Mobile Tech & Gadgets

The “apocalypse” of snow and cold that awaited us for Reyes is going to be much less so

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The Three Wise Men, in addition to bringing us gifts (or some coal) have also brought the arrival of winter in Spain for the first time this year. Storm Francis has turned the first Monday of the year into a logistical and meteorological challenge for many, with white prints in inland capitals, and plummeting temperatures to values ​​that we have not seen for months. And the truth is that there are still some hours of great instability. A white map. The images we are seeing this Monday are undoubtedly impressive with Madrid capital with snow, snow plows on the main roads of the country like the A4 or the A6 and also with the cathedral of Segovia covered in a layer of white. Something that It is also accompanied by significant rainfall in the south of Spain.mainly affecting the province of Malaga, which activated yesterday a red alert. If we focus on the snow, during the last hours accumulations of up to 10 cm have been recorded in 24 hours in the Central System environment. Something that is accompanied by snowfall in other places that are common and are located at a high altitude. Less than expected. In the previous days, it was expected that these snowfalls would be much more intense, equating it in many cases with a Filomena 2.0. But in the end it has remained in more localized snowfalls at high levels and at the lower levels they have not been as relevant as what was reported in previous days. The same thing happened in previous days, where a New Year’s Eve covered in white was expected but in the end it did not happen. It is not a model of models. This meteorological change can be attributed to the fact that the prediction models are useless, but the reality is that they work quite well, as explains an AEMET researcher in X. The problem is that the use we give to these models is not the most appropriate, since all the catastrophic news of significant snowfalls come out within several days, and the reality is that the uncertainty here is very high. To have real data on what may happen in our country, we have to wait until we are closer to the specific date to have a prediction that is close to the reality that we are going to experience. Impact on mobility. In this way, if we look at the rainfall that has fallen on the roads, we find complications when traveling, or even impossible being cut, especially in Andalusia. But also effects on the railways, suffering interruptions, for example the line between Cercedilla and Segovia due to the accumulation of snow on the tracks. Some cold rides. With these meteorological events, all eyes are on what will happen with the traditional parades of the Three Wise Men that take place in different parts of Spain throughout the afternoon of this January 5th. In some locations already have had to be canceled due to the risk of precipitationand in other places they have been brought forward to this Monday morning, as has happened in the capital of Granada. What the AEMET points out is that the course of the parades will be marked by a significant drop in temperatures. They emphasize especially the northern, central and eastern areas of the peninsula, where temperatures below zero are expected at 8:00 p.m. And even in the areas of the Cantabrian Sea and the southeast of the peninsula they could be covered in snow or water. The forecast on January 6. For those who want to enjoy the holiday, on Three Kings’ Day, Storm Francis will tend to weaken. This will make them wait residual snowfall centered on the Cantabrian Mountains, the Pyrenees and northern mountain areasbut the intensity on the Plateau will decrease drastically. But the important thing is that even if the snow stops falling, the cold doesn’t go away. Temperatures will remain below normal, meaning the risk of extreme nighttime frosts will remain, turning accumulated snow to ice. This will mean that caution must prevail when traveling by road, especially in the early hours of the morning. Why now. Storm Francis is not an isolated phenomenon, but the result of a channeling cold arctic air over the Peninsula. While a more conventional trade wind regime dominates in the Canary Islands, the interior of the peninsula is trapped in a pocket of cold air that interacts with Mediterranean humidity. This explains why, in addition to the snow in the interior of the peninsula, we are seeing intense rains in the area of ​​Alborán and eastern Andalusia, where the snow level is higher, but the volume of water is being very significant, as we have commented previously. In Xataka | The “tropicalization” of the atmosphere is going to change Spain and not exactly for the better

For 150 aircraft to bomb Venezuela, the US used one of the most lethal tactics of the war: gunboat diplomacy

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Long before the hundreds of aircraft, missiles, drones and special forces came into play, the United States had already begun to move pieces throughout Latin America and the Caribbean. While international attention was focused on Venezuela, Washington was weaving an accelerated network of military agreements with Paraguay, Ecuador, Peru, Trinidad and Tobago and other countries in the region, expanding access to airports, deploying troops “temporary” and authorizing operations armed under the umbrella of a renewed “war on drugs.” The tactic, in fact, was born in the 19th century. An escalation announced. It we count before the end of last year: the timing and magnitude of these pacts they did not go unnoticed for analysts, who interpreted them as the deliberate creation of a regional logistics infrastructure capable of sustaining a prolonged military operation against Caracas. Under a rhetoric that mixed drug trafficking, hemispheric security and regional stability, the real objective seemed much more classic: to surround Venezuela, isolate it diplomatically and make it clear that US military power was not only willing, but physically prepared to intervene. In this context, Caracas’ warnings to its neighbors and the growing concern in Latin American capitals reflected a familiar feeling: that of once again being the “backyard” of a power that did not ask for permission. The qualitative leap. The point of no return has arrived with the military operation which culminated in the capture of Nicolás Maduro and his wife in Caracas. From Mar-a-Lago, Trump not only celebrated the audacity and violence of the operation, but also verbalized something even more significant: the United States was not simply overthrowing a leader, but was arrogating to itself the right to “direct” Venezuela for an indefinite period, dictating key political and economic decisions and recovering, according to his own storythe control of oil resources that he considered “stolen” from American companies. The rhetoric carefully avoided words like occupation, but while the word “democracy” has not once left Washington, “oil” has been repeated dozens of times, so the substance was hard to hide: a tutelage imposed under threat of a military “second wave” if the new power did not obey. The image of an armada off the coast, ready to intimidate both Caracas and other governments in the region, marked the explicit return to a logic that many believed buried after Iraq and Afghanistan. Trump oversaw US military operations in Venezuela, from the Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach, Florida, on Saturday, January 3, 2026 Gunboat diplomacy. Also called gunboat diplomacywas born in the 19th century as a brutally direct form of foreign policy: sending warships off the coasts of weaker countries to force political concessionscommercial or territorial without the need for a formal war. Powers such as the United Kingdom, France and the United States used it systematically in Asia, Africa and Latin America, turning the mere naval presence into an instrument of coercion. In the American case, this doctrine was intertwined with the Monroe Doctrine and his later reinterpretationlegitimizing military interventions, temporary occupations and regime changes under the premise of protecting national interests in the Western Hemisphere. If you want and from that perspective, the attack on Venezuela is not a historical anomaly, but a technological update of that same pattern: where before there were gunboats, today there are aircraft carriersdrones, special forces and economic sanctions, but the logic is identical. Military force does not act as a last resort, but as a political message itself, designed to discipline a particular government and warn all others. Map of US attacks against Venezuela An echo of interventions and their consequences. Latin American history is full of examples that help contextualize this movement. From the war with Mexico in the 19th century until the Banana Wars of the 20th, passing through the supported coups d’état During the Cold War, the United States has intervened dozens of times to shape like-minded governments or curb rival influences. Trump himself has claimed figures as William McKinleya symbol of an era in which territorial expansion and access to resources were considered legitimate expressions of national power. But they remembered yesterday in the New York Times that these interventions rarely produced lasting stability. They often left fractured societies, legitimized dictatorships and deeply damaged the American reputation, a legacy that strategic rivals today exploit. like china to present themselves as less intrusive (although not necessarily more benign) alternatives. The perfect operation and the subsequent vacuum. From a military point of view, Maduro’s capture was a demonstration extreme precision: months of surveillance, an exact replica of the target to rehearse the assault, selective blackoutscoordinated airstrikes and special forces breaking into the heart of Caracas in the middle of the night. But the tactical success contrasts with the strategic uncertainty which opens later. Who will really govern Venezuela? How will your armed forces react? What happens if a future election contradicts Washington’s interests? There is no doubt, these questions evoke familiar ghosts of “eternal wars” and covert occupationsexactly what Trump had promised to fight against. Hence that “gunboat diplomacy”no matter how modernized it is, continues to suffer from the same problem as it did more than a century ago: it is effective at imposing fait accompli, but terrible at managing long term consequences. The past with weapons of the future. Thus, the attack on Venezuela does not represent a doctrinal innovation, but rather a conscious return to an ancient way to exercise powercovered with 21st century technology. Instead of multilateral negotiations or classic diplomatic pressure, the United States has opted for a direct show of force, combining capture of leaders, control of resources and an intimidating military presence throughout the region above any international law. It is, in essence, the gunboat diplomacy elevated to an industrial scale: faster, more precise and media-intensive, but equally fraught with risks. History suggests that its effects will not be measured in days or weeks, but in decadesand that Latin America, once again, will be the stage where it is tested if the past can really be reused … Read more

We are entering a new era of robotics driven by AI and Disney is its perfect showcase

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For decades, Disney has been a pioneer in bringing its characters to life through animatronics, an already classic part of its theme parks that gives them that ‘magic’ that dazzles children and not so children. However, for some time now they have been working on going further with the help of the latest advances in robotics and AI so that the experience ends up being even more authentic. For this reason recently announced that Olaf, the little snowman from the Frozen franchise, would arrive in its parks as the first completely autonomous robotic character. As the company announced, Olaf will debut in the parks of Hong Kong and Paris during 2026. The interesting thing is that here we are not talking about a simple automaton, but rather its engineers have applied reinforcement learning and used the latest advances in robotics to accurately replicate the character’s movements. Olaf’s internal parts A controlled scenario. The robotics that coexist with us beyond experimentation have traditionally been anchored to functional and specific objectives, from industrial robots to quadrupeds that traverse complex terrain. Disney knows that there is a niche where they can take advantage of the capabilities of this technology to ‘give life’ to their characters and, how could it be otherwise, continue selling tickets to their parks. In this sense, theme parks become perfect settings for experimentation and development of advanced robotics, since they are controlled environments where robots can interact with thousands of people every day, learn from those interactions and perfect their behaviors, always with supervision. The technical challenge that Olaf poses. According to the paper published by Disney Research Hub (and the interesting video published on his channel), creating Olaf posed certain problems. The character has a huge head supported by a tiny neck, small feet with no visible legs, and a walking style that does not respect real physical laws. To solve this, the engineers designed a system of asymmetrical legs (one inverted with respect to the other) hidden under a polyurethane foam “skirt” that simulates its snow body. This skirt not only conceals the internal mechanics, but absorbs impacts and allows for recovery steps without breaking the visual illusion. Reinforcement learning scheme that applies policies to modify your behavior Just like they explain To the engineers responsible for its development, each facial joint, from the eyes to the jaw, is controlled by spherical and flat mechanical links that allow for full expressiveness while keeping tiny actuators hidden beneath the disguise. The key: thereinforcement learning. Instead of manually programming each move, the team trained Olaf using reinforcement learning guided by reference animations created by artists. According to explained Kyle Laughlin, senior vice president of Walt Disney Imagineering, told Variety “a process that used to take years can now be done in days and weeks.” Laughlin account that the system generates millions of simulations where the robot learns to walk, maintain balance and emulate gestures exactly as a child learning to move would do. But it’s not just about walking, since the AI ​​must also capture that spark of personality that makes the character recognizable. And for this, those responsible explain that specific rewards were used that rewarded the precise imitation of the original animated cycle. Noise and temperature. Two technical obstacles that threatened to ruin the robot’s credibility. On the one hand, the sound, since the robotic steps were too mechanical and noisy. According to they count Those responsible introduced an additional reward during training that penalized sudden changes in the vertical speed of the foot when touching the ground. In this way they managed to reduce the average noise of each footfall from almost 82 dB to just 64 dB, all without significantly compromising their gait. The second problem was overheating. And its thin neck houses small actuators that must support the weight of its large head, also covered by an insulating suit. The solution involved feeding real-time temperature data to the AI ​​system using a thermal model integrated into the simulation. Thus, when the actuators approach the 80°C limit, the system subtly adjusts the posture to reduce engine torque before any damage is done. A collaborative ecosystem accelerated by Newton. Behind the technological leap is Newton, a physics engine jointly developed by NVIDIA, Google DeepMind and Disney Research announced during GTC 2025 last March. “This is how we are going to train robots in the future,” counted Jensen Huang himself, CEO of NVIDIA, at the last GTC conference showing the technology. Newton allows you to accurately simulate how robots interact with deformable objects such as fabric or food, something crucial for costumed characters like Olaf, and is designed to integrate with MuJoCo, the physics engine already used by Google DeepMind to simulate complex joint movements. From BDX to Olaf. The Star Wars-inspired bipedal BDX droids, which debuted in Galaxy’s Edge in fall 2023 and have since appeared at events like SXSW or even filming scenes for the upcoming “Mandalorian and Grogu“, were Disney’s initial step towards this technology. According to Laughlin, the company has “a solid roadmap” to deploy more autonomous characters with greater expressiveness and interactivity in theme parks and cruise ships. This idea is foreseen in the plan announced by Disney for invest 60 billion dollars over the next decade on new attractions. Valuable data. The arrival of this type of technology to its parks It also provides them with reusable infrastructure. And the techniques used in Olaf, such as the compact asymmetric design, its thermal systems or its control based on acoustic reduction, can also be applied to future characters with equally strange morphologies. In addition, it must be taken into account that the robots would operate daily under the public eye at all times, something that becomes an advantage, since each interaction generates valuable data on how to improve their behavior. In the face of what seems to be an imminent arrival of new humanoid robots powered by AI, Disney can end up being a very profitable customer in this new era … Read more

We analyze on video what is really happening

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From time to time, the technology sector enters a phase of turbulence that breaks the apparent normality of the market and forces us to take a closer look at how the supply chain, industrial priorities and the balances between supply and demand. The most recent example that many remember is that of cryptocurrency mining, that for years stressed the graphics card market to the point of turning them into a scarce commodity and prohibitively expensive for many players. Now the focus has shifted to another key component: RAM. The increase in the cost of the modules begins to be clearly noticed and, as usually happens in these cases, the inevitable questions arise. What exactly is happening, where does this problem come from and if there are signs that allow us to think about relief in the short or medium term. To try to answer all this, we have published a new video in the Xataka YouTube channel in which our colleague Francisco Franconi explains this scenario calmly and in context, trying to explain what is behind a crisis that cannot be understood just by looking at the final prices. The piece is integrated into the set of content that we regularly publish on the channel, with formats such as 24/7the series Domotize or die trying, Science and Apart and reports that explore technology from very diverse angles. We are in a RAM memory crisis, now what? The starting point of the video is a broader photograph of the moment that the technology industry is experiencing. Francisco introduces the topic with a piece of information that helps to understand the background of the problem: “It is evident that 2025 was the year of AI. Projects like Stargatewhich has the purpose of investing 500 billion dollars for the development of artificial intelligence in the United States, are a sample of the economic interest that exists around this technology.” From there, the question arises almost naturally: what relationship does this rise in artificial intelligence have with RAM? The video explains how data centers, the backbone of this new technological wave, depend on three essential components, and RAM is one of them. Analyzing the role played by the rest of the pieces not only helps to understand the current crisis, but also opens the door to thinking about whether we could be facing similar tensions in other components in the not-so-distant future. Francisco goes one step further and dismantles an idea that is often taken for granted. “High demand for components alone does not trigger prices“, he points out, before delving into the specific factors that are turning the current artificial intelligence boom into a real headache for the RAM memory market. This analysis also includes some of the large companies that are decisively influencing this movement, helping to understand why the problem is neither specific nor easy to solve. The video also reserves space for a more technical explanation, addressing the different types of RAM and the differences that are key to understanding this crisis. This technical context allows us to connect two worlds that often seem separate: that of large language models and that of users who want to assemble a PC in pieces and find that this technological ambition ends up having a direct impact on their pocket. In the final section, Francisco puts on the table the question that many are asking: how long can this situation last. “Some estimate that price increases will be constant for the next 6 months, others talk about increases until 2027,” he explains, before closing with a series of reflections that help set expectations and understand what to expect from the market in the coming years. We invite you to see the full video on our YouTube channel and share your opinion both there and in this article. Images | Xataka In Xataka | In the midst of the RAM memory crisis, Samsung takes a leap with its HBM4 memory. It does not imply good news for the pocket

shows if there will be turbulence and how intense it will be before takeoff

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It doesn’t matter that you travel very occasionally that airports are almost your second home due to the number of planes you take each year that when the signal lights up and the plane begins to lurch, the tense silence flies over the cabin of the plane. Turbulence is part of the flight experience to a greater or lesser extent, but the less there is, the better for calm. There is an armrest from a Vueling plane that still has marks from my nails from a certain return flight from London to Bilbao a few years ago. There are airports and airports: from the smallest in the world to this other with short runway, mountains and lack of ILS going through the drama of landing on one full of solar panelsbut leaving aside the orography and characteristics of the terrain and facilities, logically time has a lot to say. Or rather, bad weather. Of climate change We don’t even talk. Thus, we can predict that if The next Three Kings night is going to be busy On the peninsula, climatologically speaking, taking a flight from Valencia to Madrid is probably not going to be as difficult as a mild June day can be. There are those who prefer to live in ignorance and deal with these situations when they arise, but you can also get ahead and glimpse the turbulence with this map. The map of the (possible) turbulence of your flight Turbli offers an intuitive interactive map using turbulence graphic guide forecastsan aviation forecasting system that displays atmospheric turbulence in real time and in the future. The data comes from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the National Weather Serviceboth official entities of the United States, and the Met Office of the United Kingdom. However, the map is global and is updated every six hours. The different options allow you to enter when you want to know what the weather will be like (from now to the next 24 hours) in the air, at what height (both meters and feet) and the origin and destination of your flight. For example, if you want to take a plane Madrid – Malaga it will probably be an Airbus A320 that reaches a maximum cruising altitude from approximately 11,900 to 12,100 meters. Although that is the flight ceiling, logically it rises and falls along the journey. Finally, just tap on ‘Get Forecast’ to clear up any doubts. Turbulence forecast for the Madrid – Malaga flight today The interactive map allows you to view the areas of turbulence that your flight could pass through. Thus, the graph shows the route and a chromatic legend that indicates how intense the turbulence will be depending on the height and what type of event according to SIGMET (Significant Meteorological Information), that is, the aeronautical weather alert message that warns of dangerous phenomena en route such as severe storms, strong turbulence, among others. Although the original resolution of the data is 0.25°, it is presented at 0.5° for faster page loading. However, you can always speed it up by tapping ‘Increase resolution’. The route provided is the one indicated in the pilot’s flight plan or, if not available, the one followed by the previous flight. However, since pilots can modify the route on the fly, it is possible to add waypoints for alternative routes. Although it is a visual and intuitive way to anticipate possible turbulence in general terms, it is simplified in terms of metrics and times, in addition, turbulence affects differently depending on the type of aircraft. In Xataka | The triangles on the plane window are not for decoration: they are a quick way to check that the flight is going well In Xataka | Whenever you wanted to find a cheap flight you opened Skyscanner. Now Google has something to offer you

The problem with animal experimentation is not a lack of ethics, it is that science still does not have a plan B

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Scientific research is very necessary for a society to advance with new treatments to alleviate diseases, for example. But there is a big problem behind it that still lingers and that for many people may be incomprehensible: the use of laboratory animals to test these new advances before doing them in humans. And, as recognized by the Spanish scientific community: “we would use alternative methods if we could.” A paradox. Although we live in a time in which artificial intelligence and bioengineering dominate the current paradigm of society, we continue to depend on a frame designed in 1959 to validate whether a drug is safe or not. This happens for the use of animal experimentationwhich has been a major ethical conflict within science for years. The problem is that despite all the advances that exist, the use, for example, of a laboratory mouse cannot be replaced due to the lack of an alternative that is as complete as this one. The problem. The regulatory framework that is currently on the table focuses on the 3R principle proposed by Russell and Burch more than 60 years ago: Replacement, Reduction and Refinement. A theory that a priori seems quite noble, since In a few words it can be summarized in: if you can not use animals, don’t use them; If you have to use them, use as few as possible; and if you use them, do them as little damage as possible. However, as science itself has analyzed, this framework has become ‘procedural’. That is to say, it has become a list of bureaucratic tasks that legitimizes the use of animals under the pretext that it is a necessary evil that we must assume to continue advancing as a society. The ethics. The bioethical analyzes carried out on this matter focus on the type of studies that are approved to use animals. And it is not analyzed at this point whether it will contribute much or little to scientific knowledge, but rather how the proposed experiment is designed. This way, if an experiment is well designed, it is approved to use animals. All this despite the fact that their contribution to knowledge is marginal or insignificant. Something that creates an “ethical hole”: we continue to assume certain animal harm in exchange for an uncertain or diffuse human benefit. The great promise. If ethics pushes us to change, technology should give us the tool to do so. This is where NAMs (New Approach Methods) come into play, which focus on AI simulations of organisms, organs on a chip or organoids. In this way, we can understand this advance as the cultivation of mini-brains or human kidneys in the laboratory to work with them. Something that on paper seems like a great idea, since we would be testing drugs with human cells directly, eliminating the problem of testing on a different species. The problem. When we go down to the technical detail, we find a large wall in front of us. As the experts explainthese technologies cover specific niches, such as the damage that a drug can do to the liver, but they cannot replicate the entire film. Because an organism is not only the effect on an organ, but how all the systems that we have interconnected influence. The problems encountered They can mainly be summarized in several points: There is no possibility of creating a blood system that cleans the tissue and nourishes it as occurs in the real organism. There is no immune or nervous system that can react to the drug or generate pain in an organ. In a chip with an ‘organ’ inside, the effect of the drug cannot be simulated several years from now. Prohibited areas. With all these points, there are fields as important as autoimmune diseases (when the body attacks its own cells) where These models are irreplaceable. All this because it is necessary to see the simultaneous interaction of all the organs in a living being. Regulation. Currently there are different organizations that try to prevent a drug from killing a person, such as the FDA in the United States and the EMA in Europe. Both agencies to approve a trial of a drug in humans demand massive security data that are taken from the animals themselves. In this way, the alternatives are not used massively because they are not validated by these organizations that require the use of animal models in their standards. An attitude that perpetuates the system, which for many is truly crazy, since science depends on animals if it wants to continue developing drugs that improve the lives of citizens. All this because no committee places more value on the life of a mouse than that of a human. The future. In the short term we will not see a big change in this aspect. Organoids and AI It does not seem that they are going to suddenly replace animal modelsbut will act as complementary systems to reduce the number used in laboratories. Images | Matthew Mejia In Xataka | Researchers removed Instagram and TikTok from 300 young people to see if their anxiety decreased. The results speak for themselves

In the middle of the ocean, 250 passengers on a plane learned that one of them was a stowaway. One shaped like a rat

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There are few things that can surprise you when you fly at 10,000 meters high in the middle of the ocean. The problem (the big problem) is that when something surprises you in that context, it is not usually a pleasant surprise. And much less if what surprises you is a rat. Can you imagine the feeling? We assume that something similar is what the 250 passengers They were flying from Amsterdam to Aruba, a small island in the Caribbean. The return trip, which passed through the nearby island of Bonaire, had to be suspended by the company itself, forcing passengers to wait one more night until the return plane was ready. A rat at 10,000 meters high By the time the plane wanted to arrive in Aruba, each and every one of the passengers on the KLM plane that was making the journey had already found out what was happening. Among his dreams of paradisiacal beaches and days of relaxation, the image of a rat had slipped in. Specifically, the rat shown by the videos recorded by the passengers themselvesmoving between the curtains that separate the seating categories or the overhead compartments, as can be seen in the images of the Dutch media Of Telegraaf. Click on the image to go to the Instagram post Evidently, the Dutch media has echoed the matter. According to RTL“the passengers remained calm and the crew did not lose sight of the animal at any time.” In Dutch News They point out that it took KLM 36 hours to hunt the animal after it was first seen. And that was the main problem why the return flight was cancelled. Once the rat was caught, the company had to leave more than 250 passengers on the ground in order to carry out a thorough cleaning and disinfect the entire interior of the plane. Asked if passengers traveling on board can request some type of compensation, experts pointed out Telegraaf which was complicated since it was an exceptional situation and they would have to prove that the airline was the real culprit for the entry of the rat. They explain that they could request a compensation economic if the study of the facts shows that the rat sneaked onto the plane into the compartments in which the catering is transported, but they affirm that it is complicated that this could have happened like this. Photo | Florian van Duyn and Nikolett Emmert In Xataka | In 2019, Iberia lost a dog before flying. Now the European Justice says that it is worth the same as a suitcase

A planet has just disappeared. NASA’s Hubble telescope has captured a violent cosmic event that changes everything

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Investigating the universe beyond the Solar System we know sometimes brings up more questions than answers. The search for exoplanets has left findings so different from what we know as fascinating. Thus, more than a decade ago the Kepler space telescope identified the Kepler-16ba planet with “two suns” along Star Wars Tatooine and the James Webb telescope stumbled upon a world of boiling lava that paradoxically it’s colder what the theory says. In the process of investigating the universe you can witness the disappearance of a planet, as NASA’s Hubble has monitored, to discover that there was nothing like a planet: they were in front of a violent cosmic phenomenon. First they detected a bright point of light and assumed that it was a planet covered in dust where the brightness of its star was reflected. Then the object disappeared and a different bright source appeared nearby. Finally, this international research team realized that they were not seeing planets at all: the light came from incandescent debris generated by violent collisions, as they later published in Science. A planetesimal collision that changes everything In their observations in time, they captured two different and very powerful impacts that generated large amounts of dust in the same planetary system, which constitutes a magnificent opportunity to understand how planets are formed and what type of materials they are made of. Their main hypothesis: they have glimpsed not one, but two extremely rare events: one (two) planetesimal collisionthat is, a collision between small rocky objects similar to asteroids. Northwestern University astrophysicist Jason Wang explains that it is the first time they have seen a planetesimal collision outside the solar system and that its study is “key to understanding how planets form and can also provide information about the structure of asteroids, something important for planetary defense programs such as the DART test.” Paul Kalas, an astronomer at the University of California at Berkeley and lead author, insists on the exceptionality of the event: “It is not present in any of our previous Hubble images, which means that we have just witnessed a violent collision between two massive objects and a huge cloud of debris, something that has no parallel in our current solar system.” By NASA, ESA, P. Kalas, J. Graham, E. Chiang, E. Kite (University of California, Berkeley), M. Clampin (NASA Goddard Space Flight Center), M. Fitzgerald (Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory), and K. Stapelfeldt and J. Krist (NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory) These collisions occurred in the planetary system surrounding the star Fomalhautwhich is larger than the Sun, is surrounded by an extensive and dense set of dusty debris belts and located about 25 light years from Earth, in the constellation Pisces Austrinus. That dust belt is so large that it is a real candy for research. Planet it seems, cloud of dust it is In 2008 they detected Fomalhaut b, a bright object of unknown nature that some researchers thought was a planet and others believed it was an expanding cloud of dust from a collision. Back in 2023, a new Hubble observation gave an unexpected twist to everything: the original light source was no longer there and another bright object had appeared in a slightly different area. As explains Wang, first They assumed it was Fomalhaut b, but they got a surprise: “We assumed the bright light was Fomalhaut b because it was the known source of the system. But by carefully comparing the new images with the old ones, we realized that it couldn’t be the same source. It was exciting, but also perplexing” So they had to change perspective and nomenclature: the original object was renamed Fomalhaut cs1 and its disappearance supports the idea that it was a cloud of dust that was slowly dispersing after a collision. They called the second bright source Fomalhaut cs2 and its behavior reinforces the conclusion that neither of the two objects was a planet: everything indicates that they are clouds of debris created when large planetesimals collide with each other. Investigating Fomalhaut cs2 they concluded that it looked very similar to the beginnings of cs1 from two decades ago, both in brightness and location. So the team already estimates the frequency of collisions in this guy in the system: every 100,000 years or even less. After all, in 20 years they have already seen two. Kalas explains that “if you took a movie of the last 3,000 years and sped it up so that each year lasted a fraction of a second, imagine how many flashes you would see. The Fomalhaut planetary system would be full of these crashes.” Fomalhaut cs1 no longer exists, but the research team wants to continue monitoring the system and has its eyes on cs2, which could hide more valuable information about how collisions develop in young planetary systems. Of course, in addition to the old Hubble, they will use the near-infrared camera of the James Webb Space Telescope since the NIRCam can capture detailed information about color, so they can determine the size and composition of dust grainsfor example if they contain water or ice. The confirmation of these collisions put a warning on the table for hunters of planets outside the Solar System: the gLarge clouds of dust can very well imitate the appearance of an exoplanetto by reflecting light from its star, which can lead to error using the reflected light detection system. Kalas sums it up: “What we learned from studying cs1 is that a large dust cloud can masquerade as a planet for many years.” As new observatories point to the sky to obtain direct images of Earth-like planets, differentiating between real planets and temporary dust clouds seems providential. In Xataka | Poland and Spain are the European countries that have increased their contribution to space the most. For very different reasons In Xataka | China reveals its cards for 2030: it will go in search of an “Earth 2.0” on its own Cover | Javier Miranda By ESA, NASA, and L. … Read more

The technology industry has been searching for the “next smartphone” for a decade. Now he thinks he found it with AI

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In the last decade, wearables have become intrinsically associated with health care and sports. And although in 2025 we can make the same association, there are a growing number of companies and devices that have committed themselves to turning them around to turn wearables into vehicles for AI. The leaders of some of the main big tech companies already They have glimpsed the end of the mobile and between the options (in practice, still very green) these wearables with AI appear, which today are more of a complement. In search of the new iPhone. In any case, the industry has been looking for mass hardware after the smartphone for almost two decades. The glasses seem to start by advantage, but the initiatives are many and very varied. In any case, it is no longer just about becoming the winning format, it is about materializing a device that covers needs yet to be defined and where the smartphone has set a very high ceiling. In fact, smartwatches have not come close to overshadowing it. AI glasses have an advantage. Of course, they are the best positioned. In the past CES 2025 we saw ‘smart’ glasses (although that semantics typical of the era of the failed Google Glass has already been banished in favor of the surname ‘with AI’) even in the soup with the promise of immersive and hands-free experiences, but Meta is the one who has landed and sold its product best. Makes perfect sense: Mark Zuckerberg himself has stated who believes that glasses are the ideal format for AI. And for Meta, AI is his new Multiverse. After all, as we have seen, glasses are a discreet and convenient way towards multimodality: visual, through their lenses; and oral, with its integrated microphones and speakers. But it doesn’t matter if we talk about Meta’s glasses or those of Googlethe new glasses smart They no longer look like a hulk, they are designed to be worn all day and their purpose is to interact with AI. Pendants, pins and everything else. Other gadgets that accompany you throughout the day for constant listening come into this mixed bag: from the Bee AI bracelet to the LimitLess pendants or Friend passing through the ring Stream Ring or the difficult to describe Plaud NotePin: it looks like the capsule of Xiaomi bracelets and as such, it can be worn on the wrist, on the neck and even as a tacky pin. These initiatives have not gone unnoticed by the large companies, which have made a move by opening their portfolio: Bee AI bought Amazon in summer and LimitLess did the same Goal just a few weeks ago. old acquaintances. AI is also being integrated into existing devices: Samsung and Google have put Gemini on their WearOS watches, Garmin has a premium subscription to analysis with AI for its watches, Fitbit is testing an AI trainerthe same thing that Apple does with its Watch or the AI translation on AirPods. Even the rings Oura they have their advisor with AI. Every breath you take…We mentioned above that AI glasses were born to be worn all day, something that can be extrapolated to the bulk of the devices that we have been listing. For AI assistants to work well and offer something extra on the mobile, they need to know a lot about the user and there is no better way to do this than on a wearable that is with you 24/7. Disturbing but true. In this field there are unknowns such as what format will be successful and whether it will be as successful or more successful than the smartphone (even if it is buried), but there are two unquestionable facts: that there is a war to have hegemonic AI among big tech and that the industry has seen wearables as the ideal vehicle to implement it. In Xataka | Pendants, bracelets and “buttons” on the forehead: new AI wearables listen to you (and record) all day In Xataka | The voice recorders seemed dead. AI and new hardware are making them irresistible again Cover | Javier Lacort and Applesfera

Their models not only perform just as well but are much cheaper

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Sometimes it is difficult to keep up with the innovations that artificial intelligence is leaving us. However, it is also a good sign that there is voracious competition and that, even if we thought that companies like OpenAI or Google had every chance of completely dominating this sector, not all the fish has been sold yet. And what began as a race to create the most powerful models has become a battle to deliver the best performance at the lowest possible cost. And in this new competition, China leads. Change of third. For years, the conversation in AI focused solely on which model was more capable: who passed more benchmarks, who solved more complex problems, who generated better answers. But that phase is being relegated by another in which price is once again a determining factor in making decisions. This transition marks a turning point, since it is mainly Chinese startups that are demonstrating remarkable ability to produce powerful and extraordinarily economical models. Qwen leads the revolution. As Kai Williams highlights in the ‘Understanding AI’ newsletterAlibaba’s open model ecosystem, known as qwenhas become the most downloaded model family in the world, according to Hugging Face data analyzed by the ATOM Project. “Qwen alone is roughly matching the entire US ecosystem of open models today,” counted Nathan Lambert, researcher at the Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence, at the PyTorch conference. The Chinese company has achieved something that seemed difficult: create competitive models in practically all sizes, from small to 235,000 million parameters, offering options for any business need. Real business adoption. In addition to the technical figures of their models, the use cases also deserve special mention. In October, Brian Chesky, CEO of Airbnb, caused a bit of a stir stating that his company “relies a lot on Alibaba’s Qwen model” because it is fast, cheap and powerful enough. This statement is interesting because of the context, since we are talking about a top American company preferring to use an open Chinese model, something that is powerful enough to change the perception of the industry. Williams points out in the text that, in addition to Airbnb, there are also other companies that would prefer to adopt Qwen’s models, but for reasons of image or regulatory compliance, they cannot. Mainly because they are models from China. And that could be the great barrier for Qwen and the rest of the Chinese models that would make its adoption difficult. So Chinese startups have a big job ahead of them to try to change that perception in an increasingly complicated geopolitical context. Kimi K2 gave the surprise. If Qwen dominates through volume and versatility, Kimi K2 Thinking It stands out for being possibly the best open model in the world in terms of benchmark test scores. Just like share Williams in the newsletter, Artificial Analysis currently ranks it as the most powerful model not created by OpenAI, Google or Anthropic. DeepSeek and the domino effect. The launch of DeepSeek R1 in January was the catalyst that unleashed this wave. It arrived just four months after OpenAI announced your first reasoning model, o1but with a crucial difference: DeepSeek openly published the model parameters. The noise was such that even the DeepSeek app briefly surpassed ChatGPT as the most downloaded app in the iOS App Store, Nvidia shares fell almost 20% days later, and Chinese companies rushed to integrate the model into their products. Today we are still waiting for DeepSeek to speak again with its next deep reasoning model, about which not much is known yet. On the other side, putting out fires. The United States has not sat idly by. When it comes to open weight models, OpenAI launched theirs in AugustIBM published its Granite 4 models in October, and Google, Microsoft, Nvidia and the Allen Institute for AI have also introduced new ‘semi-open’ models this year. But none have reached the level of the main Chinese open models. Lambert, who has led efforts to advance a new generation of American open models, acknowledges that progress has been slow and the gap is widening. Everything indicates that 2026 will be decisive in determining the pace of adoption by companies and, above all, in determining the choice of model in an increasingly immense ocean. Cover image | Xataka with Mockuuups Studio and Kimi AI In Xataka | NVIDIA begins to make moves with China: it is considering increasing production of the H200 in the face of an avalanche of orders, according to Reuters

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