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It’s called ‘Kill Him Now!’ and can be seen for 4.99 euros

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It can be said that he true crime It’s my guilty pleasure. If it’s good, it grabs you and doesn’t let go until it’s over. This not only includes the specific case on which the true crimebut it also matters (a lot) how it is told and how it is shown on the screen. And there, few better than Carles Portawhich has several of the best documentaries of this genre that I have seen so far. The best? Today his new one is released true crime: It’s called ‘Kill Him Now!’ and comes to Movistar Plus: you can see it with its Free Film and Series Plan for only 4.99 euros. Without permanence and whatever operator you are. Monthly subscription to Movistar Plus – Cinema and Series The price could vary. We earn commission from these links A lot of true crime, but also a lot of original series This new documentary by Carles Porta arrives on M+ today, June 4. It focuses on a real case that occurred in July 2017 near Albacete and promises to follow the line of the last true crime by Porta himself, such as ‘Missing in Murcia’, ‘Muerte en el hotel’ or ‘Peregrina’. All, by the way, are available on the platformtogether with others like the series ‘Crímenes’ or ‘Tor’, one of my favorites. There is a lot to see on the platform if you like the true crime and, since it has no permanence, you can try it for a month to see how they are. In addition, in Movistar Plus there are also a lot of series that are original to the platform and that are very worthwhile, as is the case of the recently released ‘Many people have to die’ or ‘Celeste’, to name just two examples. To all of the above we must add that you can share the account with a friend or family member without problemseven if they do not live at the same address as you. You can also download one of these true crime to watch it offline when you travel this summer by plane or train. 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 | Movistar Plus In Xataka | Movistar Plus activates its Free Plan with complete programs and a lot of content, regardless of which operator you are In Xataka | Movistar Plus for non-Movistar customers: what it is, how much it costs, channels, additional services and how to contract it

In the battle for high speed in Italy, someone has passed Renfe on the right. Someone called France

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SNCF will compete for the Italian high speed network from September 2027. For a few weeks now, the French company has had the go-ahead to operate on the Italian network and stand up to the state company Trenitalia and the private company Italo. With this movement, France once again gets ahead of Renfe. Although it’s not all bad news. What do we know? The SCNF company, the public railway entity in France, will compete for high speed on Italian soil from September 2027. At least, those are the deadlines according to their latest announcement which specifies that the corridors they can use have already been assigned. In his statementSCNF explains that its trains will offer up to 13 round-trip services on the Turin – Naples and Turin – Venice corridors. The company boasts that this new activity on the lines will result in the creation of 4,000 jobs with the addition of direct and indirect workers. What does it offer? With its proposal, the French company ensures that the Italian railways 15 TGV M trains will be available. They are Alstom trains that the company has not yet been able to test because deliveries have been delayed in recent months. They hope to have them in operation first in France starting next July on the Paris-Lyon-Marseille line. The trains have had to be modified slightly since much of the Italian high speed It does not allow driving at more than 200 km/h. The company will offer four round trips on the Turin-Venice and nine on the Turin-Naples. This last corridor is key because it passes through cities like Milan, Florence and Rome, which is undoubtedly a very juicy cake for a company that intends to gain volume in the coming years. A tough battle. SCNF’s landing comes after a battle in the courts. They explain in the French media that Italy has tried to torpedo the company’s attempts to compete with Trenitalia and Italo. According to these media, the Italian subsidiary of the company has been in an open battle since 2021 with Italian Railway Rete (RFI) that manages the Italian roads, would be the Italian Adif. After numerous disagreements, the Italian subsidiary of the French company ended up denouncing RFI to AGCM, the body in charge of ensuring free competition in the transalpine country. Finally, this body has given the approval so that SCNF can compete with local companies on its roads. To compete, the French company will once again bet on offering lower prices and they assure that the medium-term objective is to gain 15% market share. In the French mediain fact, Spain is pointed out as the example model that SCNF wants to implement in the Italian country, trying to maximize trips on already consolidated routes. And Renfe? Renfe also has its own plans in Italy and although it has not been officially confirmed that it wants to make the leap to high speed, the truth is that the Spanish company has been taking positions that give us an idea of ​​the extent to which it wants to offer this service. And it is that Renfe bought 33% of Arenaways in 2024an Italian company that provides railway services. Of the rest of the shareholders, the Spanish Serena Industrial Partners It also has 33% so most of it is Spanish. This purchase has allowed Renfe to operate the Cuneo-Saluzzo-Savigliano regional line from 2025 and will do the same with the Ceva-Ormea line when the works are completed. But, furthermore, in Expansion They already pointed out then that the company has certifications to operate throughout the Italian network, which should facilitate the arrival of Renfe to the high-speed corridors. Spain-France-Italy. The triangle formed by Spain, Italy and France is leaving us with an intense battle for European high-speed services. In our country, the roads have been opened to Ouigo (SCNF) and Iryo (Trenitalia) and the battle has even reached the use of workshops. In Italy there has been an attempt to torpedo the entry of SCNF but after four years of fighting, the French company has ended up receiving the go-ahead to take its trains to compete on the Italian expressways. Renfe, at the moment, has not confirmed plans to take this step and only operates on regional trains. In France, Renfe has complained that the neighboring country is creating innumerable obstacles to reaching Paris, a key objective when it comes to offering a profitable high-speed service to the north of the Pyrenees. Trenitalia, however, Yes, it has managed to operate in France connecting Paris with its large local cities. Leisurely. All in all, it must be taken into account that Renfe’s forays abroad are not reaping bad results as far as its accounts are concerned. Last year he managed to invoice 20 million euros with the AVE of Meccawhere it moved 10 million passengers, like main promoter of Renfe International Projects. There, Renfe has high-speed services running but its projects outside our borders They are varied. It operates, for example, on the regional train network of the Czech Republic and on Rail Baltica (Latvia and Estonia) and It is also part of what is known as the Mayan Train. Photo | Fernando Meloni and Phil Richards In Xataka | There is a fight between the railway operators to get the best drivers and Renfe is winning it

Someone thought it was a good idea to bring a Bluetooth device called “Bomb” onto a plane. What had to happen happened

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Imagine that you are sitting in that modern torture chamber that we call “economy class” on a transcontinental plane when, after an hour in the air of the eight-hour trip from New Jersey to Mallorca, the aircraft turns around to land at the point of origin because the bomb threat protocols are activated. Now stop imagining because that is precisely what happened this past May 30 when the United Flight Boeing 767 that covered the Newark – Palma de Mallorca route thad to turn around with 12 crew members and 190 passengers of which one was the owner of a Bluetooth device with a peculiar name. “Bomb”. The “Bluetooth bomb” He United Flight 236 It should be just another conventional flight, but those who took the one last Saturday experienced an unusual adventure. When the ship was flying over the Atlantic and in a period Between 60 and 90 minutes after takeoff, someone noticed a disturbing detail: searching for Bluetooth networks, They found a device called “BOMB”. If someone was carrying a bomb with a Bluetooth connection, I highly doubt it would be visible to everyone and, on top of that, it would be called “Bomb”, but it was enough for the situation to explode. The crew, using the public address system, repeatedly asked that the Bluetooth devices be turned off, even threatening with turning around, but after seeing that there were still some lights left and that the “bomb” was among them, the maneuvers began. In coordination with the company’s operations center in Chicago, it was decided that it was best to declare a state of bomb emergency and return to Newark. The plane landed as if nothing had happened, but on the ground there was a significant police and security deployment that forced the passengers to vacate the ship, leaving their hand luggage behind. Image | Flightradar24 As part of the procedure, it was now the security forces that were going to be in charge of inspecting that luggage again. It has not really emerged what the device was, but what is clear is that there was no real explosive device. United has not given detailsbut different media indicate that a 16-year-old passenger had a device named with that name. Some say it’s a Fitbit, others say it’s a Bluetooth speaker. No details have been given about the consequences. that the passenger will have to face and everything has remained an anecdotal situation and a story that those 212 people will tell at some point. Now, there are interesting readings. The first is that there are devices for which you can change the name of the Bluetooth connection. For example, we can call our cell phone whatever we want, just like Wi-Fi networks, but there are others that are not easy to change the name of. A speaker or headphones usually have the name they come from the factory, unless they have an app that explicitly allows you to change the identifier. This is important because there are speakers like the Bombbox from JBL and, above all, the Hama Bomb 3.0 that have ‘BOMB’ in the name. Obviously, it doesn’t just say that and there are numbers and the brand, so it would be easy to deduce that it is a totally different device than a bomb. Also, if this were the case, the device would be turned off and not searching for Bluetooth all the time, so what makes the most sense is that it is a mobile phone with that ‘nickname’ for Bluetooth. That said, when the crew asked to disconnect the Bluetooth, if the person had headphones on they might not even notice and, if they did, it was a message that could be interpreted as “put the phone on.” airplane modeThere are cell phones that, when they activate airplane mode, deactivate all wireless communications, but there are also those that only deactivate Wi-Fi, the mobile network and leave Bluetooth to allow connection with headphones. This is for trying to find an explanation for a bizarre story like few others that had a happy ending for the passengers, being able to board a new flight the morning of the next day, but which could be very serious for the funny or clueless owner of the device. Because it is one thing to take longer to take off, but having a plane turn around, relocate all the passengers and the company pay compensation… is not cheap. AND I’m sure someone at United Flight isn’t happy at all.nor were those who were on that flight and who had zero information about what was happening, even having to go to reddit to find out about the movie and report the company’s compensation: a $15 bonus to spend on food. Moral: take a look at what your devices are called. In Xataka | Airplanes have circular windows for a reason. It took two plane crashes to find out.

Spain and Morocco have been dreaming of a tunnel under the Strait for 40 years. The great enemy of the project is called Umbral de Camarinal

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Linking Europe with Africa from the Strait of Gibraltar has been discussed for decades. However, in recent years we have seen how the Governments of the countries involved have been adding steps to this project. Spain and Morocco work has accelerated in recent months to make a railway tunnel a reality that would pass under the Strait and that would connect Punta Paloma (Tarifa) with Cape Malabata (near Tangier). The infrastructure (if it is built) would easily become a historic engineering work, allowing people to cross from one continent to another in just half an hour. What are we talking about?. The project contemplates a strictly railway tunnel, without a viaduct or vehicle lanes (something it originally discussed doing), with a total length of about 42 kilometers between stations, of which 27.7 are submerged. The deepest point it would reach 475 meters below sea level and would cross what is known as the Camarinal Threshold, the shallowest area of ​​the Strait and, curiously, much more complex from a geological point of view. What would it be like inside?. According to data collected by the Spanish public company SECEGSA, the design proposes two independent single-track tubes, each with an inner diameter of 7.90 metersand a 6-meter central service gallery for maintenance and emergency tasks. This gallery would connect with the main tubes through transversal passages every 340 meters. At the lowest point of the layout there would be a safe parking area with intervention areas and a smoke extraction system. High-speed trains for passengers and shuttle convoys for goods and vehicles would run through the tunnel. Who is in charge. The project is moving forward in two ways. On the Spanish side, the work is coordinated by SECEGSA, a public company created in the eighties precisely to promote this connection. On the Moroccan side, the Government has decided to concentrate all its efforts on the channel with Madridruling out other parallel paths. The most recent and relevant agreement It was signed on December 4, 2025 in La Moncloa between the Minister of Transport of Spain, Óscar Puente, and his counterpart in Morocco, Karim Zidane. It contains a memorandum between the Spanish National Geographic Institute and the National Center for Scientific and Technical Research of Morocco (CNRST) to jointly study the seismicity and geodynamics of the Strait for three years. Financing. In March of this year, the Spanish Government approved an additional transfer of 1.73 million euros to finance technical studies, according to they count from La Razón. Added to this item is a marine research campaign commissioned by the Higher Council for Scientific Research (CSIC) with a budget of 553,187 euros, published in the Official State Gazette. This campaign, lasting about 15 days and scheduled for the first half of 2026, includes high-resolution bathymetry, sampling of sediments and rocks from the seabed, and laboratory analysis. Three CSIC institutes participate (Marine, Geological and Mining Sciences, and Oceanography), the Navy Hydrographic Institute and the United States Geological Survey. Obstacles. The key is in the Camarinal Threshold. The Spanish subsidiary of the German manufacturer Herrenknecht, specialized in tunnel boring machines, carried out a feasibility study that concluded that the work is technically possible with current engineering, although he warned of enormous logistical and economic challenges. The subsoil of that area is made up of materials from the Flysch Complex, with layers of sandstone and clay of turbidite origin, covered by more recent sediments. This geological variability, added to the fact that the Strait is located on the Azores-Gibraltar-Tunisia fracture, the same one that caused the devastating Lisbon earthquake of 1755makes excavation a particularly complex challenge. On the other hand, it should be noted that the Strait is not an easy scenario. More than 100,000 ships pass through its waters a year and the study area is located within a Special Conservation Area with a protection plan for orcas. More than 1,900 species of marine flora and fauna have been recorded, which requires obtaining certain environmental permits before doing anything. How much will it cost. Although there are no concrete figures on how much the project would cost, Morocco World News situates the estimated cost alone for the Spanish part is above 8.5 billion euros, while other media such as El Diario elevate the total budget above 15,000 million, to be distributed between Spain, Morocco and the European Union. In any case, it will be one of the most expensive infrastructures ever built in the region. When will it be ready. Here it is advisable to lower expectations. And the deadlines that are managed They place the possible inauguration between 2035 and 2040always in the best of scenarios, but very possibly set more in the 2040s than before (that is, if the work is ever executed). If the seismic and geotechnical studies end up being favorable, a reconnaissance gallery could be put out to tender in 2027, requiring several years to complete to obtain detailed information on the terrain and the viability of the project. Why it matters beyond engineering. Connecting Africa with Europe by rail would encourage trade in very profitable ways, integrating the railway networks of the Maghreb with the European system and making the peninsular south take on a completely different color as a logistical node. Of course, it also raises political debates, especially regarding immigration management. Be that as it may, we will still have to wait to find out if the project finally materializes. Cover image | SECEGSA and Google Earth In Xataka | Amazon wants to save its ‘cloud’ from the mud: the plan to shield Zaragoza against large floods

It is called Galileo, and it is the backbone of the EU’s technological independence

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when you open Google Maps or use any application that requires location services, your phone is connecting at that very moment to a handful of positioning satellites that are orbiting our planet. We commonly refer to this type of technology as GPS, but chances are that of all the satellite constellations your phone connects to, some of them are European, and It is not technically “GPS”. In Spain, many of the times we access the phone’s location we do so through the Galileo satellite constellation, which has been operational for almost a decade. The European Union is strengthening this technology and shielding it from interference for a reason: technological sovereigntysomething that is beginning to appear more and more on the EU political agenda. What is Galileo, and why it is not the same as GPS. Galileo is the European Union’s global navigation satellite system (GNSS), funded by the European Commission and developed together with the European Space Agency (ESA) and the EU Agency for the Space Program (EUSPA). There are four operational global GNSS: GPS (United States), GLONASS (Russia), BeiDou (China) and Galileo, the only one under fully civilian control. According to the European Commission itself, its open service offers an accuracy of one meter, up to four times better than traditional GPS. What the user calls “GPS” on their mobile phone is, in reality, GNSS, that is, a cocktail of signals from several constellations that the chip in your phone combines to fix the position. Your mobile phone already navigates with Galileo, and for years. Galileo began initial services in 2016 and opened to the public shortly after. From 2022, according to EUSPA, all smartphones sold in the European single market are required to be compatible with Galileo. Today there are more than five billion users around the world that connect to this constellation, according to ESA dataand the main chip manufacturers (Qualcomm, Broadcom and MediaTek) integrate Galileo as standard. If you want to know which satellites your phone is currently using, there are applications that allow you to find out, such as GPSTest. Importance for the EU. Galileo does not replace GPSis like a complementary layer that provides a certain strategic autonomy that until recently did not exist in Europe. If we think about it, satellite positioning is today a critical service in sectors such as civil aviation, road transport, agriculture, telecommunications, the E-Call emergency system of cars, financial transactions, etc. The European Commission esteem that approximately 10% of the EU’s annual GDP already depends on satellite navigation, which explains why it has spent more than two decades building its own constellation. Service improvements. Galileo is being strengthened and modernized over time. In December last year, ESA and Arianespace Two Galileo satellites were launched for the first time on board the European rocket Ariane 6This is curious because several previous launches had been carried out with SpaceX’s Falcon 9. There are still four first-generation satellites pending launch, and this year they will begin to be deployed the Second Generation (G2)developed by Airbus Defense and Space and Thales Alenia Space, with fully digital payload, electric propulsion, better atomic clocks and inter-satellite links. In parallel, in July 2025 it entered into operation the OSNMA service (Open Service Navigation Message Authentication), which adds a digital signature to Galileo signals to detect attempts to spoofing (the sending of false signals) in a context in which there is increasing signal interference in conflict zones. In fact, Rodrigo da Costa, executive director of EUSPA, counted that Galileo has become the first GNSS in the world to offer global authentication of its open signals. And now what. What is coming are more satellites, more services and better precision. Galileo’s High Precision Service (HAS), free and available globally, now enables precision of the order of 20 centimeters with compatible receivers (not directly from our mobile). The Second Generation will reinforce robustness against interference and open the door to more demanding applications such as autonomous driving. Cover image | Xataka and ESA In Xataka | Who can do more, Google or seven small Dutch companies together? Europe is on the verge of discovering it

It’s called Gemini Intelligence and it wants to change how we use our mobile phones

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Google just introduced Gemini Intelligence in The Android Showthe great event dedicated to the green android operating system. The name, which inevitably reminds Apple Intelligencemakes it quite clear where the news is going: artificial intelligence. But here we are not just talking about creating emojis or generating images, but about something more ambitious, at least on paper. The company wants to change the way we use our devices. So how does that promise hold up? Google assures that Gemini Intelligence will allow us to automate tasks, as can be seen in the example shown during the event and included in the cover image, reading the information that appears on our screen and interacting with it. It will also arrive with a navigation assistant for Google Chrome, make it easier to fill out forms, and update Gboard to help us shape our thoughts out loud. Let’s see in a little more detail what each new feature consists of. Everything Gemini Intelligence brings to Android Google says it has been working on automation features for months alongside several popular food and transportation apps. The goal is for Gemini Intelligence to be able to take care of certain tasks for us, not just answering questions, but acting within the device and some compatible applications. “Gemini takes care of the logistics so you can enjoy the moment,” the company says. These are some of the examples that Google has shared: Reserve a bike in the front row for a spinning class Find a class program in Gmail Add to cart the books you need Gemini Intelligence may also use the context of the screen or an image. The company proposes, for example, an open shopping list in a notes application. In that scenario, it would be enough to press and hold the power button to activate Gemini Intelligence and ask it by voice to create a shopping cart with those products. In theory, the system would take care of it. Another example is photographing the poster for an activity and asking them to search Expedia for a similar tour for six people. Another important piece of Gemini Intelligence will be in Chrome. Google wants to make its browser on Android smarter starting at the end of June, with Gemini built in to help us research, summarize information, and compare content on the web. It is not just about reading a page and returning a summary, but about accompanying us in tasks that normally require jumping between several tabs or services. In addition, Chrome will incorporate a function called auto browse, aimed at more mechanical tasks. Google gives examples of booking an appointment or a parking space. On paper, it is another step in the same direction: less manual interaction and more capacity of the system to take care of specific procedures. Android autofill will also take a leap with Gemini Intelligence. So far, Autofill with Google has mostly served to save time in basic fields, but Google wants to take it further. The feature will be able to take advantage of Gemini’s personal intelligence to fill out more fields within apps and Chrome, even when forms are longer or have small boxes spread across the screen. The promise is simple: that filling out forms from your mobile will no longer be such a burdensome task. Android may use relevant information from connected applications to fill in that data for us. In any case, Google emphasizes an important point: this integration will be strictly optional. Each user will decide if they want to connect Gemini with Autofill, and that connection can be activated or deactivated from the settings. Gboard will also be updated with a new Gemini Intelligence feature called Rambler. The starting point is quite recognizable: Android already allows you to quickly convert voice to text, but we don’t speak the same way we write. We correct ourselves as we go, we repeat ideas, we leave half-sentences or we fill in the gaps with fillers. Rambler wants to take care of just that. The idea is that you can speak naturally, without having to construct the perfect sentence before starting. The system will take the important parts of what you say and organize them into a clearer, more concise message. Google ensures that Gboard will clearly show when Rambler is activated and that the audio will only be used to transcribe in real time, without being stored or saved. In addition, Rambler will be designed for multilingual conversations. Thanks to Gemini’s advanced model, you will be able to change languages ​​within the same message and understand the context even if we mix several languages. Google uses a combination of English and Hindi as an example, but the idea is broader: that the message still sounds like us, just a little more polished. 10 GOOGLE APPS THAT COULD HAVE SUCCESSFUL Which phones will be compatible with Gemini Intelligence Google has made it clear that Gemini Intelligence will be an exclusive function of Android phones, something that we could already imagine due to its characteristics. Nothing about an application that allows you to use some of its new features on the iPhone. Now, even within the Android ecosystem, its deployment will also be limited: it will be focused on the “most advanced devices” and will arrive in phases. According to official information, Gemini Intelligence will first arrive on compatible Samsung Galaxy and Google Pixel phones as early as this summer. Later, at the end of the year, it will also land on other devices, such as smart watches, cars, glasses and laptops. In development. In Xataka | Anthropic does not offer its services in China. So China has invented a black market for Claude tokens

It is called Anthropic and it is going to pay you 200,000 million, according to The Information

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Anthropic has agreed to pay Google about $200 billion over five years for more computing power, according to has published The Information. The figure would thus place the AI ​​startup as Google Cloud’s largest individual client, representing more than 40% of the backlog of earnings that Alphabet communicated to its investors last week. From commitment to commitment. A revenue backlog reflects contractual commitments already signed by a cloud provider’s customers. That Anthropic occupies more than 40% of Google Cloud says a lot about the extent to which the startup has become a structural piece of Alphabet’s business. There is also another nuance to highlight: that large AI companies like Anthropic or OpenAI still need the hyperscalers to continue growing, so in this sense, both Microsoft and Google can afford not to have the best AI models as long as they receive such an amount of income from offering such computing capacity. What the agreement consists of. According to they count In The Information, the pact, signed in April, includes massive capacity of TPUs (Google’s own AI chips), supplied in collaboration with Broadcom. However, this infrastructure will not be ready after 2027. Anthropic, for its part, not only works with Google hardware, since also uses Trainium chips from Amazon and Nvidia GPUs, playing its cards well to diversify suppliers and not depend on a single company that supplies computing capacity. The now classic circular financing. Alphabet has been investing in Anthropic for years: first it was $300 million in 2023, then another 2 billionafter 1 billion more in 2025. A few days ago we also discovered an investment of up to 40,000 million additional payments by Google, of which 10 billion would be disbursed immediately and the rest would be conditional on objectives met. In exchange, Google Cloud will provide an additional 5 gigawatts of computing capacity. This way, Google invests in Anthropic and Anthropic spends that money in Google. Is called circular financingand it is the key to how the foundations of AI are made of promises. According to account In the middle, the contracts signed between large cloud providers (Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud) and startups like Anthropic and OpenAI already add up to more than two billion dollars in committed backlogs. Hyperscalers invest in AI startups and AI startups spend that money on the infrastructure of those same hyperscalers. Anthropic can’t afford it… and yet they do it. Estimates suggest that Anthropic’s server costs could reach 20 billion dollars only in 2026. The company is not yet profitable, but demand for its model family Claude continues to grow strongly in the business segment, which forces it to secure long-term computing capacity before infrastructure shortages prevent it from doing so. The agreement with Google adds to another recent one with CoreWeave and the forecast of securing almost a gigawatt of additional capacity through Amazon chips before the end of the year. Almost symbiotic relationship. Alphabet is at a time of maximum competitive pressure in AI. Your cloud business grew by 36% last year, and Anthropic is one of its most intensive clients. Losing that relationship, or seeing it migrate to other providers like AWS, would be a significant blow. Furthermore, with an Anthropic valuation that Bloomberg situates around 800,000 million dollars, and with a possible IPO Before the year is out, Google’s accumulated stake in the company could become one of its most valuable financial assets. It is not just infrastructure: it is also a capital bet. Cover image | Wikimedia and Fortune Brainstorm Tech In Xataka | If at some point NVIDIA has to choose between giving its best chips to the US or China, its choice is very clear.

Freepik is now called Magnific. And the name change is the least of it

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Freepik has rebranded itself as Magnific. The Malaga company, founded in 2010 as a search engine for graphic resources, has decided to adopt the name of the Murcian startup that it acquired in May 2024 and reorganize its entire generative AI offering for creatives under that brand. The move comes accompanied by figures that explain why it is worth taking the step: $200 million in annual recurring revenue, more than one million paying subscribers and 250 business teams using the platform, including those from BBC, DeliveryHero, Huel, R/GA, Damm and Job&Talent. Why is it important. Few European companies can stand up to the wave of American creative platforms (such as Midjourney, Runway or Leonardo) without having raised a single round of venture capital in the United States. Freepik, now Magnific, is one of them. And it is doing it from Malaga, with a different model from the rest: instead of competing for the best image or video model, it aggregates the leading models on the market and integrates them into a single professional production environment. It is a commitment to being the layer that unites, not the one that generates. The context. It is worth remembering where this story comes from. Freepik had been there for years stealthily becoming one of the most relevant players in the global graphics sector: in 2020 EQT bought the business in one of the largest Spanish technological operations, and since then the company has chained acquisitions (Iconfinder, Videvo, EyeEm…) and a turn towards generative AI. The purchase of Magnific in May 2024 It was the turning point. Magnific was then a five-month-old startup founded by Javi López and Emilio Nicolás that had popularized the concept of reimagined upscaling: enlarge images generating new details in the process. The operation was carried out without the two brands merging. Until today. Magnific Spaces interface. Image provided. Between the lines. That the resulting company adopts the name of the acquired company and not that of the parent company says something: Freepik clearly carried a perception of a bank of images of stocksa business perceived as conservative and little linked to AI, to novelty. Magnific, on the other hand, had less of a brand, but was synonymous with cutting-edge AI and a tool admired by the international creative community, even commented by Elon Musk a few weeks after its launch. Adopting the Magnific name is, above all, a positioning move: the company does not want to continue to be associated with vectors and templates, but with AI-assisted audiovisual production. It’s a rebranding to where the future money is, not where your legacy is. In figures. The data that the company has shared outlines an unusual trajectory in European AI: $200 million ARR (annual recurring sales). 1 million paying subscribers. 100 million monthly visits. 175 million images and videos generated per month. 250 business teams in production. 2,000 subscriptions to the Business plan in its first six weeks, with a current rate of 150 new devices per week. Andreessen Horowitz ranks it as the largest European generative AI web company by number of users. In detail. What is offered under the Magnific umbrella covers the complete visual production cycle: 4K image and video generation with audio, upscaling own, collaborative space in real time (Spaces), 3D environments, multilingual lip sync (Speak), speech synthesis, sound effects, and a legacy library of 250 million assets. The business promise is not to have the best model in a category, but rather that a creative team can do all the work without jumping between five different tools. He’s not doing bad at all with that proposal. And now, with the unified brand and the financial muscle to accelerate, it is time to convince the market that this promise also applies to the giants that come after it. In Xataka | Freepik, winner of the special Xataka Award for the best Spanish technology company of 2025: from image bank to Adobe rival Featured image | Magnificent

It’s called “Acubi”, K-Pop stars wear it and Zara is already taking note

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The long-awaited return of the third season of Euphoria to HBO screens this April seemed to dictate a clear sentence about the future of fashion and beauty: excess is back, but in a darker and more intentional version. The series has abandoned the ethereal, innocent aesthetic of its beginnings to embrace high-contrast makeup, deep ’90s inspiration, and “fierce, unapologetic glam.” As Donni Davy saysthe main makeup artist of the fiction, this new season is “a campaign against clean-girl makeup.” However, while Hollywood pushes hard towards this drama and visual aggressiveness, there is a much quieter rebellion in the streets and on global social networks. An entire generation has decided to turn its back on the aesthetic chaos of the West to embrace Acubi: the quiet cool South Korean style with muted tones and loose silhouettes that is redefining the youth wardrobe. A trend born on the internet. The Acubi style is not an invention of recent weeks, but its current explosion is undeniable. The term comes from the south korean brand Acubi Cluba pioneer in mixing 2000s minimalism (Y2K), “subversive” basics and cyber fairy grunge. It is an aesthetic that avoids metallic pastel tones and takes refuge in a neutral color palette—white, black and gray—, constantly playing with proportions: tight-fitting tops or those with strategic cuts (cut-outs) combined with very loose cut pants. This fashion is gaining traction on platforms such as TikTok and Pinterest since the summer of 2022, standing out for being a creative and mature mix. The accelerator has been K-Pop. If Acubi has conquered the world, it has been thanks to its most powerful ambassadors. Heewon Yuh, youth fashion strategist at WGSN, clarify in cnn that “K-Pop functioned not so much as the origin, but as an accelerator, transforming a local style approach into a globally recognized look.” Female groups with global impact such as Blackpink, NewJeans and Aespa have taken this aesthetic to the stages and fashion weeks. In fact, Ning Ning and Winter, vocalists of Aespa, they showed off their best performance of the Acubi style, dominated by black and asymmetry, during the promotion of his album Armageddon. The data supports this aesthetic tsunami: the hashtag #Acubi generates about 65,000 daily posts on TikTok and 87,000 on Instagram. In addition, interest in Google Trends in Korean fashion reached its peak in the United Kingdom and the United States in February of this same 2026, coinciding with the appearance of idols at London Fashion Week. It is not a simple algorithmic whim. Jaana Jätyri, founder of the forecasting agency Trendstop, explains to cnn that “in periods of economic and social tension, fashion tends to soften.” The Acubi allows young people to be fashionable “without feeling on display.” Along the same lines, Rose Coffey, analyst at The Future Laboratory, maintains that new generations seek “stability and a sense of control” through modular and adaptable garments. However, this search for stability through neutrality does not convince everyone, and has a deeper and more controversial reading. The general obsession with derived aesthetics such as clean girl proposes a “neutral, apolitical and universalized” image. According to Marta De la Rochaan expert from the European University of Madrid, “we have lost the political and identity message that more striking urban tribes previously had.” This is where the analysis of journalist Noemí López Trujillo in Newtral provides a fundamental critical layer. Based on the test Reaction by Susan Faludi, details that the rise of aesthetics that require women to be discreet and ultra-clean can be read as a conservative and anti-feminist reaction. The goal, as journalist Brenda Otero explains, is that women “do not make mistakes, that they all appear equal, that there is no chaos, that they are static and do not change.” Fortunately, although the Acubi shares that silent color palette, its heritage grunge and its asymmetrical cuts save it from falling into the total and apolitical submission of the clean girlgiving it a subversive edge against the desire for women to go unnoticed. From digital niche to universal basic. Far from being a passing fad, the business model behind Acubi predicts a long life. The trend has already made the leap from screens to cash registers. Retailers of fast-fashion such as Shein and British brands such as Minga London already market these garments. Furthermore, mainstream market giants (high street) like Zara and COS have begun to incorporate similar loose silhouettes in their recent collections. Even haute couture has taken note: Gucci’s Cruise 2025 collection and Fendi’s recent catwalks They have presented minimalist designs relaxed people who drink from this same fountain. This success is also a victory for Soft Power South Korean. Professor Dal Yong Jin, from Simon Fraser University, explains in cnn that the growing visibility of Seoul aesthetics is a reflection of the expansion of the Hallyu (the Korean wave). Consuming Korean fashion has become deeply attractive to the international public, strengthening the economy and institutional image of the Asian country globally. The key lies in its extreme practicality. As illustrated in The Straits Times When analyzing urban youth in Singapore, this aesthetic triumphs in all types of contexts – even in hot and humid climates – thanks to the fact that it allows you to show off a well-groomed appearance effortlessly. It is a style that is built on interchangeable and breathable layers: a basic tank top, loose cargo pants and the finishing touch of some metallic accessories or sunglasses are enough to complete the look. Furthermore, although it was initially promoted by women, Acubi has broken gender barriers. Men’s fashion has embraced this trend under an influence Techwear. The “tiny top and big pants” formula translates to men wearing tight shirts or ripped sweaters paired with extra-wide parachute cargo pants, a line that retailers like Lewkin already carry under the “Acubi Men” label. The silent noise of a generation The current fashion landscape draws an interesting dichotomy. While giant Western productions try to impose dramatic or high-contrast aesthetics, global youth has chosen to … Read more

Millionaires are fleeing the Middle East. And their unexpected destination is a small Swiss canton called Zug.

by

In 2011, during the Arab Spring, several European private banks detected an unusual phenomenon: Within days, high-net-worth clients began transferring large sums from the Middle East into accounts in Switzerland without prior notice. It wasn’t the first time something like this happened, but it was one of the fastest. That left a clear lesson in the financial sector: when stability falters, money does not wait to understand what happens, it simply moves. War moves money. we have been counting. The war in the Middle East is not only altering military and energy balances, it is also causing a silent movement but massive capital. What were previously fiscal decisions or lifestyle They have become urgent security decisions, where the priority is no longer optimizing profits, but protecting assets. In this context, an idea begins to prevail: billionaires do not wait for the situation to get worse, they go aheadand that movement is redrawing the global map of wealth in real time. Dubai is no longer an unquestionable refuge. For years, Dubai was the natural destination for international fortunes seeking stability, tax benefits and a secure environment in a complex region. However, the conflict with Iran has introduced a variable that previously seemed controlled: the direct risk. That perception has been enough for activate discrete outputs but constant numbers of businessmen, executives and large assets who are now looking for more predictable alternatives outside the gulf. This is not a collapse, but a change in mentality: when security is no longer absolute, attractiveness quickly erodes. Aerial view of Zug And, suddenly, Zug. In this displacement, the place that is attracting attention is not a great global capital, but a small swiss canton of just 135,000 inhabitants: Zug. Traditionally known for its role in commodities trading and, more recently, in crypto ecosystemhas become the first destination that many of these capitals look to. Reasons? counted the financial times that both wealth managers and bankers agree that demand has grown significantly since the beginning of the conflict, to the point that for many clients the request is direct and automatic: move there. The call effect. This growing flow is having immediate consequences in an already limited market, especially when it comes to housing. Demand has rapidly outstripped supply, generating intense competition for any property available and lines even for modest rentals. Added to this are administrative barriers that make entry difficult, especially for those who do not belong to the European Union, forcing residence to be linked to employment, investment or specific tax agreements. Zug attractsbut it does not absorb without friction. Switzerland reinforces its role in the geopolitics of money. What is happening in Zug is not an isolated phenomenon, but rather part of a broader dynamic in which Switzerland consolidates again as a refuge in times of uncertainty. Its political stability, its legal framework and its financial tradition make it a almost automatic destiny when overall risk increases. In fact, other cantons like Lugano have begun to capture part of this growing demand, expanding the phenomenon and confirming that the movement has only just begun. A map of wealth that changes with each conflict. In short, the result is a progressive movement of money from risk areas to safe enclaves, where each crisis acts as a catalyst. The war in the Middle East is accelerating this process and leaving one conclusion abundantly clear: global fortunes are no longer driven only by opportunity, but for threats. And in that new balance, places so small and discreet like Zug They can become, almost without noise, the great beneficiaries of an increasingly unstable world. Image | Schulerst , IDF Spokesperson’s Unit, LohriPR In Xataka | The most buoyant market right now is selling streaming and satellite images of US movements to Iran. In Xataka | Commercial aviation is based on very old aircraft. The Iran war is going to make it even worse

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