the five best deals before Amazon Prime Day

There are a few hours left for Amazon to start its Prime Day 2026but the store has been advancing some offers on all types of products. For this reason, in this article we are going to review the best deals that can be found right now in the store. Poco X8 Pro by 319.99 eurosa mobile phone with a good screen and performance in its 512 GB configuration. Fire TV Stick 4K Select by 23.99 eurosa perfect device to turn almost any “dumb” TV into a smart one. Orbegozo Air 46 by 74.99 eurosan economical air conditioner that is ideal for better coping with heat waves. Xiaomi Pad 8 Pro Matte Glass by 549.99 eurosa powerful tablet with good battery and plenty of storage. Kindle Colorsoft Signature Edition by 255.97 eurosa pack that includes an eReader, case and charging base. The price could vary. We earn commission from these links Poco X8 Pro If during Prime Day you were thinking of buying a mobile phone, be very careful with the price that the phone has right now. Poco X8 Pro because Amazon has it for 319.99 euros in its 512 GB configuration. It is a smartphone with a fairly good screen for the official price (not the offer price) that it has, its performance is excellent and the battery is very good, since it is a 6,500 mAh silicon-carbon battery with 100W fast charging. Poco X8 Pro (8GB, 512GB) The price could vary. We earn commission from these links Fire TV Stick 4K Select Of course, one of Amazon’s advances has fallen on the Fire TV Stick, and the model 4K Select It is currently one of the dongles with the best quality-price ratio of the brand. It is compatible with Alexa+offers 4K resolution and is compatible with HDR10+ content. Its price in this case is 23.99 euros. The price could vary. We earn commission from these links Orbegozo Air 46 The heat waves have arrived, so if you are considering buying a device to better cope with these weeks, and months until the summer ends, Amazon right now has 74.99 euros the Orbegozo Air 46. It is an air conditioner with a six-liter tank. Includes a timer of up to seven hours and works as air conditioner, fan and humidifier. The price could vary. We earn commission from these links Xiaomi Pad 8 Pro Matte Glass We repeat the mark with the Xiaomi Pad 8 Pro Matte Glassa tablet that, for 549.99 euroshas a matte anti-reflective screen. Incorporates the processor Snapdragon 8 Eliteso it does not lack power. It comes with 12 GB of RAM and 512 GB of internal storage, its screen supports Dolby Visionthe diagonal is 11.2 inches and its refresh rate is 144 Hz. In addition, its battery offers 67W fast charging and its operating system is HyperOS. Xiaomi Pad 8 Pro Matte Glass (12GB, 512GB) The price could vary. We earn commission from these links Kindle Colorsoft Signature Edition Finally, Amazon has an offer on Kindle Colorsoft Signature Edition in a pack that includes both a case and a charging base. This pack, which costs 255.97 eurosis priced lower than the eReader without the case and base. As far as the Kindle is concerned, it includes seven inch color screen32 GB to store many books and a good autonomy of weeks of use. Kindle Colorsoft Signature Edition (pack) The price could vary. We earn commission from these links Some of the links in this article are affiliated and may provide a benefit to Xataka. In case of non-availability, offers may vary. Images | Ivan LinaresAmazon, Xiaomi, Orbegozo In Xataka | Which Kindle to buy: buying guide with recommendations to get it right with Amazon e-book readers In Xataka | Best Amazon Fire TV. Which one to buy and recommended models to convert your TV into a smart TV depending on use

the best technology deals before Amazon Prime Day in our Bargain Hunting

There is very little left for Amazon to celebrate its Prime Day 2026and it shows. Both Amazon itself and other stores such as MediaMarkt or Fnac have launched a huge assortment of offers through various campaigns. For this reason, In the new Hunting Gangas we are going to review the best bargains that are available right now. HBO Max from 65 eurosa new offer on the streaming platform to choose between Standard and Premium subscriptions. Samsung Galaxy Book4 by 577.69 eurosa laptop with Windows 11 Home preinstalled. Asus Rog Xbox Ally by 499 eurosa consolidated PC that is quite attractive for its current quality-price ratio. nintendo switch 2 by 479 eurosthe console with the video game ‘Pokémon Pokopia’. Woxter Scriba 195 by 56.94 eurosa compact eReader that is ideal for devouring books at home or on the go. The price could vary. We earn commission from these links HBO Max Despite not being a technology offer, the new HBO Max promotion is attractive enough to ignore it. This week the streaming platform announced that two of its three subscriptions have dropped in price, as long as they are paid annually: HBO Max Standard by 65 euros (before 109 euros): Available on two devices at the same time. Full HD resolution. 30 downloads. HBO Max Premium by 95 euros (before 159 euros): Available on four devices at once. 4K UHD resolution and Dolby Atmos in supported content. 100 downloads. The Basic subscription with ads does not fall within this promotion and remains at the usual 69.90 euros. Obviously, if you were thinking of subscribing annually right now, the best option is the Standard subscription instead of the Basic subscription with ads because it is cheaper, unless you are looking for the features that only the Premium subscription brings. HBO Max – Standard or Premium Subscription The price could vary. We earn commission from these links Samsung Galaxy Book4 Fnac has started its Save the VAT campaign, and there are pretty good offers. One of them has the Samsung Galaxy Book4which remains for 577.69 euros instead of 849.90 euros. It is a laptop with a 15.6-inch screen, Full HD resolution and Windows 11 Home preinstalled. In addition, it comes with 16 GB of RAM, 512 GB of SSD and Intel Core i7-1355U processor. Samsung Galaxy Book4 (16GB, 512GB) The price could vary. We earn commission from these links Asus Rog Xbox Ally Now that The Steam Deck has increased in priceone of the established PCs with the best quality-price ratio is the Asus Rog Xbox Allyespecially now that it’s on sale for 499 euros at MediaMarkt. It is a model with a seven-inch screen, Full HD resolution, 120 Hz refresh rate, pre-installed Windows 11 Home and 512 GB of internal storage. Asus Rog Xbox Ally Z2 (16GB, 512GB) The price could vary. We earn commission from these links nintendo switch 2 On the other hand, if you want to make the jump to the current generation of Nintendo, the Switch 2 is available again at MediaMarkt with the pack that includes ‘Pokémon Pokopia‘. Costs 479 euros in total and to select this pack you have to click on the “Buy pack” button in the MediaMarkt store. The console itself has a price of 469 euros, so taking advantage of the pack the video game only costs 10 euros. Nintendo Switch 2 + Pokémon Pokopia The price could vary. We earn commission from these links Woxter Scriba 195 It is very likely that during Amazon’s Prime Day 2026 we will see offers on Kindle devices, but if you don’t want to wait and, above all, you are looking for a very cheap eReader, the same store right now has the Woxter Scriba 195 by 56.94 euros (before 99 euros). It does not have a touch screen, but rather buttons, its screen is six inches and includes a slot for microSD cards up to 32 GB. The price could vary. We earn commission from these links Some of the links in this article are affiliated and may provide a benefit to Xataka. In case of non-availability, offers may vary. Images | HBO, Samsung, Asus, Nintendo, Woxter In Xataka | Best electronic book readers (e-readers) in quality price. Which one to buy based on use and five recommended models In Xataka | Best laptops in quality price. Which one to buy based on use and eight recommended models

We already know how much water Amazon consumes in its data centers. We have good and bad news

amazon has made public the data of water consumption in their data centers. It is a remarkable exercise in transparency, especially because its division Amazon Web Services (AWS) It is currently the largest cloud infrastructure on the planet. We have bad news… and also good news. 2.5 billion gallons. The figure that stands out the most in this report is the 2.5 billion gallons (almost 9.5 billion liters) of water consumed by its servers per year. It is approximately 5% of the annual water consumption for the Seattle metropolitan area, so this is a notable figure, but one that must be put in perspective because there have already been previous studies that they misunderstood the situation. Golf courses are worse. The company already stated a few weeks ago that “data centers use significantly less water than golf courses or car washes.” They also gave other examples that consume more water, such as the meat production industry or the textile production industry. The efficiency metric. A metric called water use effectiveness (or WUE) is used to measure the impact of a data center. This magnitude indicates the liters consumed for each kilowatt-hour of energy delivered to the servers. According to Amazon, its WUE is 0.18 liters per kWh, much better than Microsoft’s 0.27 l/kWh and of course the 1.1 l/kWh from Google in some of its facilities. It is clear that not all hyperscalers manage to cool their data centers with the same efficiency. Amazon spends a lot of water in its data centers, yes, but according to current data it consumes significantly less than its rivals. Physics is physics. Data centers generate enormous amounts of waste heat, and Amazon indicates that they use direct evaporative cooling systems. Instead of maintaining huge air conditioning systems, the company uses mechanisms that introduce outside air and pass it through humid panels. This allows water to evaporate, absorb heat and cool those rooms where the servers are. The toll exists, of course: evaporated water is lost to the atmosphere and cannot be immediately reused in local ecosystems, which causes pressure drops in surrounding reserves during heat waves. Geography helps. Amazon’s efficiency advantage also benefits from intelligent geographic location of its data centers, the company says. Many of them are in regions with temperate or cold climates in the northern hemisphere. In these areas, cooling by outside air (free cooling) you can take advantage of more than 80% of the days of the year. In contrast, its competitors have often been forced to create their data centers in very hot desert environments which require injecting pressurized water constantly. Promises on one hand, criticism on the other. To compensate this impact due to your water consumptionAmazon has committed to returning more water than it consumes to local communities by 2030. This policy, dubbed “water positive“groups initiatives ranging from the restoration of watersheds to the creation of wastewater treatment plants. Of course, all this discourse faces strong criticism. For these voices, what Amazon is doing is a facelift, but it does not fix the immediate local shortage of wells from which data centers extract water in the middle of summer. The problem persists. Amazon’s report is welcome because it breaks the silence that usually prevails in Silicon Valley regarding natural resources. Even so, it also shows that the world faces a notable problem if the water (and energy) consumption problems generated by data centers cannot be solved. Taking into account the ambition and multimillion-dollar projects of AI companies In this sense, it would be important for official organizations to be in charge of monitoring and regulating these gigantic consumptions. Image | amazon In Xataka | Data centers do not want to depend on the conventional electrical grid. Solution: build your own plants

Amazon forces its engineers to use AI and measures who uses it the most. The employee response: anti-AI memes

AI gurus keep selling us that this technology is going to change the world and? the AGI is about to fall. From the outside, everything is promises of automation and productivity, but from the inside the feeling is very different. Yesterday we learned that the engineers who are working on Google AI They don’t stop making fun of her on internal channels. Well, exactly the same thing is happening on Amazon. Sloppenheimer. It’s one of the memes that Amazon employees have shared in the Slack channel called #actual-aws-memes. In it they mock tools like Kiro (Amazon Web Services’ code platform), Claude Code, and the AI ​​agent Meshclaw. They tell it in 404mediawhere they have spoken with several company employees who wanted to remain anonymous. These employees admit that anti-AI memes started circulating quite some time ago (in late 2024), which is when the company started putting more pressure on them to adopt AI tools. Of course, although mockery of AI is very common, they assure that there is a variety of opinions on the matter. Kiro AI. It is the tool that receives the most ridicule. There are several memes that suggest Kiro is pretty mediocre, such as the one that includes the text “Kiro: I confirm I have the full picture” over an image of an iceberg with much of it underwater. Discontent with this tool reached such a point that Amazon closed Kirorank, an internal leaderboard that measured and rewarded employees’ use of Kiro. Amazon’s official version is that employees had already integrated AI into their daily lives and ranking was no longer necessary, but what really happened is that engineers started cheating. They automated absurd and totally useless tasks for the sake of climbing the rankings, adding to the company’s AI bill. Amazon is not the only one. As we said at the beginning, this anti-AI rebellion based on memes is not exclusive to Amazon, exactly the same thing is happening at Google. While CEO Sundar Pichai boasts that 75% of Google’s code is written with AIemployees use an internal channel to make fun of that very thing. For example, while Google announced news in the Google I/O 2026a meme appeared on the channel saying that they were announcing “new ways to slop.” Memes can be voted on with a reaction system and this immediately added 100 thumbs up. They also make fun of the AI bros who do not stop evangelizing about the benefits of AI and point out the enormous work it is to review the code made by AI, often riddled with errors. What companies say. There is an evident disconnection between the official discourse and the internal feeling of the employees. Amazon has responded to the leaks by trying to downplay them. In an email to 404media, Amazon assures that the negative comments come from a few individuals and do not represent the majority. For its part, Google sent a statement to the same media in which they said they encouraged their employees to test and criticize their internal tools, even through memes. And a curious thing, Google sent two almost identical statements, the only difference is that in the first they mentioned that it was “essential that we keep humans in the process, including supervision.” In the second that phrase had disappeared. Image | Xataka with Magnific In Xataka | From “tokenmaxxing” we have moved on to “tokenwasting”: the level of waste in AI is reaching unprecedented levels

Amazon sells off this iPhone with the best price we have seen to date: it costs 504 euros

Except the iPhone AirApple’s current generation mobile phones have changed very little in price since their respective launches. On the other hand, we do usually find those from the previous generation on sale, and quite frequently. The best one we can find right now has fallen into the iPhone 16ea mobile phone that, although it is true that it is not the most recent, is perfect for making the leap into the Apple ecosystem. Its price on Amazon is 504 euros. The price could vary. We earn commission from these links A new minimum price With Amazon’s new offer, we are talking about a new historical minimum price. He iPhone 16e It will not be Apple’s most complete mobile because it has certain shortcomings, but it is quite attractive. Starting with its design, we are talking about a compact mobile with 6.1 inch screenthe smallest of all considering that, except for the iPhone 17eApple mobile phones are starting from 6.3 inches. It is also a mobile phone that offers good power thanks to the A18 chipthe same one that integrates the iPhone 16. This chip, in addition to offering good performance, adds compatibility with Apple Intelligence. And your software will also be updated for many years. On the other hand, it is worth mentioning that its battery offers one of the best autonomy that we have seen in iPhone with this size, reaching the day without any problem with very demanding use. ⚡ IN SUMMARY: iPhone 16e offer today ✅ THE BEST Yesu format and power: We are talking about a small mobile phone, but also powerful. Your battery: whether you use it a lot or little, the battery will last you at least a day without any problem. ❌ THE WORST los 128 GB… They remain very tight today. With wireless charging, but… no MagSafe support. To use these accessories it is necessary to have a compatible case. 💡 BUY IT IF… You are looking for the first iPhone, especially if you don’t want to spend too much money and are looking to prioritize the battery. ⛔ DON’T BUY IT IF… You are going to take a lot of photographs and you do not have cloud services, since 128 GB is enough for what it gives, which is not much. You may also be interested ESR Case for iPhone 17e/ iPhone 16e, MagSafe Compatible, Military Grade Shockproof Protection, Magnetic Case for iPhone 17e/ iPhone 16e, Classic Hybrid Case (HaloLock), Transparent The price could vary. We earn commission from these links Spigen Glas.tR EZ Fit Screen Protector for iPhone 17e, iPhone 16e, iPhone 14, iPhone 13, iPhone 13 Pro, 2 Units, High Definition, 9H Hardness The price could vary. We earn commission from these links Some of the links in this article are affiliated and may provide a benefit to Xataka. In case of non-availability, offers may vary. Images | Ricardo AguilarApple In Xataka | Best iPhones. Which one to buy in 2026 and recommended models based on budget, tastes and quality-price In Xataka | After testing them, Xataka experts agree: these are the best mobile phones of 2026

When Jeff Bezos asked his parents for $240,000 to found Amazon, they asked him only one thing: “What is the Internet?”

In 1995, Jeff Bezos decided quit your stable job and well paid as an analyst on Wall Street to set up a business selling books online. At that time, Jeff Bezos was not the millionaire he is today, so he went to his parents and asked them for help investing in Amazon. His father’s first question was clear and direct: “What is the Internet?” Miguel and Jacklyn Bezos didn’t know much about this new technology, but they knew that their son was determined to make the most of it. According to the writer Brad Stone in the book “The dream store. Jeff Bezos and the era of Amazon“, Bezos warned his parents: “There is a 70% chance you will lose everything. “I just want to make sure I can come home for Thanksgiving if this doesn’t work out.” Without hesitation, the Bezos invested a good part of their life savings in their son’s project. Today, that initial investment has grown by 38,200% and is worth more than the GDP of Iceland and the Maldives combined, making his father so rich (his mother died in August 2025 at age 78) that, according to what he said The Wall Street JournalMiguel Bezos is hiring a CEO to manage the assets of his Family Office. The origin of a historic fortune In the mid-nineties, Mike Bezos, of Cuban origin and with family ties in a small Valladolid municipalitydecided to entrust the family savings to his son Jeff and, in the process, becoming the first investors after the founding of Amazon. According to documents According to the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the Bezoses’ initial investment was through the purchase of 582,528 Amazon shares and, just a few months later, they expanded their investment by purchasing 847,716 more shares. In total, 1,430,244 shares at a purchase price of 17 cents per share. That leaves a total investment of $243,141.48. As and as revealed Bloombergit is quite a fortune for a couple formed by a single mother who had to raise her son alone with a very poor salary while studying a career, and of a Cuban immigrant who arrived in the United States at the age of 16. After thirty years, if the initial investment had remained intact it would amount to about $92.9 billion. However, after various sales and donations of shares, the family wealth of Jeff Bezos’ parents exceeds $40 billion. CEO wanted for a fortune According to estimates by The Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg, Aurora Borealisthe company in charge of managing Miguel Bezos’s assets, was founded in 2020 and, if it were a person, it would rank 48th among the largest fortunes in the world. list of Forbes millionaires. Aurora Borealis is currently one of the family offices most relevant in the world due to its volume of assets. The company manages assets of a very diverse nature, from those founding shares of Amazon to investments in funds and philanthropy projects through the Bezos Family Foundation. The growing assets of Jeff Bezos’ father reached such levels that it became necessary to professionalize the team that manages it from Aurora Borealis, signing as CEO to Valeria Alberola, an executive with experience in managing large assets. For reference, the new manager of Amazon’s founding fortune managed the investment and philanthropy activities of Ben Walton, heir to Walmart. Their goal, to make Miguel “Mike” Bezos even richer. The story of Miguel Bezos’s fortune is not only relevant for having facilitated the founding of one of the largest companies in the world, it is also a unique phenomenon since it is unusual for a family loan of just under $244,000 to end up making the founder’s parents millionaires, and not external investors. Was a risky bet which turned out well, but could also have left Jeff Bezos banished from Thanksgiving dinners and his parents with a serious financial problem. In Xataka | Technological millionaires boast of ecological awareness. Their superyachts and private jets tell another story Image | Flickr (George W. Bush Presidential Center)

Amazon Prime Day returns in Spain with confirmed dates and benefits

Amazon announced weeks ago that during this month of June that we have just begun, a new edition of its Prime Day: several days full of bargains, exclusive for Prime members, with which we can save a pinch on technology, home, video games and much more. But it was not until today, June 2, when has confirmed the final dates. Amazon Prime – annual subscription The price could vary. We earn commission from these links Amazon’s Prime Day 2026 arrives at the end of June with four days of offers Specifically, will take place between the 23rd and 26th of this month June. That is to say: it will kick off at midnight from Monday the 22nd to Tuesday the 23rd and will last for four full days, ending at 11:59 p.m. on Friday, June 26. We therefore have four days ahead of us to take advantage of the thousands of offers that Amazon will launch, compared to two days in previous editions. That is to say, double the time to save us a pinchFor example, in that cheap television that we had been thinking about buying for some time to watch the soccer World Cup. Or in that phone with which to replace our old mobile phone and much, much more. Furthermore, another change that we see this year compared to previous editions of this summer Prime Day is the chosen month. In this sense, the usual thing in recent years was for it to take place in July, but This time it will be done in June. Right now, in fact: exactly, in three weeks. An exclusive campaign for Prime members Like the dates of this Prime Day, Amazon has also announced that It is an exclusive sales campaign for its Prime members. Contrary to what happens with the Spring Sale Festival a few weeks ago or the Black Friday November, whose bargains are accessible to any type of user. So, how to take advantage of the sales this Prime Day if we are not subscribed? Very easy: just enjoy the free trial that Amazon offers for new registrations, which not only opens the doors of Prime Day to us but also allows us to save the cost of shipping, access a wide catalog of movies, series and documentaries through Prime Video and more for thirty days. Amazon Prime – 30 days free trial The price could vary. We earn commission from these links Once we are Prime members, we will be able to access the Prime Day offers which, as in previous years, will have guaranteed discounts on Amazon devices (Kindle, Echo, fire tv…). And also in brands such as Braun, Puma, Samsung and Philips, among othersas they have already confirmed. More offers, now available on AliExpress In case we don’t want to wait until then, right now we have another very powerful one available. AliExpress sales campaign. From yesterday until next June 10, we found bargains in nintendo switch 2, PlayStation 5 Pro, garmin watches, Xiaomi’s best-selling phones and much more in their Summer Promo. Some Amazon deals that you can now take advantage of XIAOMI REDMI Note 15 Pro 5G The price could vary. We earn commission from these links Midea Portasplit Portable Air Conditioner 4 in 1 | 3000 frigories The price could vary. We earn commission from these links Some of the links in this article are affiliated and may provide a benefit to Xataka. In case of non-availability, offers may vary. Images | amazon In Xataka | The best mobile phones, we have tested them and here are their analyzes In Xataka | Which smart air conditioner to buy. How to choose a connected air conditioning system and featured models

Jeff Bezos asked his parents for their life savings to found Amazon. They only asked him one question: “What is the Internet?

In 1995, Jeff Bezos decided quit your stable job and well paid as an analyst on Wall Street to set up a business selling books online. At that time, Jeff Bezos was not the millionaire he is today, so he went to his parents and asked them for help investing in Amazon. His father’s first question was clear and direct: “What is the Internet?” Miguel and Jacklyn Bezos didn’t know much about this new technology, but they knew that their son was determined to make the most of it. According to the writer Brad Stone in the book “The dream store. Jeff Bezos and the era of Amazon“, Bezos warned his parents: “There is a 70% chance you will lose everything. “I just want to make sure I can come home for Thanksgiving if this doesn’t work out.” Without hesitation, the Bezos invested a good part of their life savings in their son’s project. Today, that initial investment has grown by 15,500% and is worth more than the GDP of Iceland and the Maldives combined, making his father so rich (his mother passed away a few weeks ago) that, according to what he said The Wall Street JournalMiguel Bezos is hiring a CEO to manage the assets of his Family Office. The origin of a historic fortune In the mid-nineties, Mike Bezos, of Cuban origin and with family ties in a small Valladolid municipalitydecided to entrust the family savings to his son Jeff and, in the process, becoming the first investors after the founding of Amazon. According to documents According to the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the Bezoses’ initial investment was through the purchase of 582,528 Amazon shares and, just a few months later, they expanded their investment by purchasing 847,716 more shares. In total, 1,430,244 shares at a purchase price of 17 cents per share. That leaves a total investment of $243,141.48. As and as revealed Bloombergit is quite a fortune for a couple formed by a single mother who had to raise her son alone with a very poor salary while studying a career, and of a Cuban immigrant who arrived in the United States at the age of 16. After thirty years, if the initial investment had remained intact it would amount to about $72.6 billion. However, after various sales and donations of shares, the family wealth of Jeff Bezos’ parents exceeds $40 billion. CEO wanted for a fortune According to estimates by The Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg, Aurora Borealisthe company in charge of managing Miguel Bezos’s assets, was founded in 2020 and, if it were a person, it would rank 48th among the largest fortunes in the world. list of Forbes millionaires. Aurora Borealis is currently one of the family offices most relevant in the world due to its volume of assets. The company manages assets of a very diverse nature, from those founding shares of Amazon to investments in funds and philanthropy projects through the Bezos Family Foundation. The growing assets of Jeff Bezos’ father have reached levels that have made it necessary to professionalize the team that manages it from Aurora Borealis, signing as CEO to Valeria Alberola, an executive with experience in managing large assets. For reference, the new manager of Amazon’s founding fortune managed the family office of the Walton familyfounders and owners of the Wallmart supermarket chain. Their goal, to make Miguel “Mike” Bezos even richer. The story of Miguel Bezos’s fortune is not only relevant for having facilitated the founding of one of the largest companies in the world, it is also a unique phenomenon since it is unusual for a family loan of just under $244,000 to end up making the founder’s parents millionaires, and not external investors. Was a risky bet which turned out well, but could also have left Jeff Bezos banished from Thanksgiving dinners and his parents with a serious financial problem. In Xataka | Technological millionaires boast of ecological awareness. Their superyachts and private jets tell another story Image | Flickr (George W. Bush Presidential Center)

Amazon had everything ready to attack the Starlink monopoly. Until Blue Origin exploded into pieces

On April 20, 2023, the inaugural flight of SpaceX’s Starship took place. Less than four minutes later, the space vehicle explodedbut that was not what was amazing. The amazing thing was that all the company staff celebrated that explosion applauding wildlyas if it had been an extraordinary success. And the truth is that it was, because this launch was part of the company’s incremental philosophy: it doesn’t matter if the rockets explode, because (for the moment) that is what they have to do. When the Blue Origin rocket exploded last weekthere was very little to celebrate. And that is a big difference between both companies. This was not an explosion “by design”. There is a critical difference between the Starship prototype explosions and that of the New Glenn: intent. While SpaceX uses its tests to push its rockets to the limit and learn from those often controlled destructions, the New Glenn that exploded a few days ago was theoretically a production vehicle intended to complete operational missions. It’s one thing to lose a rocket with no payload that is designed to learn from mistakes, but quite another to lose one with a payload that real customers depend on. Blue Origin runs out of ramp. The economic impact of this accident goes beyond the cost of the lost vehicle. The fundamental problem is that Blue Origin currently has only one operational launch pad for the New Glenn, the LC-36, and damage to the tower and support systems could paralyze the company’s activity for months. In a recent update the company indicates who is already working on that ramp “And we have a good reconstruction plan in place.” Bad news for Kuiper. This explosion has also left in the air the deployment of the first 49 satellites of Amazon’s Juiper network, which depended on this launch. The company needs to put thousands of satellites into orbit to compete with Starlink, and every month of delay in the New Glenn is a month of advantage for Elon Musk. NASA and the lunar calendar. But the New Glenn is also a key piece for the logistics of NASA’s Artemis missions. The explosion may force the space agency to rethink its priorities and even delay missions to the Moon planned for the coming years. NASA is running out of plans B, and is increasingly dependent on a single supplier (SpaceX) when that is precisely what Blue Origin could have mitigated. Reliability pays off over time. We have a good example of SpaceX’s trial and error strategy with the Falcon 9. Today it is one of the most reliable rockets in the world with a success rate of over 99%: to date it has carried out 644 missions, of which 641 have been successful. Failures like that of September 2016 They served to learn and mature, and a decade later the Falcon 9 have become almost “boring” due to their reliability. Blue Origin seems to have wanted to skip stages by coming to market with a product that wanted to be perfect, but reality has shown that it is very difficult to achieve that reliability without stumbling. And this setback has been big. The opportunity cost. It is estimated that the economic losses of the destroyed vehicle they hover 150 million dollars, but the true cost is in the penalties for delays and the loss of confidence of future customers. The technical and reputational debt that Blue Origin faces is notable, and it remains to be seen how a company that needed success more than ever will react. Monopoly by accident. The clearest consequence of this setback is also striking: the winner is SpaceX, which is even more dominant than it was in the space launch market. The explosion of the New Gless is terrible news because it eliminates competition, and without a rival that can guarantee launches, access to space will continue to be a bottleneck controlled by a single company and, of course, by its founder, Elon Musk. The tycoon, yes, published a message in X upon hearing about the explosion saying “I’m sorry to see this, I hope you recover quickly.” Image | Blue Origin In Xataka | In 2018, Elon Musk put his own car into orbit. Eight years later it is still circling the Earth

Amazon wanted its employees to continue using AI. They have just cut their losses by asking that “you do not use AI just for the sake of using it”

Amazon wanted to force its employees They will use AI as if there were no tomorrow. It implemented a tool that measured that usage, but after a few weeks the company realized something: people were using AI for absurd and worthless tasks. That has made Amazon make a decision forceful: abandon this initiative completely. what has happened. Amazon has had to cancel an experiment that measured the performance of its employees based on their use of corporate AI tools. The reason is simple: the engineers had begun to cheat and took the opportunity to automate completely useless and redundant tasks with the sole objective of climbing positions in the ranking. The labor scam has also absurdly increased the computing and infrastructure costs of the company itself, so the experiment has failed. The controversial Kirorank. The service in question was a scoreboard internally named Kirorank. It measured the activity of Amazon developers within Kiro, the “Claude Code of Amazon.” Amazon management wanted 80% of its programmers to use AI every week, an ambitious goal. What the developers ended up doing to score points with their bosses was deploying autonomous agents based on MeshClaw —the version of OpenClaw from Amazon—so that they would run processes in a loop and devour tokens for almost no purpose. The era of tokenmaxxing. Amazon Senior Vice President Dave Treadwell had to intervene this week before the staff to announce that developers no longer had to use this tool. Although he admitted that the experiment had originally been designed with “good intentions,” the practical result ended up being an economic hole due to the tokenmaxxingthat newly coined term that defines the action of artificially inflating the consumption of tokens to simulate productivity. “Please don’t use AI just for the sake of using AI,” the executive demanded of his engineers, urging them to focus on creating better products instead of burning server resources. Cost through the roof. Treadwell’s announcement is no small matter, because this shows that companies have realized that cost control is necessary with AI. Companies like Anthropic—of which Amazon is the largest investor and whose Claude model they use intensively—have recently migrated from flat monthly fees to a per-use pricing model based strictly on token consumption. With this new billing scheme, the fact that the engineers dedicated themselves to “playing” with the bots to rise in the ranking significantly multiplied the bill that Amazon had to pay. Meta suffered the same problem. The Amazon case is not an isolated event. In the Meta and Microsoft offices identical situations have been experiencedwith employees sabotaging internal AI usage rankings through massive token consumption. The irony for Amazon is tremendous: the company has been executing waves of massive layoffs to cut costs and be able to finance its gigantic investment plan in data center infrastructure and AI. Your theoretical capex for 2026 It is estimated at 200,000 million dollars. Lesson learned: AI must be used well. The failure of this “gamification” of work has ended with Amazon abandoning this experiment. To prevent developers from cheating again, a company team is going to change metrics. Instead of measuring raw token consumption, they will analyze so-called “normalized deployments.” From now on, the goal will be to measure how many times the interaction with AI results in useful lines of code that are truly integrated into the company’s products. In Xataka | Customers demand that a human solve their problem. The surprising thing is that if humans serve them they think they are an AI

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