changed

In 1997 Winamp forever changed the way we listen to music. This is his story 30 years later

by

Perhaps the main topic of this article is a fond memory for you, perhaps you have not yet moved it to that section or perhaps you do not know what we are going to talk about, but if we think about keys in the history of the digitization of music and the mp3 format, we inevitably have to talk about Winamp’s own history. A software that came to your computer in one way or another to listen to your favorite mp3s and create your lists (eventually). Let’s forget the flat designhe material design and all the modern interfaces to remember this precedent of other players, which was not strictly the first either. Who created it and what motivations were there? Why was it losing prominence? If you know him, nostalgia will probably invade you for a little while; if you don’t know him, you may know some of the reasons for his decline. The original broth of Winamp and digital music The popularization of the Internet, the lowering of its rates and the digitization of music meant that the computer began to take on the role of source and player of our songs. Regarding this, it is impossible to ignore a chapter in this story in which piracy was the order of the day, with protagonists like KaZaA or eMule (perhaps more common and longer in time depending on the country). In any case, obtaining a significant number of songs in mp3 format made the players much more required and someone thought that what was offered so far (Windows Media Player, Real Player, etc.) did not satisfy the needs or did not give the option to do so, specifically Justin Frankel and Dmitry Boldyrev (former students of the University of Utah). They created the seed of the player, which was a very simple graphical interface to make the use of AMP more comfortable (Advanced Multimedia Productswhich is considered the first *.mp3 player) on Windows systems (a title bar and a menu bar with a few playback commands). In 1997, Frankel created Nullsoft, his company, and Winamp 1 was released. It was not the only alternative player created to listen to this music format, but it was the one that combined features such as creating playlists or random playback, all in an interface that used to be quite intuitive. It soon became popular, becoming among the most downloaded software in the last 10 years. What started out as free software ended with version 1.5, at which point the license freeware became sharewareso that users had a 14-day free trial after which they would be obliged to pay 10 dollars. The program became popular to the point that Frankel He earned $100,000 a month. And the success did not go unnoticed by what was a great company at the time, AOL, which bought the software from Nullsoft for $80 millionIn fact, the streaming service and the SHOUTcast protocol also remained. Versions 0.2 and 0.92 (right). Winamp version 2.0. Winamp version 3.0. The intention was to create a leading online radio platform like Pandora or Last.FM by unifying the catalogs of Winamp and Warner Music, but they did not achieve it (the existence of one and the absence of the other is the proof). This also coincided chronologically with the launch of the iPod and its song sales platform, iTunes, which although it was somewhat behind in the mp3 revolution, had its role in normalizing the purchase of mp3s to the detriment of piracy in the United States. AOL would eventually dismantle Nullsoft in December 2003, and Frankel left the new parent company in January 2004. In Rocknerd They quote Nullsoft’s Rob Lord regarding the AOL acquisition and what Winamp could have been if it hadn’t been managed by AOL the way it was. “There is no reason why Winamp is not where iTunes is now other than the mismanagement on AOL’s part that began immediately after the acquisition.” Rob Lord, Nullsoft A review of the versions Depending on how familiar Winamp is to you (whether you were a user from the beginning, a recent user or if you have never used it before), one interface or another will have remained in your retina, but the most popular ones may have been from 1.9 onwards, when many new functions and elements were added. on the blog Old Version (now disappeared) made their particular tribute to the app by showing some of the interfaces of these versions that allowed us to recover some images. As we mentioned before, the first version was 0.2 (April 1997), which already went beyond plain text to present an interface with the basic elements of a player (title, play buttons, bitrate, audio output mode, etc.). The dark gray background that would become a hallmark would come with 0.92, in addition to the top bar with yellow lines, and in 1.0 a graphic equalizer, the list editor, a frequency analyzer and the search bar would be added to this. Version 1.6 introduced another of the features that was best received: customization. In addition, they were expanding support for different formats, such as MIDI, *.wave and CDswhich arrived with version 1.91. This interface with the equalizer taking up much of it and the playlist screen may be quite familiar to you. With version 2.0 came the Advanced Visualization Studio (AVS) by default (until then it was a separate plug-in), which allowed you to create rhythm-dependent animations on demand. But it was** in 2002 when Winamp 3** arrived, after the purchase of AOL and completely rewritten at the code level, incorporating a multimedia library, a renewed interface and the only one adapted to Linux of all the existing ones (and video support since 2.9), although there was some rejection as it consumed too many system resources and was somewhat unstable. The interface of the latest version for Mac has nothing to do with those modules with gray backgrounds in versions starting from 2.0. With version 5 in December 2003, the … Read more

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

by

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

If the question is “how did I meet your mother,” this graph reveals how much the answer has changed since 1930

by

Allow me an indiscreet question if you have a partner: how did you meet? A quick review around me gives me some answers like “class”, also others like “common friends” and in many cases Tinder would come to the fore. Well, and I also know of some cases of Twitter or even forum sharing. I am a millennial and so is the majority of my environment. If I asked this same question to my mother or if I asked it to my grandmother (if she were alive), I might find the same answers, but the proportions would change. However, for 20 years there has been one way of dating that overwhelmingly prevails over the rest, considering “success” as having a partner: internet wins by a landslide. Although like me you can do that quick review of your environment, there is someone who has done it more and better (statistically speaking): a team from Stanford University has repeated this study titled “How the couples meet and stay together” for several years that, although you can read, James Eagle has turned it into a visual resource to analyze how this modus operandi of flirting has changed over time: a very revealing one minute video. This video covers almost a century of dating habits: from 1930 to 2024 and it includes classic options such as friends, family, in a bar, at work, neighbors, at university or school, at church and of course, on the internet. Obviously, in the 1930s and subsequent decades, the Online option was a huge zero. But be careful because in 1981 it started timidly with 0.01%. In the 30s, the best way to flirt was for your cousin to introduce you to your future partner (followed by friends and school): the family as a matchmaker which lasted until 1944, at which time it was superseded by Friendships. As leisure options begin to become popular and women enter the workforce, we see how “at work” or “in a bar” gain ground until they are able to share the podium with your friends back in the 80s. How the democratization of the internet changed dating The 90s is a critical moment: online begins a meteoric rise that consolidates it as the most infallible method to find a partner in 2011, displacing those eternal friendships that have been helping us flirt since time immemorial. As striking as the rise and total consolidation of the internet is the drastic fall of all other options: in the last 10 years we have gone from only friendships holding the type with a 20% share to that in 2024, the year of the end of video, flirting online is consolidated as the quintessential method with more than 60% of the pie. Being introduced to your partner by your colleagues happens in only one in 10 cases, something that makes sense in an increasingly individualistic society, which complicates even making new friends. If you are a single person, it is clear that apps are the place to find dates, according to this study. However, dating apps are no longer as convincing, especially to new generations: this Evenbrite report dating back to 2024 reveals how Gen Z and millennials are starting to get tired of the format. Because although they continue to flirt online, it’s not like before: They prefer to ask for Instagram than to ask for a date by Tinder. Fear of “public failure” is killing traditional flirting. However, the Internet as a dating method remains stronger than ever: because before apps existed, we were already dating in the most unexpected places. Without going any further, in the mythical Terra chat. In Xataka | Tinder has understood something uncomfortable: young people are alone and no longer want to flirt like before In Xataka | The world is experiencing a matchmaking crisis. 5,000 students and an algorithm are experimenting to fix it Cover | James Eagle

AI agents have indeed changed work and the economy forever. But for now only in one sector: programming

by

AI agents are beginning to demonstrate their capabilities, but the only area in which they do so is programming. An Anthropic report reveals how software engineering is where half of the activity of AI agents is currently concentrated, and that proves two things. The first, that AI can effectively enhance work. The second, that there is a huge opportunity for hundreds of verticals where AI has barely landed. what has happened. If there is a sector that has embraced AI and AI agents, it is programming. Platforms like Cursor or WindSurf first and like Claude Code, OpenAI Codex or Antigravity today have made all kinds of people —whether they know programming or not— can turn their projects into reality in a really simple way. It’s a clear case of how AI can contribute to a field, but there’s a problem: it’s practically the only case where it has actually done so. Distribution of requests to AI tools by segment. Software engineering is almost responsible for 50% of those calls or requests, at least in the case of the Claude platform. Source: Anthropic. Verticals with a lot of margin. As can be seen in this graph, the presence of AI agents is very reduced or practically non-existent in a large number of verticals in which it is evident that there is a notable opportunity to take advantage of these tools. The automation of office tasks is the second main protagonist with 9.1% of the function calls of the Anthropic AI model in this report. Below it we find segments such as marketing, sales, finance, business analysis or scientific research. And others who are ignoring AI. There are quite a few sectors in which AI agents seem to be barely present. The travel, legal, medical, e-commerce or education segments seem perfect to start taking advantage of these tools, but at the moment this is not the case and this presence is very, very small in all of them. Claude Code can work longer and longer. Double what it was three months ago, in fact. Source: Anthropic. Models can now work autonomously for a long time. In these scenarios it is true that the models used to be limited by the time they could function autonomously and “chain” actions and self-analyze progress to continue acting. That’s not so true now. Claude Code, for example, has doubled the time of his longest sessions in just three months: from 25 minutes in October 2025 to 45 minutes in January 2026. And they need less human intervention. Another of the revealing data of the study is that the evolution of these agents not only means that they can function autonomously for longer periods of time, but that this also implies fewer human interventions. Those situations in which an agent “needs human help” to continue with the process are becoming limited. In August 2025, the average was 5.4 human interventions per session. In December that average dropped to 3.3 interventions. We trust more and more in AI. At Anthropic they have also noticed a unique behavior among users: they are increasingly trusting AI agents. In programming, novices approve each new step before it is executed, but veterans delegate and intervene when something goes wrong: they have gone from pre-approving everything to exercising active and constant monitoring. As they say at Anthropic“Users develop confidence as they work with the model, and change their monitoring strategy based on that growing confidence.” From programming to other fields. What has happened with programming could happen in other scenarios. The challenge is to build AI agents that adapt to each segment using that specific data from said vertical. If an AI wants to help in the legal segment, it must be specifically trained for that segment. What the AI ​​did when trained with thousands of code repositories on GitHub It was learning and improving. Well, the same can be applied to other verticals, although the challenge is certainly notable because programming was a perfect segment for the application of AI: it is very deterministic. It either works or it doesn’t, and whether it does or not, execution logs allow you to fine-tune that operation. The new unicorns await. As entrepreneur Garry Tan points out in your newsletterin the last two decades SaaS platforms have managed to capture 40% of venture capital investments and that industry has more than 170 unicorns. “The thesis is simple,” Tan concludes, “all of those unicorns have an equivalent in the form of vertical AI waiting.” Promises and realities. The AI ​​agent segment therefore promises many changes in a multitude of segments, but the reality is that today the practical success (there is no economic success at the moment) of AI is limited to the world of programming. Will we be able to transfer it to other segments? The opportunity is there, but it is one thing to say it, and quite another to do it… even if it is with AI. Image | Joshua Reddekopp In Xataka | Every time Facebook had a competitor, it bought it: it is exactly the same thing that OpenAI is doing

music streaming has changed and there is no longer an obvious winner

by

Long gone are the times when Spotify was practically the only option to listen to music on your mobile. Today the panorama is much more interesting: Apple Music and YouTube Music They have gained weight, they have made a real place for themselves in the daily lives of many users and they have turned a decision that was previously automatic into a question that is much more complicated than it seems. If you are paying to listen to music, which one do you choose? At Xataka we want to help you solve it. Instead of asking you to try each service on your own, we have done it ourselves. Specifically, our colleague has done it Ana Boria in a new installment of ‘Versus’the video format where we have already brought products and platforms face to face with very different approaches, such as AirPods Max vs. Sony WH1000XM6 or the iPhone Air vs. Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge. Three services and a decision that is no longer obvious Ana starts from a very recognizable situation: she has been using Spotify for years, but lately she has been wondering if the time has come to change. With that doubt as a starting point, the video starts with the essentials, the catalog. “Both Spotify and Apple Music tend to stand out for their huge library of official songs from record labels,” he explains. And from there he highlights the fact that makes YouTube Music start to play with a differential advantage. The comparison also stops at an area where not everything is so obvious: sound quality. Before getting into technicalities, Ana makes clear an important idea to ground the debate: “There are technical differences that are not always noticeable if you use them with cheap headphones or common speakers, but that can be appreciated if you have good equipment and also have very fine hearing.” With that context, review the strengths and weaknesses of Spotify, Apple Music and YouTube Music in this section. Beyond what they offer on paper, it also matters how each service is experienced in daily use. And there the application makes a difference. Not everyone is looking for the same thing: some prefer a clean and minimalist interface, while others value having more options, more controls and more customization possibilities. The video goes into this point in depth and, in addition, addresses something especially useful if you come from another platform: the tools to import playlistsjust the scenario that Ana is exploring. In the final section, our colleague focuses on one of the factors that most determine the choice: subscription plans and price. It explains it very clearly and with tables to compare at a glance what each service offers and what concessions each modality implies. “In the case of Spotify, as we all know, we have a free version, with many ad cuts, low audio quality…”, he remembers, before laying out the advantages and disadvantages of each proposal. If you want to know all the details of the test, in addition to the winner of this ‘Versus’ with the new star rating system that we have just released, we invite you to see the full video on the Xataka YouTube channel. And, as always, you can leave us your opinion both there and in the comments of this article. Images | Xataka In Xataka | Apple Creator Studio is not just a subscription. It’s Apple looking to conquer the little tiktoker who uses CapCut and Canva

In 1995 ‘Toy Story’ forever changed the way animated films are made. He did it with rudimentary computers

by

Seen today, ‘Toy Story’ It remains as fresh, fun and surprising as it was in its day. That the later films of Pixar have drawn, to a greater or lesser extent, from its aesthetics, its plot structure and its characters, demonstrates the extent to which the company’s first film was influential and foundational in many ways. And that is taking into account that, technologically, its creative process has lost all traces of sophistication, and today it is a relic of the past like the first attempts at other techniques such as the rotoscope or the stop motion. As an example, this video that dates back to the time of filming but which had not been seen much until recently, and in which Pete Docter, the film’s animation supervisor, describes the rudimentary techniques with which the characters in the film were brought to life, based on the recording of the original voice. Their explanations and images attest to the way almost intuitive that they had to animate, and how perhaps the image that many people have of computer animation as something completely automated and where there is no human participation is absolutely wrong. We must add to this that Docter, in addition to being an animator in ‘Toy Story’, would write the basic story of almost all Pixar moviesthe script for ‘Delverso’ and ‘Up’ and he would direct those same ones and ‘Monstruos SA’. That is to say, apart from knowledge about the creative procedure in the technical part, he is also a key name in the most primitive section of the genesis of the film, where the ideas, the design of the characters and the very threads of the story emerge. In the video he explains how, based on sound, they sketch a series of movements on paper, a procedure that obviously has much more to do with traditional animation than with nothing programmatic. From there they go to a stand-in of Woody, that is, a character “made only with geometric shapes”, to save time on technical issues. In those days it was unthinkable to animate in real time with finished characters. From there, and with extreme precision, it moves the elbow, wrist, fingers… and finally, separately, all the facial animations. The interesting thing is what Docter adds later and that makes clear his interest not only in the technical section of this type of animation, but also in its creative and expressive twists and turns: “If you can make this model act, function and communicate without any type of facial expressions, then you have done a good job.” It’s a perfect example of why ‘Toy Story’ still works and exciting: because it does not remain a technical exhibition in which it was a pioneer, becoming the first computer-animated feature film, but there is a traditional creative work supporting it all. The rendering that gave life to the toys The key to Toy Story’s animation is RenderMan, Pixar’s proprietary 3D rendering software that it developed since the mid-1980s. In addition to using it in its own films, the company makes it available to third parties, as it did, with the software still in its infancy, in films such as ‘The Abyss’ in 1989 (in the scene of the water tentacle that gave the film an Oscar) or ‘Terminator 2’ in 1991 and its liquid metal effects. What RenderMan does It is managing issues such as lighting and volumes realistically, even on computers as primitive as those available in the early 1990s. The success of ‘Toy Story’ made the tool ubiquitous in productions that played a historic part in the birth of computer special effects in cinema. Even today, ‘Toy Story 4’ has been made with an updated version of RenderMan which, of course, manages aspects such as light and shadow projections in an infinitely more realistic way than in the first film. The importance of RenderMan is essential to understand even the origin of the company, because Pixar was born as a division of Lucasfilm that ended up becoming a software company that made short films to advertise the power of its products. After winning an Oscar with the short ‘Tin Toy‘ -shot with the Menv software, also from Pixar-, the decision made by the co-founder of the company Ed Catmull – the original core along with John Lasseter and the screenwriters Andrew Stanton and the aforementioned Docter -, who always had the ambition to make the leap to the feature film, was to make a half-hour Christmas special. In it, a ventriloquist doll made an unlikely couple with the metal ‘Tin Toy’ doll. ‘Tin Toy’ was not short on ambition (things appeared in it that had literally never been seen on that scale, such as textures of different materials such as wood or fabric, or shadows of different intensity), and part of that ambition would be transferred to ‘Toy Story’. For example, Catmull – like the rest of the animators – would provide a character to the dolls that appear hidden under the sofa. It was an elephant, which he designed by introducing Bézier curves by hand, as coordinates, into the programming language. The primitive concept of the metal dummies and the ventriloquist did not prosper, but Pixar ended up with a contract with Disney for 26 million dollars to make three feature films. They decided to extend the story of the toys that come to life from the short, and once again we can see Pixar’s desire for technology and ingenious concepts to come together in the same way: since visually they could not afford sophisticated and realistic animations with the software they used, they would animate toys, which would intuitively have robotic and rigid gestures and behaviors if they came to life. The ventriloquist dummy became Woody because the CEO of Disney at the time, Michael Eisner, had a bad feeling for puppets. Small calculation errors The first problem that Pixar encountered after starting production in 1993 was the equipment they believed was necessary to complete … Read more

Threads has surpassed X in daily users on mobile. The paradox is that this has not changed.

by

Threads and X play, in essence, the same game. Short messages, public conversations and the ambition to become the place where the things that matter are discussed. On mobile, Threads is already moving very close to X in daily active users on a global scale, to the point that, on specific days, it was ahead. But when you look beyond the numbers, the feeling is different. The conversation that jumps to the media and public debate continues to be born, almost always, in the same place. The most cited photograph comes from Similarweb data and focuses exclusively on mobile use. That’s where Threads has closed the gap significantly. According to this analysis firm, both platforms converge in very close figures of daily active users on a global scale, around 130 million. In the week with data until September 20, 2025, Threads was ahead of X on three of the days analyzed. Even so, the series as a whole does not allow us to speak of consolidated leadership, but rather of a very tight and localized equality in time. Daily active users on iOS and Android. Threads approaches X on mobile phones globally | Source: Similarweb What does this data measure and what is left out. When talking about daily active mobile users, it is advisable to sharpen the focus. Similarweb accounts daily use on iOS and Android, counting each person only once a day, even if they open the app multiple times. Additionally, any user who performs a minimal action, such as opening the app or logging in, is considered “active.” This metric reflects access habits, but does not distinguish between reading, interacting or publishing, nor does it measure what type of accounts concentrate the activity or what content is amplified outside the platform. Daily web traffic on a global scale. X maintains a very large advantage over Threads in browser visits | Source: Similarweb That balance that appears in mobile use is broken as soon as the focus is expanded. When looking at web trafficthe distance between both platforms is once again very marked. Similarweb data shows that It is not a minor detail, because web access is usually more present in professional contexts, newsrooms and news monitoring. Changing metrics also changes the story the data tells. Information consumption follows another map. When the question is not how many people enter each day, but rather where users get information, the scenario changes. The conclusions of the Digital News Report 2025 of the Reuters Institute point out that The difference is not so much size but function within the media ecosystem. Part of that difference has to do with the type of use. A academic study published in 2024 describes X as a “passive sensor” especially useful for detecting opinion leaders, by combining public visibility, active community and clear temporal traceability of messages. This architecture makes it easier for statements, reactions or controversies to be followed in real time and reused in other contexts. For media and analysts, X not only works as a social network, but also as a tool for observing public conversation. A growth pushed from within the ecosystem. The progress of Threads is largely explained by its integration with Instagram and, in general, with the Meta ecosystem. Direct access from an already massive application reduces barriers to entry and makes it easier for many users to try out the platform without additional effort. That push helps explain why mobile usage numbers have grown rapidly. However, this dynamic does not guarantee that users adopt Threads as a central space for public or informative debate, nor that they transfer there the practices that they currently maintain in X. Not even the recurring controversies surrounding Elon Musk have been sufficient to displace X from its role as an informational reference point. Threads advances in usage and visibility, but the center of gravity of the conversation remains where it was. For that to change, it will not be enough to add users or rely on the Meta ecosystem. It would require a deeper transformation of professional, media and political habits that, for now, is not appreciated. Images | Mohamed Nohassi | Kelly Sikkema In Xataka | Neither board games nor karaoke: ‘Word on Beat’ is the new king of the living room and proof that we prefer rhythmic chaos

Google Maps to find out how it has changed from the 50s to today

by

Looking back to see what the maps of yesteryear were like can be fascinating because, well, you may find that In the Roman Empire they had a whole tangle of highwaysbut it is not necessary to go that far: the road infrastructure of the Spanish state has changed enormously in recent decades. You can ask your grandfather, but you can also see it in the latest and ambitious project of the National Geographic Institute. Spain in the 1950s was eminently rural, but agrarian modernization, industrialization and poverty led to the exodus of a significant part of the population from the towns to the cities. Throughout those 70 years, a dense and complex network of infrastructure and urban centers has been developed that did not exist before. Towns, cultivated areas and fields have been left along the way. For this ‘Google Maps of Spain from the 50s to today‘The IGN relies on Telespazio Ibérica, a geographic information company with satellite services. Its objective for nine months will be to launch the Historical Information System on Land Occupation in Spain (SIOSE). The new Historical Information System on Land Occupation in Spain (SIOSE) will be the most complete, precise and exhaustive tool to analyze the effects of climate change on the state’s ecosystem, the changes in territorial planning and land use in recent decades. As explains the director of cartography of Telespazio Ibérica, Óscar Muñoz: “The Historical SIOSE will not only include a complete database, but also a statistical and visual validation report that will guarantee the reliability of the results for scientific, urban and environmental uses. Thanks to this we will be able to see, objectively, how the Spanish ecosystem has changed and know which green areas have been lost, which urban areas have grown and how our landscape has evolved in the last 70 years.” The idea is to capture how its territory and landscape have evolved that period of time painstakingly rebuilding cities and towns, forests, crops, roads and buildings, among others. This Information System on Land Occupation in Historical Spain will be made up of 572 sheets of the National Topographic Map, ranging from the first complete aerial record of the territory (the american flight of ’56) and cartography generated later, both at the regional and state levels. In addition, Telespazio Ibérica is based on a pilot developed for the IGN and will have to refine it with a more precise and functional land coverage. To do this, they will use both digitization and automated image analysis and AI algorithms, which guarantee reproducibility throughout the entire territory. In Xataka | Castilla-La Mancha is about to shrink 2,000 hectares in favor of Aragon. All because of a 19th century dispute In Xataka | Who owns the maps in the world?

A Harry Potter fan fiction was so successful that it changed the names of its protagonists. And thanks to this he earned 3 million dollars

by

A Harry Potter fanfic has just become one of the most successful publishing releases of the year. ‘Alchemised‘, SenLinYu’s debut novel, sold 300,000 copies during its first week in bookstores and reached number one on The New York Times bestseller list. But the real impact came days before its publication, when Legendary Entertainment paid more than $3 million for the film rights, setting a record for a debut novel. How it was done. The story behind the book is as notable as its figures: ‘Alchemised’ was originally titled ‘Manacled’, and was a fanfiction that mixed the universe of harry potter with ‘The Handmaid’s Tale‘ by Margaret Atwood, focusing on the relationship between Hermione Granger and Draco Malfoy. Over 18 months, SenLinYu transformed his viral story (which racked up millions of reads on the fanfictions Archive of Our Own) in a completely original work, eliminating all traces of intellectual property of JK Rowling and Atwood of the text, but trying to preserve the core of the narrative. The result: Favorite Debut Novel of 2025 at the Goodreads Choice Awards. What is it about? Alchemised follows Helena Marino, an alchemist and healer who awakens after 14 months as a prisoner of war of the necromancers, the victorious side in a devastating civil war. Helena discovers that her mind has been magically altered, erasing crucial memories from a part of her life she doesn’t even remember owning. The book has a violent and dark approach, and that is why SenLinYu rejects the “romance” label despite the love component: “I didn’t write this book with the idea that it would be seen as aspirational.”he states. The author’s past. The appeal of the book lies precisely in that uncompromising darkness. SenLinYu, of Japanese descent, injects into her fantasy elements based on the real horrors of war (her maternal grandmother was in American concentration camps during World War II) and has sought to recover ignored historical perspectives, particularly the experiences of Soviet women on the Eastern Front. That combination of epic fantasy and anti-war criticism has connected with readers who seek more mature and disturbing narratives than those usual in the genre. The paradigmatic case. The path of fanfiction The publishing phenomenon has an inescapable antecedent: ‘Fifty Shades of Grey’. In 2009, EL James began publishing chapters of ‘Master of the Universe’ on Fanfiction.netreimagining the relationship between Edward Cullen and Bella Swan from ‘Twilight’, without vampires but with a domineering billionaire. Reader reaction was so positive that James self-published the story in 2011 after removing explicit references to Stephenie Meyer’s saga and renaming the protagonists Christian Gray and Anastasia Steele. The leap came in March 2012, when Random House acquired the rights of the novel in a seven-figure contract. The result was more than 150 million copies sold globally and a film trilogy that grossed $1.3 billion at the global box office. Even then Jennifer Bergstrom, executive at Simon & Schuster, declared that “the fanfiction It has definitely become part of what we publish. This is changing the industry at a time when traditional publishing needs it most.” For the first time, major publishers were publicly acknowledging that online communities of amateur writers were a legitimate talent pool. Other successes. The success of ‘Fifty Shades’ was not an isolated case. Anna Todd wrote a story about One Direction’s Harry Styles on Wattpad in 2013, publishing it in serial format under the title ‘After’. The story accumulated more than 1,000 million readings on the platform before Simon & Schuster offered him a contract with which sold more than 10 million copies and generated five movies. More recently, Ali Hazelwood transformed her fanfiction of Star Wars centered on Rey and Kylo Ren in ‘The Love Hypothesis’, which It will soon be adapted to film. The journey here. This transformation of fanfiction into a bestseller would not have been possible without the digital ecosystem that supports it. Archive of Our Own It houses more than 13 million works and has become the most important archive of transformative writing. ‘Manacled’ by SenLinYu It was the second most read story in the entire history of the web when it was removed in January 2025, having accumulated more than 10 million views and 84,000 kudos (the equivalent of “likes”). This phenomenon has forced the traditional publishing industry to rethink its methods of attracting talent. Literary agents and editors now systematically scour Wattpad, Archive of Our Own, and Fanfiction.net, identifying high-impact stories before offering contracts. Removing references to other people’s intellectual property is now a standardized process, and thanks to this, trends such as videos on ‘Manacled’ accumulated millions of views years before ‘Alchemised’ hit bookstores. A whole tide of public before the official publication of the book. In Xataka | JK Rowling against fandom: How the Harry Potter universe lost its magic

Russia’s ghost fleet has changed its business model. Oil has given way to a much bigger target: Europe

by

Since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Russia has not only built a vast fleet of tankers to avoid Western sanctions and continue exporting crude oil from the Baltic and the Black Sea, but has turned that logistical infrastructure into something much more ambitious. How much? The size of an old continent. The fleet in the shadows. According to Western and Ukrainian intelligence sources cited by CNN, Part of this so-called shadow fleet is being used as a covert platform for espionage and hybrid operations in European waters. We are talking about hundreds of ships that routinely sail near the coasts of EU and NATO countries, generating income of hundreds of millions of dollars for Moscow while, at the same time, expanding the radius of action of its security services away from Russian territory. “Civilian” crews with a detail. The pattern detected by the intelligence services is revealing. Many of these tankers, registered under flags of convenience and with mostly Asian or African crews, incorporate just before setting sail to one or two Russian citizens additional. The crew lists show as simple “technicians”but his background tells another story: former police officers, members of special units of the Ministry of the Interior, veterans of the Russian army or former mercenaries linked to Wagner. They are often the only Russians on board and, according to testimonies of Danish maritime pilots and European observers, exercise an authority that goes beyond the civilian chain of command, even imposing itself over the ship’s captain. Moran Security and privatization. Many of these men would be linked to Moran Security Groupa private Russian company with deep ties to the FSB, GRU, and the Kremlin’s military contractor ecosystem. Moran was sanctioned by the United States Treasury in 2024 for providing armed security services to Russian state companies, and his history connects directly with Wagner and with operations in scenarios such as Syria or Somalia. Its corporate structure (with registrations in Moscow and in opaque jurisdictions such as Belize) and its professional profile, explicitly oriented to recruit veterans of special forces, fit perfectly into the logic of hybrid warfare: formally private actors that allow the Russian state to operate with a high degree of plausible deniability. Espionage and internal control. The functions of these “technicians” would not be limited to protecting the cargo. Ukrainian and Western sources maintain that also supervise captains non-Russian vessels to ensure that the ships are acting in the interests of the Kremlin and that, in at least one documented case, took photographs of European military installations from one of these tankers. Furthermore, although details are scarce, intelligence services suggest that some of these men have participated in acts of sabotage. These would not be direct confrontations, but rather low-profile actions designed to collect information, generate uncertainty and strain the limits of the Western response. The Boracay case. He Boracay tanker illustrates this dynamic well. Sanctioned, with frequent changes of name and flag, two Russian citizens embarked in September in the port of Primorsk, near Saint Petersburg. Both were listed as technicians and were the only Russians among a crew of Chinese, Burmese and Bangladeshis. Coincidence or not, his crossing through Danish waters overlapped with a wave of sightings of drones near the Copenhagen airport and Danish military bases. Days later, the ship was boarded by the French navy against Brittany for irregularities in their documentation. No drones were found on board, but the presence of the two Russians came to light and they were discreetly questioned. For some analyststemporal correlation proves nothing, but for others It fits too well with the pattern of trial and error in the “gray zone.” Drones, sensors and something new. Beyond Boracay, Swedish and Danish authorities have detected on other ships in the shadow fleet antennas and masts not usually found on civilian merchant ships, as well as hostile behavior towards inspectors and an obsession with photographing critical infrastructure. In an environment like the Baltic, a strategic bottleneck surrounded by NATO countries, any anomalous activity becomes a disproportionate weight. For European security services, these ships are ideal mobile platforms: seemingly legal, difficult to intercept without diplomatic escalation and capable of approaching ports, cables, bases and airports without raising immediate alarms. Hybrid warfare at sea. All this fits with a broader strategy that senior intelligence officials, such as the new head of British MI6describe as constant testing “below the threshold of war.” Drones near airports, aggressive activity at sea, discreet sabotage and covert espionage are part of the same repertoire. The shadow fleet is not only an economic instrument to circumvent sanctions, but an extension of the Russian security apparatus, capable of operating in a space where Western legal and military responses are slow and politically sensitive. The European dilemma. Europe thus faces an uncomfortable decision. Intercepting ships without insurance, with dubious documentation or with armed personnel on board could stop these practices, but it also carries the risk of a direct russian reaction. As summarized on CNN a veteran Danish maritime pilot, no small country wants to be the first to make the move. The answer, if it comes, will have to be collective. Meanwhile, the shadow fleet continues growing and sailingdemonstrating that for the Kremlin the war is not only being fought in Ukraine, but also in the seas surrounding Europe, silently and in civilian uniform. Image | kees torn, Greg Bishop In Xataka | For years Europe has wondered how to stop the Russian ghost fleet. Ukraine just showed you the way: with AI In Xataka | A ghost fleet has mapped the entire underwater structure of the EU. The question is what Moscow is going to do with that information.

Log In

Forgot password?

Forgot password?

Enter your account data and we will send you a link to reset your password.

Your password reset link appears to be invalid or expired.

Log in

Privacy Policy

Add to Collection

No Collections

Here you'll find all collections you've created before.