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Apple has only found one option to make a cheap laptop: make it a mobile

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The new MacBook Neo It costs 699 euros because it has the iPhone 16 Pro chip inside. Not the M4 from a couple of years ago, neither the M3 nor the M2. The A18 Pro: the same processor as many people have in their pocket. Apple has solved the price problem by doing something that until recently would have been unthinkable in its own mental architecture: reuse a mobile chip in a laptop. They put it in an aluminum case with a keyboard and hinge, gave it a new name, and sold it as if it were a different category. It is not. It is something more similar to an iPhone without a touch screen, with a trackpad and keyboard, and with macOS on top. For years, Apple has maintained (implicitly but consistently) that the Mac and iPhone were worlds apart, with different chips, for different uses. ARM architecture unified the foundation six years ago, but the M family and the A family followed separate paths: one for the desktop, the laptop and the tablet; another for mobile. That separation has sustained an entire product hierarchy. The Neo just killed it. Apple is admitting that the mobile chip is sufficient for most customers’ laptops. It is a recognition that has more implications than the price. If the iPhone chip is good enough for a Mac, what exactly the hell were we paying for before? The answer is… Apple’s margin. And the name. And the feeling that a Mac was something qualitatively different from a mobile phone with a keyboard. Now that feeling has a reference price: 600 euros difference between the cheapest MacBook and the most expensive iPhone. And the Neo’s USB-C ports don’t support Thunderbolt because the A18 Pro It doesn’t support it, so that’s not a product decision, it’s an original limitation that Apple has accepted as sufficient. The Neo isn’t exactly a strategic bet either. It’s more like an admission.. Apple had spent years without anything really competitive below 1,000 euros and it knew it, which is why sold the M1 in the United States for $700 as an emergency maneuver. On this side of the Atlantic, the empire of reconditioned and second-hand goods was taking away too many sales. The iPad with keyboard did almost the same thing as the entry-level MacBook Air and cost less, with the disadvantage of iPadOS but with greater versatility due to the touch screen and the option of using it undocked. The only way down was to cross the internal borders that Apple itself had built between its chip families. And there is what the Neo leaves in the air, more interesting than any specification: if the mobile chip is already sufficient for the work laptop of the majority, the convergence between both categories is not a future hypothesis. This is what Apple just put in its window for 699 mutts. In Xataka | Apple made a splash with its cheapest iPhone. And the iPhone 17e is coming to repeat the play Featured image | Apple

Apple is back with the ‘cheap’ MacBook. This time it’s really cheap

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Five devices in three days. That was Apple’s plan for this week, a plan that culminates with the new MacBook Neo. This is a new attempt by the company to bite into the cheap laptop segment and, although we know that ‘cheap’ does not mean the same for us as it does for Apple, in this case… it is true. Next, we go with all the features of a MacBook Neo that targets a very specific segment and that does not come with an M processor, but with that of the iPhone 16 Pro. Yes, we have not missed the mark with the iPhone model. MacBook Neo technical data sheet MacBook Neo screen 13 inch LED screen Resolution of 2,408 x 1,506 pixels 219 pixels per inch 500 nits brightness processor A18 Pro RAM 8GB storage 256GB ports UBS-C 480 Mb/s USB-C 10GB/s Headphone port WEIGHT 1.23kg Camera FaceTime HD at 1,080p Connectivity Wi-Fi 6e Bluetooth 6 battery 36.5 Wh battery 20W charging Up to 16 hours of battery price From 699 euros Laptop body, iPhone 16 Pro heart The design of the MacBook Neo is very reminiscent of the MacBook Air with the latest redesign. At least, on the outside, with those very rounded corners and a somewhat more robust finish. On the sides there are only two ports (two USB-C that do not go at the same speed, but can be used interchangeably for charging) and the two speakers. The body is made of aluminum, the keyboard has good-sized keys and the trackpad is as large as usual, but the pronounced bezels return on the screen. If the iPhone 17e maintains the traditional notch, the cheap MacBook has not switched to the notch of its older brothers. The screen has a maximum brightness of 500 nits (which is not too much, but enough for indoors) and the resolution yields a density of 219 pixels per inch. On the outside it looks like a MacBook but the trick is that on the inside it’s not a MacBook: it’s an iPhone. In your file in the web From Apple, the company does not dwell much on the processor either. It simply says that it is enough for daily tasks. What tasks? Emails, video calls, surfing the Internet… and puts many practical cases in the classroom. We are looking at a MacBook for students or for mobility with up to 16 hours of autonomy. And, again, it is thanks to the fact that its SoC is that of a mobile phone. This is the Apple A18 Pro, the same one that ‘fit’ the iPhone 16 Pro. It is a more than enough chip for daily tasks, for somewhat more demanding tasks such as occasionally editing a video, for consuming content and even for games. But, even if it has a mobile SoC, the system is MacOS, with everything that this implies in terms of productivity, functionality and the interconnection that we are already accustomed to with the iPhone. The iPad is sure to watch with jealousy that an Apple A18 Pro can handle macOS while he rides up to an M5 with iPadOS. MacBook Neo launch and price The MacBook Neo will hit the market on March 11. You can book now and will arrive at two prices: 256 GB capacity with Magic Keyboard for 699 euros. 512 GB capacity with Magic Keyboard with Touch ID for 799 euros. And, like its brothers, it will not include a power adapter. In development…

In the midst of the RAM and SSD crisis, there are those who are launching laptops and mobile phones with more capacity at the same price: Apple

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Apple has set out to eclipse the Mobile World Congress. He does not attend the Barcelona fair, but he has presented products. For now, the iPhone 17ethe new MacBook Pro with the M5 Pro and M5 Max processorsthe new MacBook Air M5 and the renewal of your monitor Studio Display. And what has caught my attention the most is the “generosity” of an Apple that has not accustomed us to it. Because, with the one that is falling with the RAM crisis and of SSD priceApple is offering more without increasing the price. And it is something that has several readings… and some asterisks. The new devices. There isn’t much new in anything the company has presented so far. It is assumed that there is still a ‘cheap’ MacBook throughout this Wednesday, March 4, but what they have already presented is, basically, the same as last year, but with new processors. The iPhone 17e is a mobile phone with an outdated design, but it includes a slightly cut version of the processor of the iPhone 17 Pro. The MacBook Pros were already beasts in many ways and now they can be equipped with the M5 Pro and M5 Max that reach absurd figures for GPU capacity and memory bandwidth in the most powerful versions. And the MacBook Air was already a very interesting device for mobility, but now also somewhat more powerful. As I say, not much new on the front, until we look at the storage. With the one that is falling… At this point, no one is aware that we are experiencing an unprecedented component crisis. It’s not like 2020, when a bunch of factors caused a global chip crisis. Now there is only one “culprit”: artificial intelligence. There is three main companies that manufacture memory (Micron, SK Hynix and Samsung), and the three have focused almost the entire his production to memories for AI. This is causing not only us to have to pay more to be able to buy RAM or an SSD for our PC, but also the manufacturers themselves are changing their device launch plans –the steam machine-, there is someone who is selling laptops without RAM or without SSDwho looks to Chinese manufacturers to see if they can find a solution or, directly, those who can withdraw from the market. And, in the middle of that hurricane, Apple (which It is not characterized by its popular prices), launches devices. And the surprise came. Generosity. I’m not going to explain much, I’m just going to give some information: The iPhone 17e starts with 256 GB of storage and costs 709 euros. He iPhone 16e It started at 128 GB and cost 709 euros. The MacBook Air M5 costs 1,199 euros with 512 GB of SSD. He MacBook Air M4 It cost the same at launch, 1,199 euros (in October last year they lowered it by 100 euros to 1,099 euros), but with 256 GB. On these devices, Apple has doubled the storage while maintaining the price. And not only that: the Studio Display XDR was sold with a basic tilt adjustment stand, but you could purchase the articulated arm that allowed you to adjust both angle and height. The price of support? 999 euros, which became a meme. Now, the new Studio Display XDR It comes with that ‘Pro’ support included. Of course, the base MacBook Pro M5 costs 100 euros more with a 1 TB SSD instead of 512 GB. Generosity? What is happening here, is the first thing I thought when I started analyzing the price. There are several options that can be compatible… and even all at the same time. No company is there to give away, so it is simply possible that they have a huge stock of 512 GB SSDs that they now mount as a base in their computers. This would make sense if we take into account the very high price of expanding the memory on an Apple device. The most basic option would be the most chosen, so those with 128 GB on mobile phones and 256/512 on MacBooks would be the best sellers and, therefore, have a surplus of the expanded options that fewer people would opt for. Another reading may be that, due to the high price of the devices, Apple decides to absorb part of the cost of RAM because it’s still worth itmaking money per device sold and expanding the Mac user base at a time when Windows laptops can have a very difficult time. What Apple saves are the chargers in its new equipment. The MacBook Pro no longer included a charger, but the MacBook Air did. Now not even that. The turn. The other option is that… it will be our turn. The prices that I have detailed are in euros and for Spain if we take into account the launch price, without subsequent offers or reductions. In the United States, things are very different. They have also doubled the storage, but the MacBook Air in its 13 and 15-inch versions now They are 100 dollars more expensive than the previous generation. It is always complicated because direct conversions cannot be made from the US price to the European price (in fact, the M5 MacBook Air costs $1,099 and $1,299 compared to our 1,199 euros and 1,499 euros), but we may simply have to face that price increase in 2027 models. Because, unfortunately, the RAM crisis is going to last a long time. Intel He thinks he has the rest of the decade ahead of him, NVIDIA does not have good forecasts either and Samsung has just said that, if that, it will begin to ease in 2027. Images | Apple, Samsung In Xataka | Apple has been the industry’s first customer for decades. AI is relegating it to the background

TSMC is the ‘kingpin’ of chips and Apple has always been its best friend. That just changed

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TSMC is the foundry of the world. Although there are others like Samsung that have muscleit is the Taiwanese company that has conquered the high-performance chip segment. It has achieved this through capacity, technology and an alliance: that of Apple. For a decade, TSMC was Apple’s great friend, the one that manufactured its chips and the one that revolutionized – with the designs of Apple Silicon– the laptops. Now NVIDIA rules. And he has elbowed his way through. In short. In the midst of the AI ​​era and with a technological current in which it is impossible to separate oneself from NVIDIA, Apple has more than enough reasons to feel jealous. While the mobile segment faces cuts unprecedented due to the crisis of RAM and components, and with Tim Cook himself -CEO of Apple- commenting on the difficulties they will have This 2026, artificial intelligence is going like a rocket. Major memory manufacturers have pivoted to high-bandwidth memory for AI GPUs, and companies like NVIDIA, Phison, amd and even the Chinese ones like SMIC and Huawei They are clapping their ears. They have made the AI ​​Big Techs dependent on their hardware, and no one makes that hardware like TSMC. Result? According to the latest reports, NVIDIA will become its largest customer this year. The importance of ‘Customer A’. It may seem like an unimportant change of chips, but it is actually more relevant than we think. The difference between a ‘Customer A’ and a ‘Customer B’ implies that, faced with production bottlenecks, one of the two is given priority. We already saw this in the 2020 semiconductor crisis when, precisely, half of the industry was drowning (cars, cameras, TVs and mobile phones) while Apple did not have such bad forecasts because it was the darling of a TSMC that was going to focus on iPhone chips to consolidate a lucrative relationship that began with the Apple A8 of the iPhone 6. Jensen Huang himself -CEO of NVIDIA- has commented the quite proud play on a podcast. “Morris –Morris Chang, founder of TSMC and friend of Huang – will be happy to know that NVIDIA is TSMC’s largest customer right now,” said the CEO. It is because little margin: 19% for NVIDIA compared to 17% for Apple, but it is an achievement and a thermometer of how the industry is doing. Last year, NVIDIA’s contribution to TSMC was 12%, which is a considerable jump in a very short time. “I need a lot of wafers”. Obviously, this does not imply that TSMC is going to stop pampering Apple over other companies. Apple has a huge percentage of the mobile segment, but NVIDIA is crucial to keep the AI ​​machinery rolling. Despite the Google attempts with its TPUsthe agreements of OpenAI with Broadcomthose of Goal with NVIDIA and AMD or those of xAI manufacturing its chipsNVIDIA is still the one who splits the cod. Even Chinese companies need NVIDIA GPUs and, of course, NVIDIA is more than willing to take a cut. On a recent visit to Taiwan,. Huang met with local industry heavyweights and noted that “NVIDIA would need a lot of wafers this year,” putting even more pressure to a TSMC that is crucial in the artificial intelligence chain. Synonym of success. Samsung, Huawei and SMIC They are fighting to be alternatives in case TSMC collapses. But TSMC has put us on the couch and has been looking at how to diversify the business for a few years. In Taiwan they maintain the heart and the muscle, but the plant in Europe – in Germany – is underway and they already have an operational foundry in the United States. In fact, there are plans to expand it because they have more and more clients who need a very specific product that works like a Swiss watch. But this has a B side: all the industry’s eggs are in the same basket. If TSMC fails, the house of cards can collapse. There is already some report that indicates that the American plant that manufactures for Apple, Intel, NVIDIA or AMD is overwhelmed due to a huge amount of orders. And there, precisely, lies the importance of being a client A… or a client B. Images | TSMC, NVIDIA In Xataka | SK is one of the chip whales and it is clear about one thing: not all the money in the world will satisfy AI’s hunger for RAM

Apple completely changes the architecture of its chips with a textbook “divide and conquer”

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The week started with a flurry of news from Apple, something we already expected after Tim Cook’s words stating that it was going to be a “great week.” And in addition to the new iPhone 17e and iPad Airtoday it was the MacBook’s turn. In this article we wanted to focus on explaining what is special about the new M5 Pro and M5 Max processors, chips that land at the latest MacBook Pro. The company follows the same pattern as always. First comes the base chip, the M5, which we already saw in the 14-inch MacBook Prohe iPad Pro and Apple Vision Proalong with the new MacBook Air, and then, they take advantage of their most capable equipment to welcome the most powerful variants. But this year there is something different, and that is that the company uses a new manufacturing architecture internal that Apple had not used until now in its Mac chips. We will tell you all the details. Apple’s M4 Pro and M4 Max SoCs, in numbers m5 pro m5 max M5 m4 photolithography 3nm (3rd gen) 3nm (2nd generation) 3nm (2nd generation) 3nm architecture Fusion Fusion A single die A single die CPU cores Up to 18 18 Up to 10 Up to 10 Supercores 6 6 4 4 performance cores 12 12 6 6 GPU cores Up to 20 Up to 40 Up to 10 Up to 10 neural engine 16 16 16 16 maximum unified memory 64 128 32 32 bandwidth 307GB/s 614 GB/s 153GB/s 120GB/s ray tracing Yes (3rd gen.) Yes (3rd gen.) Yes (3rd gen.) Yeah neural accelerator on GPU Yes (per core) Yes (per core) Yes (per core) No connectivity Thunderbolt 5 Thunderbolt 5 Thunderbolt 4 Thunderbolt 4 / USB 4 codecs H.264, HEVC, ProRes, AV1 H.264, HEVC, ProRes, AV1 H.264, HEVC, ProRes, AV1 H.264, HEVC, ProRes, AV1 memory integrity enforcement Yeah Yeah No No The big news: the Fusion architecture Perhaps one of the most striking aspects of these new chips is the call ‘Fusion’ architecture. Apple has designed this SoC (system on a chip) by combining two other chips manufactured in TSMC’s third-generation 3-nanometer node. The signature promise that the chips communicate with each other through very high bandwidth and minimal latency. Why this approach? As chips grow in number of cores and memory needs, Putting everything on a single piece of silicon becomes increasingly complicated and expensive. The solution of dividing it into two interconnected chips allows its capabilities to be scaled without sacrificing efficiency. Each of these chips integrates CPU, GPU, neural engine, unified memory controller, Media Engine (which are the cores dedicated to processing multimedia codecs) and controllers. Thunderbolt 5. It is, in essence, the basis that makes it possible for the M5 Max to reach figures that we previously only saw in desktop chips. A new CPU from top to bottom Both the M5 Pro and M5 Max share the same CPU design: 18 cores organized into two very different types. On the one hand there are the so-called super cores: six high-performance cores which Apple also incorporated into the standard M5. The company assures which are “the world’s fastest CPU cores in single-thread performance”thanks to the fact that they handle greater bandwidth, and have a new cache hierarchy and better branch prediction. On the other hand, the chip incorporates 12 performance cores completely new, different from the efficiency cores we have seen in previous generations. They are optimized specifically for multi-threaded workloads that require sustained power without skyrocketing consumption. The combination of both groups of cores allows, according to Apple, a jump of up to 30% in performance for professional tasks regarding M4 Pro and M4 Maxand up to 2.5 times more multi-threaded performance compared to M1 Pro and M1 Max. It will be interesting to see this performance improvement in action when we test the devices in depth. What the M5 Pro promises Your GPU scales up to 20 cores next generation, each with an integrated neural accelerator. Memory bandwidth goes up to 307GB/sand the chip can manage up to 64 GB of unified memory. Apple promises up to 20% more graphics performance compared to the M4 Pro, and up to 35% improvement in applications that use ray tracing, thanks to its dedicated third-generation engine included in the chip. The shading engine is also updated, incorporating second-generation dynamic caching technology and hardware-accelerated mesh shading. What this technology basically does is simplify complex geometries into more manageable meshes for when it’s time to render. In terms of AI, Apple claims that the M5 Pro offers more than four times the GPU performance for artificial intelligence compared to the M4 Pro, and more than six times compared to the M1 Pro. M5 Max: the ceiling of Apple laptops The M5 Max shares the same 18-core CPU as the M5 Pro, but doubles the graphics and memory resources. Your GPU reaches 40 coresthe unified memory bandwidth reaches 614 GB/s (twice as much as the M5 Pro) and can hold up to 128 GB of unified memory. In graphic performance, Apple assures an improvement of up to 20% compared to the M4 Maxand up to 30% in ray tracing applications. For AI tasks, the chip promises more than four times the peak GPU performance compared to its direct predecessor and more than six times compared to the M1 Max. With these astronomical figures, Apple puts on the table a tremendously capable chip for all types of professionals, from 3D artists to app developers, AI, etc. And in the end, having such an amount of bandwidth on a laptop makes tasks with large volumes of data much easier to digest. We will see in practice how they perform. The rest of the package: Neural Engine, Thunderbolt 5 and security Beyond the CPU and GPU, both chips incorporate a 16-core Neural Engine renewed, which promises a higher bandwidth connection to memory, ideal for functions of Apple Intelligence and other local AI applications. In connectivity, the M5 Pro and … Read more

There are wonderful Androids for less than 700 euros. The point is that almost no one buys them, and Apple knows it

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Yesterday Apple renewed its entry-level iPhone. He iPhone 17e It has arrived as a discreet renewal of a model that, already in 2025, had some important shortcomings. Were consumers outraged? Quite the opposite. He iPhone 16e sold like hot cakesand this is exactly what Apple is looking for again. There is competition, and better. The iPhone 17e has a price of 709 euros. They are not the 959 euros of a iPhone 17but it is not an economical mobile. It is a price for which we can buy authentic high-end phones on Android. For example, the LITTLE F8 Ultrawith Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 (same processor that the 1,500 euro phones have), 12 GB of RAM, 120 Hz AMOLED panel with 3,500 nits, 6,500mAh battery with 100W charging. There are dozens of examples like this. Even if we are willing to buy a mobile phone that has been on the market for a few months, we can get a Galaxy S25 or a iPhone 16. Phones that do not have the latest processor, but are superior in the rest of the technical specifications. None of this matters. The most nerd We shake our heads when we look at the technical sheet. But in the real world, the technical sheet is the least important thing. Apple doesn’t sell specs, it sells experience. A cheaper access iPhone than the rest. The latest chip to execute the functions of its older brothers. A design that many find comfortable, practical and pleasant. A higher update cycle than many of its direct rivals. Entry mobile to the Apple ecosystem, completely new and unpretentious. It works for Apple. The iPhone 16e has sold much more than the iPhone SE 2022a model that was more reminiscent of iPhone 6 than to the new Apple phones. It’s a formula that makes sense, one in which an iPhone is sold as a natural leap from a iPhone 11 either 12 (in fact, Apple does not allow comparisons with superior mobile phones on the advertisement page), and not as a technical display. You come from an old iPhone, you want a new one and not break the bank. You buy this one. Go deeper. Nobody sells more high-end mobile phones than Apple, not even in countries like China. The reflection of the iPhone 17e is curious: it is not even a high-end device, but the iPhone 16e managed to sneak into the list of the 10 best-selling mobile phones in the world. Apple does not sell iPhones because they are high-end mobile phones. It sells iPhones because they are iPhones. Image | Xataka In Xataka | iPhone 17 Pro Max, analysis: the change that the most ambitious iPhone needed is not visible to the naked eye

Apple made a splash with its cheapest iPhone. And the iPhone 17e is coming to repeat the play

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Apple has just renewed its entry-level iPhone, the successor to the e family. Last year we saw a iPhone 16e that landed with a clear purpose: to be that iPhone for those who want a completely new iPhone, but with the basic specifications. Thus the iPhone 16e was born, a phone that has just been renewed in true Apple style. We tell you all the specifications, technical characteristics and news about the new iPhone 17e. iPhone 17e technical sheet iPhone 16e Screen OLED 6.1″ Super Retina XDR 2,532 by 1,170px (460 dpi) Up to 1,200 nits True Tone, HDR Processor Apple A19 Bionic Storage 256/512GB RAM memory 8GB Dimensions and weight 147.67×71.5×7.8mm 170g Software iOS 26 Apple Intelligence rear cameras Main: 48 MP, 26 mm, f/1.6 front camera True Depth 12 MP, f/1.9 Battery nd Connectivity USB-C 2 Wi-Fi 6 NFC Others Face ID Dynamic Island IP68 resistance Emergency calls Accident detection Price From 709 euros (Much the same. but better The iPhone 17e is not a mobile phone in which technical specifications prevail. It is a mobile phone in which the basics prevail. The phone repeats with an OLED screen, with Retina XDR resolution (2,532 by 1,170px) and a sin that we already criticized last year: a brightness of 800 nits which goes up to 1,200 nits for HDR content. Taking into account that the iPhone 15 went on sale in September 2023 with a panel that reached 2,000 nits, and that low-mid-range models are already around 3,000 nits, it is a brightness that is not typical of a phone that starts at 709 euros. The main novelty is that, this year, the front part is protected with Ceramic Shield 2, being much more resistant to scratches. Specifically, Apple promises up to three times more. The processor also changes, the same Apple A19 Bionic that the iPhone 17 incorporates. Like its older brothers, this model starts with 256 GB, finally banishing the 128 GB from the map. Regarding wired charging, it is 20W and promises a 50% recharge in 30 minutes. Same autonomy, more charge Apple promises the same autonomy in this iPhone 17e, despite the fact that the processor is a priori more efficient. Yes, there are improvements in fast charging, now including MagSafe and going up to 15W wirelessly compared to 7.5W in the previous generation. The camera repeats with a 48 megapixel sensor onlywith 2x “lossless” zoom thanks to the cutout in the central area. It’s Apple’s way of offering “a telephoto lens” and a sort of dual-camera setup on a phone with a single sensor. For the rest, we are looking at the same phone, these being its main new features: faster CPU 9 more hours of video playback Double the internal storage 15W wireless charging with MagSafe Panel with Ceramic Shield 2 Versions and price of the iPhone 17e The iPhone 17e returns from 709 euros, although it must be taken into account that it now starts at 256 GB. 250 euros than a iPhone 17but with some specifications behind a iPhone 15such as the double camera or the panel with dynamic island and 2,000 nits. Shock more or less, the iPhone e formula works. The iPhone 16e had very good sales resultsand the new model with more power, more storage and some additional improvements points to the same path. Image | Apple In Xataka | iPhone 16e Vs iPhone 16. Which Apple mobile to choose according to your tastes and needs

Apple has been setting up a health system parallel to public health for years. The question is whether public health will do something about it.

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I haven’t worn a watch of any kind on my wrist for years. Partly for convenience, partly for not having another device to distract myself with. The paradox is that I find it more and more advisable to wear or give a smartwatch, precisely because of the leap they have made in monitoring our health in recent years. The other day, Dr. Miguel Ángel Cobos Gil, a prestigious Spanish cardiologist, told us at a press event that “the Apple Watch provides more parameters than anyone admitted to a coronary unit.” It made me think: we already have very reliable medical technology in our pockets, on our wrists and even in our ears. And now what? A parallel system to saturated healthcare Healthcare in Spain has just concluded a few days of strike in which they demand improvements in a system with problems: saturated primary care, insufficient personnel, underfinancing or territorial fragmentation are just a few. Spain is not the only one like this. Countries like the United Kingdom, Canada, Italy or Portugal are struggling with similar situations, and if we look at Latin America or Asia the photo even it gets more complicated. Doctor Miguel Ángel Cobos Gil at an Apple Health event in Madrid. It is no coincidence that Apple has spent years setting up a whole parallel health system through its best-selling devices. You can now take a medically approved EKG with Apple Watch In a few minutes, the iPhone notifies you if you have risk of falling when analyzing how you walkand AirPods are increasingly looking more like a smart sonotone. Apple is the one that is taking the most solid and visible steps, but it is not the only one. Samsung integrates teleconsultations, a game to detect Alzheimer’sbooking diagnostic tests and ordering medications at Samsung Health —starting with Indiawhich is no coincidence—; Huawei gives you ten health parameters in a single gesture with its Watch 5; Google bets on a medical coach with AI on top of Fitbit and Pixel Watch data. Almost the entire tech sector is looking at the same place. Useful technology to help us with our health is already here. The problem is how to make all that data that our devices give us use for something in a collapsed public system. Your doctor doesn’t have time to look at the data on your watch And now we have been in this house for ten years: We have a lot of information about preventing diseases and devices that can help us do so. However, there is still no effective system to address it. Cobos Gil summed it up bluntly: “urgent care works.” When something really goes wrong, the system responds. The problem is before, in that period of time where an asymptomatic disease could be detected and treated with a change in habits or a simple medication, but where the family doctor cannot dedicate fifteen minutes to you if he does not see something serious or actionable. Hypertension doesn’t hurt. Atrial fibrillation does not warn. Apple Watch possible hypertension alert system And this is exactly where technology comes in—or should come in—. A smartwatch does not sleep, has no waiting list and does not need you to go see it: it passively monitors whenever you wear it, accumulates months of data and notifies you when it detects an anomaly. Cobos Gil mentioned something that illustrates the difference well: a conventional cardiac holter monitor must be taken for about 24 or 48 hours, and many times it does not capture anything because the arrhythmia does not appear in that time window. With three months of data from the Apple Watch, he says he’s gotten diagnostic information he otherwise wouldn’t have had, and has even “had to anticoagulate patients who were cleared by a Holter monitor.” This gap is especially relevant for the older population, especially if they live alone. Spain is aging fast and a silent heart attack, a fall, or an arrhythmia that is accelerating are situations in which the time between the event and medical attention is everything, and in which not having a family member or caregiver nearby—the child in another city, the grandchildren in another country—creates a very vulnerable situation for these people. These are situations that happen. In Applesfera we have just told the case of a lady who suffered a fall due to an epileptic attack in Torremolinos and his Apple Watch helped everything end in a scare. The striking thing about this is that hospitals already do this type of monitoring in extreme cases. When a modern pacemaker or defibrillator is implanted, the hospital monitors the patient remotely and can intervene if something goes wrong. A watch like the Watch takes that logic from the hospital to home: it allows a son in Madrid to see in real time if his mother’s heart in a town in Teruel is beating strangely, or to receive an alert if she has fallen and hasn’t gotten up. It is not medicine of the future. It is medicine of the present waiting for the system to learn to incorporate it. The limit that no one has set Tim Cook at WWDC 24 What Apple, Samsung, Huawei or Google have built so far is the beginning. Apple has been working for years on non-invasive blood glucose monitoring —without being punctured, through optical spectroscopy—and the most solid rumors suggest that could come to the Apple Watch in 2027 or 2028. Before that, I’m pretty sure we’ll see an AI-powered medical assistant built into the Health app — known internally as Mulberry Project— trained with your real clinical data. Tim Cook has been repeating for years that the Apple’s greatest contribution to humanity will be in healthcare. What it doesn’t say is exactly how far. Because the question that these devices do not answer is one that seems very important to me: Where do they set the limit for themselves, and who sets it for them from the outside? Early detection of … Read more

The blockade of ingredients to Nazi Germany led Coca Cola to throw away whey and apple pulp

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When you open a Fanta, you hardly think about World War II. However, this fruit-flavored drink was born in 1940 within Nazi Germany. It was a solution from Coca-Cola, owner of the brand, to the blockade of ingredients that the allies imposed on the country. Quite a commercial turn that would result in one of the company’s most popular drinks. To block. In September 1939, when Germany invaded Poland and the United Kingdom and France declared war on the Third Reich, the economic consequences spread far beyond the battle fronts. American multinationals that maintained industrial ties with German territory saw communication with their subsidiaries interrupted. The British naval blockade closed the ports; Trade with the United States, which had grown throughout the previous decade, stopped. The Coca-Cola situation. The company had been operating in Germany since 1929. Max Keith was a German manager who had assumed control of the subsidiary and built a giant infrastructure from scratch with bottling plants and distribution networks. He had even managed to produce on his own seven of the nine secret ingredients. But the concentrated syrup traveled to Germany from Atlanta, headquarters of Coca-Cola. When the embargo cut off that supply, the plants ground to a halt. The alternative was closure, but Keith did not give in. The remains. What he did was look for substitutes in what he had at hand, waste from other food industries. How did I count? expert Mark Pendergrast“what was left of what was left”: whey, a byproduct of cheese making; leftover apple pulp from cider presses; fruit peels; beet sugar, because cane sugar was a luxury… the resulting liquid was a brownish yellow, much less sweet than any modern soft drink, and its flavor changed from batch to batch depending on what ingredients were available. A name. Keith gathered his team to name the drink. He asked them to use their imagination, Fantasy. And from there the name came directly, with the advantage that it worked in almost any language without the need for translation or phonetic adaptation. It was an immediate success: in 1943 Coca-Cola sold approximately three million cases of Fanta in Germany. AND although the soft drink never had a direct connection with the NazisKeith did manage to integrate his advertising into the regime’s events, including the 1936 Berlin Olympics. In fact, he could have registered Fanta in his own name, but he did not do so. A success. Fanta was not drunk solely as a soft drink. Sugar rationing was so severe in wartime Germany that in many German homes it was used for sweeten soups and stews. Keith had obtained a partial exemption from sugar rationing in 1941, making it not only a soft drink, but also an accessible sweetener. It was not an isolated case. Fanta was not a rarity. The World War II food industry reformulated several products forced by embargoes and rationing. Nescafé, launched in 1938arose from the need to dispose of surplus Brazilian coffee at a time of commercial crisis: its soluble format allowed it to be distributed under difficult logistical conditions, and it became a standard supply for the American army. Margarine was a substitute for butter in times of Napoleonic shortages, and experienced a second massive expansion in Europe in the 1940s because butter was rationed. Post-war. When Coca-Cola relaunched Fanta in Naples in April 1955 with an orange formula made from local citrus, the name was the only thing connecting it to post-war Germany. The Italian company SNIBEG had developed the recipe on its own and Coca-Cola bought itgiving it the name of the one who already had the intellectual property. From there it grew: it arrived in the United States in 1958 and expanded globally throughout the 1960s and 1970s. Conflictive spot. However, the drink’s German past loomed large over the brand in 2015, when Coca-Cola launched a special edition in Germany for Fanta’s 75th anniversary. It was a reissue of the original recipe, with 30% whey and apple extract, distributed in glass bottles that evoked the design of the 1940s. He video campaign was especially inappropriatesince he only talked about ingenuity in times of scarcity and ignored the reason for that ingenuity: war embargoes against Nazi Germany. He concluded by inviting viewers to recover “the feeling of the good old days.” The video was removed after frontal rejection by the public and press. It was inevitable then to remember brands like Volkswagenwhose name directly alludes to the Nazi regime’s automotive program and whose plants used forced labor during the war; or like Hugo Bosswhich made military uniforms for the SS and Wehrmacht; or as the German subsidiary of IBM, Dehomagwhich provided the regime with punch card technology that allowed entire populations to be censused, classified, and tracked with a speed that manual methods made impossible. Origins that are sometimes murky due to the context, but that leave a few questions in the air about the inhumane role of any industry. Which includes the sparks of life. Header | Wikipedia

How to know if the music you listen to on Spotify or Apple Music is from a real artist or made by artificial intelligence

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Let’s give you some clues about how to detect if the music you are listening to Is it by a real artist or is it made by artificial intelligence. We are going to focus on that music that is on streaming platforms like Spotify or Apple Music. The way to detect it is not by looking for things in the music itself, but looking at the artist who created the song. Music made by artificial intelligence does not stop flood streaming servicesand they are having enough trouble stopping it. Many times it is easy to detect, it is music without soul, but one way or another, they are there taking clicks and listens, and the money that should go to real musicians. Therefore, we are going to give you a list of things you should pay attention to to detect if what you hear is from a real musician or not. It is not that if one of these points is met it is music made by AI, but that the more of these red flags it raises, the more it will be pointed in that direction. Listen carefully to the music If you are going to check if an artist is real or if they are songs made by AI, it is possibly because you are noticing something strange in the music. Here, you will be able to notice it especially depending on the musical genre you listen to. This is because elements such as excessively clean voices or lack of natural breathing can be the first indication, although in some commercial genres you will also find this due to excess production. Ultimately, the music will sound artificial, soulless. The phrases in the case of singing will sound mechanical and without any emotion, and the lyrics will also be quite bad. Pay attention to how the instruments sound musicals, because if they sound too compact, like a mush where you can’t distinguish each one of them and their clean sound, it could also be due to AI… or again, due to bad production. Biography and photo of the artist If music has left you suspicious, play then Click on the artist’s name to enter their profile within the streaming platform. The first thing that may make you suspicious is that there is no photo of the artist or the bandand instead there is some landscape or generic image. The fact that the photo of the band is not a photo of the musicians or the soloist is something that should make us suspicious. In the case of a photo of people appearing, you can check if it is made by AI, if it looks unnatural or if there is an excess of processing of the image, but normally AI artists do not usually risk this. It is also worth checking the biography of the artist or band. Look out for some suspicious signs, like the fact that it doesn’t include names of the members, where they are from, or those biographical data that usually give you a little more context about the artists. Instead, “musicians” made by AI will give ambiguous descriptions, and there will be times when in a fit of honesty they will directly say that it is music made by artificial intelligence. Discography and volume of releases The next step would be to look at your albums. If you see that their first releases have been around for many years, this would indicate that they are a normal band, because the AI ​​that generates music has only been able to resemble real music for a couple of years or three. If the releases they have are all new, it could also be because they are a new artist. Then look at the volume of the pitches. Human musicians, those of flesh and blood, can take from one to five or six years to release each new record. If you see that the artist has 2 or 5 full albums released in two monthsthen this should set off all the alarms. It’s AI. And by this we mean albums, not singles or individual songs. you should also pay attention to how the music sounds. If all the songs seem too samey you should also be suspicious, and if the track titles are too generic and simple too. Real artists are not a donut factorythey are not going to release an album every two weeks or every two months, because this requires a process of composition, recording, mastering, and creation of physical formats. Nobody is going to release 40 songs to you in a year if they don’t cheat. Find information about the artist and his concerts If your suspicions are still there, then comes the next level, that of looking for information about these artists on other pages. The first thing could be search for photos or videos of live concerts on YouTube, Facebook or Instagram. Also look for news on music websites. You can also search for concert dates, if they appear at festivals, if they are mentioned on networks. Come on, there must be proof that they are artists that someone has seen or known, because the normal thing is that the objective of musicians is to play live, not simply record albums. You can also search for his name on specialized platforms. Discogs is the largest database of albums and music releases on the Internet, it is a good place to start, in addition to Wikipedia or All Music. Also look for specialized media, such as Metal Archives for rock and heavy metal, and those for other musical genres. In the end, If it seems as if the artist does not exist because there are no photos or any reference outside of streaming platforms… possibly because they don’t exist. There will be artists who use AI In short, if everything we have told you above points in one direction, you will have already located a fake musician who is really an AI algorithm. … Read more

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