Mobile Tech & Gadgets

repeating tasks until boredom

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Despite the great achievements that They have been harvesting some humanoid robots In recent years, in terms of the naturalness of their movements and household chores, they are still green enough to be put on sale to the mass public. Firstly because of the price, and secondly because what they say they do, they still do little effectively. teaching. In China they have already realized that, in order for them to be as effective as we hope, we have to teach them how to do things. In this sense, the country has already launched a network of more than 40 public training centers where human workers, equipped with virtual reality headsets and motion sensors, repeat everyday actions hundreds of times a day such as opening a microwave, folding clothes or tightening screws. The objective is none other than to generate the movement data that humanoid robots need to learn to perform these tasks autonomously. National priority. The Chinese government has identified embodied artificial intelligence, which is AI in physical form, as a national priority, which has sparked a wave of investment in robotics. The country is already home to more than 150 companies dedicated to humanoid robots and seeks to position itself as a world power in a sector that Goldman Sachs esteem could reach $38 billion in 2035. Why do they need so much human data. Unlike large language models, which are trained with texts available on the Internet, robots require much more complex data sets: visual information, joint movements, rotations and adaptations to unpredictable environments. And, just as they explain Since Rest of World, this information cannot be easily extracted from the web. Chinese local governments are addressing this shortage with state-funded facilities, typically built by public administrations and operated by robotics companies. How training works. The middle highlights the case of Kim, a 20-year-old computer science student who works as a trainer at a startup in Shanghai. “We call ourselves cyber workers. It’s a decent job, if a little boring,” according to account to the middle. In the country’s largest training center, located in the Shijingshan district of Beijing and developed in collaboration with the Leju company, they work with 1.66 meter high “Kuafu” robots. Just like explains In the middle, each robot is assigned two human trainers who, using motion capture devices, record between 200 daily action sequences. An example: Teaching a robot to place a frying pan on a stove required 1,250 repetitions, according to details People’s Daily Online. The spaces where robots “study”. The most complete installations replicate real-world scenarios on a full scale. These can range from automobile assembly lines and logistics warehouses to domestic kitchens and bedrooms. The Beijing center occupies more than 10,000 square meters and offers 16 specific scenarios, including environments simulating automobile factories, smart homes and nursing homes, as exposes the middle. At another facility in Hubei province, nearly 100 human-controlled humanoid robots practice movements such as ironing or wiping tables hundreds of times a day. “It’s like teaching children to walk with a lot of practice,” counted a spokesperson for the project spoke to the media. It is not the most efficient method. Several robotics researchers still debate whether recording human movements, a laborious and slow process, is really the best way to create fully intelligent robots. Ken Goldberg, a robotics researcher at the University of California at Berkeley, declared to Rest of World that this is “a noble effort and there is a lot of hope right now that this will work, but it is slow. Even if you have hundreds of people working, it will take a long time to get enough data.” Yesovercapacity. China’s National Development and Reform Commission issued a warning in November about the risks of a bubble in the humanoid robotics industry. Marco Wang, analyst at Interact Analysis, account told Rest of World that “there are some potential bubbles” because the model may generate overcapacity. While mass commercial use still seems distant, some of the largest orders come from the public sector, such as the case of the company UBTech Robotics, which sold humanoid robots worth $80 million to three data collection centers in China, according to account the middle. The first “graduated” robots are already working. Robots trained at these centers have acquired more than 20 operational skills, with success rates greater than 95%, according to they count from People’s Daily Online. Some are already deployed, handling materials at factories for state-owned automaker China FAW Group, working as couriers for Shenzhen Capital Group or carrying out inspections at electrical facilities. Images | Shijingshan Robotic Center In Xataka | China is winning the humanoid robot race. The problem is that this race doesn’t really exist.

how the industry sold us empty calories in exchange for destroying our satiety

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There was a time when buying whole milk or “full fat” yogurt was considered nutritionally reckless. Dietary guidelines, obsessed with reducing saturated fat, for decades pushed consumers toward pale, liquid, skimmed versions of what was once a staple food. Eating “light” became synonymous with eating well. However, the narrative starts to crack. The story of María Branyas, the woman who lived to be 117 years old and who consumed several full-fat yogurts a day, is just the tip of the iceberg of a deeper change of outlook. The researchers who studied his case warn that yogurt alone does not explain his longevity – genetics, lifestyle and environment come into the equation – but it could play a relevant role in the balance of his intestinal microbiota. The focus, today, is no longer just on the calories we subtract, but on how much processing we add along the way. The processing error. For more than half a century, health authorities encouraged limiting red meat and fatty dairy products, warning that its saturated fats They raised LDL cholesterol and, therefore, the risk of heart disease. This premise fueled a massive industry of “light” and “0%” products. However, the problem was not the cow. As Dr. Montse Prados Pérez explainsmember of the Spanish Society of Endocrinology and Nutrition (SEEN), when natural fat is removed from a food, its texture, flavor and nutritional profile are altered. To compensate for this loss of flavor, many manufacturers turn to sugars, starches, sweeteners or additives. The result is a product with less fat, yes, but also more processed, less satiating and potentially harmful to the intestinal microbiota and appetite regulation mechanisms. Added to this phenomenon is a possible metabolic rebound effect. Nutritionist Laura Isabel Arranz warns that Sweeteners, common in low-fat yogurts, send a sweet signal to the brain without providing real energy. This discordance can confuse the metabolism and favor a more “saving” response, preparing the body to more efficiently store the energy that arrives later. Why doesn’t whole fat act the same? There is a technical irony in the dairy aisle: we take the skimmed jar to maintain the line, but we forget that for the body to use it, it needs precisely the fat that has just been removed. Vitamins such as A or D They are fat soluble; Without that natural fatty vehicle, absorption is a chimera. In the end, trying to enrich a 0% yogurt is like trying to make a car run by pouring gasoline into it. The industry adds the nutrient, but has removed the mechanism to make it work. All this is explained by the “dairy matrix”. Unlike other fats, milk fat occurs naturally wrapped in a complex structure. known as dairy fat globule membrane (MFGM), rich in phospholipids and bioactive proteins. This biological “envelope” is essential because it appears to positively modulate the way our body processes cholesterol. In fact, recent research published in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition have observed that the consumption of yogurt and cheese maintains a neutral—and even potentially beneficial— relationship with cardiovascular health, unlike what would be expected if only their saturated fat content were analyzed in isolation. Whole yogurt and metabolic risk. The evidence is also beginning to materialize in clinical trials. a study published in 2025 compared the consumption of full-fat yogurt (3.25% fat) versus skimmed yogurt in adults with prediabetes. After three weeks, those who consumed full-fat yogurt showed a significant reduction in blood triglycerides compared to the group that consumed nonfat yogurt. Although it is a short-term study and in a specific population, its results add to an increasingly consistent scientific literature. Along these lines, cardiologist Dariush Mozaffarian, director of the Food Is Medicine Institute at Tufts University, maintains that dairy fats are not intrinsically harmful and that there is “ample evidence” of the benefits of fermented dairy products. For its part, natural yogurt and kefir provide satiety, promote intestinal health and help avoid the subsequent consumption of empty calories. Back to real food. The conclusion for the consumer begins to be clear: the fear should not be in natural fat, but in artificial processing. The new dietary guidelines in the United States already reflect this paradigm shift by insisting, for the first time explicitly, on the need to prioritize real foods and avoid ultra-processed foods loaded with sugars, sodium and additives. This does not mean that full-fat dairy products should be consumed without limit or that they are suitable for all profiles. Institutions like Harvard remember that dairy fat It is still mostly saturated and that moderation continues to be key, especially in people with cardiovascular disease or familial hypercholesterolemia. But outside of those clinical contexts, as Dr. Prados Pérez summarizesfull-fat natural yogurt makes sense again: it is more satiating, preserves its original matrix and requires less industrial intervention. In the end, perhaps the secret was not in reformulating foods in a laboratory, but in something much simpler: opening a natural yogurt and eating it as it always was. Image | freepik Xataka | The woman who lived to be 117 had a favorite yogurt: a yogurt that thousands of people are now searching for

In 1925, procrastination was already a problem and someone found the definitive solution: the isolation helmet.

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Hundreds of thousands of years of evolution They have turned modern humans into perfect machines in one thing: distracting us. No matter where, when or how you are, if you are accompanied or alone, if you are waiting in line at the butcher shop or have a book in front of you, chances are that your attention ends up dispersing for any nonsense. Maybe the flight of a fly. Maybe that sound you just heard in the next room or a stain on the wall. It happens today and it happened a century ago, when a science fiction-loving inventor designed the ultimate machine to end distractions. His patent dates back to 1925, but it addresses a hot topic: procrastination. The war of wars. Since man has been a man, he has done two things, both wonderfully: he is distracted and he procrastinates. Almost 2,000 years ago Seneca warned us about the risks of wasting our time and we know, for example, that distractions were one of the big concerns of the monks of the Middle Ages. Some even thought that if our minds disperse it is due to the influence of devils. In 2026 things are not very different. A quick Google search comes up to find a wide (very wide) list of guides and videos with tips on how to focus and stop putting off tasks. And it is understandable. After all, cell phones, social networks and other inventions of modern technology make our lives easier, but they have been filing our ability to focus. Even science has confirmed that we are losing the ability to focus among so many stimuli. And how do we solve it? We humans have not only been distracted for centuries and centuries. We have also spent some time looking for ways to avoid that annoying wandering of thoughts. Of all the solutions that have been given to the problem, perhaps the most astonishing (and bizarre) is the one proposed just a century ago by Hugo Gernsbachan imaginative Luxembourgish-American inventor. His name may sound familiar to you because, in addition to register patents of inventions and working in the electronics industry, Gernsback excelled in another field: publishing. Throughout his life he promoted several magazines focused on technology (RadioNews), but he also shone in science fiction. We owe him Amazon Storiesa milestone of the genre. His contribution in the field was so important that he is considered one of the parents of science fiction (with permission from Verne and HG Wells) and every year he is honored through the Hugo Awards. Adding facets. A century ago Gernsback combined this double facet, his technical ingenuity and overflowing imagination, to launch a proposal through the pages of Science and Inventiona magazine specialized in technology. In its July 1925 issue, the inventor, editor and novelist presented a creation which he named ‘The Isolator’. The name is striking in itself, but it pales in comparison to the photographs that illustrate the report. They show Gernsback working in his office with his head in a gigantic diving suit, an elongated helmet with two small openings for the eyes and a tube that connects it to an oxygen cylinder. Its purpose: to immerse the wearer in absolute isolation, an ideal state for centering. When silence does not come. Gernsback came to a conclusion very simple: sometimes it is not enough to lock yourself in a room without noise to concentrate. Even so, we risk our mind getting carried away by the flight of a fly or starting to wander after seeing a stain on the table. The way to avoid it, he concluded, was to eliminate all those influences “in one fell swoop.” As? With a helmet prepared to suppress unnecessary noises and visual stimuli. For the first thing, the noises, Gernsback decided to go for a robust multi-layer helmet. Its first prototype was made of solid wood with an internal and external layer of cork and a felt trim. For the second (view) he added three small pieces of glass. The design was completed with a device at mouth height that allowed the user to breathe without noise creeping in. The result, says the inventorit was a helm with an efficiency of “about 75%”. It isolated from external noises, but not completely. There was room for improvement. And how did you improve it? Perfecting the design. Gernsback rethought the material and added an air chamber so that the efficiency of ‘The Isolator’ rose to 90 or 95%, “eliminating practically all noise.” So that vision was not a problem either, the helmet’s glass peepholes located in front of the eyes were painted black, leaving only a narrow transparent strip. “When the two white lines on the glass open, the field through which the view can move is relatively small,” points out the inventor. “It is almost impossible to see anything but a sheet of paper in front of the user. There is no distraction.” Concentrating… and breathing. It is one thing that ‘Isolator’ lived up to its name by isolating the user in a bubble of responsible concentration and another, very different, that it was comfortable or even bearable. The author explains that after 15 minutes with it on the user “experienced some drowsiness”, so he decided to improve the breathing system, connecting it to a small oxygen tank. This improved breathing and “revitalized the subject.” In his article Gernsback added detailed plans of ‘The Isolator’ and even a sketch of an office with a complete distraction-proof installation, which included a ‘noise-proof’ door and an adequate ventilation system. “With this provision you can contemplate an important task in a short time,” boasted. “Building ‘The Isolator’ will be a huge investment.” The power of paper. If humanity has also learned something (including Gernsback) it is that paper supports ideas that are not supported in reality. His helmet may have been eye-catching, it may have even worked, but it didn’t work. We don’t know to what extent its inventor really expected it … Read more

Science has something to say to all those who drink coffee as soon as they wake up

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Having a coffee for many is something that It is essential to start the day. It is something that in our country has become a cultural habit, but it is also a very relevant pharmacological event. Since although many people’s day doesn’t start until this coffee, our body already has its own “start-up” system built in as standard that we could be affecting. A good debate. Recently has arisen an idea that has set a precedent: Ingesting caffeine immediately after waking up interferes with the body’s natural biology. Specifically, with cortisolwhich is the stress hormone that allows us to wake up in the morning and sustain us throughout the day. Given this, It is recommended to wait between 60 and 90 minutes to drink your first cup of coffee.. Although… How much truth does this have? If we analyze the most recent clinical literature and population studies, we discover that Coffee in the morning is, in fact, a powerful ally for cardiovascular healthbut its maximum effectiveness depends on fine synchronization with our hormones. Natural injection of energy. To understand the effect of coffee on our body, we must first understand what happens when you don’t drink it. When you open your eyes, your brain doesn’t turn on like a switch, but instead starts a chemical cascade known as Cortisol Awakening Response (CAR). This is essential, since upon waking up, cortisol begins to increase and reaches its maximum peak approximately 30 to 60 minutes after opening the eyes. A hormone that is essential to activate us, and that is released in large quantities, for example when we are stressed or there is danger. A limbo of signals. In this way, if we introduce caffeine right into the body when cortisol is rising, we may be generating unnecessary overstimulation, increasing nervousness or so-called jitters. Furthermore, caffeine (despite the fact that it hurts for some) does not provide real energy to our body, but what it does is block the adenosine receptors, which is responsible for making us feel tired. In this way, when we wake up, there is still some of this signal in the body and if we block it suddenly and too soon, when the effect of the coffee wears off, this accumulated adenosine suddenly binds to its receptors and causes the famous mid-afternoon fatigue. What science knows. To date, there are no controlled clinical trials that compare the long-term cognitive performance of a group of people who drink coffee immediately versus another who waits 90 minutes. But what we do know is that there is a tolerance effect. A study published in PMC points out that in regular coffee consumers, the cortisol response to caffeine is significantly attenuated. That is, your body has already gotten used to that morning “hit” and the hormonal interference is much less than in an occasional consumer. In this way, when we remove the morning coffee, it may be much more difficult for a person to properly start their body as they lack that ‘drive’ to which their body has become accustomed. The night battle. Where the science is clear is in the use of caffeine late in the day. A study in Science Translational Medicine showed that a double espresso three hours before bed delays the circadian clock by about 40 minutes, seriously affecting sleep quality. Is it worth waiting? If you are one of those who feel intense anxiety after the first coffee or if you experience an unbearable drop in energy at two in the afternoon, the recommendation to wait 90 minutes has physiological plausibility and can be a valuable personal experiment. By delaying caffeine, you allow cortisol to do its job and residual adenosine to be cleared more naturally so you don’t have that unpleasant mid-afternoon tiredness. However, for the healthy general population accustomed to coffeethere is no evidence that taking it as soon as you wake up is harmful. We are only left with that effect of dependence on coffee that interferes with the internal ‘caffeine’ of awakening that our body produces. This is why the 90-minute rule is more advice based on clinical observation and biological logic than on robust studies. In Xataka | We knew that coffee was good for our health, but now we have discovered that it is a great ally of our microbiota

Almost everything is more expensive than ever, but televisions are at rock bottom. It is the result of a “suicide pact”

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Technology is in an economic shaker. If we consumers have become accustomed to something, it is that, as the years go by, a product drops in price, even if it is updated with better features. It is clear in the console segment: as each generation progressed, the hardware improved and the price fell. That’s over. Buy a PS5 or an Xbox Series in 2026 It is more expensive than when they came out in 2020. But the consoles They are not the only thing that rises: There is more competition than ever in streaming services and they have all agreed to raise prices from time to time. It’s not just technology: dwellingmedical expenses, cars, meal… However, There is something that has collapsed: televisions. Because although there are very expensive models, the price of televisions has fallen more than almost any other consumer product in the last quarter of a century. And we owe it all to something that one of the industry’s leading glass manufacturers named in a curious way. A 25-year suicide pact. Although there is something else in the equation, something much more important. The “suicide pact” and the mother glass You can say in the comments if you have been walking around a large area this Christmas and have been tempted to buy a new 65-inch TV. Not because you need it, but because you saw it at a ridiculous price. For 400 eurosyou can buy one right now. Inch/price, they are much more attractive than the 24 inches that you can put in the kitchen. These prices on huge televisions do not seem to have been affected by the multiple crises we have experienced in recent years. What if that of the chips, then transportation, that of the Ukrainian warthe current RAM… The price of televisions has followed suit and, although the most cutting-edge OLEDs or risky technologies They have very high pricesan LCD TV is very affordable. In Construction Physics They mention a very interesting fact. In a advertisement On Black Friday 2003, a barely 20-inch LCD television in 4:3 format with a resolution of 640 x 480 pixels (laughing) cost $800. In the same ad, 32-inch CRT TVs for $380 or 27-inch TVs for $150. Today, those TVs are gold for playing retro games, by the way. In Xataka already we started having to talk about different technologies of liquid crystal panels. 21 years ago we were already talking about OLEDs when I was content with a small 15-inch TFT screen to play ‘Age of Empires 2’ and ‘Half Life 2’. In the end. But well, I’m going around the bush. In 2022, Mark J. Perry published in AEI the following graph: He shows us in a crude way what he was saying: the price of LCD technology had been plummeting rapidly while other goods and services increased dramatically. It’s funny to me that I don’t see the computer hardware on the list, we’ll see when I update the graph in a few years… He estimated that, since 2000, the price of televisions had fallen 97%. There are others informationbut the conclusion is the same: prices through the floor in a short time. That crash occurred a decade earlier. In a document of Corningone of the largest glass manufacturing companies, noted the following: “LCD technology continues to grow and there are abundant opportunities to expand both the functionality and performance of displays. So the expansion of LCD technology must be a great success story, right?” “FAKE” In the document, it is clarified that for consumers it is great news because they can access better and bigger televisions at a fraction of the price. Even other technologies such as plasma had to be adapted. In the same Black Friday ad from 2003 we see a Daewoo of 42 inches with 480p resolution for $2,300. I remember that a 50-inch Samsung 1,080p arrived at my house for 700 euros in 2007. However, for the manufacturers, it was not as happy a story as it was for the consumer. “The LCD platform looks like a 25-year suicide pact for display manufacturers,” Corning noted in its report. It is a segment “characterized by hypercompetition, excess investment and periodic lack of profitability, but which at the same time requires sustained investment to differentiate a product that has a low return.” They pointed out that, within that chain, glass manufacturers were still able to make considerable profits, although there was increasing pressure. But that price drop is not limited to extreme competition between a few companies. There is something else behind it, and that “something” is the “mother glass.”. Known as “mother glass” in English, it is a main element in the manufacture of LCD panels. It’s a process which is made up of several stages. On the one hand, there is that mother glass, which is a sheet of glass substrate on which other layers are deposited. Broadly speaking: We have the glass plate on which layers of semiconductors are deposited. Using a photolithography process, TFT transistors and pixel electrodes are marked across the entire sheet. It is something that is repeated several times until the active matrix on the mother glass is completed. The next step is to use another mother glass to which RGB color filters and electrodes are applied. Both glasses are well cleaned, aligned and sealed with perimeter glue. It’s like a sandwich. There we would have a mother glass with many screens, and the next step is to cut them to obtain individual modules. The fourth step is to combine those modules or cells with backlight units, the control PCB and the metal casing to have the complete LCD module. It is tested and, when it is ready, it is delivered to the assemblers, who are the ones who already create monitors, televisions, mobile phones or anything with a screen. Here you can see the process: What is the key? That those large sheets of glass have been increasing in size little by … Read more

that one of the European AI gigafactories ends up in Spain

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If the European Union wants to compete with the United States and China (which has a very detailed plan) in the artificial intelligence race, you don’t just need good models and specialized companies: you also need AI gigafactories. And the EU already has on its roadmap the construction of up to five plants throughout the continent. Where will they be mounted? The decision has not yet been made, but one thing is clear: Spain has submitted his candidacy in the form of a binomial between Madrid and Catalonia. The Madrid – Catalonia proposal. This candidacy combines the storage capacity and the Madrid network with the experience in Catalan computing architecture. On the other hand, the Spanish state has one of the most solid renewable energy networks on the old continent, a critical requirement for approval. Thus, it is based on a Madrid – Catalonia axis that connects the Barcelona Supercomputing Center with a new node in San Fernando de Henares (Madrid) and the previously planned massive installation of Móra la Nova (Tarragona), which would take advantage of the area’s energy infrastructure. What does a factory have to be “giga”? Last February Ursula Von der Leyen announced InvestAI, a project that will mobilize 200 billion euros for artificial intelligence, of which a fund of 20 billion will go to gigafactories, which are essentially large data centers with at least 100,000 advanced AI chips. The fundamental differences between a simple AI factory and a gigafactory according to the action plan are scale and purpose: while a factory is a supercomputing center optimized for fine-tuning AI models to specific tasks, a gigafactory is a much more powerful massive infrastructure designed to train models from scratch. At the hardware level there are also differences: the EU standard for factories is around 25,000 chips. Furthermore, while factories are often integrated into existing data centers, such as MareNostrum 5 in Barcelona, ​​for gigafactories they usually require their own They require their own high-power electrical substation. The list of requirements. The construction of up to five gigafactories in the EU is part of the action plan “AI Continent” from the European Commission. At the beginning of this year and after some delay, the formal call for proposals has already been opened. Regarding the requirements, the proposals must guarantee a capacity of more than 100,000 next-generation chips and the redundant architecture is positively valued, advanced liquid cooling systems, total sustainability and the capacity of a dedicated high-power electrical substation are required. Majority control must be European capital, although the financing model is public-private. Deadlines and budgets. If the EU approves the project in the coming months, construction would begin in 2027 to be operational between 2027 and 2028. As detailed Óscar López, Minister for Digital Transformation and the Public Service, “the joint public-private investment could exceed 4,000 million euros to make this gigafactory a reality.” The public part of the financing would come, among others, from the Spanish Society for Technological Transformation. In Xataka | If we ask Spaniards how they feel about AI, the answer is simple: more productive In Xataka | If anyone thought that Europe had no role in the race for AI, Mistral has something to tell them Cover | chaddavis.photography and Daria Borysenko

Japan has a problem with bear attacks in its cities. So they have started eating them

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If it is true that every crisis hides an opportunity, in Japan they have taken it to a new dimension. For some time now, the country of the rising sun has been dealing with a serious problem of bear attacks on humans, which has left more than a dozen victims since last spring. The authorities have been searching for some time the way to solve itbut there are those who have already found a way to benefit from it: the psychosis due to encounters with plantigrades is coming accompanied by what seems to be a growing interest in their meat. In Japan the (gastronomic) taste for these animals it’s not newbut there are hoteliers who they assure that demand is growing so much that they are unable to satisfy it. And they are clear about the reason: the news about attacks. Beware of the bears. Japan has long grappled with a serious problem birth rate, a trend that comes accompanied by the abandonment of rural areas and farmlands. That’s nothing new. Nor anything that Spain (and many other countries) has experienced firsthand. What is curious is the effect that this population decline is causing, combined with other factors, such as climate change, fluctuations in harvests and the increase in the populations of certain wild animals: an ‘epidemic’ of human bear attacks. One figure: 13 dead. With more bears prowling through the mountains, when acorns are scarce, the animals choose to approach towns and cities… with the risk that this implies. Sometimes his encounters with humans remain just that, scares, like what happened in october when a 1.4 m specimen sneaked into a supermarket in Numata. Other times the outcome is more tragic. According to the Government, between April and November 13 people died by claws and bites from these animals. To them are added 230 injured. It is the worst balance since the country began studying the phenomenon in 2006. Is the problem that serious? Yes. The figures are eloquent. And not only those of attacks, injuries and deaths. The japanese press (even the international) has been echoing the increase in sightings of bears, the increase in captured specimens and the problem that these animals are beginning to represent, which has led companies to look for ways to protect their employees and administrations to consider strategies to address the problem. Proof of how desperate the Government is is that it has approved emergency hunts and even has turned to the army. 13 deaths may not be a high number in a country of almost 123 million of inhabitants, but it is high enough to set off alarms, especially in certain regions. There are basically two species in the country: Asian black bears and brown bears, which can be found in Hokkaido and whose population has skyrocketed in the last three decades, reaching 11,500 individuals. according to The Japan Times. A delicious threat. All of the above was more or less known. In recent weeks local media such as The Mainichi, The Asashi Shimbun, NHK World Japan However, they have published articles that suggest something else: that in the midst of a wave of attacks, the Japanese seem to be rediscovering the pleasure of a good slice of grilled bear. a few days ago The Japan Times He even spoke with the owners of a restaurant located in a mountainous area of ​​Saitama who say they are having difficulty meeting the growing demand for meat. “With the increase in news about bears, the number of customers who want to eat their meat has increased,” explains to the newspaper the head of the business, Koji Suzuki. His wife confirms that they have even been forced to turn away clients. Another Sapporo restaurant presume also of the success of their “bear soup” and in Aomori there is a population that is promoting wild bear meat as a local gastronomic specialty. Those who promote the use of bear meat from the sector claim that it is a local and they insist in the usefulness of using the meat of slaughtered animals. Is it something new? Yes. And no. As Suzuki and Katsushiko Kakuta, a restaurant manager in Aomori, explain, bear meat seems to be arousing special interest among the Japanese, but for them it is not a new product. Does five years in Nishimeya (Aomori) they even opened a center to process meat from wild bears captured in the Shirakami-Sanchi mountains. And in 2023 in Akita they installed neither more nor less than a vending machine which sells 250 g of fresh meat from bears caught by hunters in the region for 2,200 yen. “Most say it’s delicious”. Kiyoshi Fujimoto, Sapporo chef, confesses that, in your opinion“now there are more people” interested in his bear meat-based recipe. What’s more, he assures that “most people who try it say it’s delicious.” The truth is that in Japan not only attacks and victims have increased. The captures of animals have also done so, which has forced the authorities to face the challenge of what to do with their corpses. Chosun remember that, although there are restaurants in the country that serve their meat, the law is restrictive on the consumption of slaughtered bears, so many end up incinerated. Images |Lucas Law (Unsplash), Adam Kolmacka (Unsplash) and Suzi Kim (Unsplash) In Xataka | A Japanese restaurant has taken its obsession with fresh fish to the extreme: it lets you catch it yourself

The best MediaMarkt offers on technology and entertainment during Cuesta Abajo, today January 16

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After starting the year on the right foot by launching a Day without VAT, MediaMarkt returns to the fray with a Downhill in which we find very interesting offers. In this article we are going to review the best offers in technology and entertainment. Do you want a console or are you looking to renew your mobile phone? Pay attention to these offers. nintendo switch 2 by 469 eurosthe hybrid console that comes with a Pokémon video game. Google Pixel 10 Pro by 749 eurosone of the best mobile phones of the brand. Seagate Expansion by 179.99 eurosan external hard drive with a lot of capacity. Corsair Vanguard 96-MLX by 139.99 eurosa gaming keyboard that incorporates a screen. Kobo Libra Color by 219 eurosan e-book reader with a good color screen. nintendo switch 2 MediaMarkt has once again launched offers in the nintendo switch 2 and this time you can buy the console along with the ‘Pokémon ZA Legends‘for a price of 469 euroswhich is what the console only costs. To do this, you must select the promotion at the bottom of the store. A Nintendo Switch 2 pack is also available along with ‘Mario Kart World‘ and ‘Pokémon Legends Z-A’. All this for 509 euros. Again you have to select the promotion at the bottom. Nintendo Switch 2 + Pokémon ZA Legends The price could vary. We earn commission from these links Google Pixel 10 Pro If there is one offer that stands out above the rest, it is the Google Pixel 10 Prowhose price has fallen to 749 euros in what is its new historical minimum price. It is a powerful mobile, with a very good 6.3 inch screen and an excellent photography section, making it ideal if cameras are prioritized on a mobile phone. Google Pixel 10 Pro (128GB) The price could vary. We earn commission from these links Seagate Expansion If you need an accessory to have a lot of storage, be careful because MediaMarkt has once again put the Seagate Expansionan external hard drive that has no less than 8TB capacity. It works on Windows and Mac, you don’t need to install any software to use it, and it comes bundled with three months of Nord VPN. All this for 179.99 euros. The price could vary. We earn commission from these links Corsair Vanguard 96-MLX The store also has an interesting gaming-oriented keyboard on offer that stands out for one particularity: its screen. We talk about Corsair Vanguard 96-MLX that, for 139.99 eurosis a mechanical keyboard with a numeric keypad, multimedia wheel and a customizable screen to put animations, real-time statistics and integration with video games. The switches are Corsair MLX. Corsair Vanguard 96-MLX Plasma The price could vary. We earn commission from these links Kobo Libra Color If you want to get into reading in digital format and are looking for a good e-book reader, the Kobo Libra Color has dropped in price again to 219 euros. It incorporates a seven-inch color screen, making it ideal for highlighting in different colors. It is compatible with the Kobo Stylus 2, has 32 GB of internal storage and integrates both Google Drive and Dropbox. The price could vary. We earn commission from these links Some of the links in this article are affiliated and may provide a benefit to Xataka. In case of non-availability, offers may vary. Images | MediaMarkt and Compradicción (header), Nintendo, Google, Seagate, Corsair, Rakuten Kobo In Xataka | The best mobile phones, we have tested them and here are their analyzes In Xataka | The mechanical keyboards I had tried did not convince me. Until I found the ideal model for me

The last barrier against AI is good taste. The problem is that an entire generation is growing up without developing it

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The new normal in three acts: You open X and find a clearly AI-generated image trying to look legitimate. But it’s not bad, it complies. You go to LinkedIn and find a piece that reeks of ChatGPT, but you get the idea that its author wanted to convey. In GitHub You find code that works, but that no sensible programmer would write like that. You let it go. welcome to the era of “good enough”. Generative AI has made it easy, fast, and free to produce “acceptable” things, and that has moved the collective bar for quality. Not upward but towards “functional”. The worrying thing is not that AI produces mediocrity, but that it is accustoming us to accepting it. Before, if we needed an image for the article, we had to look for it or – for those who had ID – order it. There was friction or there was cost. Now we generate it in fifteen seconds (wink), and since it “serves”, it stays there (wink, wink, nudge). Even if it is generic or has that artificial veneer that we all recognize but no one talks about anymore. The problem is that when something acceptable costs nothing to produce, we stop asking ourselves if it is worth doing. We’re just wondering if it meets the minimum. AND meeting the minimum is not the same as doing something good. In development this is also very noticeable. An experienced and talented programmer instantly recognizes whether a code has been written by an AI. Even if it works (we already take that for granted), you can tell by the verbiage, because it is redundant, because it is not very elegant. It does what it has to do, but no senior He would be proud to have it bearing his signature. What is going to happen to a generation that is going to learn to program using AI from day one? If you’ve never written bad code and then understood what makes it good, how are you going to develop judgment? Good taste does not come standard. It is built by seeing many bad things, many good things, making mistakes. AI saves you that path by giving you something that works from the first try. But without going down that path, you never develop the eye to distinguish. Therein lies the risk. AI has raised the floor (anyone can produce something decent), but the ceiling is still just as high. At least for the majority. Creating something exceptional requires the same things as always: talent, effort, judgment. Only now it is buried under tons of slop and mediocre but functional content. And since creating it is free, we produce it non-stop. Human value remains in taste. Knowing how to look at something and say “okay, it’s good, but it’s not good”. But that criterion is only formed with practice. If an entire generation grows up consuming and producing what “just delivers,” how are they going to learn what is excellent? If you have never seen the difference, that difference does not exist for you. We are heading towards a world where it will be normalized that “good enough” is the only standard because we forget how to recognize when something will be done well. In Xataka | There is a generation working for free as a documentarian of their own life: they are not influencers but they act as if they were. Featured image | Xataka with Nano Banana

In Spain we are used to the signs on highways and highways being blue. In other countries not

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If you have ever had to drive or pass near a highway in Italy, Belgium, Switzerland and many other countries in Europe, you will have noticed something curious: the road signs are not blue, but green. This is something that I was always curious to know why a few years ago, and there is more to the story than it seems. And it is the result of a series of historical and cultural decisions that each country made separately when developing its high-capacity road network. The origin of the “problem.” Europe has had a common road signaling system since 1968, when the Vienna Convention on Road Signs. This treaty unified the shapes, symbols and many traffic rules, but left each country free to choose the colors of the orientation signs. The agreement establishes that road markings can be white or yellow, and that pictograms must be internationally recognizable, but does not impose a single color for highways. Therefore, even if you drive throughout Europe under more or less similar rules, the colors of the signs change depending on the country. Image: Maps Interlude Why Spain chose blue. When Spain began to develop its network of highways and highways in the 1970s, it decided to use blue for high-capacity roads and white for conventional roads. This choice responds to a series of practical criteria: blue offered good night visibility with the reflective materials available at that time. Just like Spain, other countries also decided to opt for this color. The green in other countries in Europe. Many other European countries opted for green for their highways. Belgium, Finland, Croatia, Italy, Switzerland, Ukraine, and many other countries have green signage on their highways. The decision has roots in the continent’s early highway systems. The first two major highway networks were the germans (Autobahnen) and the Italian ones (Autostrade), which used blue and green signals respectively. The Italian choice of green probably influenced other Mediterranean and Eastern European countries, while the German scheme remained very consolidated and was imitated directly or indirectly by countries close to or with strong German technical influence. Image: Luigi Chiesa Nor is there one color better than another. Although you might want to start a war and choose sides between countries that use blue or green on their road signs, none is really better than the other. In fact, the main reason why both colors coexist on the continent is because they have not been standardized at the European level. In this sense, both colors fulfill their function perfectly if they are applied consistently within each country. Blue stands out well at night, while green is very legible during the day and is psychologically associated with progress and continuity. As long as each driver can quickly identify what type of road they are using and it can be read clearly and without problem, all good. What is unified. Although the colors vary, the Vienna Convention guarantees that a driver perfectly understands the signs whether he is in one country or another, because the pictograms, shapes and logic of the system are common. Triangles warn of dangers, circles prohibit or oblige, and rectangles inform. This harmonization is what really makes it possible to drive around Europe without having to study every national code. If there are changes, it will not be in the colors. In 2025, the Global Forum for Road Traffic Safety launched a proposed amendment which could completely modify the text of the Vienna Convention, including new numbering for all signs. What will not change are the colors on the road signs, so each country will continue to have free rein to maintain its tradition. First because it works, and second because we are already used to it and that on the road means saving a lot of time. Cover image | Google Maps In Xataka | Madrid has committed to having an F1 circuit in September: at the moment it has an open field and four streets of a PAU

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