Mobile Tech & Gadgets

The world will run out of memory for AI chips until 2027. And cell phones and cars are already paying the price

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The big bottleneck in the artificial intelligence industry has nothing to do with AI models, GPUs, or data centers. It has to do with memory, and for months we are immersed in a crisis of which now the manufacturers give us more information. Three companies—Samsung, SK Hynix and Micron—control 90% of global production, but current estimates indicate that between the three They can only cover about 60% of expected demand through 2027. That’s terrible news not only for AI, but also for everything non-AI. The era of memory scarcity. These three manufacturers have prioritized HBM production for AI accelerators because these memories leave better margins. The direct consequence is the shortage of DRAM memories, which are used in PCs and mobile phones, and since October 2025 we have seen how this market has skyrocketed in price. Betting everything on one segment has left the other dangerously neglected. Samsung will have new factories. According to indicate In Nikkei, Samsung plans to launch its fourth memory manufacturing plant in Pyeongtaek, South Korea, in 2026, although mass production will not begin until 2027 or later. Furthermore, not only memories will be manufactured in that plant. There is a fifth plant under construction on that same technology campus, but it will be dedicated to HBM chips and will not begin operating until at least 2028. The South Korean giant has another ace up its sleeve: the United States. HBM to power. SK Hynix is ​​the only one of the three that has a concrete supply improvement for 2026, because it has already started manufacturing HBM chips at its Cheongju plant in February. It is also accelerating construction of a plant in Yongin, near Seoul, with the goal of completing it by February 2027. Micron also asks for patience. Meanwhile, Micron, the American company, has the goal of starting production of HBM chips in Idaho and Singapore in 2027, and will build a factory in Hiroshima that will theoretically come into operation in 2028. It has also just purchased a plant in Taiwan from Powechip, but the chips that come out of it will not be available before the second half of 2027. This is not enough. The consulting firm Counterpoint Reserach estimates that in order to resolve the current DRAM crisis, an industry-wide production increase of 12% annually until 2027 would be required. However, current plans add up to a growth of 7.5%, which makes it clear that these expansions by these three manufacturers are not enough. For Counterpoint analysts, the consequence is clear: the balance between supply and demand will not be normalized until 2028. SK Hynix is ​​already talking about supply limitations for AI chips could last until 2030, and the truth is that all the forecasts only confirm that this problem will still last for years. We consumers pay the price. Memory is an absolutely transversal product that is everywhere. 80-90% of current memory chips go to computers, mobile phones and servers, and the rest to cars and industrial equipment. The most direct impact is already in the mobile market entry-level: memory already represented 20% of the manufacturing bill for one of these smartphones, but that figure is expected to reach 40% by mid-2026. That gives manufacturers few (or no) options, which will impact that cost on the price of these devices. And so with everything. IDC esteem that mobile sales will fall by 13% in 2026 due to this circumstance. The danger of cycles. The memory industry has a history of cycles in which the rise and fall of memory prices is traditional. In 2023 there was a collapse in prices after post-pandemic demand for PCs faded. Several manufacturers recorded historic losses, and learned the lesson of overproducing to meet demand. Now that we need more production, manufacturers are being much more cautious when it comes to increasing their production or investing in new factories. For them, by the way, the crisis is going great: Samsung has earned in three months of 2026 what it earned in all of 2025. China to the rescue. Although South Korea and the United States dominate global memory production, there are several Chinese manufacturers that are gradually gaining relevance. YMTC and CXMT They have been growing significantly in production for some time and that is making now have a golden opportunity to gain market share over competitors that they seemed unattainable. Image | Liam Briese In Xataka | The situation with RAM prices is so desperate that there are already those who build their own memory at home

They prefer to quadruple loans to their suppliers

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Juan Roig has been climbing steps in the list of greatest fortunes in Spain. However, he has been earning exactly the same amount as executive president of Mercadona for three years. Specifically, 12 million gross euros per year. A figure that, on paper, sounds stratospheric, but is more modest than it seems when compared to what they charge. other great businessmen in charge of companies from the likes of Mercadona. What has changed this year are the movements he has made with that money. Because beyond the salary, the Mercadona accounts reveal a striking decision regarding their suppliers. A stable salary, brutal taxation. The 12 million gross euros that Roig received in 2025 are divided into two tranches: 11 million as sole administrator of Inmo-Alameda, your patrimonial company which controls 50.6% of Mercadona, and the remaining million as responsible for the chain itself. Once withholding is applied Personal income tax of 54%, That remuneration remains at 5.5 million net. However, it is not common for a CEO or president to receive this compensation in full as an annual salary and not broken down into different bonuses that could reduce their tax bill. The comparison with other large shareholders and founders is revealing. Marta Ortega, president of Inditex, received one million euros as a salary in 2025, complemented by company shares. Ana Botín, president of Banco Santander, received a salary of 3.43 million euros in 2025, to which are added a short-term variable of 3.09 million and another long-term variable of 1.77 million. In addition, it is complemented with contributions to his pension plan and bonus in the form of shares of the entity he presides over. In total, some 18.5 million euros. If we go to the other side of the Atlantic, Mark Zuckerberg at Meta and Elon Musk at Tesla are assigned a symbolic salary of one dollar and articulate their real compensation through millionaire stock option bonuseswhose taxation is lower than that of an ordinary salary. The key difference between these CEOs and Juan Roig is that Mercadona is not listed on the stock market, which prevents it from resorting to that mechanism: the money comes directly from salary and dividend. More loans must be given: the cost of Store 9. Mercadona is transforming your supermarkets with a new model called Store 9that rearrange the fresco sections and completely redefines how the fishmonger works. Traditional counters they will lose space in favor of tray lines, and the entire section will be centralized in a single point in the establishment. The problem is that this change is not only faced by Mercadona, but its suppliers also need to industrialize their processes to be able to serve the product under the new conditions. And that costs money. That’s where the financing comes in. The loans that Mercadona grants to its suppliers They went from 41 to 171 million euros between 2024 and 2025, quadrupling their volume in a single year. The chain itself has recognized that this increase responds to financial support lent to its suppliers specialized in fish so that they can face the conversion and keep up with Mercadona towards its new supermarket concept. The Roig Arena: 400 million at a time. According to published The EconomistInmo-Alameda’s accounts closed 2025 with a consolidated result of 1,277 million euros, 4% less than the previous year. The main cause is in the decision to account for the 400 million invested in the Roig Arena in a single exercise, which generated a negative result of equivalent magnitude. The logic behind the movement is to take the hit once and for all so that the pavilion can operate from scratch, without carrying the debt of its construction. The venue, inaugurated in September 2025, generated 11 million euros in its first months of activity, and estimates point to an annual economic impact of 150 million thanks to concerts, sporting and cultural events. Outside the Arena, Roig allocated a total of 220 million in 2025 from his net salary and dividends to initiatives such as the business school Navy CompaniesValencia Basket and the Trinidad Alfonso Foundation, within the Legacy Project which has been promoted since 2012 by Juan Roig and Hortensia Herrero. In Xataka | The average salary of Ibex 35 managers has grown by 172% in two decades: the purchasing power of its employees, not so much Image | Mercadona

The flying experience has changed. Airbus thinks it can take it much further with a double bed, bathroom and bar

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For years, flying has been an experience increasingly split in two. While the economy class has been adjusting space and services, the highest part of the plane has become the terrain where airlines and manufacturers try to mark distances with increasingly exclusive proposals. What we have seen now fits squarely into that logic: Airbus has taken advantage of the Aircraft Interiors Expo 2026 to show how far you think you can stretch that idea in your A350-1000the model with which he wants to take first class to an even more ambitious level. The European manufacturer has set the direction of its cabins for the coming years quite clearly. In the center there is a “Master Suite” for two passengers, located between the two corridors at the front and designed as the most exclusive space of the entire complex. According to Airbus, there would be access to its own bathroom, a changing area, a bar and a double bed. A series of elements and comforts of a much higher level. Of course, it is important not to lose sight of the important nuance: we are not facing an already closed cabin for an airline, but rather a concept whose development has just started. How Airbus wants to remake the A350-1000 first class To make room for this new first class, Airbus has not limited itself to drawing a larger suite within the already existing space. What it proposes is a deeper reorganization of the area located between doors 1 and 2, making the most of that part of the plane to dedicate more surface area for higher category passengers. According to the company, elements that previously took up space in the main cabin, such as sinks or storage areas, would move to a new central module placed just behind door 1, in front of the cockpit door. Access to the crew rest area would also be moved there, with the idea of ​​reducing inconvenience and gaining privacy. That Airbus has chosen this model to develop the idea does not seem coincidental. We are talking about the largest member of the A350 family, a version that, according to the company itself, is seven meters longer than the -900 variant and can accommodate up to 40 more passengers. In its commercial sheet, Airbus presents it as its reference model in the large fuselage market and ensures that it offers 40% more surface area for premium category seats. Added to this is another argument that fits well with this proposal: high ceilings, a spacious cabin and interior proportions with which the manufacturer believes it can further reinforce the feeling of space. Behind all this there is also a fairly clear commercial reading. Airbus maintains that it already there are 10 clients that have chosen first class cabins for their A350s and adds that around five airlines are currently in the customization phase, so they could study incorporating parts of this concept. So everything seems to indicate that the calendar is moving in the long term: Airbus places the possible entry into service of the first elements around 2030. What Airbus wanted to do here goes beyond showing a striking suite or a conceptual fair image. It also lets us see where the company believes the most exclusive part of the cabin can evolve, with more space, more privacy and an even more differentiated service offering. Still, between that vision and a plane operating passengers there is quite a way to go. For now we are dealing with an idea in development, but an idea that helps understand how Airbus wants to strengthen its more premium proposal in the coming years. Images | Airbus In Xataka | Commercial aviation is based on very old aircraft. The Iran war is going to make it even worse

is turning old mines into lakes

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The energy transition has a hidden side that often remains in the background: it is not only saying goodbye to fossil fuels but also thinking about what to do with these degraded lands after years of extractive activity. The mines. Leaving these exploited lands to their fate is a waste in every sense. Germany knows this and has promoted the largest landscape intervention in Europe: the Lusatian Lake District. You can see it better in the photo that illustrates this article: the before and after: what began as a network of huge open-pit coal mines is being transformed into a complex system of more than 20 interconnected artificial lakes, a true vacation paradise for sailing or taking a bike ride. In fact, You can now book a getaway over there. The project. Between Berlin and Dresden, Germany is transforming one of the most degraded landscapes in Europe into the largest system of artificial lakes on the continent: Lausitzer Seenland. This is a conversion project of old open pit lignite mines in a network of 23 lakes that occupy 13,600 hectaresten of them connected by navigable canals forming a continuous area of ​​7,000 hectares. The state-owned company LMBV Lausitzer und Mitteldeutsche Bergbau-Verwaltungsgesellschaft) oversees the technical execution, which includes the creation of tourism infrastructure, such as beaches, ports, cycling and camping areas, along with state-of-the-art facilities. The process is long and need a lot of money: Going from a mine to a long-term safe lake costs between 200 and 600 million euros and in Lusatia alone it has already cost 7 billion euros. Why is it important. This project represents the largest environmental restoration effort of post-mining landscapes in Europe and constitutes a relevant case study for the rehabilitation of degraded areas. As collect this analysis from the German Federal Environment Agency, 19 of these lakes have already achieved good/high ecological potential. That is, recovery is possible. Beyond ecological recovery, the lakes also fulfill water management functions: during 2018, more than 62 million cubic meters were released from the lakes to raise low levels of the Spree and Schwarze Elster rivers during drought, such as collect the local media Niederlausitz Aktuell. The project also has significant socioeconomic implications: the government has destined 40,000 million euros to promote this transition from mining in the eastern coal regions towards other vectors such as sustainable tourism. Context. At the time of the German Democratic Republic were extracted more than 2,000 million tons of lignite from depths greater than 60 meters, leaving enormous craters in the landscape. Lusatia was the country’s gasoline: in 1989, lignite production there reached 195.1 million tons. In total, open pit mining of lignite has devastated 179,490 hectares in Germany. German reunification in 1990 marked a before and after. The fall in energy demand and that the Federal Environment Agency will classify it Since lignite is the most polluting fossil fuel, it brought about a progressive dismantling of its mining. During the 1990s the LMBV was tasked with restoring 19 open pit mining areas in Lusatia. As explains Dr. Uwe Steinhuber of LMBV, it will take at least two generations to complete it. How they do it. The rehabilitation of Lusatia is supported by geotechnical stabilization and active hydrological control, such as collects LMBV in this report. To transform mining craters into safe lakes, it applies deep vibration compaction techniques that prevent liquefaction of sandy soil, while accelerating filling through controlled diversion of flows from the Spree River. The process is monitored by the Copernicus satellite, which detects ground movements. Water chemistry is the other great technical challenge in that the oxidation of pyrite causes extreme acidification such as documents the Canadian Journal of Soil Science. To neutralize it, they use treatment plants and ships, which allows them to reach the quality standards of the Federal Environment Agency. Yes, but. We have already seen that the calendar is long and the budget astronomical, but LMBV warns that still remains: at the moment they have invested 7,000 million euros, but the total cost of the project (which includes other regions) amounts to 13,800 million. The entire process will end in this decade, but it will be necessary to apply surveillance in the coming generations, both for contaminants and the geological stability of the area. Despite all efforts, rehabilitation is far from ideal: of the 36 lakes assessed by the Federal Environment Agency (which includes other lakes outside the tourist district), 12 they got “moderate” classification due to mercury or endocrine disrupting compounds such as tributyltin and one presented “poor” status due to excess nutrients. There is scientific evidence which support that mining soils present severe physical, chemical and biological limitations that make complete ecological restoration difficult. In Xataka | Germany has had a crazy idea to solve one of the problems of renewables: covering a lake with solar panels In Xataka | A mining company believes that under the soil of La Mancha there is a “Gold” of rare earths. And at the moment they won’t let him take it out Cover | Tourismusverband Lausitzer Seenland (Steffen Rasche)

the remains of a 17th century nobleman that have not decomposed over the years

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In the crypt of a small rural church in Kampehl, a town in Brandenburg, one of the most studied and controversial corpses on the entire continent has been lying for more than three centuries: that of Christian Friedrich von Kahlbutz, a feudal lord of the town who died in 1702. What is so special about a nobleman? German Prussian died more than 300 years ago? That at this point he should be decomposed and not only is he not, but his body is preserved in an exceptional way, that is, mummified naturally, without anyone embalming it. The discovery. It was the year 1794 when, while the Kampehl church was being renovated, workers opened the family crypt with the intention of moving the remains and demolishing the vault. Over there they found three coffins: two contained completely decomposed corpses and in the third was the body of Christian Friedrich von Kahlbutz, quite intact, dry and with an appearance reminiscent of leather. The nobleman was a mummy that preserved recognizable facial remains, remains of hair and part of the clothing they used to bury him (another thing is that with the passage of time and desecrations he remained naked, which earned him that nickname). Since the coffin had no name, the initials on the shroud served to identify him. The Kalebuz knight is extremely well preserved for his age. Via: Anagoria The character. If the state of preservation of Christian Friedrich von Kahlbutz is already striking, his life (and the legends that have emerged around it) are not far behind. The knight Kalebuz (that is the correct spelling according to the parish book of the Köritz church) was not actually a knight by military rank (he was a cornet) but by belonging to the nobility, he participated in the Battle of Fehrbellin and he won but not before injuring his left knee, as they say. Stay with this last piece of information. As a reward, they granted him the lordship of Kampehl. There he married and had numerous legitimate children and many others illegitimate. Among other things, because among its practices was the right of stay. In 1690, a servant named Maria Leppin accused him of the murder of her fiancé, Pastor Pickert, supposedly because the young woman had denied him the right to stay. One of the (many) good things about his status was that swearing that he had not been was enough for acquittal. And so he did in the court of Dreetz. The legend tells that in that oath he said something like: “If I am the murderer, may God ensure that my corpse never rots.” Since the original trial records no longer exist, there is no way to verify it. The hypotheses of its natural embalming. Leaving aside the explanation of the divine promise for obvious reasons, several explanations for the mummification of the Kalebuz knight have been proposed over the years: Mummification by healing (yes, like sausage) is the main one: the coffin used was of exceptional quality, made of double oak and raised on four legs, which allowed dry air currents to extract moisture from the body before bacterial decomposition. This was helped by a well-ventilated crypt, the sealing of the coffin to prevent access by ghoul insects, and the condition of the corpse itself. Apparently Kahlbutz probably suffered a serious lung disease (such as tuberculosis) and was already very deteriorated, with little nutritional substrate for microorganisms. This is what is deduced from comprehensive analysis report of the team Professor Andreas Winkelmannprofessor of anatomy at the Brandenburg Medical School Theodor Fontane. The effect of ingesting toxic substances. Another hypothesis that is more difficult to verify point to the chronic ingestion of toxic substances common in the pharmacy of the time (such as arsenic or mercury) that could have impregnated the tissues with compounds that inhibited decomposition, in addition to, of course, slowly poisoning him. After three centuries, these substances transform or volatilize and leave little analytical trace. Soil conditions. In addition, there is research that suggest that the sandy and dry composition of the crypt subsoil could have been a contributing factor in the extraction of moisture. Mummification by healing, the main hypothesis. Anagoria Yes, but. The passage of time, looters and legends do not make it easy to shed some light and science on the mystery of the good preservation of the Kalebuz knight. The fact that the trial records do not exist is in fact the least of the problems. The thorniest thing is identity: trusting everything to the initials of the shroud is a delicate matter. In 1983 a computed tomography made by Professor Meinhard Lüning at the Charité Hospital in Berlin found no trace of the knee injury. Neither does the 2024 investigation. Furthermore, Knight Kalebuz had two sons with the same initials, although it is not recorded that they died in Kampehl. In 2024 they also did a DNA analysis and there they could neither confirm nor deny that tuberculosis was the cause of death. In short: it is not known what ended the life of this nobleman. The most disconcerting thing is that the CT scan showed a pencil in the middle of the chest cavity. The only explanation is a subsequent manipulation: in 1895 the doctor Rudolf Virchow performed an extraction of tissue leaving a hole in the chest, which made it possible for someone to insert the object. The pencil was identified as Faber brand and dated between 1900 and 1920, which fits with the period in which the mummy was already on display to the public. In Xataka | A treasure hunter looted a shipwreck, did not reveal where he had kept the treasure and spent 10 years in prison. Now you are free to get it back In Xataka | We just discovered that a semi-legendary Nile king really existed thanks to a 17th century document found in trash Cover | Wikimedia and Mmoka

The Fascinating Mathematics Behind How to Cut It Perfectly in One Slice

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Imagine having a sandwich in front of you with two slices of bread and in the middle a slice of ham, which you want to cut with a single straight cut with a knife, so that the top bread, the bottom bread and the ham are divided exactly in half. This is something that makes us wonder: would it always be possible no matter how the ingredients are arranged? And this, which for our intuition has a relatively simple answer, for mathematicians has been the basis for creating the ‘ham sandwich theorem‘. His story. Although the name sounds like a university hallway joke, we are dealing with a very serious classical mathematical theorem. For trace its originwe must travel to 1938, where there is the first known evidence of this problem and which appeared in a note by the Polish mathematician Hugo Steinhaus in the magazine Mathesis Polska. The difference is that at that time slices of bread were not used, but rather he simultaneously bisected meat, bone and fat from a ham with a single flat cut. Although it must be detailed that Steinhaus proposed his conjecture, but it was the mathematician Stefan Banach who managed to prove it, making it exist for a long time. many doubts about who had the attribution of this theorem. How it was demonstrated. To see that the perfect cut really exists, the mathematician had to resort to topology and reduce the problem to the so-called Borsuk-Ulam theorem. Without going into the formulas for this, Banach’s proof uses the unit sphere. To give us an idea, if we consider all the possible directions in which we can point our knife on the sandwich, we can define a continuous mathematical function that evaluates what volume fraction of each ingredient remains on the “positive side” of the knife. Here the Borsuk-Ulam theorem guarantees us that, in any three-dimensional sphere, there are always two opposite points that will have the same result. In summary. In practical terms, this means that mathematics assures us that there will always be an exact angle and position for the knife that will balance the volumes of bread, ham and cheese in an exact 50% ratio. What is it for? Beyond the anecdotal aspect of seeing how a sandwich stars in a mathematical theorem, it is important to highlight that it has applications in geometry and computer science to create complete algorithms to be able to process a large amount of data. Today, this problem is a classic in mathematics teaching. Dissemination platforms in Spanish, such as the well-known blog Gaussians or the channel Smyth Academyit they use usually to explain advanced topological concepts in an intuitive way, and all ultimately due to this concept that we have all done at some point in the kitchen. Images | Suea Sivilaisith In Xataka | This ranking shows which scientists have saved the most lives with their discoveries

Einstein told us how to do it, engineering tells us it’s almost impossible

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After the success of Artemis IIscience already has its sights set on the colonization of the Moon or Mars. The problem is that, for this to be possible, it would be necessary to develop technologies that do not exist today. For example, you can spend a short time under the effect of microgravity, but if someone wanted to spend very long stays in space, much longer than those of the International Space Station, they would need artificial gravity generation systems. If not, your health could seriously deteriorate. And how is that gravity generated? Theoretically we know it, the problem is getting it. Einstein gave the first clues. In his Theory of Special RelativityEinstein described something known as the equivalence effect, which stated that gravity and acceleration are indistinguishable effects when they have the same value. That is, since the force of gravity on Earth is 9.8 N, equivalent to an acceleration of 9.8 meters per second squared, if an astronaut traveled in a spacecraft that ascends with an acceleration of 9.8 m/s², he would feel his feet clinging to the ground, even without gravity. For this reason, all theoretical projects to create artificial gravity are based on this principle. Too much fuel. One option would be the example we have seen. A rocket accelerating at 9.8 m/s². The problem is that to maintain this figure constantly unfeasible amounts of fuel would be needed. It is not something feasible. Better spinning. Given the technical impossibility of the first option, all projects aim at centripetal acceleration. That is, the acceleration that a rotating body maintains. If we were inside a ship that rotates with a centripetal acceleration of 9.8 m/s², we could imitate gravity. But there is a problem. Centripetal acceleration is equal to angular velocity squared times the radius of the spin path. As if it were the spoke of a bicycle wheel. Angular velocity is the speed at which that object rotates. If the radius is small, a very high speed is needed to achieve a given acceleration. And of course, the people inside that circular ship would end up very dizzy. On the other hand, in very large ships it would not be necessary to turn so quickly. Therefore, for a small ship it would not be viable, but perhaps something like this could be achieved if a new space station is built in the future. In fact, There is a project to build a luxury hotel in the space that would be shaped like a giant wheel. It would be constantly spinning, with the exact radius and speed to mimic the effect of gravity. Doesn’t anyone think about the Moon? The objective of lunar bases is that their inhabitants can be directly perched on the selenite surface. The same would happen with the Martian bases.. They would have to be on the surface. Therefore, it would not be viable to be inside a flying wheel. On the other hand, a wheel could be built to which the lunar colonizers would go from time to time. Just enough to reverse to a certain extent the harmful effects of microgravity. It would be like a kind of microgravity spa. This is something that a team of scientists from Kyoto University has already designed. They have named it The Glass. The consequences can be very serious. When we are not subjected to gravity, body fluids can travel to the headcausing brain inflammation and vision problems. This also affects the circulatory system, as it can increase pressure in specific vessels, such as the jugular vein. Even the heartbeat would be affected. On the other hand, by not needing to be in a rigid posture, the muscles gradually atrophy and the bones lose density. All this without counting possible neurological, balance or intestinal problems. Long stays in a microgravity situation are unfeasible, so it will be necessary to have a clear project to develop artificial gravity. If we want to live in space, we will really need it. Image | Orbital Assembly Corporation and Kyoto University In Xataka | We knew that Mars has gravity. Now we have just discovered the unexpected effect it has on the Earth’s climate

Meta will surpass Google in digital advertising for the first time in history

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That Google is the queen of online advertising is one of the great constants of the Internet, but everything indicates that the reign is approaching its end. If the predictions come true, for the first time in history, Meta will be the company that generates the most advertising revenue. Projections. At the moment the surprise has not occurred, but the projections of the advertising analysis firm Emarketer are clear: Meta is going to snatch the throne of online advertising from Google in 2026. Specifically, they project that Meta will earn 243.46 billion dollars from advertising, while Google will earn 239.54 billion. Why is it important. Google’s dominance in the online advertising market was absolute. In fact, that domain has been in the regulators’ crosshairs for years and It has become very expensive for Google. Meta’s surprise, although not by a huge difference, is confirmation that the internet has been reconfigured with social networks and that the cake is much more distributed. Considering that Google has built its empire on the foundation of online advertising, it is even more relevant. The Meta Boost: AI. Meta has a portfolio of products with millions of users such as Instagram, Facebook, Threads and WhatsApp. According to Emarketer, the company has been “incredibly patient” in building solid usage habits in its user base before introducing ads. But what has caused this acceleration has been the integration of AI in content recommendation systems. This has allowed them to increase the viewing time of Reels by 30%, which translates into more advertising and therefore more income, specifically they are expected to reach the 50,000 million only with Reels. Goal Advantage+. It is the suite with AI that Meta offers advertisers. In addition to offering the platform to advertise, Meta also provides a ton of tools ranging from advertising actions to the creation of the ads themselves with generative audio, text and video AI. According to the brand’s results, revenue from video generation reached $10 billion in the last quarter of 2025. It was seen coming. It is not something that happened overnight, but rather The change has been in the works for years.. The displacement of searches was moving to other specialized platforms such as Amazon, Instagram or TikTok. With the emergence of AI, the landscape has become even more fragmented: with chatbots that provide answers to many user queries without us going through the classic search engine. Google is no longer the ‘default’ when doing a search, especially for younger generations who prefer audiovisual content. OpenAI enters the business. A few days ago we talked about OpenAI’s ambitious plans for its newly launched advertising business. The company hopes that, by 2030, they will have generated $100 billion with ads on ChatGPT, that’s nothing. It is still a much smaller amount than those managed by Meta or Google in a year, but it is enough for the impact to be noticeable. With social networks the exodus of searches began and perhaps we are facing the second great displacement. Time will tell. Image | Xataka, with Gemini In Xataka | The US has just opened a new wound in the Google empire: the justice system declares part of its advertising business illegal

‘Idiocracy’ was supposed to be a satire of a stupider future. The fear is that it is becoming real

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This week, Flamenca Stone shared a video on Bluesky with the comment “this is literally an ‘Idiocracy’ plot.” It is not the first time it has happened nor will it be the last. The 2006 film that went unnoticed in its day (more than sought after, to avoid lawsuits from the many brands that were satirized) has been generating that same recognizable chill for years, like a kind of perverse version of The Simpsons: You watch a satire and you don’t know if you are watching a documentary ahead of its time. 20 years of predictions. It took Mike Judge three years to get ‘Idiocracy’ released. When it did, it grossed just $495,000 in its first weekend. Fox did not organize press screenings, and did not even invest in trailers for television: it was too acidic and uncomfortable. The director of ‘Beavis and Butt-Head’ and ‘Silicon Valley’ had constructed a satire about an America in the year 2505 where idiots had reproduced so much among themselves that the population was essentially composed of brainless people. A perfectly normal young man from the present wakes up at that time (yes, it’s the plot of ‘Futurama’, then recently canceled) and is celebrated as practically a genius. Idiocracy Today. Time has put it in its place and despite going unnoticed at its premiere, its edition in domestic formats first and its passage through streaming later (now you have it on Movistar Plus+) has given it a certain cult status. Let’s review some of the questions that were raised as part of an absolutely exaggerated satire (as shown by the fact that Judge decided to set it in no less than the 26th century) but that seem chillingly close in the current context. EITHER as the director himself said“I am no prophet. I was wrong for 490 years.” The spark of life. Let’s start, without going any further, with the use of soft drinks as irrigation water. In the future, the sports drink Brawndo has replaced water, which has caused crops to not grow for decades. “Brawndo has what plants need. It has electrolytes.” They tell the protagonist when he is surprised by the absence of water. Of course, no one knows what the hell an electrolyte is. Meanwhile, the reality: Trump thinks soda cures cancer because they kill the grass and therefore, possibly also kill the cancer cells. If you ask me, much crazier than ‘Idiocracy’, although the truth is that it is documented that more and more people They opt for sports or energy drinks when before they drank water. All brands. In the movie, the Costco chain has its law school. The country’s only telecommunications operator is called AOL-TimeWarner-Taco Bell-US Government, and the stripes on the flag are logos. Is especially significant (by visionary in pre-streaming times) the scene of the television screen: the program occupies a box in the center of the screen, surrounded by advertising everywhere. YouTube or any video streaming website looks similar. As for the presence of brands in public institutions or sponsorships of public spaces, it stopped being a dystopian issue a long time ago, eh, Madrid residents? Recognizable president. Dwayne Elizondo Mountain Dew Herbert Camacho, former wrestler and president of the United States in 2505, enters Congress on a motorcycle, with an electric guitar, shooting into the air. His management capacity is zero and his charisma is overwhelming for a country of idiots. Actor Terry Crews He admitted feeling a chill when he started watching Trump rallies in 2016. Co-writer Etan Cohen he wrote on Twitter that same year who couldn’t believe the film had been turned into a documentary. In 2024, Hulk Hogan appeared at the Republican National Convention with a speech straight out of a wrestling promo. The similarities continue to this day, but we are left with Espinof’s reflection about the film: the logic of entertainment has completely colonized the political debate. Stop thinking by convention. The deterioration of language in ‘Idiocracy’ is part of society: words are replaced by pictograms and reasoning processes are diluted. Nobody remembers how to reason without a screen in front of you. In 2025, an MIT study warned that artificial intelligence tools can accelerate cognitive decline by mechanizing routine tasks and leaving only exception handling to the user. McGill University Research they point in the same direction with GPS and spatial memory: the more you use it, the less you remember how to navigate without it. Intelligence dies. In his analysis of an increasingly anti-intellectual society, Jot Down described how this increasingly established current no longer presents itself as ignorance but as overinformation: the illusion that accessing infinite data for short periods of twenty seconds is equivalent to learning. We live it continually: the algorithm rewards short formats, the echo chamber of social networks amplifies what you already believe with slogans. That “No to critical thinking” is the backbone of all of ‘Idiocracy’ and is the true subtext of the film. Nobody is perfect. ‘Idiocracy’ was wrong, of course, in its initial approach: the disaster began when the rich stopped having children and then the lower classes without basic education began to reproduce. An idea with dangerously eugenic overtones that fortunately the rest of the film does not affect and that has been completely overwhelmed by a non-negotiable reality: if the current world has shown us anything, it is that the billionaires around us are not, precisely, the sharpest pencils in the case. In Xataka | If the question is whether AI is already as good as human intelligence, the answer is: solve this puzzle

The rarest and rarest feline on the planet has found the nail in the coffin that was missing: the war in Iran

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He asian cheetah (Acinonyx jubatus venaticus) is one of the rarest and most endangered subspecies of big cats on the planet. There are only 27 individuals left at large, all of them are identified one by one and all of them live in Iran, as explains Bagher Nezaminational director of Asiatic Cheetah Conservation Project. There is no other known population anywhere else on the planet. In serious danger of extinction, what was already a critical situation has become an emergency since the attacks by the United States and Israel in Iran began in February 2026: the war has paralyzed the only monitoring system that kept this subspecies under control. What is happening with the Asian cheetah. As account the environmental science and conservation news platform Mongabay, just nine days after forest guards filmed a female with five cubs in the province of North Khorasan, the armed conflict began. Since then, access to the reserves where these animals live has been drastically restricted. The risk is not so much that a bomb falls on a reserve, but rather the lack of vigilance. The field vehicles used by field scientists and park rangers to guard the small population of Asiatic cheetahs can be mistaken for military targets in their scattered habitat (especially in the desert), so many of Iran’s environmental NGOs have stopped their activity. The country also suffers an internet blackout. This means that monitoring, field studies and field use are no longer operational. The species. The Asian cheetah diverged from African populations between 32,000 and 67,000 years ago. It is not an African cheetah implanted in Asia, but rather it has its own evolutionary lineage: it is smaller and has lighter fur than the African one and is adapted to arid areas and mountainous terrain. In fact, its monitoring is more complex not only because there are few of them, but because it lives in inhospitable areas. In any case, both are true Ferraris: they can exceed speeds of 100 km/h in short races. The IUCN has it classified on the Critically Endangered conservation scale since 1996, the highest alert before extinction in the wild. From an ecological perspective, it serves as a specialized predator on medium-sized ungulates—mainly gazelles—in the desert ecosystems of central Iran. Their disappearance could not be compensated by introducing African cheetahs: the genetic, physiological and behavioral divergence between both groups is too great and hybridization proposals do not have scientific support as a viable short-term solution. Why is it important. Because it is not a rare subspecies of a known felid, but rather it has a genetically differentiated lineage and is native to Asia. It has more than 30,000 years of history independent of African populations and its disappearance is not compensated by introducing African cheetahs. Furthermore, it fulfills its function there: it is a specialized predator on medium-sized ungulates in the arid ecosystems of central Iran, thus maintaining the balance of gazelle populations. In short: it has its place in the food chain of the desert ecosystem in the interior of the country. The situation of the Asian cheetah is also a direct indicator of the state of biodiversity conservation at war, as pointed out this article in People and Nature: its consequences are suffered decades after the conflict and sometimes, they are simply irreversible. Iran is home to exceptional biological diversity: Persian leopard, brown bear (Ursus arctos), Eurasian lynx (Lynx lynx), gray wolf (Canis lupus), among others. The collapse of the cheetah conservation system irremediably affects the rest. Context. Since 1959, the Asiatic cheetah has had legal protection in Iran. In the following decades its population was stabilized, but the Revolution of 1979 and the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s they were wasted years: Lax law enforcement wreaked havoc in the form of zero patrolling, destruction and fragmentation of their habitat, uncontrolled hunting, and decline in prey. In January 2022, Hassan Akbari, deputy minister of natural environment and biodiversity at Iran’s Department of Environment, declared that the Asiatic cheetah population had plummeted to just 12, down from an estimated 100 in 2010. In August 2025, the Tehran Times reported that only 20 copies remained. Monitoring them is very complicated per sebut there are also circumstances that work against it. For example, the controversial use of camera traps: in 2018 several people from Persian Wildlife Heritage Foundation accused of using camera traps for espionage. One person died in prison and the rest were pardoned in 2024. This case paralyzed international collaboration for years. In addition, Western sanctions have also systematically prevented the arrival of financing, essential for adequate monitoring. Asiatic cheetah dies. The main cause of death for Asian cheetahs is not poaching or predators, but the road. More than 52% of documented deaths They are due to accidents on roads that cross or border key habitats and cheetahs cross them without fear and repeatedly following their prey, such as Abbasabad-Mashhad and Mehriz-Anar. There are a couple of especially notorious cases of females run over, pregnant or with their young, in recent years: Meyami and Helia. Since the beginning of the conflict, these roads now also transport military material and people for evacuation, which increases traffic. With 27 individuals registered, there is no longer room for errors or unsupervised times: genetic analysis published in Conservation Genetics details that genetic diversity is critically low and inbreeding poses an additional risk to the viability of the subspecies. What can be done. Wild Tomorrow analyzes this problem in detail, advising to ignore social media campaigns that call for “emergency evacuations” without rigor: moving big wild cats across militarized borders is medically risky and informal channels can prove to be a route for illegal trafficking. Furthermore, we have already seen that proposing clandestine communications can expose those who protect the cheetah to accusations of espionage. What does have a real effect is supporting the Iranian Cheetah Society, the organization with the greatest field knowledge of this population. Likewise, at the international level there are organizations with real capacity … Read more

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