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Japan wanted its roads to be more than just a place of passage. And they thought of something: vending machines

May 21, 2026 by usatoday24

There are many, many things that catch your attention when you arrive in Japan. At first, it is difficult to understand how this country of ancient traditions and quiet Buddhist or Shinto temples that seem to be everywhere can mix with the most hilarious bustle of stores like the Don Quixote. As the days go by, little by little, one begins to assimilate what one sees and begins to focus on issues just as curious but not as striking. When you want to realize you are in the konbini in turn choosing which of the 12 types of cold coffee and the eight hot ones you want the most. Or if you dare with that lemon soda marked by some kanji as attractive as they are threatening. A few days later, you are picking up any of those soft drinks in the middle of a road, in a layby where there is nothing… Where there is nothing but a vending machine. And then you ask yourself: but what is this machine doing here? Vending machine culture And in Japan there is something as ubiquitous as shrines: vending machines. The Japanese have a passion for jidouhanbaiki either jihanki. Obviously, the most famous and used are those that sell something to drink, but there are all kinds of them and for all kinds of objects. My colleague Javier Pastor already pointed out in 2017 that there were an estimated five million vending machines distributed throughout the country. Some with objects as extravagant “like this one from used panties either it’s poop“. But in addition to selling products, these vending machines have found another function: that of promoting national and inland tourism by road. The country has been fighting rural depopulation for years and has found in vending machines a great support for travelers to opt for the car and motorcycle instead of the very crowded bullet train. The formula is as simple as it is Japanese: make the traveler comfortable. With that premise, many vending machines have been popping up on lay-bys and rest areas in the country. A tremendously simple formula for the traveler to stop and even deviates from its path. With a density of less than 40 inhabitants for each machine vending machine, this option has not only become a tool to assist the traveler, It is already a tourist attraction in itself. And that has encouraged an increase in the number of people who see here as another incentive to go out with their car or motorcycle for the weekend. When the Japanese have an obsession, it is very difficult for others to catch up to them. If we talk about motorcycling and motorsports, Japan is one of the most cultural countries. Hence, some roads have simply become a hobby. One where the customer simply pays to drive but to which some auxiliary services have been added to improve the experience. like the ubiquitous vending machines. It is not the only tool they have found to encourage this type of pure leisure travel. There are musical highways where the asphalt emits a melody as the car or motorcycle passes by, using the roughness to create scores that the traveler plays as they pass over it. Or the michi no eki, something like the latest evolution of the service area where the gas station has the obligation to have another business or to offer a local product. There are those that only sell local food but there are those that even have their own natural science museum. A perfect opportunity to collect your stamps or banknotes, other tourist attractions of these spaces. And Japan is an obsessed country for collecting and making everyone as comfortable as possible. And for that jidouhanbaiki They are perfect. Photos | Xataka In Xataka | Japan is searching for the person who built a road on the country’s largest lake. It leads nowhere

China finally has a competitive desktop processor. Its problem is that it is six years behind Intel

May 21, 2026 by usatoday24

China has your own alternative to processors for PCs, servers and data centers made by Intel, AMD and other companies. Loongson is one of the few Chinese companies that can manufacture advanced microprocessors. We have been following it for several years because in the current climate of geopolitical tension it has acquired more relevance than ever, and there is no doubt that its cruising speed is high. At the end of December 2022 this company launched its CPU 3A5000 32 corea general-purpose processor with LoongArch microarchitecture implemented by this company on the MIPS architecture. And in February 2024 it presented its LS3C6000 server processor, a CPU with DragonChain technology that could be scaled up to 64 cores. Its latest milestone is not the presentation of a new chip. The reason why we have decided to talk to you again about this Chinese company is that just a week ago it confirmed that it has distributed more than one million units of its flagship desktop processor, which represents a milestone in China’s efforts to build a self-sufficient semiconductor industry. The 3A6000 CPU has been designed and manufactured entirely in China Loongson implements its processors on the MIPS architecture, but the microarchitecture of these chips has been expressly designed by engineers at the Chinese Academy of Sciences. By not using x86-64 or ARM architectures, this company has been able to continue refining its designs without being conditioned by US sanctions. Be that as it may, Loongson is dedicated to the design of microprocessors, but does not have the capacity to manufacture them itself. China recently had no alternative to US-made CPUs SMIC takes care of this (Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp), what is the largest semiconductor manufacturer from China, in the same way that TSMC produces the integrated circuits designed by AMD, Apple, NVIDIA or Qualcomm. According to the publication Fast Technology, the third generation of Loongson chipsto which the 3A6600, 3B6600 and 3C6600 CPUs belong, has a performance comparable to that of the 12th Intel Core and 13th generation. Curiously, according to Fast Technology, the 3B6600 model in particular is the one that rivals these Intel CPUs and comparable AMD proposals. In fact, according to SCMP Loongson herself has acknowledged that the performance of her desktop processors is comparable to that of Intel chips launched around 2020. Six years is a long time in this sector, but it is important that we do not overlook that China recently did not have any alternative to US-made CPUs. This achievement by Loongson is part of Beijing’s effort to channel resources to reduce China’s dependence on foreign semiconductor technology. However, this strategy has been accelerated in response to restrictive export controls Americans who limit China’s access to advanced chips, integrated circuit design software and next-generation semiconductor manufacturing services. It will be interesting to see if Loongson finally catches up with Intel and AMD. Image | TSMC More information | SCMP In Xataka | China takes off in quantum computers: it already has the first dual-core and 200 qubits on the planet ready

Russia turned gliding bombs into Ukraine’s nightmare. 17 months later Ukraine is giving him his own medicine

May 21, 2026 by usatoday24

Two years ago Russia launched a FAB-3000 pump of three tons over Kharkov and the shock wave was so powerful that several local seismic sensors recorded it as if it were a small earthquake. Until then, Ukraine barely had a way to respond to a weapon capable of striking from tens of kilometers away. The nightmare that changed the war. For much of 2023 and 2024, Russian gliding bombs became one of the most devastating weapons of the entire war. Moscow discovered that it could transform old Soviet bombs into long-range munitions simply by adding relatively cheap wings and guidance systems. The result It was devastating: huge FABs of 250, 500 or 1,000 kilos launched from dozens of kilometers away, out of the reach of many Ukrainian anti-aircraft defenses, capable of destroying fortified positions, bridges, logistics centers or entire neighborhoods. For Ukraine, this became a problem almost impossible to solve. Shooting down each bomb was extremely difficult, attacking the launching planes forced them to get too close to the front and each new Russian kit multiplied the pressure on cities like Kharkiv, Sumy or Zaporizhia. Seventeen months searching for an answer. The appearance now of the first gliding bomb Ukrainian marks something much more important than the presentation of new ammunition. It represents the moment in which kyiv believes it has found your own answer to one of the weapons that have done the most damage during the last two years. Development reportedly began in December 2024 and has required 17 months of work until reaching the final tests and the first official order from the Ministry of Defense. The weapon, named like Vyrivniuvach (“Equalizer”), uses a 250-kilogram warhead and has been designed specifically for the real conditions of the Ukrainian war. It is not simply a question of copying a Western or Soviet model: Ukrainian engineers tried to build an adapted pump to a scenario where planes fly at low altitude to avoid radars, where anti-aircraft defenses cover enormous areas and where each weapon must be cheap, quick to manufacture and easy to integrate. The importance of manufacturing at home. The great advantage of this bomb is not only military, but also industrial and strategic. Until now Ukraine depended on Western kits like the JDAM-ER American or French Hammer to convert conventional bombs into long-range guided weapons. The problem is that these systems arrive in limited quantities, depend on external political decisions and often include restrictions on where they can be used. kyiv had been trying for months to escape that dependence by building its own war industry. The Vyrivniuvach fits perfectly into that logic: according to its developers it costs approximately three times less than a JDAM-ER, can be prepared in less than half an hour and is designed to be integrated into already operational platforms such as the Su-24, MiG-29, Su-27 and even Western F-16 or Mirage 2000. A Russian UMPK gliding bomb attached to a Su-34 An increasingly cheaper and more massive war. The evolution of gliding bombs also reflects a profound change in modern warfare. For years, cruise missiles seemed like the ultimate symbol of precision strike. Ukraine and Russia have proven otherwise: It is often more efficient to adapt old weapons with relatively simple kits and mass produce them. Russia understood this earlier and converted its FABs with UMPK modules into a true constant attrition machinery against the Ukrainian defenses. Ukraine has ended up following the same path. The logic is brutally practical: a gliding bomb does not need complex engines, can be launched from great distances, costs much less than an advanced missile and forces the enemy to expend much more expensive anti-aircraft interceptors or accept the impact. The problem of attacking from outside enemy range. They counted the TWZ analysts that what made Russian bombs especially dangerous was the possibility of launching them outside the radius of many Ukrainian defenses. Russian planes could get relatively close to the front, release their ammunition, and return without directly entering areas covered by Patriot or NASAMS. Ukraine now wants exactly that same ability. Your new bomb is designed to hit targets located “tens of kilometers” behind Russian lines, including fortifications, command posts or logistics centers. This allows you to attack without constantly exposing the pilots to the densest air defenses on the front. Furthermore, as it is a national system, kyiv can use it against any target it deems necessary without depending on external authorizations or political limitations imposed by Western allies. Ukraine’s industrial war. The Vyrivniuvach It also symbolizes the extent to which Ukraine has ceased to be simply a country that receives Western weapons and has become a power. of improvised military innovation out of necessity. In just two years, kyiv has developed long-range kamikaze drones, unmanned naval systems, new munitions and electronic warfare solutions built at high speed and at low cost. The glider bomb is part of that same transformation. Ukraine understood that it could not win a long war by relying solely on limited foreign arsenals or deliveries subject to political debates in Washington or Brussels. That’s why the message behind this new weapon is so important: Russia turned gliding bombs into one of the biggest symbols of Ukrainian vulnerability, but seventeen months later Ukraine seems to have managed to hit back using exactly the same weapon. industrial and military logic. Image | Ministry of Defense of Ukraine, Russian Ministry of Defense In Xataka | Satellite images reveal how much Russia fears Ukraine’s drones. 7,000 km away they are covering their nuclear missiles In Xataka | Once again, Ukraine has opened a missile launched by Russia. Once again, surprising manufacturers have been found

Nobody wants to spend three hours shopping on a Saturday anymore. And that is why hypermarkets are going down

May 21, 2026 by usatoday24

For decades, the hypermarket was the dominant format in the collective imagination of mass consumption. A huge parking lot, endless hallways, “everything under one roof” as a promise of efficiency and a comforting feeling of abundance. It was almost aspirational, a happy import. Today that promise does not advance, but rather recedes. According to Mercasa data cited by The Economistsupermarkets already concentrate 91.8% of the food commercial surface in Spain. Hypermarkets, on the other hand, have fallen by up to 8.2%. It is a modest percentage change – 1.3% loss in a decade – but very symbolic: the consolidation of one model and the withdrawal of the other. Not even the investment efforts of Alcampo or Carrefour have reversed the trend: in a decade, hypermarkets have opened 37 new stores and added more than 27,000 square meters. But its relative weight continues to fall. Even in market value there is stagnation. After a post-pandemic rebound, the hyper channel has returned to 10% quota in 2025, below the level of 2021. And the format that is growing the most is ‘large supermarket’, that of more than 1,000 square meters. In 2014 there were 3,501 such locations, in 2024 there were 4,836. Almost half of the food sales area in Spain is in the hands of this specific type of supermarket. The reading of some experts like Kantar points to a combination of factors: Smaller homes. Higher average age of the population. Urban context that favors small and nearby purchases. Less car culture than in countries like the United States. These are elements that explain a good part of this shift in consumption. It’s not that people buy less at the hypermarket, but rather that they often don’t even consider going there. The change is recognized from the chains themselves. Alcampo announced a plan last year to reduce the size of 15 of its hypermarkets and close 25 supermarkets. It is also renovating more than 60 stores and strengthening its logistics for the online channel. All with the idea, they say, of “adapting to smaller, more convenient establishments adapted to new needs.” The parent group, Auchan Retail, is also experiencing difficulties in other markets, especially in France, with several consecutive decline in sales. It reversed the trend in 2025 with a slight increase of 1.5%, but its business in Spain continued to fall 1.4%. Carrefour is not immune either. Although it bought 46 Supercor stores, its share has fallen to 9% at the end of 2025 and its parent company has also announced adjustments. In February of this year, yes, the company announced its Carrefour 2030 strategic plan in Spain, with the opening of more urban stores – generally in train and subway stations, tourist areas and even hotels – over the next few years. It is too early to know if we are facing the definitive decline of the hypermarket or if it is a minor correction, but although it maintains objective advantages (assortment, price, promotions, suitability for those who need to go by car…), and it is likely that it will retain its relevance in suburban contexts, the direction of the trend seems clear: the battle for surface area, frequency and proximity is being won by the supermarket. Maybe the change is not so much commercial as mental: we no longer think of the purchase as an event (which requires going to a very specific place, taking the car out, dedicating more time to it, setting aside a weekly time for it) but as a more spontaneous and functional routine. And in that logic, the supermarket – agile, close, practical, integrated into our daily lives – has the advantage. It is not that the hypermarket has failed, but that the context has changed. In Xataka | Mercadona’s engine is not the white label, but crushing its rivals in profitability by earning less per product Featured image | Annie Vo in Unsplash *An earlier version of this article was published in May 2025

Eric Schmidt warned young university students that AI will change everything. Response from the university students: boo him

May 21, 2026 by usatoday24

We are living a curious moment in daily technological life. Well, in many ways, really, but obviously artificial intelligence is something that takes up a good part of the conversation and it seems that there are no half measures. Or wild optimism about how good this technology is for humanity (for the few who are striking gold, rather) or criticism and opposition. Because while Big Tech and technology gurus evangelize about the benefits of AIthere are more and more They oppose this technology and the gluttonous infrastructure it needs to function. And nothing represents that duality as well as the loud booing that Eric Schmidt, former CEO of Google, received when he spoke about AI in his graduation speech at a university. Schmidt’s speech. In large American universities it is common for them to invite personalities to give the graduation speech and, in Arizona, the chosen one was billionaire Eric Schmidt who commanded Google and Alphabet. He took the stage and, in front of 10,000 students, gave a speech that addressed several topics, but focused on the impact of modern technology on society. Last December, Time magazine selected its person of the year for 2025. And this time, they were the architects of artificial intelligence. So today we find ourselves on the verge of another technological transformation. One that will be bigger, faster and more impactful than what came before. It will affect every profession, every classroom, every hospital, every laboratory, every person and every relationship they have. I know how many of you are feeling about this. I can hear them. There is a fear. There is a fear in your generation that the future has already been written. That the machines are already coming. That jobs are evaporating. That the climate is being destroyed. That politics is fractured. And that you are inheriting a disaster that you did not create. And I understand that fear. It’s rational. And it is amplified every day by social media platforms with algorithms that have learned with great precision that fear drives clicks and anxiety drives engagement. But I want to tell you something tonight in the clearest way possible. To talk about the future as if it had already been decided is to give up on the only thing that really matters. They are giving up their ability to act. The future doesn’t just arrive. It is built in laboratories, in college dormitories, in startups, in classrooms, in legislatures. And the people who will build it will be you and people like you. The booing of Schmidt. Depending on whether you are on the most optimistic side or the most critical side of the current situation of artificial intelligence, you will imagine the fragments in which the public could react to the speech, but one thing is clear: graduates do not seem to like being reminded of the world they are inheriting, that a technology that is far from perfect is going to impact all aspects of society (already is doing so, in fact) and that, with a certain hypocrisy, the blame is placed on the social media algorithms that serve as speaker of certain currents of thought. Whatever path you choose, AI is going to be part of it – Eric Schmidt Especially from a person who was in positions of responsibility at Google and Alphabet for more than 15 years, and Google works the way it works. In his speech, the former CEO addressed other issues such as that the same tools that connect us are the ones that are isolating us and more that “the question is not whether AI will shape the world: it will. The question is whether you will have been part of artificial intelligence.” The new Industrial Revolution. The video of Schmidt’s booing is not framed in a vacuum and has not been the only one that has gone viral in recent weeks. a few days ago, Gloria Caulfield received the same treatment from graduates at the University of Central Florida. Gloria is Vice President of Strategic Partnerships for Tavistock and Executive Director of the Lake Nona Institute and hit a nerve when she compared artificial intelligence and the moment we live in with the Industrial Revolution. Glory commented that we live in a time of profound change and, unlike Schmidt, he had to stop a couple of times due to the force of the boos. In fact, he reacted by pointing out that it was evident that there was a division of opinion and that he loved the passion of the students. He commented that, in his day, his generation had the same problems with the birth of the Internet and insecurity about the future, but it did not seem to convince the students. There was also applause, of course. Weird climate. These types of positions by personalities who give speeches about AI, as we say, are not isolated. Someone very active in this sense is Jensen Huang, CEO of Nvidia and a person extremely involved and interested in the development of AI, who also gave a talk recently at Carnegie Mellon University in which he commented that there is no better time to start working on “the job of your life”, which AI is a positive network for humanity because it provides opportunities that favor young people and that AI “will create many new jobs and new industries.” “AI is not likely to replace you, but someone who uses AI better than you could” – Jensen Huang Another example is that of monumental anger of the graduates of calartsone of the most important universities in the world in the arts segment, when the president of the institution began to praise artificial intelligence. The problem here is that, again, young people are not so convinced that AI is going to change their future… for the better. As they point out in Guardiana recent study suggests that about half of young Americans are more worried than excited about the rise of AI in … Read more

This is how going to bed with a full stomach affects sleep

May 21, 2026 by usatoday24

Closing the computer late, shuffling home and sitting down to dinner at ten at night. For us it is a picture of customs; For the rest of Europe, an incomprehensible eccentricity. However, the shock is not only cultural but also biological. Although our social “normality” dictates that dinner is served after dark, our body tells a very different story. Evolutionarily, our body is not designed to digest large amounts of food when the sun has set. It’s not just about counting the calories we put on the plate; The real problem, the one that acts as a real time bomb for our health, is what the clock ticks when we put the fork in our mouth. Eating dinner late is altering our metabolism, sabotaging our quality of sleep and, silently, increasing our cardiovascular risk. Your pancreas doesn’t know that in Spain they have late dinners. To understand this phenomenon, we must look to the chrononutritionan emerging field of study investigating the close relationship between food intake and circadian rhythms. Our body works like an orchestra perfectly synchronized by light and darkness. By eating dinner at odd hours we are desynchronizing “peripheral watches” of vital cells located in the pancreas or liver. Meal timing acts as a critical signal for these peripheral biological clocks, which can modulate the quality of our sleep by regulating the rhythm of our central clock. The immediate consequence is a drastic worsening of glucose tolerance and insulin secretion. When we really should be sleeping. Here the body comes into conflict. On the one hand, there is a large release of cortisol (the well-known stress hormone) and, on the other, the release of melatonin is delayed, which is the master key to falling asleep. In fact, large-scale data support this: comprehensive analyzes of chrononutrition patterns reveal that later meal times—including the first meal, middle meal, and last meal of the day—as well as greater number of meals, are directly associated with higher scores on the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI), which translates into a worse rest. Added to this is a problem purely mechanical: A reduced time gap between the last meal and bedtime can lead to a prolonged sleep latency period, that is, we toss and turn more before falling asleep. And digesting while lying down is the perfect recipe for the appearance of gastric reflux, a discomfort that can ruin anyone’s night. You eat the same as your early-rising neighbor and you gain more weight. According to the study published in The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolismadults who eat dinner at 10:00 p.m. burn 10% less fat and suffer a 20% higher blood sugar spike than those who eat dinner at 6:00 p.m., even if both groups eat exactly the same and go to bed at the same time. Alexis Supan, dietician at the Cleveland Clinic, summed it up perfectly: “When you eat late at night you are going against your body’s circadian rhythm.” The natural limit should be marked by the beginning of melatonin secretion. The researcher Marta Garaulet, a world reference in chrononutrition, has already demonstrated that people who eat later at midday lose less weight than those who eat early, even when they consume the same calories, expend the same energy and sleep the same. The time alone makes the difference. The consequences of ignoring this limit go far beyond the scale. A study led by the institute ISGlobalbased on cohort NutriNet-Santé with more than 100,000 participants, concluded that dining after 9:00 p.m. It is associated with increased cardiovascular risk, especially impacting the risk of cerebrovascular disease in women. On an emotional level, a recent meta-analysis from 2025 details that eating late worsens the rhythms of key neurotransmitters such as serotonin and dopamine, increasing the risk of depression. On top of that we hit the same clock twice. But there is a modern factor that makes this scenario worse: screens. Not only do we eat dinner late, but we do so under the beam of our cell phones. Light of any kind suppresses melatonin, but as you warn harvardthe blue night light does it in a much more powerful way, blocking it for twice as long as other lights and moving our circadian rhythms out of phase by up to three hours. Recent clinical studies have demonstrated that exposure to blue LED light significantly suppresses melatonin secretion after two hours of exposure and maintains this suppression over time. We have a late dinner and then look at our phones in bed: a combination that our biological clock simply cannot accommodate. Our children are headed towards the same error. The problem worsens when we look at the new generations. The magazine The Lancet has warned that Spain could be the fourth country in the world with the highest childhood obesity in 2050. The VALORNUT project of the Complutense University has shed light on this: Late dinners and very long “eating windows” in children translate into more improvised diets, with lower nutritional value and worse cholesterol profiles. Furthermore, 60% of these children sleep fewer hours. The experts’ recommendation it’s clear: concentrate all meals in a period of less than 12 hours. The solution is to adjust the clock. So when should we have dinner? The golden rule agreed upon by experts is to allow between three and four hours to pass between the last meal and the time of going to sleep. If we take the Spanish average of going to bed around 00:30, we should be finishing dinner, at the latest, at 21:00. Here it is important to qualify the context. We have been cushioning this metabolic blow in part for decades thanks to a cultural pillar: the Spanish Mediterranean diet tends to make dinner a much lighter meal than the midday meal, leaving the energy weight of the day in earlier hours. A late, heavy, ultra-processed dinner followed by a trip straight to bed is not the same as a light dinner with some physical activity before going to sleep. … Read more

more than ever, it must be the Chinese Google

May 21, 2026 by usatoday24

For more than two decades, Baidu did very well with a very clear strategy: to be “the Chinese Google.” He was born alone a year after Google and, while the American company ate up the world market, Baidu did the same in its giant domestic market. However, just as Google no longer cares By being just a search engine, Baidu has had to adapt to a market in which giants like TikTok have eaten its toast. AI is that wave that Baidu needed and with their latest financial results they have realized something important. Now yes they have to be like Google. Desperately, too. Green shoots of AI. Last Monday, the Beijing-based company presented first quarter results. It is something that we are seeing in all listed companies and it is interesting not to see the amount of money they move but to try to intuit how the business is going and where it can go depending on what they present. For example, with SMIC (the large foundry in China) we see that things are going well due to the component crisis and the need for chips for AI, and with Baidu this boost in artificial intelligence is also being noticed. According to the results, revenue driven by Baidu Core AI (the company’s AI arm) rose 49% year-on-year. It is a real outrage that is also reflected in the robotics branch such as Apollo Go and its ‘robotaxis’, whose activity increased by 120% year-on-year. The most interesting thing about this growth in the AI segment is that this branch is now responsible for 52% of Baidu’s total business. And this is good… and bad at the same time. BUT. These good results for the AI segment come at a delicate time for the company. Baidu is realizing that search advertising revenue is no longer sufficient due to a traditional business that is running out of steam. Because, overall, the company has seen a 2% decrease in its total revenue. They have eaten the market. The reason is that the company has been falling behind. It’s curious, but Baidu was one of the first in the world to launch its own chatbot. Ernie He was born in March 2023 and in September he was already available to all audiences. It was a strange approach (a closed and paid chatbot) while the industry trend was beginning to be different (free use and open source licenses), but it was not the only thing. Baidu as a search engine also did not have the monopoly it once enjoyed. At an alarming rate (for them), its relevance as a search engine was fading because young Chinese were no longer using traditional search engines. In fact, they didn’t know how to use it well and They went to other apps as TikTok or Instagram to find what they were looking for. Transformation. This painted a not very encouraging picture for a Baidu that seemed like a dinosaur immobile before the meteorite not only of AI, but of new applications that, as we say, were eating its toast on its own ground. There were two options: continue as before, and things were not going well, or find a remedy. In the middle of last year, and after 2025 in which Chinese language models appeared even under the stones With a rock-bottom price and plenty of power for day-to-day consultations, Baidu presented Ernie X1.1, its new IAG model that was still closed, but seemed compete head to head against the main rivals. It also has another open source model and it is evident that they have seen the wolf’s ears. Monetize AI. Because these quarterly results show that things have changed, that there is fierce competition in China and that Baidu has to play its cards to remain relevant. He doesn’t have a TikTok or a WeChatbut it has something fundamental: infrastructure. And, precisely, there is support to monetize artificial intelligence not through software, but through hardware. At a global level we are seeing that, due to the component crisis and what it costs to set up a data centerthere are companies that rent their GPUs and AI platforms for others to use in the cloud. These companies are raising the price of their rents (a lot) and have reported that Baidu is doing precisely that. The company is increasing the price of its cloud computing services for AI by between 5% and 30% and the cloud file storage service by up to 30%. This increase is attributed, in part, to the company’s investment in infrastructure, something that also puts pressure on margins. Because, again, the competitors were running over it and the Chinese Google has the technical and server muscle to do the same transformation as Google itself in the era of AI and savage capitalism: putting its infrastructure at the service of those who need it and cannot pay for their own equipment. In short, less search engine and more AI infrastructure In Xataka | China has banned another AI startup from exporting talent and research: little by little, it is “nationalizing” AI

Last hours to participate in the draw for a Roborock Qrevo Curv 2 Pro! Only for Xataka Xtra members

May 21, 2026 by usatoday24

Time is running out, xatakeros! Tomorrow, May 22 at 9:00, the raffle for a robot vacuum cleaner ends Roborock Qrevo Curv 2 Proan all-terrain cleaning device valued at 1,200 euros. We liked it a lot when we analyzed it, going directly to the top of those tested in 2026, and now a lucky xatakero or xatakera can take it home. The winner will be revealed himself Friday at 11:00you will be notified by email and it will be announced both in the original article and on our dedicated Discord server. This is, by the way, another of the advantages included in Xataka Xtra, a community to which You can join for only 30 euros per year. How to enter the draw for a Roborock Qrevo Curv 2 Pro This giveaway is reserved for subscribers of Xataka Xtra. If you are already part of it, you just have to access your subscriber area and make sure that you have checked the corresponding box (bordered in red in the image below these lines). If you have already done so for previous draws, you don’t have to do anything: you will automatically participate in this one and all the ones to come. Make sure you check that box to automatically participate in the exclusive Xataka Xtra draws | Image: Xataka If you still don’t know Xataka Xtra, you can join for only 30 euros a year (or from two euros per month) and You can access more exclusive giveaways like this oneEl Consultorio, the aforementioned private Discord server, discounts on a growing catalog of digital services and monthly meetings with editors. The winner will be chosen at random from all participating subscribers, along with two alternates. If the winner does not respond within the period indicated in the legal bases, the first substitute will be contacted, and if he/she does not respond either, the second will be contacted. Winning a giveaway does not exclude you from participating in the following ones. You can consult the complete legal bases here. In Xataka | Subscribe now to Xataka Xtra

When asked “how much do you expect to earn” in a job interview, Bill Gates gives the definitive advice to get it right

May 21, 2026 by usatoday24

It doesn’t matter how much you have prepared for a job interview or whether you have an impressive resume, because when push comes to shove, in that face-to-face job interview, it is quite common for us to have our nerves on edge. Because beyond meeting the requirements, that first impression matters a lot. Furthermore, the job interview is a minefield full of trick questions where a false step can be very costly. Given that there are questions that hide more than what they say, you move along a fine line in which you have to try to answer honestly, bet on diplomacy and at the same time extract information and leave no room for doubt to get the job but not at any price. If there is a thorny question, it is ‘How much do you expect to earn?‘. Well, a person as influential and experienced as Bill Gates has a recommendation so as not to get the answer wrong. This is how Bill Gates gets out of the quagmire of ‘How much do you expect to earn?’ If you are asked about your salary expectations, the scenario is the following: if you say a value above what the company has programmed, you may be left out of the selection process, but if your proposal is too low, it may also happen that you get a job with a salary lower than what you would like and that at the same time sounds like underestimating the value of your work and experience. But Bill Gates has been there before and is clear about what to respond. And not just now, but it was in 2020 when the tycoon and billionaire behind Microsoft offers a way out of that thorny issue. More specifically in one of the interviews from the ‘State of Inspiration’ serieswhich pitted Gates face to face with basketball star Stephen Curry. For Bill Gates, the best response to not closing doors and looking good is not to offer an exact figure and to focus on the future, diverting attention from salary to long-term value. I hope the options package is good. I can take risks and I think the company has a great future, so I prefer to get stock options even over cash compensation. I’ve heard other companies are paying too much, but treat me fairly and strengthen the options. This is the move proposed by the tycoon, since in this way you reflect, on the one hand, your confidence in the company’s future project and, on the other, how you want to contribute to its success by applying your skills, so that the chances of achieving the contract are increased. This should soon stop being a problem. However, it is worth remembering that on June 7, 2026 comes into force the European Remuneration Transparency Directive (EU 2023/970). This is a salary transparency law by which companies are obliged to report the salary before the first interview. Therefore, although Gates’ advice may be useful for companies that break the law, or when you are interviewing at a startup that is not European, in theory within Europe we will soon no longer need to go around to get an idea about the salary we are going to receive. In Xataka | Bill Gates has been talking about AI for years. Now he thinks we are making the same mistake as with the arrival of computers Cover | Editing by Rubén Andrés (Unsplash (Arif Riyanto), Flickr (The Aspen Institute)) Via | The Economist

one where snipers and drones are eliminating thousands of wild boars

May 21, 2026 by usatoday24

In November 2025, the Generalitat came to deploy to the UME, drones and police controls around Collserola after finding dozens of dead wild boars near Barcelona. What started with two infected animals ended up turning the city’s forests into a huge crawl area sanitary. A city at war. For years, wild boars were a growing nuisance in Barcelona and its metropolitan area: animals that rummaged through garbage, crossed roads or appeared in housing estates next to Collserola. In 2026 the situation completely changed scale. The detection of African swine fever turned part of Catalonia into a huge health perimeter where the Generalitat began to unfold a response typical of an emergency operation. Ground zero around Cerdanyola was surrounded by fencesclosures of wildlife passages, collective traps and access restrictions. More than 1,900 troops work on the ground while drones, canine units and specialized companies “comb” forests and peri-urban areas looking for corpses, sick animals and groups of wild boars. I was counting a few days ago The Country that the political language stopped seeming environmental to approach that of a military campaign: “empty” entire areas, “eradicate” outbreaks and contain the spread of the virus before it reaches the Catalan pork industry. The massive hunting of thousands of animals. The magnitude of the operation explains to what extent the Generalitat considers the situation a strategic threat. The initial objective was to eliminate between 8,000 and 10,000 wild boars in the 20-kilometer radius around the outbreak detected in November 2025. The figure was later adjusted about 6,000 animals only within the critical perimeter, while the general plan aims to reduce the entire wild boar population in Catalonia by half, estimated between 120,000 and 180,000 specimens. Since January they have already sacrificed more than 26,000 animals throughout the community. In some points of the so-called “ground zero” there would be barely twenty wild boars left after months of continuous captures. He deployment includes hundreds of traps, Pig Brig nets, thermal visors, closures of wildlife crossings and constant controls to prevent animals from crossing natural corridors around Barcelona. Snipers, hunters and wildlife control companies. One of the most striking elements of the entire crisis is how hunters have gone from being a socially questioned figure to becoming in essential piece of the operation. Some act practically as specialized shooters in forested and peri-urban areas where drones perform poorly and animals move near inhabited areas. Many describe night shifts with thermal visorshigh-capacity traps and rifles prepared to shoot any specimen that appears in front of the viewer. The Generalitat has even started financing fuel, veterinary assistance for capture dogs and specialized material. At the same time, the Government has hired companies accustomed to operating in urban and peri-urban environments, especially in Collserola and other spaces where wild boars have become accustomed to coexisting with the city. The result is increasingly reminiscent of a permanent campaign wildlife control deployed around a large European capital. A gigantic economic threat. Behind this offensive there is a fear much greater than the overpopulation of wild boars itself. Catalonia concentrates an essential part of the pork industry Spanish and the expansion of African swine fever could cause a multimillion-dollar blow to exports, farms and international markets. Japan and the Philippines already restrictions have been applied and the Government fears losing health credibility if the virus escapes the controlled perimeter. That is why the institutional discourse insists so much in “biosecurity” and the need to act extremely quickly. The Catalan administration defends that it is not an ideological or political decision, but rather a a mandatory response to avoid an economic collapse. The pressure is so high that a debate has even been opened about accelerating the marketing of game meat to absorb the tens of thousands of catches and keep the system economically viable. The battle inside Collserola. The big problem for the authorities is that the war against wild boars is taking place in one of the environments most complex possible: a huge metropolitan area of four million inhabitants. Collserola functions as a natural refuge and motion runner for animals accustomed for years to living next to housing estates, roads and peripheral neighborhoods. Some areas are so wooded that not even drones They allow us to accurately calculate how many copies remain. Technicians recognize that total control is extremely difficult and that is why restrictions on mobility and access to the natural environment remain in force months after the start of the crisis. Meanwhile, they continue new positives appearing week after week, fueling the feeling that the Generalitat is in a race against time to prevent the outbreak from spreading definitively beyond Barcelona. The city-nature relationship. The crisis has also left an uncomfortable image about how the relationship between big cities and wildlife has changed. For years, Barcelona lived with a growing population of wild boars that learned to take advantage of garbage, parks and urbanized areas. The animals lost their fear of people while administrations tried to manage the problem without resorting to massive slaughter campaigns. The african swine fever It broke that balance suddenly. Now the city lives surrounded by controls, restrictions and capture operations where police, hunters, veterinarians and wildlife specialists participate. The scene of teams searching forests with dogs, nets and rifles a few kilometers from densely populated areas has ended up projecting a strange sensation: that of a great European capital converted into the epicenter of a health war against thousands of wild animals. Image | Pexels In Xataka | The problem is not that 100 wild boars in Barcelona have swine fever. The problem is that we don’t know how it got there. In Xataka | The Argentine sea hid one of the most disturbing animals in the world: an 11-meter-long “ghost jellyfish”

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