Mobile Tech & Gadgets

now Sony has decided to close the chapter on its home recorders

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The decline of physical media is a reality, but it has not come suddenly or with a single announcement, but rather as a succession of small withdrawals that, added together, mark a change of era. Streaming is gaining ground while discs, players and other devices continue to be present in an increasingly smaller background. Some recent decisions within the industry are only deepening this transformation. Another company taking a step back. Sony recently announced that from February it will progressively cease shipping all its models of Blu-ray recorders and confirmed that there will not be a subsequent generation to take over. The message identifies as part of the closure devices marketed between 2023 and 2024, including the BDZ-ZW1900 and the BDZ-FBT4200, FBT2200 and FBW2200 families. A very Japanese category. Unlike other markets where Blu-ray was mainly associated with movie playback, in Japan home recorders maintained a very specific function for years, that of recording television broadcasts for later viewing. This particularity explains why the announcement has a direct impact, especially on local consumption, where these devices were still present in many salons. However, its disappearance also functions as a symbolic sign of the extent to which even the most resistant niches begin to lose meaning when content access habits change. The temporal sequence. Kyodo News notes that the last units will be shipped this month, marking the effective end of its commercial presence. That moment comes after another less visible previous step: the company had already stopped manufacturing both the recorders themselves as of recordable discs approximately a year earlierand the remaining activity was limited to completing the product output. Streaming, and something else. The audiovisual consumption environment has changed to the point of reducing the practicality of devices that were everyday items for years. When broadcasts can be viewed at any time from online platforms, whether global services or on-demand catalogs from the networks themselves, recording them is no longer a central need. Fewer and fewer manufacturers. Sony’s movement does not appear isolated within the industry. In recent years, several relevant players have been abandoning the consumer Blu-ray market, progressively reducing the number of companies willing to support this category. Oppo completely left its player business in 2018, Samsung stopped manufacturing Blu-ray and UHD models around 2019and LG, which was still one of the big names present, ended production in 2024. The closure of these recorders does not equate to the immediate disappearance of Blu-ray as a consumer format either. Different elements of the ecosystem remain active, from home players to computer optical drives and disk catalogs maintained by other companies. This persistence, although increasingly linked to specific audiences, shows that the transition towards digital does not erase previous technologies at once. Images | Sony | Mateus Andre In Xataka | If the question is how much technology can be packed into a collector’s figure, the answer is: these robots

Mexico knows that the future lies in technological sovereignty and has already chosen its “Silicon Valley: Jalisco and Sonora

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Mexico has undertaken the adventure of technological sovereignty. With her arrival to the presidency, Claudia Sheinbaum set the modest goal of “continuing to make Mexico the best country in the world.” To this end, he presented the ‘Mexico Plan‘, a roadmap to attract investment and develop industries such as biotechnology, electric cars or that of semiconductors. And the foundations for that ambitious chip manufacturing plan are already being built with a single idea in mind. Technological sovereignty. Kutsari. Silicon is extracted from sand and this is precisely what ‘kutsari’ means in Purépecha. It is also the name of Kutsari Project that seeks to stop importing a large part of the semiconductors that Mexico needs for the products it already manufactures. Puebla, Jalisco and Sonora are the three locations chosen to develop a plan that only pursues one objective: to stop being a country that assembles chips to become one that designs, manufactures and sells them. Jalisco moves. Since the project was announced, steps have been taken to get it started, and as we read in MillenniumJalisco has not wasted time. One of the poles of Kutsari will be the Cinvestav -Center for Research and Advanced Studies-. The reason is that it is the only institution in the country that has an agreement with Intel to generate integrated circuits in 16 nanometer lithography. Jalisco was already a semiconductor manufacturing point at the end of the last century and the Intel Design Center is located in the same area. That is why Jalisco has already been nicknamed the ‘Silicon Valley of Latin America’, a ‘hub’ in which different technology companies are settling, especially those dedicated to semiconductors, and which is bringing foreign investment. According to Pablo Lemusgovernor of Jalisco, if Mexico’s economy grew by 0.5%, due to that investment Jalisco’s grew by 4%. Sonora winks at the US. Another of the axes in this objective of technological sovereignty is Sonora. Recently, it signed an agreement to locate the Semiconductor Research and Development Center at the University of Sonora. Apart from being another thinking mind in the semiconductor strategy, Sonora has an advantage: the Mexico-US Trade Corridor, which seeks greater investment and regional connectivity. In the end, Sonora and Jalisco are taking steps in the same direction: investment, consolidation of already established infrastructures, construction of new buildings and strengthening agreements to attract talent. Goal: 2028. As they say, things in the palace move slowly, and currently both states are in a phase that we could classify as pre-production. They are preparing the ground in parallel, making advances in design, but also in talent and the ecosystem to create the chip production chain. Let’s remember the importance of having all this tied up (and the closer, the better), since it is one of the secrets behind the leadership of the Taiwanese TSMC. Once everything is ready, the manufacturing phase will begin, and in this sense, we also have to talk about the state of Puebla. In the municipality of Cholula will locate one of Mexico’s semiconductor production plants, one that will take advantage of all that knowledge developed by Jalisco and Sonora and that, it is expected, will begin producing chips by 2028 with an eye toward commercialization by 2029. Competence. It seems like a long time, but it is really a very short period to shape an industry as complex as semiconductors. But, obviously, you have to start somewhere and the latest advances in the Kutsari project show that Mexico remains determined to achieve a certain sovereignty in the chip segment. Now, we will see how far Mexico’s aspirations go and if its production is sufficient to satisfy the global market or it has to “settle” for the domestic market. The reason is that the component crisis of 2020 and the current RAM crisis It is teaching us something: you cannot depend on one country or a handful of companies. And there, Vietnam, India and China are strengthening for break technological hegemony which is currently in the hands of a few. This implies greater competition, but if Mexico’s plans go well, it also represents an opportunity that should not be missed. Image | ASML (edited) In Xataka | There is a global race to gain hegemony of critical minerals. And Mexico has just taken a key step

In its goal of reaching the Moon in 2030, China has hit the table: it has demonstrated the potential of its technology

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The race for the human return to the Moon has officially entered a new operational phase with China successfully executing the first “lit” flight of its heavy rocket new generation: Long March-10 (LM-10). A test that has not only validated its propulsion capacity, but also certifies the safety of its future crew in the most hostile launch environment. Where. This milestone, achieved since Wenchang launch pad (Hainan), places the Chinese lunar program on a firm and technically verified trajectory to meet its strategic objective: putting humans on the lunar surface before 2030. The litmus test. The essay recently made marks a turning point, since, unlike the tests static or scale models from previous yearsthis has been a real flight with ignition. The LM-10 took off in a prototype configuration with the goal of achieving the maximum dynamic pressure (Max-Q). In aerospace engineering, Max-Q is the critical moment during the climb where the aerodynamic forces on the vehicle structure are most violent. It is the “worst scenario” possible for an emergency that could threaten the safety of the crew, and it is precisely at that moment that the abort command was sent to the Mengzhou manned ship (the successor of the Shenzhou). In Xataka In silence, China is making giant strides in a race that until now it was not leading: space. There are differences. What distinguishes this essay from those carried out by other historical powers is the sophistication of the subsequent sequence. At first, the Mengzhou capsuleseparated from the rocket and activated its escape enginesmoving away from the “danger zone” at high speed, validating its ability to save the crew in extreme aerodynamic conditions. On the other hand, as the capsule descended toward a controlled splashdown, the first stage of the LM-10 rocket was not jettisoned. For the first time in a test of these characteristics in China, the stage continued its ascent briefly and then executed a controlled descent and landed in the sea. A success. This success simultaneously validates the structural integrity under maximum stress, the compatibility of the interfaces between rocket and ship, and the partial reusability of the system, a technological advance that brings China closer to the operational efficiency of companies such as SpaceX with Artemis. All this within a context where China and the United States ‘fight’ to see who is the first to return to the Moon. A change of concept. Wenchang’s success is just the tip of the spear of a much more complex system known as the CMSA’s “Earth-Space Transportation System for Manned Lunar Flights.” This architecture moves away from the “one giant shot” concept and opts for a two-launch and orbital rendezvous scheme. The three pillars. The first of them is the Long March-10a colossus approximately 92 meters high capable of placing about 70 tons in low Earth orbit and about 27 tons in lunar transfer orbit. The most interesting thing is that its modular design and the recovery capacity of the first stage are fundamental for the economic sustainability of the program, since the entire structure is recovered for subsequent tests and missions. The second pillar is Mengzhouwhich is designed for deep space missions and is larger and more capable than the current Shenzhou. Its development, which began conceptually around 2017-2018, has culminated in a modular vehicle capable of supporting atmospheric reentry at lunar return speeds. The third is a dedicated lunar landing module known as Lanyue waiting in lunar orbit. {“videoId”:”x96edv6″,”autoplay”:false,”title”:”China’s space suit to go to the Moon”, “tag”:”China”, “duration”:”64″} Roadmap. This includes two separate launches of the LM-10: one to transport the Lanyue module and another for the crew on Mengzhou. The final objective is that both vehicles will perform a meeting maneuver and docking in lunar orbit before the taikonauts descend to the surface. Chronology of ambition. The path towards this 2026 flight has been methodical, characterized by a strategy of “short but quick steps” that began in 2013 with the first discussions and the development of prototypes. It was in 2020 when an 8-day orbital test flight was made using a Long March-5B and that validated the capsule’s heat shield and recovery systems. Finally, it was this month of February when the flight occurred with an abortion in Max-Q and recovery of the stage. If we look to the future, before the end of 2026, “zero altitude” abandonment tests and complete tests of the Lanyue lunar landing module are expected, all aimed at meeting the 2030 launch window. A duel of titans. The comparison between the United States and China is practically mandatory in these cases. While the United States relies on the raw power of the SLS Block 1a 98-meter and disposable colossus, China is committed to operational efficiency with the Long March-10. And although the Chinese rocket is a little less powerful, its design incorporates a reusable first stage, which reduces costs and is closer to the sustainability model that SpaceX has popularized in the West, contrasting with the immense expense per launch of the American system. On the other hand, NASA has opted for a hybrid and complex scheme: it launches the crew in the Orion capsule with the government SLS rocket, and then docks in lunar orbit with the Starship HLSa commercial lander from SpaceX. In contrast, China has chosen a more pragmatic “distributed architecture”: it will carry out two separate launches of the LM-10, one for the Lanyue lunar landing module and another for the crew on the Mengzhou spacecraft, which will meet directly in lunar orbit. In Xataka Starlink’s dominance in space begins to move: another company already has permission for a constellation of 4,000 satellites On their calendars. The US program, depending on multiple commercial suppliers and disruptive technologies (such as Starship’s in-orbit refueling), faces highly complex logistics that have accumulated delays for the Artemis III mission. In contrast, China’s centralized and vertical model maintains a firm and predictable roadmap to the year 2030. In this way, we are seeing two titanic powers with two different … Read more

France needs to protect its nuclear power at all costs

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Emmanuel Macron has decided to immerse himself in the controversy. In a joint interview with the major European newspapersthe French president has attacked the waterline of the Spanish energy model, describing the debate on the lack of interconnections as “false.” But behind his words lies a geopolitical anxiety: we are not facing a technical criticism of the stability of the network, but rather a territorial defense of a nuclear power. that sees its hegemony threatened for cheap energy from its southern neighbor. The direct accusation. “Spain’s problem is that it has a 100% renewable model that its own domestic network does not support,” Macron categorically sentenced The Country. The president insisted that the Spanish blackout “has nothing to do with interconnections,” but rather with the intrinsic instability of renewables. This diagnosis comes at a calculated time: according to the Financial TimesMacron uses external threats – the Greenland crisis and tensions with the US – to demand “Eurobonds” and financial centralism, asking for more Europe for his debt while building physical walls in the Pyrenees. The nuclear bunker. The underlying motivation is the economic survival of Paris. France aspires to be the “battery of Europe” and its nuclear investment plan of 300 billion euros desperately needs profitability. If Spain floods the market with cheap solar energy, the French nuclear model – centralized and expensive – loses competitiveness. Macron is already moving to protect himself: has sealed a pact with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz to classify “pink hydrogen” (nuclear) as green, shielding its technology from the southern solar boom. An island by decree. The data refute the Elysée speech about self-sufficiency. Spain continues to be an “energy island” with barely 2.8% interconnection, very far from the EU’s 15% objective. As the ministers of Spain and Portugal pointed out in a letterFrance has explicitly excluded key Aragon and Navarra projects from its 2025-2035 network plan. What’s more, Ember data show thatDuring the blackout, Spain even exported energy to France because the French reactors were stopped, proving that the bottleneck is the lack of output, not generation. The Danish mirror. The fallacy about “renewable instability” collapses when looking north. with more 80% of wind generationdoes not suffer blackouts because it is ultra-interconnected to North Poolinstantly balancing its load with Germany and Norway. Meanwhile, the “nuclear stability” that Macron preaches is failing: last summer, the French reactors stopped not due to lack of wind, but because the Rhône and Garonne rivers They were too hot to cool them, skyrocketing prices in Europe while the Spanish solar plant continued to operate. Solar asphyxiation. The French blockade has a tangible cost. Without interconnections, Spain suffers curtailment —throwing 7% of their clean energy in the trash because it doesn’t fit on the grid—which sinks prices to zero and ruins investors. In his interview with The CountryMacron calls for a “European awakening” to not be vassals of China or the US. However, by keeping the Pyrenees closed, it effectively turns the Iberian Peninsula into an energy vassal of France, preventing the same strategic autonomy that it claims to defend. Image | House of Lords and freepik Xataka | The solar miracle that went wrong: Spain produces more electricity than it can manage

The answer was at the Torrejón Air Base

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An unexpected roar altered the nocturnal silence of Alcalá de Henares on the nights of February 9 and 10 and opened a small enigma among those who heard it. Without a clear cause at that first moment, the noise began to be commented on social networksaccompanied by recordings of neighbors trying to find an explanation. That initial confusion marked the starting point of a story that, as the hours passed, began to receive answers from the institutional level. The official explanation. The uncertainty began to dissipate when the Consistory announced that He had contacted the Torrejón de Ardoz Air Base to clarify the origin of the noise. According to municipal sources after that consultation, this came from fuel tests carried out on an airplane. Eurofighter on the ground, motionless on the track during the test. Why outdoors and at night? The explanation also goes through the place and time chosen for the rehearsals. According to the Air and Space Armythe measurements require the absence of solar radiation so as not to alter the infrared records, which is why they are carried out at night. At the same time, the tests are carried out outdoors, since the hangars available for engine tests are not sized for this model and this type of tests. With these conditions, it is coherent that its perception reached areas close to the base in certain circumstances. The objective of the tests. Beyond the acoustic episode, the checks pursue a specific technical purpose: to evaluate whether the SAF biofuel has an infrared signature lower than that of the conventional fuel commonly used. This test is part of a verification campaign developed throughout the week, which is influenced by both the measurement procedure and the environmental conditions. looking back. The Air and Space Army has been developing the BACSI project since 2020aimed at combining energy sustainability and operational digitalization within its air bases. Within this framework, different milestones have occurred, from the first tests with biojet mixtures in 2022 to the presentation of results at FEINDEF 2023 and the supersonic flights with SAF carried out in 2024, with fuel produced in Spain by Repsol and mixed at 30% with conventional fuel. One more test. The last test is scheduled for the night of this Wednesday, February 11. This implies that the noise that surprised many residents could once again be perceived in the area near the base, although this time with an important difference: we now know where it comes from. What was a shared mystery for two nights is thus transformed into a concrete explanation, also linked to a technical process that points towards more sustainable fuels within military aviation. Images | Air Force In Xataka | France and Germany have agreed to give Spain the worst news: one in which the F-35 and its “button” are the winners

Spain agreed with Germany and France to bypass the US. And it will end with a fleet of F-35s because of a French name

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Since the end of the Cold War, Europe has tried several times to build large joint military programs capable of rivaling those of the United States, almost always clashing with national interests, different industrial cultures and, of course, technological egos that are difficult to fit into. Each generation of fighters has promised more integration and less external dependence. Few have managed to fulfill it, and now it was not going to be less. The surprise that was not. He FCAS was born as a high-caliber strategic ambition: France, Germany and Spain agreed to promote a new generation combat air system to get ahead of the United States and reduce European dependence of American fighters, with the ubiquitous F-35 in all pools. It was an explicit attempt to surprise technological, industrial and political in front of Washington. Today, that project more than 100,000 million of euros staggers to the point of threatening the opposite result: that Europe will continue buying F-35s and that Spain will end up reinforcing a US fleet just when it had opted for its own alternative. Dassault, the constant. Here comes an actor with a name of his own who has turned everything upside down. The main blockade does not come from Berlin or Madrid, but from a historical constant in the French military industry: Dassault Aviation. The Financial Times recalled this morning that the company, controlled by the Dassault family for generations, has demonstrated time and time again that its priority is maintain absolute control of the design and production of French fighters. He already did it in the eighties abandoning the Eurofighterand today he repeats the pattern at the FCAS, refusing to give up technical leadership or accept a shared governance with Airbus. Dassault Rafale A project broken from within. Furthermore, the FCAS was designed as an integrated system: a manned fighter, drone swarms, advanced weapons and communication networks, with Dassault leading the aircraft and Airbus the rest. That balance was blown up when disputes began on specifications, distribution of work and industrial control. France wanted a plane lighter and navalizableGermany another heavier and more versatile one. The technical differences masked a possibly deeper clash: who is really in charge at the heart of the system. France does not rule as much as it seems. Here another crux appears to understand the mess: although the French State is Dassault’s main client and controls exports, its real capacity to impose decisions is limited. Yes, the company has survived nationalization attempts, political pressures and merger projects for decades, always prioritizing independence and control. Hence, presidents have passed and ministers have changed, but Dassault remains the same. President Emmanuel Macron has tried rescue the FCAS in multiple diplomatic rounds, but his room for maneuver has narrowed as he nears the end of his term. Spain, trapped in collateral damage. The Spanish nation entered the FCAS as a partner convinced that the project would allow it break the dependency technology of the United States. That agreement with Germany and France meant resigning in the short term to the American F-35 in exchange for their own European future. If now the FCAS ends up failing as it seems and Spain ends up resorting again to American fighters, the irony is bitter: because the fault would not be in Washington, but in “home” of an ally. The outcome that no one wanted to admit. As we counted yesterdaywith the project running aground, Germany is already slipping that it could go on your own or look for other partners, while France protects to their national champion. From that perspective, the FCAS has become the closest thing to a failed test of European credibility in common defense. For Spain, the risk is now double: losing years betting on a blocked program of billions of euros and being forced to knock on Washington’s door again, although now with less political margin and worse conditions. He surprise European will have to wait and for now it is diluted, and the old Atlantic balance is imposed again, this time not due to lack of ambition, but because of excess control. Image | José Luis Celada Euba In Xataka | Spain, France and Germany could not depend on the “button” of the F-35. So the future European fighter aims for something else In Xataka | If the question is where is the 100 billion European fighter, the answer is simple: stuck on a dead-end runway

Doraemon could never beat Goku. Until China invented Seedance 2.0

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Not so many years ago we ridiculed AI for not being able to create hands with five fingers or not getting Will Smith to non-gloomily eat a plate of spaghetti. Today, he is capable of creating animations that would make the best producer in Hollywood uncomfortable. Seedance 2.0. First of all, what are we talking about. Seedance is an AI content generation platform, specifically designed to create dynamic anime-type content, combat, short cinematic scenes and clip stylization. It works with one or more base images and a descriptive prompt. Behind Seedance 2.0 There is Bytedance, the company behind TikTok and one of the five most relevant Chinese companies in AI. Why the world is going crazy. Although it is not perfect, Seedance 2.0 is one of the video generation models that is offering the best results. To the point that X is being filled with replicas of well-known scenes created with this AI that are practically indistinguishable from reality. In some cases, the visual fidelity and animation pace border on a level that until recently seemed reserved for professional studios. Recreation of an animation never published by the Dragon Ball franchise. Goku vs. Doraemon. Will Smith doing the only thing we know how to ask him to do with AI. Jackie Chan vs Jet Li. The big video moment. The world had its moment ChatGPTits moment DeepSeekits moment Nano Banana and, now, we are in the Seedance moment. Giants like OpenAI and Google have been fighting for the best video generation model for some time, with proposals such as Sora 2 and I see 3. But right now, the top scorer is Bytedance with Seedance. Look out for Bytedance. Bytedance is moving into seventh gear to be one of the Chinese giants leading the AI ​​race. It only needed to have its own chips, something that is about to be solved through an alliance with Samsung. The company has strived to be more than the giant behind one of the most important social networks in China and the rest of the world, to become a powerhouse of artificial intelligence. Image | Improved Seedance with ChatGPT In Xataka | How to create videos with artificial intelligence: 13 essential free tools

Johannes Klæbo, the human locomotive that has dynamited cross-country skiing

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The first thing is the message. An electrical current that crosses the brain. And everything is unleashed. The brain sends the signal: more wood for the locomotive. The nervous system executes the order. More fibers and more fast fibers are put into motion. The muscles demand more energy. The heart rate goes up. The heart pumps more blood. With blood comes oxygen. And the quadriceps, the hamstrings, the calves become the coupling rod of the locomotive. Boom. Boom. Boom. Up and down. Johannes Klæbo only needed to steam his head. Its engine already seemed to be running at full capacity when the storm hit. How wrong we were. It remained to be seen how he crushed the ground with his skis with the frequency of someone fleeing from the enemy but the rage of someone who crushes him. With the determination of someone who knows they are making history. Click on the image to go to the original tweet (and see the devastating attack) An overwhelming number Three minutes and 40 seconds to cover a thousand meters. Nothing too special. If we talk about putting on some sneakers and hitting the asphalt. Very different when you put on skis, face a slope and reach peaks of 18 km/h to destroy your rivals. This is how Johannes Klæbo broke the sprint distance cross-country ski race. 3’39″74 Less than 220 seconds to cover a distance of 1,585 meters on skis. Where of course you go down, but where you also have to go up. Klæbo let himself go in the final meters, enjoying his overwhelming superiority as he did before. Usain Bolt in Beijing in 2008. How will you enjoy? Remco Evenepoel with the Eiffel Tower behind him in 2024. Or as Tadej Pogacar repeats over and over again, the athlete with whom he is most compared for his domain. Johannes Klæbo was born in Trondheim (Norway) in 1996. It will be 30 years in October. By then, it is certain, he will be able to display 15 gold medals accumulated in World Cups in his living room. On the other wall his nine Olympic medals will stand out, seven of them gold. Who knows if four more will accompany him as he did at the 2025 World Cup in Trondheim, his home. Because after gold in the speed test and the 10+10 kilometer skiathlon, the Norwegian can become the Winter Olympian with the most gold medals in history. At the moment, the reign is held by two other Norwegians. Marit Bjoergen, distance runner, is the person with the most Olympic medals in a winter games with eight golds, four silvers and three bronzes. He is followed by Ole Einar Bjoerndalen, biathlete, with another eight golds, four silvers and two bronzes. If he wins his six golds in these Olympic Games in Milano Cortina 2026, Klæbo would remain at 13 medals but the weight of 11 golds would elevate him to a new level. So far, it’s already been seven. The Norwegian skier is one of those forces of nature that dominates any distance record and type of race within his sport. Like Pogacar, Armand Duplantis or Kilian Jornet, he is one of the chosen ones. One of those athletes who go down in history. Athletes who not only win, they crush any type of insurrection. And the most meritorious thing, they turn it into a spectacle. Johannes Klæbo is also part of a generation of Norwegian athletes that are breaking with the established. Jakob Ingebrigtsen is the result of a father who worked obsessively with his three children popularizing double threshold training. Karsten Warholm He was the first man to break the 46-second barrier in the 400-meter hurdles. Kristian Blummenfelt He is a triathlon world champion, Olympic champion and Ironman distance world champion. Johannes Thingnes Bø, biathlete, recently retired with five Olympic gold medals, two silver and two bronze. Magnus Carlsen is another of those geniuses whose roof, perhaps, only “El Mundo” can put it. Photo | Olympics In Xataka | The Winter Olympics are facing the most unexpected technological doping: penis punctures

It has to do with infidelity

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Last Tuesday, the Norwegian Sturla Holm Laegreid won the bronze medal in the 20-kilometer individual biathlon event in Milano-Cortina 2026. What should have been a sporting celebration for his country became a disconcerting moment: before the NRK camerasNorwegian public television, Laegreid burst into tears and He spoke words that would go around the world: “Six months ago I met the love of my life. Three months ago I made the biggest mistake and cheated on her.” We care about drama. The confession, broadcast live, instantly made his medal a secondary issue. As he himself would later admit before the Norwegian newspaper VGthat had been “the worst week of his life” after having revealed his infidelity to his partner just seven days before the Olympic competition. Six months ago he had found someone he considered his definitive partner, three months later he committed infidelity, and just a week before the Games he decided to confess to him. Why did he do it? The biathlete recognized to be carrying out what he called “social suicide”, betting on public exposure as the last opportunity for reconciliation. “I have nothing to lose,” he said. And he added: “I had a gold medal in my life, and there are probably many who now look at me differently, but I only have eyes for her.” His ex also agreed to talk to VTcongratulating the gold winner and thanking the entire country for the solidarity received when going through this unpleasant ordeal. Rain of criticism. Laegreid’s record includes multiple world titles and an Olympic gold achieved in the 4×7.5km relay in Beijing 2022. This was his first medal in the individual category. Precisely due to its relevance, the reactions were immediate. Johannes Thingnes Boe, a biathlon legend with five Olympic gold medals, harshly criticized the live confession: “It was very surprising. The time, place and occasion are totally wrong.” Former skier Therese Johaug, a quadruple Olympic medalist, supported the criticism by pointing out that she had never witnessed such an interview. In Norway, where biathlon is followed with the passion with which other countries follow football, the criticism did not focus so much on the personal confession as on having overshadowed the triumph of the gold medal winner, his compatriot Johan-Olav Botn, who had made a highly praised gesture, dedicating his gold to a recently deceased teammate. As explained a Spanish resident in OsloNorwegian culture is “less given to gossip” than Spanish culture, and the real problem lay in having diverted media attention from the historical moment of its compatriot. Ordinary people. We are facing a long Olympic tradition, where dramatic moments transcend brands: the history of the competition is full of episodes that surpassed the Games themselves in media impact. In 1968, American athletes Tommie Smith and John Carlos raised their gloved fists on the podium in Mexico, transforming an awards ceremony in a political gesture against racial segregation. Four years later, the Munich Games were marked by the kidnapping and murder of eleven Israeli athletes. In 1988, Ben Johnson broke the world record for the 100 meters in Seoul, but a doping scandal made his name synonymous with a cheater. There is no need to go that far in time. At the 2016 Rio Games, swimmer Ryan Lochte invented an armed robbery to cover up an incident of vandalism. And in Paris 2024, the drone espionage of the Canadian women’s soccer team about training in New Zealand generated more headlines than their sport. This need for human narrative was understood decades ago by Roone Arledge, the NBC executive who revolutionized Olympic television coverage: he said that to get the public interested you have to offer them an emotional involvement in what they are seeing. And nothing more emotional than a case of infidelity. Hooked on the imperfect. The Olympic Games sell us the myth of absolute perfection: impeccable bodies and records beyond the reach of mortals. However, the great paradox of Olympic entertainment is that we are hooked by imperfection: we are fascinated by the cracks because that is where empathy is born. The stories that transcend sport are purely human: we saw it when Simone Biles prioritized his mental health in Tokyo 2020, giving up gold; with the resilience of Cindy Ngamba, first medal for the refugee teamand with the archer Yaylagul Ramazanova, competing pregnant. In Xataka | Surya Bonaly, the unattainable skater who ended up being banned from “dancing with death”

An 80-year-old retiree won 2.7 million euros in the lottery and invested it in something unexpected: creating a drug trafficking network

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That a chemistry professor sick with cancer becomes one of the largest manufacturers of methamphetamine is something that gave us hours of entertainment with Breaking Bad. What we didn’t see coming is that a retiree from the United Kingdom could serve as inspiration for a sequel to the popular series. As detailed police sourcesan 80-year-old man won a small fortune in the lottery and, instead of investing it in Nvidia stock either in Hermès bags, He displayed an unexpected entrepreneurial spirit by setting up a fake pill factory that generated hundreds of millions of euros. The stroke of luck that changed everything. John Eric Spiby, from Wigan in Greater Manchester, won €2.77 million in the British Lotto in 2010. With that money he bought a rural property in Astley (west of Manchester) and started his new business venture there: manufacturing pills. The detail is that the pills he was manufacturing were etizolama thienodiazepine six to ten times more powerful than diazepam, and mixed it with other ingredients to make perfect imitations of legal anxiolytics. In Xataka Millions of Spaniards consume benzodiazepines to sleep at night. They don’t know it’s poisoned candy The Retiree’s Band. John’s son, John Colin Spiby, 37, was responsible for managing daily production in a rented container next to the house. A friend, Callum Dorian, was responsible for distributing the pills through encrypted chats on platforms such as EncroChat. For his part, Lee Ryan Drury, 45, helped with logistics. Each member of the band had an assigned role so that the entire production and distribution infrastructure functioned on an industrial scale. They sold the pills to 65 pence each (the equivalent of 75 cents) but the total estimated value reached 332 million euros on the black market. The raid that uncovered him. Spiby’s “pharmaceutical” scheme was uncovered in April 2022. Police stopped a vehicle at a hotel in Manchester and found 2.5 million fake pills valued at 77 million euros. The investigation took them to the Spiby farm, where they found hydraulic presses, automatic packaging machines, firearms, ammunition and enough equipment to produce million pills a month. The etizolam they manufactured reached a magnitude that, in the previous months, 58% of the opioid-related deaths in 2021 in Scotland, they were because of pills like those manufactured by Spiby. Dorian, the distribution manager, boasted in messages comparing Spiby’s business to drug trafficking empires, while the gang armed its distributors to protect the companies. key distribution routes. {“videoId”:”x8px49v”,”autoplay”:false,”title”:”ANTIBIOTICS are CEASING TO BE EFFECTIVE and the PROBLEM is SUPERBACTERIA”, “tag”:”Webedia-prod”, “duration”:”327″} The judge has just sentenced the band. The case came to Bolton court in November 2025. According to published The Timesduring the trial Spiby denied any knowledge of the organization that manufactured etizolam pills, claiming that he only rented his property to make some extra money. However, the chats, bank transfers and machinery pointed to him as the main financier, in addition to having found a Lotus and a Porsche that he had hidden in his garage next to the pill manufacturing machines, and the testimony of some neighbors who claimed to have seen him driving around in a Lamborghini, as he collected the BBC. The judge sentenced Spiby and his henchmen in January 2026. “Despite winning the lottery, he decided to continue a life dedicated to crime, far from what would have been normal years of retirement,” the court noted in its ruling. John Eric Spiby was sentenced to 16 years and one month in prison; his son at 9 years old. Drury, the logistics manager, was sentenced to 9 years in prison and Dorian, who already had a 12-year sentence pending, received more time. In total, 47 years in prison for the retiree’s gang. In Xataka | 13% of Spaniards have tried cocaine once in their lives. If we ask the dogs of Madrid the percentage will be higher Image | AMC, Unsplash (Candace Mathers) (function() { window._JS_MODULES = window._JS_MODULES || {}; var headElement = document.getElementsByTagName(‘head’)(0); if (_JS_MODULES.instagram) { var instagramScript = document.createElement(‘script’); instagramScript.src=”https://platform.instagram.com/en_US/embeds.js”; instagramScript.async = true; instagramScript.defer = true; headElement.appendChild(instagramScript); – The news An 80-year-old retiree won 2.7 million euros in the lottery and invested it in something unexpected: creating a drug trafficking network was originally published in Xataka by Ruben Andres .

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