usatoday24

Russia is the great missing person in the AI race. He has neither chips nor talent, and his great ally only gives him the leftovers

June 8, 2026 by usatoday24

What’s happening with AI in Russia? The artificial intelligence race has as absolute protagonists to the US and China, and it’s surprising that a power like Russia does not seem to be advancing in this type of field. The truth is that he is doing it, but his situation in this area is worrying. Russia does have AI models. Although they are hardly talked about, there are several AI models that are developed by Russian companies and that, above all, are totally oriented towards their citizens. The country does not have access to Western models such as ChatGPT or Claude, but it does have access to these alternatives: GigaChat: is probably the most advanced Russian model. It is developed by the financial institution Sberbank, and It is available via web although to use it it is necessary to have an account in said entity. Yandex Alice: the company that has already offered a search engine in the image and likeness of Google for years also has its own artificial intelligence model, called Alice AI. It is possible to use from its official website in both English and Russian (Spanish is not supported) like a traditional chatbot. MTS AI – one of the largest telecom operators in Russia also has its own model, MTS AImore aimed at companies and developers with its Cotype models that recently support the ability to create agents for enterprise applications. behind. The veto of chips and advanced technology from the US has been one of the factors that has caused these models to be clearly behind the latest frontier models from companies such as OpenAI or Anthropic. He proves it launched three months ago from GigaChat-3.1-Ultra-702B, an open weights model derived from DeepSeek 702B A36B. In the published benchmarks, the performance of this model is at the level of DeepSeek v3 (launched in December 2024) or Qwen3-235B (launched in April 2025). This model is for example available at Hugging Face. China is your natural ally. China and Russia have long maintained a geopolitical alliance that has an impact in various areas. The curious thing is that in this case that impact is being felt less than one would expect. Russian AI models are based on Chinese open models, but at the moment it seems that These are somewhat old versions which they later adapt to Russian. And as happens with Chinese models, which censor certain topics, Russian models apply that same filtering to avoid sensitive issues. Without chips there is no AI. The big problem Russia faces is the same one China faces, but amplified. They don’t have access to advanced Nvidia chips to train their models, so they have looked Shortcuts to bypass trade restrictions and be able to develop those models. Russia, get in line. Sberbank, for example, is trying to get access to Chinese AI chips like the Huawei Ascend 950 for your projects, but there are two problems here. The first is that these chips are aimed at model inference, not their training. The second, that at the moment those who have priority access to these chips are the Chinese companies themselves, which are reserving large quantities for their future projects. ByteDance, Tencent or Alibaba have placed important orders that leave Russia in a complicated situation. Russian chips in the (distant) future. These problems of access to specialized chips could be solved if Russia manages to boost its semiconductor industry. Baikal Electronics has been working on alternatives to x86 chips from Intel and AMD for some time, but also promise develop AI chips in 2029 or 2030. Once again, commercial and technological vetoes mean that in both scenarios the company’s proposals cannot compete with the latest advances of its Western competitors, at least for now. Industrial and military use. Russian LLM developments not only try to present an option for Russian citizens, but also for military applications. The war with Ukraine has actually revealed how Russia is using the well-known AI miniPCs Nvidia Jetson for its Shahed missiles. Russia has it very difficult. The current situation in Russia makes it difficult for the country to present notable alternatives to the most advanced AI models of the US or China (or even Europe). The war with Ukraine also caused an exodus of talent and Russian engineers, although companies like Sber have tried to boost campaigns to attract talent in the university environment. All of this adds to Russia’s difficult access to the most advanced hardware and software and its dependence on an ally like China that is prioritizing its own AI companies. In Xataka | Russia already has its own multi-core CPUs for AI. What it doesn’t have yet is the most important thing: its GPU

Ukraine has turned military bridges into impossible targets. Russia just responded with a Frankenstein on wheels

June 8, 2026 by usatoday24

In World War II, six soldiers could carry parts by hand of a Bailey bridge and build a passage for tanks in a matter of hours. Eight decades later, the real challenge is no longer building the bridge: it is making it survive long enough to enter service. River crossings are a nightmare. Crossing a river has always been one of the most delicate operations for any army. Crossing points are predictable, vehicles must be concentrated in a small space, and engineers need time to deploy bridges or pontoons. In Ukraine, however, the problem has become a new dimension. Drones constantly monitor roads, accesses and banks, detecting any preparation for a crossing long before it occurs. This means that forces attempting to cross a river can be attacked even before reaching the water. What for decades was a complex engineering operation has been transformed into a race against time under permanent surveillance. A problem since the start of the war. Russian difficulties in crossing rivers they are not new. One of the most remembered episodes occurred in May 2022, when a Russian tactical group was practically destroyed during an attempt to cross the Siverski Donets. More than three years later, the problem remains unresolved. They remembered in Forbes That even relatively modest obstacles like the Vovcha River can slow down entire operations because the challenge is no longer just overcoming the water, but surviving the deployment process. Every bridge, every pontoon and every engineering vehicle automatically becomes a priority target for Ukrainian drones, artillery and other precision strike systems. The strange “Frankenstein”. Thus a scene has taken place that has remained recorded on video by Ukrainian forces. It happened when one of the most peculiar vehicles seen in the war appeared. A Russian unit built an improvised system using military truck chassis, probably Ural or KamAZ, transformed into a kind of articulated pontoon. The structure was made up of a drive section and a large adapted trailer, creating a set long enough to cross narrow sections of the river. Its appearance was so rudimentary and strange that Ukrainian observers compared it to a creation straight out of a Mad Max movie and they baptized as a four-wheeled “Frankenstein”. More than a visual curiosity, the vehicle reflected the need to find alternative solutions to a problem for which conventional means seem increasingly less effective. A mission observed from start to finish. The broadcast images by the Ukrainian Wolfhound unit show the complete route of the vehicle towards its objective. The group advanced at high speed through Vovchansk in an obvious attempt to reduce the time of exposure to possible attacks. During the trip, the trailer repeatedly left the road, knocked down an electrical pole and activated several mines without being disabled. Even so he managed to reach the river bank. However, Ukrainian air surveillance had followed their every move. As the soldiers began to deploy the system and the forward section began entering the water, several attack drones They destroyed the vehicle before he could complete his mission. A deeper problem. The most striking thing about the episode is that Russia has specialized teams capable of carrying out this type of operations. Systems such as launchable bridges MTU-72 or the PMP pontoons They were designed precisely to allow the passage of troops and armor through rivers much larger than the Vovcha. For a unit to resort to a such an improvised solution suggests that these means were not available in that sector or that the losses accumulated during the war have reduced their presence on the front line. It also reflects an industrial reality: the current priority is on producing tanks, armored vehicles, drones, ammunition and artillery, while engineering equipment receives much less attention and replenishment. Modern warfare forces us to reinvent everything. He “Frankenstein” by Vovchansk fits into an increasingly visible trend within the Russian military. In recent years, protected armored vehicles have appeared with anti-drone cagesvehicles covered with netsmodified robots for new features and all types of adaptations carried out directly by combat units. The speed at which threats evolve often outpaces militaries’ ability to develop and deploy new solutions. Although the makeshift pontoon was destroyed, its existence is revealing. It demonstrates the extent to which drones have disrupted a military task as basic as crossing a river, and how soldiers are attempting to fill the gap between battlefield needs and the ability of military machinery to respond with ingenuity, recycled parts, and emergency solutions. Image | x In Xataka | Russia’s enemy in Ukraine is basically an AI. So you’re painting your tanks CAPTCHA color In Xataka | Thousands of elderly Ukrainians are isolated at the front. An army of drones is coming to your rescue

So you can get a Nintendo Switch 2 from AliExpress!

June 8, 2026 by usatoday24

A raffle is coming, no, a great raffle. The eighth exclusive giveaway for subscribers of Xataka Xtra It is neither more nor less than a nintendo switch 2Nintendo’s latest console. Valued at 459 euros, the Switch 2 is great now that summer is approaching and we have more free time to indulge in a big way. The draw is reserved for subscribers of Xataka Xtraour community with exclusive advantages. If you are already a member you can go to the next paragraph, because you already know how it works. If you are not yet part of All the information can be found at this link. How to participate in the giveaway for a Nintendo Switch 2 Participating in this great giveaway is as easy as being part of Xataka Xtraaccess your member area and check the box that appears in red in the image below. When you have done so, you will participate in this draw and in all those to come, which are not few. Make sure you check that box to automatically participate in the exclusive Xataka Xtra draws | Image: Xataka If you are already part of Xataka Xtra and have participated in previous draws you don’t have to do anything. You will automatically participate in the draw. As a summary and for the dates to be clear, here is a summary: Requirements: be a Xataka Xtra subscriber and resident in Spain (Peninsula, Balearic Islands, Canary Islands, Ceuta and Melilla) Start of the draw: Monday, June 8, 2026. End of the draw: Friday, June 19, 2026, at 9:00. Winner selection and resolution: Friday, June 19, 2026. How will the winner be chosen? From Xataka we will choose a random subscriber and two substitutes. If the winner does not respond within the period stipulated in the legal bases of each draw, the winner will go to the first substitute and, if this does not happen either, to the second. Winning a giveaway does not prevent you from winning in the following ones. You can find the legal bases at this link. Regarding the prize, the nintendo switch 2 needs few introductions. The new Nintendo console, which is available on AliExpress for 435 euros In the summer offers, it allows you to move Nintendo Switch games, titles such as Cyberpunk 2077 and the future Call of Dutyand other wonders like Pokopia, Mario Kart World either Donkey Kong Bananza. It is a machine that feels objectively superior in each and every one of the sections compared to the previous generation. It is a great prize to enjoy the summer in a big way, whether by making the most of the games single player like sharing the Joy-Con. Best of luck to everyone! In Xataka | Subscribe to Xataka Xtra

Waymo’s ambitious plan to turn its batteries into gigantic solar powerbanks

June 8, 2026 by usatoday24

The electric car industry has been grappling with an elephant in the room for years: what to do with the millions of battery packs that, while no longer useful to power a vehicle, still retain enormous energy capacity. Now, the answer could come with autonomous driving. Waymo has formalized a strategic agreement with the company B2U Storage Solutions to give a “second life” to the spent batteries of their robotaxis, preventing them from ending up directly in recycling plants to convert them into gigantic solar energy storage systems. The paradox of the robotaxi. To understand why this movement is so relevant, you have to understand how an autonomous car ages. As detailed Wall Street Journalthe life of a robotaxi is nothing like that of a private car. While our personal vehicles spend most of the day parked, Waymo vehicles operate as high-use shared assets. In statements to the financial newspaper, Adam Lenz, director of sustainability at Waymo, explained that this high utilization causes its cars to accumulate kilometers at a dizzying rate, forcing the batteries to be removed from commercial service much earlier than usual. According to data from Geotaba consumer electric car loses just 2.3% of battery capacity per year, retaining more than 81% after eight years of use. Robotaxis, however, suffer much more rapid degradation. But just because a battery no longer offers the range needed to safely carry passengers doesn’t mean it’s dead. The new business model seeks to squeeze the residual value of these batteries to use them in stationary applications, avoiding waste and taking advantage of critical materials that have already been manufactured. “Energy sponges.” When Waymo vehicles can no longer perform, B2U removes the batteries, tests their performance, and packages them in large metal cabinets about 2.7 meters high, similar to small shipping containers. Each of these containers houses dozens of units. From there, they function as true “energy sponges” for the electrical grid. During the day, when there is plenty of sun or wind and prices are low, the system absorbs and stores that electricity. It then injects that energy back into the grid during nighttime demand peaks, just when solar production drops. The economic and energy impact is notable. Freeman Hall, CEO of B2U, details that each reused battery can add between $8,000 and $10,000 in electrical value. Additionally, a single storage container has enough capacity to supply an average home for up to three months. Although Waymo has not specified an exact number of units, the goal in the long term it is to deploy “hundreds of megawatt-hours” of capacity, concentrating initial efforts in California and Texas, two states with great dependence and growth in renewable energy. The figures of an unstoppable fleet. As detailed Ars TechnicaWaymo currently operates about 4,000 vehicles, mainly consisting of Jaguar I-Pace with 90 kWh batteries, to which are being added the new “Ojai” models from the Chinese manufacturer Zeekr, equipped with 93 kWh batteries. This fleet makes about 500,000 trips a week, a rate that will only grow: the Wall Street Journal cites Morgan Stanley estimate which predicts that autonomous journeys in the US will go from 15 million in 2025 to 36 million at the end of this year. However, Waymo’s purely “green” narrative has its chiaroscuros, and the specialized press does not ignore them. Ars Technica Enter critical and necessary information: Although the company assures that its electric fleet avoids 530 tons of CO2 every half a million trips, its recent landing in Austin (Texas) together with Uber raised blisters. There, they used mobile generators from the company L-Charge powered by natural gas to recharge the robotaxis, which generated neighborhood complaints about noise and highlighted the logistical difficulties of operating electric vehicles without adequate charging infrastructure. On the other hand, companies like Redwood Materials (backed by Waymo’s own parent company, Alphabet) are also launching their own second-life storage divisions. All this occurs in a context of absolute record: in the first quarter of 2026, the US installed 9.7 GWh of stationary storage, an increase of 32% year-on-year. Beyond the green posturing. In short, this agreement seals a perfect urban circularity. As Adam Lenz reflectsthe same batteries that today transport passengers through their streets, tomorrow will be supporting the local electrical networks of those same communities. However, behind the obvious environmental benefit is a movement of pure business strategy: this is not just green philanthropy. Waymo depends on the electrical grids of the cities where it operates to be stable and robust to be able to keep its fleets operational 24/7. In the age of mass automation, shoring up the electrical grid with batteries from your own retired cars is no longer just an ecological medal; It is a strict necessity of business survival. Image | Daniel Ramirez Xataka | A man ordered a Waymo to go to the airport. When he got there he ran into a problem: the trunk wouldn’t open.

First he tied up Samsung, now SK Hynix. At the RAM crisis party, Nvidia has secured the cake

June 8, 2026 by usatoday24

In any group of friends, there is one person who always tries to get along with everyone. In the technology world, that person is Nvidia. The American giant that until not so long ago was the one who dominated the conversation in the field of video game hardware, now it is synonymous with artificial intelligence. Nvidia is shaping the sector with billion-dollar investmentsbut also with its hardware. The H200 and the Blackwell B200 are the most coveted chips in the sectorwhich leads to everyone wants that platform and, therefore, Nvidia is one of the whales that is drinking the global stock of RAM. For Vera Rubin, their new platform, they need much more memory and, after reaching an agreement to ensure the best available that Samsung makesthey have achieved another with the other leg of the global RAM market: SK Hynix. And this is about data centersbut also eye-catching RTX Spark chiprobotics, accelerating development times and how consumers have years left to continue suffering with the supply of chips. Nvidia, SK Hynix and the deal to manufacture everything Jensen Huang, CEO of Nvidia, is traveling through Seoul. This time his objective was not to visit the new Samsung facilities (relations with Samsung They are already more than consolidated), but to secure the other South Korean (and world) memory chip giant: SK Hynix. During their visit, the two CEOs staged a multi-year agreement by which Nvidia will have priority access to the most refined memory coming out of the SK Hynix foundry. Because Nvidia already warned in January that this year it would need all the silicon possible, and seeing the roadmap it is something that is perfectly understood. As we say, they are immersed in the Vera Rubin AI platform for the training and inference of artificial intelligence models; have just presented the RTX Spark chips in response to Apple Silicon and Qualcomm chips for computers Windows ARM and then there’s another leg that we don’t talk about as much, but that they are pushing hard and that also requires a lot of memory chips: the Jetson Thor robotics platform. In it releasethe two state that this is an agreement to speed up development times on this hardware for AI. This is something that requires long development cycles, but also a lot of money to sustain the global demand for memory due to data centers for AI. This deal goes there. “AI factories are the drivers of the next industrial revolution, and advanced memory is essential to their performance” – Jensen Huang Because it is not so much about ensuring high bandwidth memory (something that Nvidia already had to be the great whale of the sector), but to improve the infrastructure so that the new generations arrive at the pace that the development of AI requires. In fact, Chey Tae-won, CEO of SK Group, highlights the same thing: “together we are co-developing the next generation of memory for AI factories, applying AI to semiconductor design and manufacturing.” That is to say, It is not a simple question of supply (which also, since 60-70% of SK Hynix’s HBM4 memory goes to Nvidia’s Vera Rubin), but to apply AI tools (which Nvidia has) for the design and manufacturing of semiconductors with the aforementioned objective of shortening times. This objective is something that is being pursued worldwide, and the company itself SK Hynix together with Samsung collaborate in a megacenter in the United States to streamline all these processes. As a result of this agreement, it is very possible that SK Hynix get its goal of setting up a fully autonomous semiconductor factory by 2030 (something that, again, share with Samsung). Now, what about the goal of those we want a RAM stick or one Steam Deck that doesn’t hit price increases of 300 euros at once? Well, unfortunately, we are going to continue eating this situation of debauchery when it comes to building AI platforms and gigantic data centers. During his visit, Huang himself commented that he expects the global shortage to last for years because the entire supply chain of this new industry depends on these chips and that demand is very high. In their wordsit is something that “will persist for several years”. They are not new statements either, since Huang gave about seven or eight years to the unbridled investment. And more important than all this, Nvidia, right now, has the four chip giants eating from his hand. SK Hynix and Samsung with memory and their factories for new generation memory. TSMC has turned Nvidia into your client A. And ASML that is what manufactures machines to make advanced chips It is the one that supplies those tools to the three mentioned. In Xataka | China already has a GPU that competes with Nvidia’s RTX 3060. The bad thing is that it arrives five years late and worse

In Asia they haven’t put ice in the water during meals for centuries. Digestive physiology just explained why they were right

June 8, 2026 by usatoday24

The other day a friend told me about a peculiarity she observed during a recent trip to China: the glass of ice water on the table is almost a rarity. Instead you’ll find a pot of green tea, a bowl of broth, or just nothing cold. For centuries, in much of Asia, drinking cold liquid during a meal has been an eccentricity more typical of the West than there. What for a long time seemed like a quaint custom, or directly a matter of infrastructure—ice was not always available everywhere—turns out to have a pretty solid physiological explanation. The temperature of the water we drink while we eat is not a minor detail. It affects the movements of the stomach, the rate at which it empties, and how the muscles of the digestive system behave. And science, although with important nuances, is beginning to agree with what millions of people in Asia have been practicing for millennia. Before getting into the physiology, we must understand how this debate has reached the West. It has not been through a medical congress or a scientific journal. It has arrived, like so many other things, through TikTok. The phenomenon is known as chinamaxxing either Becoming Chinese: a viral trend in which thousands of Western people adopt lifestyle habits from Chinese culture, including drinking hot water. According to documents The New York Timeshot water has become “the new superstar of online well-being”, with influencers documenting how this habit deflates them, gives them energy and improves their digestion. But what the Internet presents as a revolutionary discovery is nothing new. This practice has been rooted for thousands of years. in Indian Ayurveda—where the morning ritual of drinking hot water is known as usha paana— and in Traditional Chinese Medicine, where cold is believed to “turn off the agni“, the digestive fire, and weakens the vital energy or Qiforcing the body to expend extra energy to warm the stomach. Hot water, on the other hand, balances the Yin and the Yang and keeps the body calm. Just because something is part of an ancient tradition does not automatically make it scientific truth, of course. But it doesn’t disqualify him either. The question is what exactly science says when it begins to analyze what happens in the stomach according to the temperature of what we drink. What really happens in the stomach? To understand the debate, we must separate two things that are often confused: the effect of drinking water during a meal and the effect of the temperature of that water. They are different questions with different answers. On the one hand, regarding water itself, there is a widespread belief that drinking water during meals dilutes gastric juices and digestive enzymes, slowing down digestion. Medical portals such as HealthLine They explain that there is no solid scientific evidence that water dilutes gastric juices or significantly hinders digestion. The stomach has a dynamic regulatory system that detects changes in pH and automatically secretes more hydrochloric acid to compensate. Drinking a glass of water during a meal hardly alters that balance. Marina Domene, head of nutrition at SHA Spain nuances in Vogue Where is the real limit: the problem is not drinking water, but excesses. “What is not recommended is drinking excessive amounts, more than two or three large glasses, as it could distend the stomach too much and temporarily dilute the enzymes,” he explains. It also points out that there are specific contexts where it is advisable to be more careful: in people who suffer from hypochlorhydria – low production of stomach acid – it is not recommended to consume liquids during meals. On the other hand, regarding temperature the panorama changes and this is where physiology begins to agree with Asia. The temperature of the liquids directly affects gastric motility, that is, the muscle movements of the stomach that drive digestion. Domene explains it clearly: “Cold drinks can slightly slow down gastric emptying and constrict the blood vessels of the stomach, which in sensitive people can be heavy. Hot liquids, such as broths or infusions, have a relaxing effect on the smooth muscles of the stomach.” This is not just a clinical opinion. There are studies that support this, such as research on the effect of temperature on gastric emptying have observed that very cold drinks, around 2-5 °C, can temporarily slow down the initial phase of gastric emptying compared to liquids at body temperature. Drinks at 4°C also disrupt antral and pyloric contractions, briefly retaining stomach contents. An experiment with 11 young men who consumed 500 ml of water at different temperatures found that water at 2 °C reduced the frequency of gastric contractions compared to water at 60 °C, and that lower muscle activity was related to lower subsequent caloric intake. The sample sizes of these studies are modest—it should be said—but their results consistently point in the same direction. A study published in Gastroenterology Nursingfocused on patients who had recently undergone colon surgery, observed that the consumption of hot water had a positive impact on subsequent bowel movements. It is not a study designed for healthy people, but it adds evidence about the role of temperature in intestinal motility. Gastroenterologist Dr. Lisa Ganjhu, consulted by The New York Timesdescribes it more graphically: during the night, the digestive system slows down. Hot water generates waves of contraction and relaxation in the muscles of the esophagus, stomach and intestines. “It’s basically telling everyone, ‘Okay, get up. We’ve got to get going,’” he explains. Why did they take that path and not another? The physiological explanation that science offers today connects quite well with what traditional Chinese medicine and Ayurveda have been saying for centuries, although in completely different languages. In China, Japan and much of Southeast Asia, It is common to accompany meals with hot tea or soup. It is not a fad or a recent trend: it is part of the structure of food. The broth does not close the menu, it accompanies … Read more

MediaMarkt knocks down the price of the Samsung Galaxy S25+ (and not in its minimum version) with a 41% discount for a limited time

June 8, 2026 by usatoday24

If you were waiting for the right moment to renew your phone for a high-end phone with capital letters, MediaMarkt has just given it to you on a plate. Now, the Samsung Galaxy S25+ In its most ambitious storage version it is at an irresistible price. Specifically, you can get the 512 GB version for only 749 euros. Taking into account that the official sale price is 1,279 euros, we are talking about a 41% discount, or in other words, 530 euros of direct savings. Plus, shipping is free or you can choose in-store pickup at no additional cost. Samsung Galaxy S25+ 5g 6.7″ 512gb Navy Blue The price could vary. We earn commission from these links A beast in performance and with an outstanding screen He Samsung Galaxy S25+ It is one of the most balanced and powerful devices on the current market. On its front it stands out for its 6.7-inch Dynamic AMOLED display with QHD+ resolution, a fluid 120Hz refresh rate and excellent outdoor visibility. Under the hood, Samsung is betting on this mobile on the safe side, integrating the processor Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elitewhich ensures perfect performance in demanding games and heavy multitasking. Accompanying this processor we find 12 GB of RAM and the aforementioned 512GB storagemore than enough space to forget about space problems during the useful life of the mobile. In the autonomy section, it has a 4,900 mAh battery optimized to last the entire day and is a mobile phone that runs on the Android 17 operating system. All of this is powered by Samsung’s Artificial Intelligence ecosystem, which provides everything from real-time translation to advanced photo editing tools. As for the photographic section, it incorporates a 12 MP front camera and a triple rear camera composed of a 50 MP main sensoraccompanied by a 12 MP wide angle and a 10 MP telephoto lens. ⚡ IN BRIEF: offer for samsung galaxy s25+ today ✅ THE BEST Good performance: The Snapdragon 8 Elite processor together with 12 GB of RAM offer spectacular raw power. Supports heavy games, extreme multitasking or AI processing without any hint of slowness. Support and updates: Samsung has committed to seven years of system and security updates, so you’ll have a fully functional phone for years. ❌ THE WORST Loading speed behind its rivals… While Chinese brands already charge phones at 80, 100W or more, Samsung is still stuck on 45W fast charging and the charger is not included in the box. Without the Ultra zoom… The S25+ stays with a 3x optical zoom. If 5x or 10x super-resolution zoom is vital to you, you will have to make the jump to the Ultra model and pay a lot more. 💡 BUY IT IF… You want a large but comfortable high-end phone, since it is a mobile phone that maintains a large screen but with rounded corners and a much more comfortable weight for everyday use. ⛔ DON’T BUY IT IF… If you are looking for the absolute best camera on the market with massive zoom for nature or event photography, your option is the S25 Ultra or the iPhone 17 Pro Max. Some of the links in this article are affiliated and may provide a benefit to Xataka. In case of non-availability, offers may vary. Images | Javier Penalva (Xataka) and Samsung In Xataka | Best Samsung phones: which one to buy and recommended models based on budget, tastes and price quality In Xataka | The best mobile phones (2025), we have tested them and here are their analyzes

A bank convinced people in a poor town in the US to spend their savings. Now it’s full of millionaires

June 8, 2026 by usatoday24

Stories of lucky breaks and millionaires there are manybut they almost always have a common denominator: we speak in singular. That is why what happened in a small town in Florida whose families were going through serious difficulties to get ahead is so special. Even today, the enclave continues to seem like a nondescript and inhospitable town. But don’t be fooled, a large number of millionaires still live there among the people. And all thanks to Coca-Cola. Quincy and the banker. This is the name of the town in one of the most fascinating stories of the United States economy. There, in the midst of the Great Depression of the 1920s and 1930s and with part of the census in serious difficulties, a figure appears who was going to change everyone’s lives. Your name: Pat Munroean astute banker, a businessman who focused on a key detail to convince all citizens. No matter how impoverished they were in Quincy or how dire the financial situation of the families, the man observed that almost religiously, people spent every penny on a nice ice-cold glass of Coca-Cola. What if that devotion turned it into a stroke of luck? Coca-Cola in a bag. The sugar giant It went public in 1919 at $40 a share.but a conflict with the sugar industry and its bottlers caused a 50% drop shortly after, when it reached $19 per share. Put another way, there was a time in history when Coca-Cola was trading for less than cash in the bank and its stock was extremely cheap. And among others, Munroe was at the right time. The bargain of the century. What did he do? Invest. The man began to acquire Coca-Cola shares as if there were no tomorrow. However, he did not do it alone. He encouraged all his acquaintances and friends of acquaintances in town to buy a stake in the company. Focusing on bottom line profits and brand power, Pat Munroe kept buying and buying. And as he did so he kept telling everyone in Quincy who would listen to him to buy too. He took advantage of the trust and respect the community had for him and went on a crusade to get anyone who could to get on the Coca-Cola train. Loans for shares. The man was so sure of his success that every time a person went to his bank to ask for a loan, encouraged him to accept another in exchange for shares. Farmers, shopkeepers, teachers: absolutely anyone who could spend money was tempted by Munroe. For the banker, the fact that Coca-Cola shares were at $19 each was an opportunity that no one in the city should escape. That is why he never tired of urging people to buy and, almost as important, to remain firm in the decision regardless of the market fluctuations that occurred in the short term. The ball Finally, the banker’s observations turned out to be a historic success. Quincy, an eminently agricultural city, not only stayed afloat in difficult times thanks to Coca-Cola dividends, brought a wealth that is still studied in universities. In fact, the enclave became the richest city per capita in the entire United States for a time, and dozens of its inhabitants were nicknamed “the secret Coca-Cola millionaires.” People who trusted Munroe’s good eye and invested all their money (and what they didn’t have), and who amassed enormous fortunes with those first shares, which they then passed down from generation to generation, turning them into the eponymous Coca-Cola millionaires, ones who, effectively, established entire dynasties of financial prosperity that transcended generations. How much are we talking about? It is difficult to speak in total terms, but to give us an idea of the money, in 2013 it was made a study evaluating what happened in Quincy. The results showed that a single share with reinvested dividends was worth $10,000,000. $270,000 in pre-tax cash dividends would be sent to the owner by sending a check for approximately $67,500 in March, June, September and November of each year. Thus, if the great-grandmother and the great-grandfather on duty had acquired a round lot of 100 shares for between $1,900 and $4,000, depending on the purchase price, they would have more than a billion dollars, excluding the effects of estate taxes. By the way, the current value is considerably higher, since the stock has more than doubled its price since then and the quarterly dividend now exceeds $0.53 per share. Money for crisis. That investment has been a lifesaver every time a tough time approaches. When the local economy was supported by coca and the crisis arrived, tail dividends. In fact, these assets have supported the city through every recession since. When crops failed, it was Coca-Cola money that kept people employed. When the national economy collapsed, it was Coca-Cola’s cash that allowed people to stay in their homes. When times were good and Coca-Cola was cheap, they bought more shares. Quincy today. It is a unique story, because it is unusual. Every family that amassed a fortune then passed it on to their children and grandchildren, in some cases through direct donations and in others through the use of trust funds. Even the bank where it all started has a Coca-Cola on display and, according to data from the early 2010s, a staggering 65% of trust assets under management were still invested in Coca-Cola stock. Quincy’s appearance today is not much different from the Great Depression era. It remains a quiet and eminently agricultural city with a population around to 7,000 inhabitants. But don’t let your eyes fool you, some of the grandchildren whose families built an empire, that of the secret Coca-Cola millionaires, still walk through those streets. A version of this article was published in July 2025 Image | PXHere, Ebyabe, PXHere In Xataka | Jeff Bezos asked his parents for their life savings to found Amazon. They only asked him one question: “What is the Internet? In Xataka | Madrid may … Read more

goes through Nvidia and Google

June 8, 2026 by usatoday24

It doesn’t matter when you read this, but the new Siri is coming. I know that already it was said two years agobut now it seems that iOS 27 will bring this new Siri in its beta phase. Apple’s plans for both its assistant and its artificial intelligence They presented themselves with many promises, but few realities and a historic shipwreck which forced the company to remove YouTube ads showing the assistant’s actions. But now comes the good news, and it will be thanks to others. Specifically, thanks to Nvidia and Google. September. Now yes, it really seems that the new Siri will arrive in September. Once it passes the beta period with iOS 27 this summer, the assistant will reach our devices. Whether it will be in a full or trimmed version while they test and expand features remains to be seen, but being the launch of Ternus as new CEOit is evident that what they launch must be based on reality and not on promises. Why September? Well, because that is when the iPhone 18 Pro is expected to arrive and that is when, traditionally, the final version of the new version of iOS is released. Google brain. Now, to the most interesting thing. As published The Informationthis new Siri will be possible not thanks to Apple’s advances in its own AI or its servers: it will be thanks to Google. It doesn’t take anyone by surprise considering the agreement that both companies reached in January of this year. It was announced as a multi-year, one-time deal between Google and Apple to make Gemini the core of Apple’s foundational models. It is something that is still valid, especially taking into account the, according to Bloomberg$1 billion annually that Apple pays Google to give them access to a customized Gemini model, plus other smaller ones to train their own models that can be used locally on the devices. Nvidia Muscle. And, if Google is Siri’s brain, it’s also the muscle. According to the same report, this renewed version of Siri will depend on the Google Cloud data centers that have the processors Nvidia Blackwell B200. This is one of Nvidia’s most capable platforms for AI calculations and the decision to use them was made recently. According to The Information, Apple made the decision after evaluating the confidential computing capabilities on the Nvidia platform. We already know that it is a company that takes data privacy seriously (everything that a company of such magnitude can take, of course) and The Information points out that this focus on privacy slightly slows down AI processing in the cloud, but allows Apple to maintain that privacy commitment. Keep an eye on WWDC. In any case, in the end this is information from The Information and it is very possible that we will soon have more information. This Monday, June 8, at 7:00 p.m. Spanish peninsular time, the WWDC will kick off. Apple’s big software event will allow us to know these details, as well as all the news about iOS 27 and the new ones macOS, iPadOSWhatchOS and, hopefully, VisionOS. Our Applesfera colleagues they will be in Cupertino to cover it live, but in Xataka you will also have all the information at your fingertips. In Xataka | How to change Siri for ChatGPT on your iPhone: create a shortcut and use voice AI whenever you want without opening any app

The CEO of a technology company has explained to his employees why he will not raise their salary: they will spend it on AI

June 8, 2026 by usatoday24

That AI doesn’t take your job It does not free you from suffering the consequences of its implementation. And if not, tell the Teradata employees who have seen how their salaries were frozen this year, not to balance somewhat tight accounts, but because they have decided that every available dollar should go to AI. what has happened. They tell it in Business Insider. In January of this year, Teradata CEO Steve McMillan sent an internal message to the company’s 5,100 employees telling them that they should not expect a salary increase in 2026. Teradata’s goal for this year was to “win in the market with AI,” for which they need to increase investment in AI talent and tools. In Xataka An Atlassian engineer was fired. He then published a video on YouTube explaining how the company works When AI takes your paycheck. According to two employees of the company with more than ten years of service, they normally received an annual raise of between 2 and 4%, but this year they have been left without it, although they were able to receive a performance bonus and shares. This measure affects countries where regulations do not require wage adjustments linked to the market. Teradata is not the only company that has preferred to invest in AI over people. The consultant TTEC also decided to pause its contribution to the retirement plan 401(k) because they are going to focus on AI certifications, tools and automation. A choice, not an inevitability. Speaking to Business Insider, the labor expert Jennifer MossHe affirms that cutting employees’ pockets is not the only way out. It is true that both Teradata and TTEC have recorded revenue declines (5 and 3.2% respectively), but there are options such as resorting to external financing to pay for the investment in AI, cutting non-essential expenses or adjusting senior management compensation. It also mentions alternatives such as staggering investments in AI over time, resorting to strategic acquisitions or accepting lower margins for a limited period, instead of loading the entire cost of the transformation on salaries. AI and augmentations. We recently talked about the logic of salary increases has been broken with the arrival of AI. Previously, raises were granted based on parameters such as experience, seniority and job category. However, in the technology sector this scale has changed and in 2026 many companies have frozen their salaries. Although AI is not directly responsible as in the case of Teradata, it has contributed to creating an elite of highly paid profiles and has amplified the gap: now the company you work for and how central AI is to its business matters more than your simple progression from junior to senior. {“videoId”:”x806n3d”,”autoplay”:false,”title”:”TECHNOLOGY and THE JOBS OF THE FUTURE – Insert Coin with Manuel Hidalgo”, “tag”:”employment”, “duration”:”1806″} Firing is expensive. Normally when we talk about the impact of AI on the labor market, we talk about layoffs. So far this year, it is estimated that 92,000 tech employees have lost their jobs with the excuse of compensating investments in AI. However, the reality is that the layoffs are costing them a fortune for compensation and exit packages. Oracle, for example, has reserved 2.1 billion to cover compensation after lay off 30,000 employees. To avoid legal disputes, giants like Microsoft or Google are betting on incentivized “voluntary layoffs”, assuming the enormous risk that their best AI talents will take the money and go to the competition. Image | Jakub ZerdzickiUnsplash In Xataka | These are not your imaginations: your CEO has developed delusions of grandeur with AI and it is part of a pattern (function() { window._JS_MODULES = window._JS_MODULES || {}; var headElement = document.getElementsByTagName(‘head’)(0); if (_JS_MODULES.instagram) { var instagramScript = document.createElement(‘script’); instagramScript.src=”https://platform.instagram.com/en_US/embeds.js”; instagramScript.async = true; instagramScript.defer = true; headElement.appendChild(instagramScript); – The news The CEO of a technology company has explained to his employees why he will not raise their salary: they will spend it on AI was originally published in Xataka by Amparo Babiloni .

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