battle

The great battle of the Ebro is not between Murcia and Aragón, it is between the headwaters of the rivers, the large cities and the delta

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The image is straight out of a movie: a team of divers diving into the cold waters of the Arija reservoir to dredge more than three meters of silt accumulated in front of its floodgates. It’s not a whim, It’s the only way to remove them.: that is, the consequence of having hundreds of infrastructures that have not been thoroughly maintained for decades. But, above all, the most striking symptom of a very deep problem: the sediments are killing, at the same time, the reservoirs and the rivers. Reservoirs due to loss of capacity (Mequinenza has lost since its opening more capacity than the sum of the last three reservoirs put into operation), rivers because deltas need sediment to stay alive. The Ebro, without going any further, needs 1.2 million tons per year. And the authorities know it. In fact, since 2003, the Ebro Hydrographic Confederation has been carrying out controlled floods in the lower section of the river to mobilize sediments towards Tortosa. The problem is that each controlled flood moves about 10,000 tons; that is, two orders of magnitude below what is necessary. It’s like emptying a swimming pool with a coffee spoon. So in the last few months, something has changed. Since November 2024, the CHE began a series of measures to try to fix it. Things like extending the discharge by two days, starting it from much higher up (El Grado in Huesca and Camarasa in Lleida) and draining Ribarroja more than usual to mobilize all the possible sediments. Will it solve the problem? It’s not clear, but it doesn’t seem like it. We have to take into account that, only in the Ebro basin, there are many reservoirs and that is an inevitable brake. Calculations say that of the five million tons that were brought to the Mediterranean before the reservoirs, only between 100,000 and 200,000 now arrive. It would take around 100 floods to reach the appropriate figures. And no, we don’t have enough water for that. So? That is the big problem, seeing what we do. We must not forget that the Ebro delta supports 20,000 hectares of rice fieldstens of thousands of inhabitants and is a biosphere reserve. The loss of wetlands and their salinization have a direct impact on agriculture, fishing and tourism. Come on: the interests are crossed and they confront people hundreds of kilometers away. We are entering a new era of hydrological wars in which we are all against each other. Image | Sinto MQZ In Xataka | The Ebro is filling with brown prawns, an invasive species that we are going to find more and more on our plates.

Chip War is Xataka Xtra’s newsletter about the technological battle of our time: semiconductors

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‘Chip War’ is one of the newsletters exclusives included in Xataka Xtrathe Xataka subscription plan. We send it every Monday and it is part of a benefits plan that includes access to other newsletters, a consultation with editors and raffles and discounts exclusive for subscribers. The first draw, a 75″ TV. The semiconductor industry is not just technology. It is geopolitics, economics and industrial strategy condensed into objects of a few nanometers. The decisions made today by TSMC, Intel, ASML, Samsung or SK Hynix (or the governments that support them) will determine which countries lead the next decade and under what conditions. Every Monday we analyze what is happening in that race: the conflicts between the United States and China, the movements of large factories, the subsidies that are changing the geography of production or the technological bets that can change who is in charge in the sector. Without rush and with context. The goal is not to tell you the news, but to help you understand why it matters. Why does it matter so much? Do you want an example? In our Substack we share the first edition for free. Other Xataka Xtra newsletters Next X (biweekly, every other Thursday): analysis of the trends in technology and science that are changing the present and will define the future: AI, quantum computing, biotechnology, space exploration. Context and perspective on where we are going and why it matters. B-sides (weekly, every Saturday): five curious and fascinating readings each week. Strange, counterintuitive or unexpected stories that we find on the Internet and that deserve your attention. From industrial accidents that changed the world to surprising scientific research or absurdities of late capitalism. Featured image | Xataka

Snacking between meals is not a lack of will, but a battle that we lose in our brain

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A fairly typical scene in the lives of some people can unfold in the middle of the afternoon or even after dinner, where an inner force drags us to the pantry or the refrigerator to have some chocolate or some small pecking. And although this is something that we try to justify within a “lack of will”the reality is that our brain and hormones are fighting a battle with us in which we usually lose. And to understand what is happening here, you have to look at the scientific literature. A sleep problem. Blame lack of sleep of an imbalance in our hormones is undoubtedly one of the most solid pillars of current metabolic medicine, and the truth is that it is not any type of myth. This is something that was evidenced in a study published in 2004 which showed that when healthy young people restricted their hours of sleep, an endocrine disaster occurred. Here, your levels of leptinwhich is the hormone that sends the satiety signal to the brain so that we stop eating, plummet, while ghrelinwhich is the hormone that tells us to keep eating, it shoots. Greater intake. The result here cannot be other than consumption of 328 extra kcal per day through snackslooking almost exclusively for quickly absorbed carbohydrates because our brain is telling us that we need foods that provide us with energy quickly. Although in truth it is something that is not needed, so these foods directly end up forming more fat deposits. A more recent review goes further and confirms that even a single night of bad sleep is enough to disrupt insulin and orexin, physiologically preparing us for a day of uncontrollable cravings. Eat dinner early. This is something that in many countries, such as France, is totally normal, but not in Spain. Here the science is pretty clear because it has been more than proven that our body does not process food in the same way at 2:00 p.m. as it does at 10:00 p.m. Here the different trials suggest that aligning our meals with circadian rhythms drastically modulates appetite hormones, so eating while our central biological clock is active reduces the average daily germin levels and increases satiety hormones in the evening. This is the same as what a study published in 2023 which confirms that eating at times aligned with sunlight improves the synchronization between the central biological clock and the peripheral clocks in the different organs. The message we should take home here is that eating early literally turns off the physiological desire to eat at midnight because the body understands that the eating cycle has ended and the repair cycle begins. Protein to calm satiety. In this case, the field of nutrition has stopped focusing only on calories to focus on the hormonal response that each food generates in our body. The different reviews suggest that eating around 25-30 grams of high-quality protein per meal not only optimizes muscle protein synthesis, but also suppresses appetite in the long term and, therefore, reduces the temptation to snack between meals. A 2020 meta-analysis corroborated Likewise, seeing that this amount of protein in a meal reduces ghrelin levels and increases the production of hormones that inhibit appetite, such as famous LPG-1 on which medications such as Ozempic. Stress and cortisol. Snacking has an important emotional and brutal stress management component, since it has surely happened to you that when you have more things on you that’s when you eat the most. This is where scientific literature defines hedonic hunger as the strong desire to eat for pure pleasure, in the total absence of physical need for calories in our body. And the blame lies in the extra production of cortisol, which is the hormone classically related to stress. But the most interesting thing here is that in people who eat because of an “emotional” desire and not because of a physiological need, it was seen that when they already saw that a stressful situation was going to come (such as exam time for students), ghrelin levels increased. In this way, if you are nervous, bored or mentally tired, the brain will ask for food rich in fats and sugars, such as sweets, as a dopaminergic compensation mechanism. And here it is not that you are hungry, but that there is great stress. Images | Madalyn Cox Denny Muller In Xataka | We believed that a vegetarian diet guaranteed longevity. In extreme old age, the data says just the opposite

It is the battle for the Internet of the future

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One of the biggest changes on the Internet since the democratization of devices and networks It allowed us all to have a window to the world, and a speaker, in our pockets. With the underlying idea of ​​protecting minors, the world has embarked on the great adventure of putting doors to the countryside: verify the identity of users who browse the Internet. And the reactions couldn’t be more polarized between defenders and those who see it as the latest blow to privacy. What is evident is that it is the great battle of the Internet, and positioning yourself is extremely complex. In short. The earthquake started last week. Adapting to measures that are being taken from Europe, the President of the Government of Spain, Pedro Sánchez, announced a package of measures with the intention of regulating digital platforms. Among them, in addition to criminal liability for company directors in case of inaction, is the prohibition of access to social networks for minors under 16 years of age. At the time we already mentioned that everything is a potential social network, even the comments box on our website, so the description seemed vague. But there were two mentioned: Elon MuskCEO of X, charging against Sánchez, and Pavel DurovCEO of Telegram that sent a message to its users warning about the Government’s intentions. Durov Dúrov’s message translated into Spanish in the Telegram bot. Imagine not knowing who this man is and having him assault you talking about privacy with a message that could very well be written by ChatGPT I just want to imagine the face of someone who doesn’t know Pavel and sees that a user whose number you haven’t given appears on their Telegram saying that privacy is very important. Telegram and Discord, proper names. Although it is social networks in general that are in the crosshairs of these identification policies, Telegram has been the most vocal. Not the most transparent. Because there we must talk about Discord. proving that It is not something that comes only from Spain, Discord announced a few hours ago that will be able to launch a global age verification system. It will be starting next month and it may be the compass of what we find in other similar apps. The way to proceed will be as follows: All accounts, by default, will be set to “teen friendly”. This implies that there is certain content that we will not be able to access and, if we want to change it, we have to prove that we are adults. Discord’s product manager has commented that private messages will not be used in the verification process, but that the system will take into account the age of the account and the activity, as well as the patterns shown in Discord, to verify that we are adults without us having to do anything. BUT, and here comes the asterisk, if we have to identify ourselves, actions will be needed on the part of the users. If not, you will not be able to access age-restricted channels and servers, but you will also not be able to talk on live channels. Okay, but… how? There are two ways to verify our age. One will be through a selfie video that, according to Discordit will not leave our device. The system will analyze the face in real time and give us access. If you consider that we are not of legal age, you have to upload a photo of the identity document. And here comes the tricky part: Discord assures that the images will be deleted quickly, but the documents need to be verified by a third party. And the thing is, this is old business. If we go to the summer of 2024, we have the controversy that arose with the Digital Wallet system and what caught the most attention, the ‘Pajaporte’. The Digital Wallet It was the preview of what they are seeking to create now: a system to verify that we are of legal age and can browse the Internet without barriers. And, instead of using a video of our face or sending a photo of our DNI to a foreign application, the Spanish app works by securely storing the legal age credential issued by the Government. When you try to access a site that requires verification, the application sends those credentials, but the information is encrypted, ensuring, according to the Government, the anonymity of the user. If there is a data leakthere is no information linkable to a user, but rather a key that identifies us anonymously. And it is also not useful to track the operations carried out by the user. in favor. Once we have everything on the table, the reactions come. And there are two opposing currents in this in what we can call the ‘great battle of the Internet’. Being in favor of identification implies potentially losing privacy in favor of gaining security. It is no secret that the networks are plagued with toxic political discourse, polarization, false information (and even more so now with the democratization of generative artificial intelligence) and a system that encourages insults and threats to occur under that anonymity. Pavel Durovvery vocal about this whole matter, is the head of a social network that has been in the spotlight on several occasions. The promises of Telegram encryption (a end to end encryption that does not come by default in all chats) have given rise to illegal activities. In fact, France launched a crusade against him and the platform by alleged crimes of money laundering, drug trafficking or distribution of child pornography, as well as being a nest for political extremists without the application exercising moderation. That Telegram or The video game ‘Roblox’, for example, has a huge community of minors and It was in the news at the end of last year. for not being forceful with the reports of sexual predators that inhabit the platform. Among other atrocities. Cases like this are what explain … Read more

The great battle of the internet of the future is fought against anonymity. And Discord has taken a step requiring ID to enter

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Discord announced yesterday that will launch an age verification system on its platform globally starting next month. This will be when you default to setting all accounts as “appropriate for teens” (“teen-appropriate“) unless the user proves that they are an adult with a partially automatic process that may require the system to scan our face or our identification document. This has reopened the debate about privacy and privacy not only on social networks, but throughout the internet. How it will work. Savannah Badalich, Product Manager at Discord, explained in The Verge that “Discord does not use private messages or any message content in the age verification process”, and clarifies that in many cases this verification will be transparent and the user will not have to do anything: “For most adults, age verification will not be necessary, as Discord’s age inference model uses account information such as account age, device and activity data, and aggregated high-level patterns in Discord communities. But if you need to verify yourself, be careful. Those users who do not obtain this automatic verification will not be able to access channels and servers that have age restrictions, will not be able to participate by speaking on live channels and will have sensitive or graphic content filters activated. They will also receive notifications of friend requests from suspicious users, and even direct messages from unknown users will be automatically filtered to a separate mailbox. The protection that Discord proposes is analogous to that already proposed by the Government of Spain with the beta Digital Wallet, popularly known as the “pajaporte”. Your face or your ID to validate your age. If Discord’s inference model fails to automatically determine your age, the global rollout will require users to present identification to prove they are of legal age to have an adult account. According to Discord, removing those limitations from teen accounts will force users to “choose to use facial age estimation or offer a form of identification to Discord partners.” So, there will be two great options: your face– The user will need to appear in a selfie video during the verification process and a Discord AI system will analyze that image in real time. According to Discord, that selfie will not leave our device. Your ID– If the selfie process fails, users can appeal or verify their age with a photo of their ID. These documents will be verified by third parties, but on Discord they assure that these images of the document “are quickly deleted — in most cases immediately after confirmation of age.” Discord already had a scandal with this. This is actually not the first time Discord has tried something like this. Last year it already deployed an age verification system in the UK and Australiaand the curious thing is that some users exceeded that measure using the ‘Death Stranding’ photo mode. Mass data theft. In October one of those Discord partners suffered a massive data theft in which users’ age verification data, including the government identification documents of said users, were leaked. Badalich states that they stopped working with that company and now use another. “We do not do biometric scanning or facial recognition, but rather facial estimation. The DNI is deleted immediately. We do not store information about you,” said the directive. Anonymity in danger. For decades, anonymity has been considered an acquired right and a pillar of Internet freedom. It is something that allows exploration and criticism without fear of retaliation, but at the same time that has facilitated a toxic public discourse that has turned many platforms—starting with social networks—into “digital dumps” in which harassment and abuse are difficult to stop. Content moderation on social networks has been so problematic that X and Facebook have ended up eliminating their moderation teams—or reducing them to a minimum—so that let the community itself warn of misuse of these networks. Government pressure. Discord’s announcement follows an increasingly recurring trend on the internet. The pressure from governments around the world is notable and wants to eliminate anonymity with the argument of protecting teenagers. Bills are being promoted that force platforms to monitor who enters and how old they are. Eliminating anonymity would certainly have advantages in mitigating toxic speech and instances of harassment or abuse, but it would also have enormous disadvantages. From protecting minors to spying on us all. Among these disadvantages is the risk that these social networks become a massive system of citizen espionage in which the violation of privacy is real. By forcing users to go through these filters, massive databases can be created that are not only targets for cybercriminals, but also potential tools for state surveillance. Is the cure worse than the disease? This government battle against anonymity is justified as a fight against hate and abuse, but the collateral damage is extraordinary. We would lose that structural privacy that the Internet has always offered. If to prevent a stalker or scammer from acting we must identify each individual on the network, we end up turning the Internet into a gigantic registry in which freedom of expression is conditioned by government blessing. Total paradox. The most ironic thing is that Europe, which has traditionally been a defender of privacy, is now totally in favor of those age verification measures that precisely put her in danger. The old continent, which has always criticized Big Tech for aggregating personal data of European citizens, now supports measures that will precisely help build these gigantic databases. If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear. It has been more than a decade since we reflected on that typical phrase of those who did not seem to care that the NSA PRISM program I would have spied on them because they “had nothing to hide.” It’s easy to dismantle that theoryand it is a fallacy that Giving up privacy means greater security. Open debate. The Discord announcement has generated a huge debate in all types of networks, but we found a good … Read more

The eternal battle between whether you are from Apple/iOS or Windows/Android intensifies because the AI ​​wants to take advantage: Crossover 1×36

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In the world of technology there are usually two main types of users: those who choose Apple’s closed ecosystem, and those who prefer to bet on (somewhat) more open alternatives such as those proposed by Microsoft with Windows and Google with Android. Is there a way to know which of the alternatives is better? Into that mess we get into this new episode of Crossover in which we analyze what a technological ecosystem is and the evolution of this concept. Thus, we review how Microsoft began to implement that idea without still using the word “ecosystem.” He did it with Windows because with it he had that central element on which to sell us other applications like Office or Internet Explorer in those beginnings. But with smartphones and the cloud, the ecosystem concept ended up making complete sense, and If there is someone who has exploited it in an extraordinary way, it has been Apple. It has done so, however, with a closed focussomething that has clear advantages, but also disadvantages. Faced with this conception, Microsoft first on desktop computers and then Google on mobile phones continued to promote open ecosystems, which gave much more choice but also posed their own problems. Added to all this now the rise of AIwhich these companies will undoubtedly try to use as a new argument to strengthen their ecosystems. They are all doing it already, and it remains to be seen whether or not this reinforces these ecosystems, whether open or closed. On YouTube | Crossover In Xataka | With Cowork, Anthropic has opened the doors to one of the most promising revolutions in AI: our computer

Mexico City began a battle against the last of its markets that sold live animals. And he just won it

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Mexico City says goodbye to a historical image: the stalls dedicated to the sale of live animals in the Sonora Marketa complex of almost seven decades located southeast of the historic center of the capital. Since January 1, CDMX applies a restriction to this type of commerce, which in practice means that stalls with cages of chickens, ducks, sheep pigeons or fish tanks will no longer be seen in the square. The veto also extends to the marketing of dogs or cats. The authorities of the capital warn that the measure aims to mark a before and after in the sector: “There will no longer be the sale of animals in the public markets of Mexico City and the example begins with the Sonora Market.” New times, new approach. “As of today, the Sonora Market begins a new stage, leaving behind the sale of animals and moving towards a model that respects the law and protects sentient beings,” claimed on Thursday the head of Government of CDMX, Clara Brugada. According to the data managed by the Venustiano Carranza district, where the Sonora Market is located, there were 84 locations (out of a total of 400) dedicated to the sale of living creatures. The idea is that they will now refocus their positions towards other areas, such as the marketing of pet accessories and food or herbalism. Precisely for this purpose, the authorities have committed to giving them financial support: about 50,000 pesos (2,400 euros) to each affected person. Why that decision? What matters, but (at least in this case) when matters even more. The decision comes after a court order that responds to a request from the animal rights group. ‘He goes for his rights’ and calls into question the sale of live animals in the capital’s markets. However, the controversy around Sonora goes back much further: in 2021 a fire which affected several locations and has already attracted interest in the situation of their animals. Complaints on the subject can also be traced years back and they explain the ruling that now forces part of the market to refocus. Those who ignore it and continue selling animals risk closing their stores or even losing their concession. Among the affected merchants there are those who consider the measure “unfair.” “We live in a country with double standards: everyone eats chicken, but criticizes those who sell it,” laments in The Country a saleswoman. Why is it important? First, for its impact in Sonora. Second, because the CDMX Government wanted to present the measure as a turning point, a change that will go beyond the venue and extend to other similar spaces. “It is a historic day in which we tell Mexico City that there will be no sale of animals in public markets. And the example is set by Sonora,” claimed on Thursday Brugada. “We are an animalistic city.” The truth is that the Sonora Market has been particularly controversial. In December the Efe agency cited to an animal rights organization that claims to have documented the presence of mutilated dogs, with ailments or even painted to pass them off as exclusive breeds. The agency assures that it is not unusual for animals to be purchased in markets that are then dedicated to unorthodox uses, such as rituals, target shooting or bait. Click on the image to go to the tweet. What does the law say? The legislation already restricts the sale of live animals, as the deputy recalled Manuel Talayero during a speech in the Congress of Mexico City in September, when was banned the exhibition of pets in cages. “Removing animals from display cases is one more step to tell society that they are not things. This initiative is a step to end something that is already in the law: the prohibition on the sale of live animals in markets.” The Animal Protection and Welfare Law of CDMX, reformed in 2023, makes clear the prohibition of “selling live animals in public markets” or places that do not meet certain minimums, which include guaranteeing “good sanitary conditions” and facilities that prevent the spread of pests. Businesses also need a permit to raise and sell pets. Are there exceptions? In case there were doubts about the role of venues like Sonora, in a resolution In November, the Supreme Court of Justice (SCJN) clarified that “the exception to the general rule of allowing the sale of live animals in places that comply with the regulations does not extend to public markets.” The Chronicler was echoed yesterday that the Court declared that the CDMX congress has jurisdiction to legislate on issues related to animal protection. Images | Sasha India (Flickr), Thomas_H_foto (Flickr) and Carlos Adampol Galindo (Flickr) In Xataka | If the question is how to protect bees and other insects, in Peru they are clear: recognizing their legal rights

Offering the cheapest gasoline in Spain has become an obsession. And 2026 is going to be the year of the great battle

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The cheapest gasoline in Spain today, January 7, is found at a Ballenoil service station in Coslada (Madrid) at a price of 1,239 euros/liter, according to dieselgasolina.coma portal that monitors the price of service stations throughout our country. The second position is also from a Ballenoil service station and is also in Coslada. And the third. And the fourth and the fifth. Oh. And also the seventh, the eighth and the tenth. And the company low cost has started a war to be the company that sells us fuel the cheapest in our country. It wants to continue expanding. And along the way it will face Plenergy, another of the queens of cheap gasoline. Both have undertaken strong expansion. The cheap gasoline war Ballenoil, which is part of Cepsa moeve since just over two yearsis the leg that its parent company has to continue attracting customers who prioritize the price of gasoline above any other incentive. The company goes through a transformation campaignmaking greater efforts for sustainable fuels and electricity. With Ballenoil, Moeve has some safety net. Its service stations require very little expense because, precisely, that is the secret of gasoline low cost. Minimum investments in the stations, forget about additives and any other additional service so that word of mouth is the true driver of service stations. Low prices but good performance at volume. The strategy is working. They point out in Five Days that Ballenoil sold 1.385 million liters of fuel in 2024 and that the target figure for 2026 is 1.8 billion liters. To do this, they seek to consolidate at the end of the year an offer of 500 gas stations spread throughout Spain. Last November they were the first low cost to reach 350 stations of service in Spain. The investment is by no means exceptional. Plenergy is another of the kings of low cost with a turnover of 1,550 million euros in sales in 2024. Right now, it has 352 gas stations on the Peninsula, of which 10 are in Portugal and the rest in Spain. The objective is the same as that of Ballenoil: 500 service stations by the end of 2026. He growth of this type of business It is so high that if the plans are fulfilled we will be seeing one opening of this type of company every four days. That is, every two weeks there should be three new service stations and another on the way. And to certify it, the objective of Plenergy, they point out in Five Days is to have a 10% market share in our country. That would place it as the third most used company, only behind Repsol and Moeve. To these two giants we must add the third in contention. Petroprix, which shares with Ballenoil the service stations with the cheapest fuel in Spain according to dieselgasolina.com, also plans an expansion. For now, talk about extend your influence abroad But it also does not turn its back on Spain and talks about having 400 service stations ready in our country by 2027. gasoline low cost proves to be a huge business in our country. As we counted on Xatakaits competitive advantage is zero investment in marketing or additives. The fuel arrives at these service stations as it is distributed by Exolum, former CHLin charge of distributing all gasoline throughout our country. In return, the business model proposes sales that are large enough to compensate for the narrow profit margin, without an alternative for additional services such as large gas stations such as Repsol or Moeve receive. Photo | Ballenoil and Plenergy In Xataka | Look at gasoline and diesel to improve the electric motor. This project is committed to an untested solution

It’s about how Asia is winning the cultural battle

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When I went to China for the first time in November 2023 with other colleagues, one of my travel companions wanted to take advantage of the few free hours we had to buy a Labubu to give to his daughter. I had no idea what he was talking about. He explained it to me and I stayed the same. A couple of years later, the Labubu are such a mainstream phenomenon that POP MART has opened its first store on Gran Vía and They even appear in ‘South Park’, one of the reference adult series in the West of the last 30 years (with permission from The Simpsons). The opening of a POP MART on the most iconic street in Spain, where theaters, popular fashion brands and franchises gather (special mention deserves Uniqlo and Miniso), is just the tip of the iceberg of something: the East is no longer just the factory of the world (with China as a prominent head), its weight has transcended from the industrial to the cultural to sneak into the mainstream of the West. It is a true victory for Asian pop culture, until now concentrated in its own borders with few exceptions that transcended the niche to the popular. The attractive lottery of the closed box. Of David Beckham to Rihanna passing through Dua Lipa either Lisa from Blackpink: They all have their Labubu. Born in 2015 by Hong Kong artist Kasing Lung for his illustrated book series “The Monsters”, the Labubu they exploded when POP MART started releasing them as collectibles in surprise boxes back in 2019. What started as something niche has become a trend that knows no boundaries or classes. They have them to the Thai royal house and when there is stock, it flies: fans crowd at the door in such a way that you don’t know if they are queuing to buy a ticket for a concert or if there is a rare edition. And she can be a millionaire: the human-sized, mint green Labubu has been auctioned for 230,000 Australian dollars. The Labubu as an expression of identity, status and belonging. You don’t know which one you’re going to get until you open them like it’s the reward mechanism in a video game. Of course, Labubu is not just for boys and girls. It reflects changes in consumer culture reaching millennial and generation Z adults thanks to collecting, nostalgia and the need for comfort. You buy more than a doll: it is an experience full of emotion, the status that comes with having the most exclusive edition and of course, the profitability of resale. It is the almost ideal intersection between gaming and finance: a supply and demand market where assets are stuffed. And little joke with this: POP MART has had to suspend sales in cities like london due to fights between fans and the counterfeit market It is already a reality. Whether you see it as a toy or a fashion accessory, what is clear is that Labubu has emerged as the spearhead of the soft power Chinese. China no longer (only) manufactures products, it also manufactures desire A lot of muscle, a little soft power. China is the second largest economy in the world, but in cultural influence it is quite a few steps below. The Asian giant has a legendary cultural heritage of more than 5,000 years, but for the West it is limited to silk or tea. Naming a movie or a movie star comes down to Bruce Lee (American-Hong Kong born in San Francisco). The reasons? Many and varied: from following content guidelines from the Chinese Government and censorship, but also from considering it as lower quality from a prejudiced perception. China is no longer exotic, it’s cool. First it was economically, but China is also opening up culturally to Western markets, more products appear on social networks and Western audiovisuals and the West is welcoming them with open arms. China had started promoting its brands, the New Silk Road wave visa-free entry for tourism, but nothing as effective as an innocent stuffed animal that has transcended thanks to fans, TikTok and celebrities. At a time (actually, it almost doesn’t matter when you read this) when the global perception of China is often shaped by geopolitics and surveillance, Labubu offers something different, adorable, creative and exciting. And they are not alone: ​​the game’Black Myth: Wukong‘ was a global hit in 2024 and more of the same for the ice cream and bubble tea chain Mixueto cite a couple of examples. It may end up being another fad, but right now they are objects of aspiration and desire. It is proof that Chinese cultural products can do it. That POP MART stores are in the most central streets of large cities is another way to demonstrate this. It has taken Labubu a decade to get here, China will probably have a harder time creating a solid narrative around its cultural products such as Nintendo and its Mario universe. But it’s on its way. China begins to look closely at Japan and Korea. The country of the rising sun is famous for its exports of anime, fashion and gastronomy and since 2010 it has in its strategy “Cool Japan“a government strategy to promote its creative industries abroad. However, this initiative has had its ups and downsthe weight of the market and fans in hits like Pokémon or ramen being undoubted. South Korea has what is probably Asia’s latest and most effective softpower model. With strong support from the state, the Korean wave has achieved great successes from the film ‘Parasites’ to the K-pop phenomenon. China with Labubu is another third way, with a commercial ecosystem focused on intellectual property, lifestyle and trends. In Xataka | There are people burning their Labubus in nets. The reason: a crazy theory that links them to a Mesopotamian devil In Xataka | The Labubu’s half-humanity bags are becoming too small. So its creator already knows how to … Read more

Spain wants its own public Hugging Face. The problem is that he is late to a battle that already has winners.

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The Spanish Government has announced the creation of the Open Source AI Community, a platform that aspires to become the meeting point of the Spanish AI ecosystem. The initiative, presented by the Secretary of State for Digitalization and AI, María González Veracruz, is supported by ALIA and promises to democratize access to AI through open models, datasets and integration tools. Yes, but. He timing It is everything in technology, and Spain arrives when the game is already played: Hugging Face centralizes the development of open models at a global level. GitHub hosts the most important repositories. Flame Meta has become the de facto standard for many developers. Creating a national alternative now is like launching a social network in 2025: technically possible, strategically debatable. Between the lines. The official rhetoric speaks of technological sovereignty and preventing “the digital future from being in the hands of a few.” It is a legitimate argument that works in China, where the State has resources to build parallel ecosystems and close digital borders. But Spain, for good and bad, is not China. Open source AI is, by definition, global and collaborative. Fragmenting it into national initiatives contradicts its very nature. The contrast. The press release sent by the Ministry lists three objectives: Promote practical solutions. Channel Spanish leadership. And create a talent pool. The remaining question is simpler: who is going to choose ALIA when Call 4, Mistral either qwen Are they already integrated into thousands of projects? Not only is the community late, it must compete against models that already have traction, complete documentation, and active communities of millions of developers. What is also missing are concrete resources. The announcement is full of conditional promises: “putting public computing capabilities will be explored,” “there will be” hackathons“sessions will be promoted” networking. What is conspicuous by their absence are specific budget commitments, operational infrastructure from day one, or use cases that demonstrate advantages over what already exists. The big question. If Spain does not have the muscle to create viable alternatives to the American or Chinese technology giants, does it make sense to spend resources pretending that it does? Technological sovereignty is a desirable strategic objective, but it requires sustained investment over decades, not announcements with future tense verbs. The history of European technology is full of failed attempts to replicate other people’s successes without the necessary scale or capital. In Xataka | In Europe we have a problem: we are becoming the Japan of the 21st century Featured image | Secretary of State for Digitalization and Artificial Intelligence

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