the pressure of these incursions allows Moscow to go deeper through accumulation and saturation. Geometry of surprise. The value of infiltration lies not so much in the surface gained as in the friction that forces kyiv to redistribute forces to put out simultaneous fires. an officer told Insider how, not being able to cover a few kilometers of front, he came to have to contain intrusions in fourteen points at a time. It must be understood that drone guidance allows the Russian command reposition the infiltratorsdiscreetly accumulate them at one point and then activate an action that forces troop diversions. There are even cases of infiltrators without rifles, carrying just an anti-tank mine to detonate it inside a Ukrainian site. This logic makes the line blurred and forces kyiv to expend attention, cohesion and reserve, erosion as a product of the multiplication of these micro-threats. Asymmetric human cost. It happens that Ukrainian operators they point out that Russian losses on these stocks are enormous, although apparently irrelevant to Moscowwhich has a flow of men willing to die in specific assaults. Some infiltrators leave on foot for kilometers, hiding in trees or abandoned houses. Many die under artillery or drones, but saturation is what nuclear: “there are hundreds of Russians ready to die every day,” summarized an operator. By responding with drones, Ukraine in turn exposes launching positions that Russia locates to counterattack, closing a detection-fire loop. This same family of tactics (infiltration, probing, human waves) was already documented in the east of the country and replicated even with North Korean troops in Kursk, also used as a low-value shock mass. Historical precedents. All these Russian infiltrations described by Ukraine remind us of the logic of the German Stosstruppen from 1917-1918: avoid the strong front, look for joints, infiltrate micro-groups with the mission of opening local holes and forcing the enemy to disorganize its defense by reaction. The difference is the sensor ecosystem: then success depended on smoke, fog and surprise. Today, the surprise is rather algorithmic and systemic by drones that correct the human trajectory in real time. The urban assaults in the first chechen war (small, mobile shock groups, with tactical autonomy to pierce nodes) also resonate with the current pattern: they do not seek to conquer the map but rather to collapse the adversary’s response architecture by forcing repeated local oversaturation until the system breaks. Recent parallels. The USSR had already used reduced cells to degrade defenses in Afghanistan: minimum teams penetrating to hunt radars, commands or soft logistics before the major blow. In Syria (and later in Donbas itself 2014-2015) the Russian “assault probes” consisted in human probes “low value” to force the enemy to reveal fires, ATGM positions or drone nests. What you see today in Donetsk is more or less the industrialized evolution of that same idea under a shortage of Ukrainian personnel and saturation of Russian sensors. As then, the objective is not so much to “win” the infiltrated point but to force the enemy to expend ammunition, focus and mass, which in a long war context transfers the advantage to the actor with greater tolerance for attrition. Invisible micro-war. If you also want, here, more than technological innovation, It’s behavioral: The density and rhythm of micro-incursions, invisible until the last moment with the arrival of the drone’s buzz that indicates that the tactic has been activated, generate a gradual change in pressure that is not measured in kilometers gained but in the adversary’s ability to absorb tension and anxiety without collapsing. Thus, under the conditions of a protracted war and lack of personnel, any crack is exploitable, and under continuous surveillance, the cost of reacting reveals the enemy positions. It is, in the end, a war of small wounds that never close, where each infiltration does not seek to resolve the front, but rather to reopen it indefinitely. Image | picturedesk, Рюмин Александр, Picryl In Xataka | The Ukrainian army has been asked what it urgently needs. The answer was clear: no missiles or drones, just cars In Xataka | Russia’s biggest threat in Ukraine is not a drone or a missile: it is a film agency with 30 secret plants

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