Mobile Tech & Gadgets

You can now vote in all categories of the Xataka NordVPN 2025 Awards

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It has been two intense weeks, but finally each and every one of the product categories that this year will compete in the Xataka NordVPN Awards 2025. Now is the time, xatakeros, to cast your votes and choose those that, for you, are the best technology products of the year. Your votes will decide the finalists and will be added with a weight of one third to the jury’s votes to decide the winners. We will know the result at the grand gala that will take place at the Capitol Cinemas in Madrid next November 20. Remember that, if you want to experience it live and direct, you can get your ticket filling our form (capacity is limited! Vote in the Xataka NordVPN 2025 Awards Best mobiles – All forms to vote, here Best tablet and smartwatch – All forms to vote, here Best computers and accessories – All forms to vote, here Best TVs and sound devices – All forms to vote, here Best connected devices in the home – All forms to vote, here Best electric car and technological hybrid car – All forms to vote, here Best video game and series/movie – All forms to vote, here and here Best generative artificial intelligence tool – All forms to vote, here For the voting system we use Google Forms, so in order to send your vote you need to be logged into your Gmail (or Google) account in the browser, whether desktop or mobile, so that each reader can cast their vote. Thank you. NordVPN offers you a fast and stable connection thanks to your more than 6,300 servers in more than 110 countries. Enjoy advanced cybersecurity tools with Threat Protection Pro™, securely access your streaming platforms favorites wherever you are and enjoy the best offers on flights and hotels. Advice offered by the brand How voting works The mechanics of the Xataka NordVPN Awards 2025 are the same as in previous editions. It is divided into three phases: Public vote: Over the next few days we will be publishing articles with our categories and the candidates selected by the Xataka team so that you, our xatakeros, can vote for your favorites. Jury vote: With the finalists that the public has chosen, the Xataka jury and other technology experts will vote for those who are, in their view, the best devices. Choice of winners: The jury’s votes will be combined with those of the public to choose the winners, who will be announced on November 19. The selected candidates are devices that They have gone on sale in 2024 or will do so with a confirmed date before the end of the year. We also include those that were left out last year when they were announced after the Awards. We believe it is the best solution: Unfortunately we cannot celebrate the gala on December 31 and our idea is that the Awards can serve as support in the purchasing decision for this last part of the year. Thank you very much for your collaboration!

What it is, how it works and how to use this internet browser with artificial intelligence

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Let’s explain to you what ChatGPT Atlas is and how it worksthe internet browser created by OpenAI. It is an alternative to Chrome and the rest of the browsers that stands out for having the artificial intelligence of ChatGPT integrated, and is used both as a search engine and to interact with the content you see. We are going to start the article by explaining what exactly this browser is like, both outside and inside. And then we will explain briefly how it works. What ChatGPT Atlas is and how it works ChatGPT Atlas is an internet browser created by OpenAI, one of the leading artificial intelligence companies. His proposal is to offer a vitaminized browser with AIso that you will be able to interact with ChatGPT at all times. The browser is based on Chromiumwhich is the same open source base that other browsers such as Brave, Microsoft Edge or Chrome itself are based on. This means that all the websites you visit will work practically as well as with the other most popular browsers. Using Chromium as a base also allows install the extensions available for Chrome. Come on, if you use extensions in Chrome, Edge or Brave, you may also be able to install them in Atlas. Other more technical advantages of this browser are that you can render pages with Blink, the Chromium engine, use its standard APIs such as tabs, history, cookies or bookmarks, nothing changes, or run JavaScript, CSS and HTML5 like in any modern browser. But the great attraction of the browser is its integration with ChatGPTwhich at launch uses the GPT-5 model, the same as the official AI app. You can use this artificial intelligence without having to open it in external tabssince it will be integrated into a native environment in the browser. The AI ​​model does not execute web code or directly access a page’s servers for security. Additionally, Interactions have limited permissions, nor do they access your data outside of the context in which you are using Atlas. Yes indeed, you have the option to activate user memory. This means that ChatGPT will remember key data about things you talk about with the AI ​​such as your interests such as personal tastes, personal contexts such as plants you may have at home, or styles. You can also deliberately ask him to remember things about you. These elements will be stored as small chunks called “facts” that you can configure in ChatGPT memory. And what is this for in Atlas? Well, it allows the browser to remember interests and browsing routines, to adapt the explanations it gives you when reading websites and documents, or to maintain coherence in different contexts such as tabs, searches, or projects. Imagine that ChatGPT has learned that you write in a digital medium about technological dissemination for beginners, as is my case. So, when you ask it to summarize a website, it will do so adapting to that context, and the explanation will be simpler and more colloquial to adapt to how you understand things. Furthermore, at combine memory with browser toolsit will remember your web projects or research, maintain styles in different sessions, remember configurations, etc. If you search for laptops, for example, you can ask them to compare the results with what you searched the previous month. How to use Atlas To download the Atlas browser, you have to go to the website chatgpt.com/es-ES/atlas. At the moment it is only available on macOS. Once you download the browser, during the installation process you will be able to import the data from another browser you have installed, such as Chrome or Safari. This data is passwords, bookmarks, history, everything. When you make the browser, you will see that it is very similar to Chrome. You will need to log in with your ChatGPT account, and then open a new tab ChatGPT will appear instead of Google to perform searches. When you do it, you will have several types of search results. By default you will see the AI ​​responses, but above there are tabs that will allow you to see website results, just like in Google, and image results. This way you won’t miss anything in your experience. The other big change is when you are browsing any website. The browser has a button Ask ChatGPT which opens a column on the right where you can ask the AI ​​anything related to the content of the website, such as a summary, or anything that comes to mind. Besides, when you select a text and right clickin the context menu you will have an option to ask ChatGPT about this content. Thus, you will be able to obtain context of words or phrases in a simple and fast way. Atlas also has a settings section where you can choose the appearance of the tabs, whether the bookmarks bar is displayed, and you can also control your browsing data and its customization. You’ll also be able to control your AI chat history directly from here, and much more. In Xataka Basics | The best prompts to save hours of work and do your tasks with ChatGPT, Gemini, Copilot or other artificial intelligence

Google has solved problems in two hours that would take three years on a supercomputer. It’s the quantum advantage we needed

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Google has taken a notable step into the field of quantum computing with a new algorithm called Quantom Echoes. This algorithm has been able to demonstrate for the first time a “practical and verifiable quantum advantage” that makes its quantum computer make fools of today’s large supercomputers. 13,000 times faster than a supercomputer. The new algorithm, called Quantum Echoes (“Quantum Echoes”), has made it possible to demonstrate that a quantum computer – based on Google’s Willow quantum chip— successfully executes a verifiable algorithm that exceeds the capacity of today’s large supercomputers. Thus, that computer managed to execute that algorithm 13,000 times faster than the best current classical supercomputer when executing similar code. “Quantum verifiability”. Google’s quantum supercomputer solved the problem in just over two hours, when in the second supercomputer most powerful in the world, Frontier, would have taken 3.2 years. But it also did it in a verifiable way: the result can be repeated in the quantum computer itself or in any other of similar caliber. Quantum echoes. The algorithm resembles an advanced echo: you send a signal to the quantum system, perturb a qubit, and then precisely reverse the evolution of the signal to “listen” to the resulting echo. This echo is special because it is amplified by constructive interference, a quantum phenomenon where waves add up to become stronger, which allows this effect to be precisely measured. The algorithm allows modeling the structure of systems in nature, from molecules to black holes. An achievement with a lot of Nobel Prize behind it. The milestone is based on decades of research in this area, including that carried out by the recent Nobel Prize winner, Michel H. Devoretwho is part of the Google team. Together with his colleagues John M. Martinis and John Clark he laid the foundations for this advance at the University of California at Berkeley in the mid-1980s. “Quantum verifiability”. Google’s quantum supercomputer solved the problem in just over two hours, when in the second supercomputer most powerful in the world, Frontier, would have taken 3.2 years. But it also did it in a verifiable way: the result can be repeated in the quantum computer itself or in any other of similar caliber. Quantum echoes. The algorithm resembles an advanced echo: you send a signal to the quantum system, perturb a qubit, and then precisely reverse the evolution of the signal to “listen” to the resulting echo. This echo is special because it is amplified by constructive interference, a quantum phenomenon where waves add up to become stronger, which allows this effect to be precisely measured. The algorithm allows modeling the structure of systems in nature, from molecules to black holes. An achievement with a lot of Nobel Prize behind it. The milestone is based on decades of research in this area, including that carried out by the recent Nobel Prize winner, Michel H. Devoretwho is part of the Google team. Together with his colleagues John M. Martinis and John Clark he laid the foundations for this advance at the University of California at Berkeley in the mid-1980s. Hello qubit. His discovery: the properties of quantum mechanics could also be observed in electrical circuits large enough to be seen with the naked eye. That gave rise to the creation of superconducting qubitswhich are the basic blocks with which Google has created (like other companies) its quantum computers. Devoret joined Google in 2023, thus strengthening the company’s trajectory in its search for the now famous “quantum supremacy”. Promising practical applications. The advance is directed directly to the solution of important problems in fields such as medicine or materials science. Quantum computing remains an experimental technology and faces a key challenge with error correction, but Quantum Echoes demonstrates that “quantum software” is advancing at a pace parallel to hardware. Google applied Quantum Echoes to a proof of concept experiment for Nuclear Magnetic Resonance. This technique acts as a “molecular microscope”, a powerful tool that will help design drugs or, for example, establish the molecular structure of new polymers. a marathon. This new milestone demonstrates the progress that this technology has made in recent years, but Google is not alone here. Microsoft or IBM have also made notable advances in recent years, and of course there are numerous startups both in the US like in china who work in this area. In Xataka | Decoherence is the biggest problem with quantum computers. This superconductor wants to end it

now at outlet price at MediaMarkt

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Recently, Amazon introduced a new generation of Fire TV Stick, the Fire TV Stick 4K Select and that is why the model Fire TV Stick 4Know, can be found at a very attractive price before the arrival of the new Fire TV Stick 4K Plus. But it is not on Amazon where it is at an outlet price, it is on MediaMarkt where you can get this dongle for your TV for only 33.99 euros. The price could vary. We earn commission from these links A cheap accessory for your TV The Fire TV Stick 4K 2nd generation was launched last year and to connect it to your TV, you will only need it to have an HDMI port and enjoy an Internet connection. This model offers 4K Ultra HD resolution and it supports Dolby Vision, HDR10+ and Dolby Atmos. It is compatible, in turn, with Wi-Fi 6so you can enjoy 4K streaming playback smoothly, even having multiple devices connected to the device.outer WiFi of your home. In addition, it comes with Amazon’s own Fire TV operating system. Your controller has shortcut buttons to main streaming platforms and integrate the button Alexaso you can control the device using voice commands. Without a doubt, this is a perfect opportunity to get this best-selling device that Amazon has discontinued but that, now, at MediaMarkt, you can get at an unbeatable price. Other Fire TV Sticks that may interest you for your TV Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K Plus The price could vary. We earn commission from these links Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K Select (latest generation) The price could vary. We earn commission from these links Some of the links in this article are affiliated and may provide a benefit to Xataka. In case of non-availability, offers may vary. Image | Enrique Pérez (Xataka) and Amazon In Xataka | Fire TV Stick 4K Vs Fire TV Stick 4K Max: we explain which one to choose In Xataka | Best Amazon Fire TV. Which one to buy and recommended models to convert your TV into a smart TV depending on use

one has a turnover of 250 million and the other is going into bankruptcy

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Mr. Wonderful appealed to the Supreme Court against Ale-hop in January. nine months later is about to enter bankruptcy. The chronology reveals that the court battle was never about intellectual property: it was the last attempt to externalize one’s own failure. Why is it important. Two companies that sell “cuquis” products with positive messages have had opposite trajectories. One has been litigating while sinking. The other has been growing without going into debt. The facts. Mr. Wonderful sued Ale-hop in 2021 for unfair competition, alleging that he copied his style of animated objects, motivational phrases and pastel tones. In 2022, the Commercial Court No. 5 of Valencia rejected the claim. In 2023, The Provincial Court ratified the ruling. And in January 2025 sent an appeal to the Supreme Court as the last bullet. In October 2025 it is about to enter bankruptcy. The argument. The courts have been clear: the kawaii style (objects with eyes and expressiveness) has been in the public domain since the sixties. “Styles are not the object of a monopoly,” the Court ruled. That Mr. Wonderful applied it with initial success (his first years were of meteoric growth) did not give him a monopoly over it. In addition, Ale-hop had products of this style in its catalog in 2010, a year before Mr. Wonderful was established as a company. The figures. While they litigated, they achieved very different financial results. Figures for the year 2023 (last year with figures for both presented): Billing: Ale-hop, 224 million euros (there are already 254). Mr. Wonderful, 26 million. Number of stores: more than 300 in five countries for Ale-hop. Mr. Wonderful he was 50 and now he has 10 left. Margin: 20% profitability on income for Ale-hop, 7 million euros of losses for Mr. Wonderful. It is a difference in model, not scale. They are two opposite philosophies. Ale-hop has a rotating catalog of 6,000 references that is constantly renewed. It “forces” the customer to return frequently. It buys directly from factories in large volumes (the key behind its high margins despite low prices) and has a strict anti-debt philosophy. Mr. Wonderful was born in 2011 as a design studio specialized in personalized wedding invitations. Its cheerful tone and colorful aesthetic connected with its clientele, and within a few years it became a phenomenon. In 2016 it reached 30 million in turnover. It was present in El Corte Inglés, in Fnac, in stationery stores throughout Spain. Then he decided to make the leap to his own stores, but the pandemic arrived right after and completely hit a business model that depended on physical traffic. Sales fell and losses began. The sentence. In October 2024, A Barcelona judge approved a restructuring plan for Mr. Wonderful. CaixaBank, its main financial creditor with 6.8 million debt (45.47% of liabilities), he challenged it and now justice has ruled him right. The sentence, collected by Five Daysis devastating: He questions whether the sales forecasts – an increase of 10 million between 2024 and 2028 – are “reasonable” or based on “a historical reality.” He considers it “surprising” that the company did not have audited accounts or updated sales data during the judicial process. And he concludes that the projections “cannot be objectively justified.” It’s the same kind of argument the courts used against Mr. Wonderful in the Ale-hop case: your numbers don’t hold up in reality. Only this time they weren’t talking about whether they had the right to claim a style, but rather whether the company was viable. The Court adds something else: given that Mr. Wonderful has closed physical stores and its main channel is now online, the logical thing would have been to make estimates close to the results of the years prior to the pandemic, when that was its model. Instead, it presented projections that the court considers hardly credible and based on provisional, unaudited data. He timing. Nine months have passed since the appeal to the Supreme Court until the bankruptcy proceedings. Nine months between pointing out a competitor and admitting the internal problem. It is common in companies in crisis: to outsource, to look for blame outside (unfair competition, plagiarism) when the problem comes from within (strategy, adaptation, business model). Mr. Wonderful has come this far by a deadly trident: bet on him retail physical just before the pandemic, opening more than 50 stores that coincided with COVID, in addition to investing too much in premium areas that would not give the expected return. Going into debt without sustainable competitive advantages. Operate in a market where you never had moat. Mr. Wonderful tried to build his moat about an aesthetic style that he could not legally possess exclusively. Business Insider public a report in November 2023 in which he provided other keys to this fall, alluding to internal sources: Exhaustion of your core business: The product was copied by other companies and buyers were no longer willing to pay extra for the brand. The online channel was adulterated with too many discounts and offers that generated conflicts with the rest of the sales channels. It went from being the jewel in the crown to being outsourced. Business model with high structural risk: almost half of the income came from school agendas, return rates ranged between 30% and 50%, and there was dependence on the price set by Amazon’s algorithms, which again… represented a multichannel conflict. The logistics crisis of September 2022. It caused serious delays at a critical time for sales (back to school) and eroded the trust of some customers. They also pointed to a drain on managers motivated by strong discrepancies with the leadership style. The contrast. Ale-hop has not shown signs of fearing his competition because he knew that they did not compete in the same thing. Grimalt, its founder, saw a simple opportunity: cheerful and cheap products, for impulse purchase, in tourist areas. It didn’t take revolutionary genius, but rather consistent execution over time. Mr. Wonderful did have a great connection with his … Read more

It is called cheapflation and it directly attacks the most basic products

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In recent years the inflation seemed to subside on the charts, but not where millions of homes feel it: the supermarket. Under this appearance of normality, a silent and structural shift has been taking place that does not hit everyone equally: because what increases the most is not luxury, but the essentials, and it is paid for by those who cannot stop buying it. One word sums it up and explains it perfectly. Cheapflation. I remembered this morning the newspaper El País that food inflation has not been neutral: it hits harder the less you have. Thus, the so-called cheapflation (the disproportionate increase in the cost of the cheapest products) has raised the price of basic foods by 37% between 2021 and 2024, compared to 23% for high-end foods. The result: the poor households spend more proportion of their income in essential goods, and when they try to lower their basket by replacing commercial brands with white brands or smaller formats, they discover that these ranges are precisely the ones that have increased the most. The burden is not only economic: the qualitative degradation of the diet in households with financial stress has an impact on health, and in Spain the ECB indicators show a gap “exceptional and persistent” between food and the rest of the prices from 2022, consolidating a structural, not cyclical, shock. Pandemic, energy neck and Ukraine. The sequence that triggered cheapflation is recognizable: the exit from confinements with the demand running ahead of the offer, the later energy escalation and logistics, and that war in Ukraine that has only been stress fertilizerscereals and fuels. The ECB estimates a +30% accumulated in food in the eurozone since 2019, and in Spain, groceries have risen more than 30% from 2021 (compared to 19% of the general CPI), with essentials such as meat, milk, butter between +30% and +50%and extreme peaks in olive oil, coffee or cocoa, with increases up to 80%. The hidden layer. The increase in food is not explained only by wars or general inflation, but by how it is organized the market itself. Since the 2008 crisis, basic foodstuffs have been traded as a financial product on futures exchanges, which allows for speculative movements that push up prices. Account the investigation from the Barcelona Urban Research Institute (IDRA) that at the same time the world cereal trade is in the hands of only five large companies that control between 70% and 90% of the market and they also participate on both sides: in the physical grain and in the financial business linked to that grain. Between 2021 and 2022 they obtained record profits, some multiplied by three on previous levels. That combination (few hands managing the product and the price) means that any global shock translates into higher prices faster and with more strength. Spain as a laboratory. According to the same report from the Barcelona Institute, in Spain, both manufacturers and distributors captured extraordinary margins in inflationary phase: agri-food leads the rise in margins with +38.1% since 2020; The large distribution groups declared record profits (7.5 billion in 2024), while salaries in the sector are below average and pockets of precariousness persist, such as in fruit in Lleida and Andalusia. The contrast in this sense is clear: income moves from consumers and labor to capital concentrated in an oligopolistic market whose pricing power has not been contested. Non-intervention policy. The report also pointed out that when the market is left to resolve itself, the same thing almost always happens: the hard of the cost remains in families (worse and more expensive food, more deprivation, more inequality) and the extraordinary benefits remain above. Spain is already the third country in Europe where the food deprivation in 15 yearsonly behind France and Greece, and mainly affects single-parent households, dependent people and precarious jobs. Although from 2023 costs went down energy and logistics, the final prices have not. When a price “jumps” due to a crisis, if there are few companies dominating the market, that jump becomes the new floor and there is no going back. Regulation of power. The studies agree in which the problem is not solved only with specific aid, but by changing how the market works. That means reduce concentration of power in a few companies, stop financial speculation with food and be able to put temporary caps on prices when there is a crisis to prevent them from staying at the top forever. According to the documentit is not useful to give money to the consumer (because the State pays it) or to demand discounts from the farmer (who is already the weakest link), the adjustment has to come of the middle part of the chain, where the highest margins are (industry and distribution), and with an active role of the State to monitor that price power. The ultimate goal is not only for food to cost less, but for essentials to stop depending on financial fluctuations and the control of a few companies that today they dominate the grain on which food security depends. Image | H. Friar In Xataka | The shopping basket is so expensive that many Madrid residents are driving 40 minutes to buy in a cheap supermarket In Xataka | They are touching our balls (specifically, their price)

Using aerial balloons to smuggle tobacco is common in Eastern Europe. And then the airports have a problem

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The airport of Vilnius, Lithuania, has been forced to close its doors throughout the night from last Tuesday to Wednesday due to the massive entry of hot air balloons loaded with cigarettes smuggled from Belarus. The closure, which lasted from 11:00 p.m. until 6:30 a.m., has affected around 4,000 passengers and caused the cancellation of 30 flights. The worst thing is that It hasn’t been the first time that the airport is facing this situation. What has happened. Dozens of weather balloons used by smugglers to transport tobacco from Belarus crossed Lithuanian airspace overnight. According to Vilmantas Vitkauskas, head of Lithuania’s National Crisis Management Center, called it “the most intense raid of the year.” Incoming flights had to be diverted to other airports, including Warsaw and Kaunas, while two land border crossings between the two countries were also temporarily closed for the same reason. Why do they use balloons? Smugglers take advantage of the fact that tobacco is significantly more expensive in the European Union than in Belarus. Using these hot air balloons, they send thousands of packages of illegal cigarettes across the border without having to go through customs controls. The images spread The media shows large balloons floating between the trees with cigarette packs hanging below. It’s not the first time. On October 5, just two weeks before, Vilnius airport had already had to suspend operations for hours for a similar incident. On that occasion, 25 balloons crossed Lithuanian airspace, affecting around 6,000 passengers. According to official data published this month, a total of 966 balloons entered Lithuania last year and more than 500 have already done so so far in 2025. Neighboring Poland has recorded more than 100 similar incidents this year, according to its border police. The Government’s response. Lithuanian Prime Minister Inga Ruginienė has announced the call for an urgent meeting of the National Security Committee to address the problem. “It is not normal that so many balloons cross our border and that we have to intercept them to keep them away from our strategic installations,” he declared. Ruginienė has urged authorities in Minsk to cooperate to prevent future incidents, calling on Belarus to take “a responsible approach towards these events, regardless of our political relations.” A security issue. The commander general of the Lithuanian Border Guard, Rustamas Liubajevas, confirmed that hundreds of balloons could have crossed the border last Tuesday and that four suspects have been detained. The Lithuanian authorities have been authorized to shoot down these balloons since last year. Although these incidents are directly linked to smuggling, violations of Lithuanian airspace are a particularly sensitive issue: the country is a member of NATO and the EU, and in July suspected russian drones They crossed its territory from Belarus, one of them carrying explosives. Vilnius is located just 32 kilometers from the border with Belarus, Vladimir Putin’s main ally in Europe. Cover image | State Border Guard Service and Made In Vilnius In Xataka | El Prat airport is full of ghost valets, and they are a real problem: the Mossos have already shielded the area

characteristics, technical sheet and photos

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BYD has found a golden opportunity with the plug-in hybrid. Aware that electric vehicles are not advancing at the expected pace in Europe and that they have to make a jump in sales on our continent, the DM-i, their well-known plug-in hybrids, seem the best option to expand that customer base. The last to arrive is the BYD Atto 2 DM-i, the plug-in hybrid version of the one that until now It was only sold as an electric car. Its credentials are the same as always: autonomy of over 1,000 kilometers. We do not know its price at the moment but until now BYD has opted to make its cars a clear commitment to providing the most complete equipment at a reasonable price. Technical data sheet of the BYD Atto 2 DM-i BYD Atto 2 DM-i Body type. Five-seater SUV. Measurements and weight. Measurements to be confirmed Trunk. To be confirmed. Maximum power. To be confirmed WLTP consumption. WLTP consumption to be confirmed. Total autonomy of 1,020 kilometers Electric range of 90 kilometers. Environmental distinctive. Zero emissions. Driving aids (ADAS). Mandatory by the European Union. Electric hybrid. No. Plug-in Hybrid. Yeah. electric. No Price and launch. Pre-sale available in the month of November Delivery of the first units in the first quarter of 2026 A clear commitment to increasing customers BYD continues to expand its offer. In just over two years, the Chinese company has gone from landing with three flashy electric cars. Today, they already have nine cars in their range and they have completely redefined it. From betting solely on electric vehicles to having a good presence of plug-in hybrids. From playing with their most premium vehicles to choosing to open the market at a lower price. He BYD Atto 2 DM-i It will be one of the bets that sums this up perfectly. In this plug-in hybrid version, there are hardly any aesthetic changes. The company talks about a larger front grille and some minor changes such as the absence of side grilles on the fenders or a new emblem on the tailgate. This DM-i version will feature an exclusive Midnight Blue color. Regarding its equipment, the Chinese company has not offered details but we can expect few changes because its base models always come with great equipment. It remains to be seen if they repeat the configuration with their rotating 10-inch central screen or change something in that regard. Likewise, we can expect all the mandatory driving aids required by the European Union, with emergency braking, the rear camera or the speed warning assistant by default. All in all, and although it has not been revealed, it is very likely that we will also see it arrive with adaptive cruise control, a system that BYD has included in all its vehicles. The company boasts a propulsion system that should provide a range of 1,020 kilometers. If you choose to drive only in electric mode, the range will be 90 kilometers. This allows the car to take advantage of offers from the MOVES III Plan as if it were an electric one, that is, they can reach up to 7,000 euros in discount. The pre-sale is expected in November and that will be when they reveal the price. At the moment the electric version is sold for 25,790 euros before aid from the MOVES III Plan, so we can expect a very reasonable price. Photo | BYD In Xataka | BYD wants to challenge European hybrids with the Seal 6 DM-i: it promises 105 km of electric power and up to 1,505 km of total autonomy

an idea as ambitious as it is risky

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The United States has a company that wants to take artificial intelligence beyond the laboratory. It’s called Shield AI and its next creation, the X-BATaims to make it the protagonist of a new era in defense. It is a combat aircraft capable of taking off and landing vertically, but its most striking feature is not in the design, but in its pilot: an AI system called Hivemind that will make decisions for himself in mid-flight. The project seeks to demonstrate that a machine can direct a complex military mission as effectively—or more—than a human. Shield AI She is not a newcomer. Founded in 2015, it has gone from a small startup to one of the most promising companies in American defense. CNBC points out that is valued at $5.3 billion after its latest round of financing. His career includes relevant contracts with organizations such as the United States Coast Guard, which in 2024 awarded him almost 200 million dollars for his V-BAT drone. After that boost, the company redoubled its commitment to artificial intelligence, placing its Hivemind software as the axis of its strategy and its future combat aircraft. This is how Shield AI wants to reinvent air power: total autonomy and low cost The X-BAT is designed to operate where conventional fighters cannot. It can take off and land vertically, allowing it to operate from ships, remote islands or improvised bases without the need for a runway. With a range of more than 2,000 nautical miles (approx. 3,700 km) and a flight ceiling exceeding 50,000 feet, it aims to redefine autonomy on the battlefield. Its compact structure, with a wingspan of about 12 metersfacilitates transportation and storage: three units fit in the space occupied by a single traditional fighter. As we say, the real leap is not in the aircraft, but in the intelligence that governs it. The company assures that Hivemind, its autonomous flight system, has already been validated on different platforms and real test environments. According to the company, it can operate even when there is no GPS or communication with bases, which would allow it to keep the mission active in scenarios where a human pilot could not react as quickly. Shield AI describes Hivemind as a system capable of observing, deciding and acting in milliseconds, applying a continuous decision cycle inspired by the military doctrine of the “OODA loop”. According to Shield AI, the X-BAT is designed to go into combat. It can carry air-to-air and air-to-surface weapons both in its internal bays and in external mounts. The company details that its architecture supports everything from light missiles to long-range attack munitions, in addition to a set of active and passive sensors that cover the entire detection spectrum. These include a electronic warfare package which would allow it to operate in environments with signal interference or attacks. Altogether, it seeks to combine stealth, autonomy and offensive power in a single system. Shield AI’s economic proposal is one of the most striking arguments: the company claims that the X-BAT could be produced for around $27 million per unit, a figure that – if confirmed in production – would be a fraction of the cost of fighters like the F-35, whose unit price exceeds 100 million dollars. This difference would not only reduce the initial bill, but, according to the company, would allow more aircraft to be deployed and multiply sorties in a theater of operations; However, the expected cost reduction depends on economies of scale, supply chain and maintenance costs that are not yet demonstrated in mass production. Shield AI ensures that the development of the X-BAT is progressing according to the planned deadlines. The company claims to have completed wind tunnel, engine and structural section testing, as well as radar signature testing. Its objective is to carry out the first flights with vertical takeoff and landing in 2026, reach operational capacity in 2028 and start production in 2029. For now, this is an internal calendar and not a contractual commitment, but the company presents it as a demonstration that aerial autonomy is no longer a laboratory idea, but a program under construction. The autonomy of the X-BAT also forces us to think about its digital security. Systems controlled by artificial intelligence depend on complex software and networks, which exposes them to possible attempts at interference or manipulation. If the data they process is altered, their behavior could be affected. Shield AI has not yet detailed how it plans to protect the aircraft’s information flow, although in defense programs it is not unusual for certain technical aspects to be kept under wraps. Images | Shield AI In Xataka | Ukraine cannot believe what it found inside Russia’s ballistic missiles: déjà vu

Shenzhen metro is transforming into an autonomous logistics network. The key is a legion of AI robovans

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During the day, Shenzhen’s stations look, in some ways, like those of any big city: full of movement, loudspeakers and announcements marking the passage of trains. But when traffic eases, something changes. In the same space where a few hours ago there were crowds, autonomous vehicles and small robots appear that move with precision, transporting packages from one point to another. There is no spectacle or artifice, just a different use of a familiar environment. The metro network, designed for travelers, is also beginning to serve urban logistics at a time when every minute and every square meter counts. The idea of ​​taking advantage of the subway to move goods does not arise on a whim. In Shenzhen, as in many large Chinese cities, surface traffic has become in an obstacle for daily logistics. Delivery companies deal with extreme urban density and the constant growth of e-commerce, which forces them to deliver faster and with increasingly tight margins. Using trains outside of peak hours allows us to alleviate this pressure and reduce costs, while at the same time making use of infrastructure that usually remains underused for much of the day. When travelers leave, robots stay According to the Xinhua agencyone of the officially documented pilots takes place on line 11 of the Shenzhen metro. Every night in Futian District, SF Express staff sort and pack packages, which are then loaded into metal cages. These cages are transported by means of a autonomous shuttle vehicle to the platform, where they are destined for the sixth coach of the train, enabled as a logistics car during off-peak hours. In less than thirty minutes, the goods cross the most congested stretch of the city and arrive at the Bihaiwan area, near the airport, where they continue their journey to the distribution center. The aforementioned operation is supported by a fleet of robovans. Nikkei Asia explains that These are small vehicles capable of moving autonomously along predetermined routes, where they transfer packages from a storage center to the subway loading area. Each one can transport up to 500 kilos and has a useful space of about 3 cubic meters. Another official test takes place on subway line 2, at Wanxia station, where delivery robots are able to board the train by themselves to deliver goods to stores 7-Eleven inside the station. The system, described by Guangdong Department of Transportationcombines autonomous route planning, laser sensors and a control system that allows it to move safely between passengers. The project, promoted by Shenzhen Metro Group, Vanke and Wanwei Logistics, remains in the testing phase and seeks to verify whether it can be applied on a larger scale in the city’s underground commercial network. The Chinese industrial ecosystem is one of the reasons why these types of projects are advancing so quickly. The aforementioned newspaper highlights that strong competition between national manufacturers has made key components such as LiDAR sensors cheaper and has driven the development of more efficient batteries and specific chips for autonomous driving. On this basis, production costs are significantly reduced. A robovan is already between 20 and 30% cheaper than a traditional commercial vehicle, and the difference increases by eliminating cabin space and the cost of the driver. The development of these initiatives is not without difficulties. Autonomous vehicles still depend on human supervision at various stagesespecially in the loading and unloading of goods. Its speed inside the stations is reduced to guarantee the safety of passengers, and that limits the operational pace. For now, operations remain limited and are far from mass application. Even so, they reflect a clear trend: the attempt to optimize each section of urban space, even the underground. Shenzhen functions as a laboratory for a model that seeks efficiency without altering the rhythm of the city. Ultimately, these tests speak less about technology than about management: about how a metro network can serve two different purposes while remaining, above all, a public service. Images | Guangdong Department of Transportation (1, 2, 34, 5) | Shenzhen Government (1) In Xataka | Many Spanish ports have become luxury resorts for the rich: owning a pleasure boat is increasingly difficult

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