chaos

We already knew that we ate plastic. Now science has discovered the exact chaos it causes in our intestines

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We have long realized that we are surrounded by microplastics, both in the water which we take as in food or even the air that we breathe, causing them to appear even in the human placenta. However, there are still many questions about the consequences of having these microplastics in the body, although science continues to take steps to give us an answer about them. how it can alter our general healthand the last thing we know is related to the effect on our digestive system. Ground zero. Something that is already known by almost everyone is that the intestine is full of billions of microorganisms which are essential for our immunity and also for metabolism, making its alteration related even to issues in the central nervous system. But now, science suggests that microplastics can drastically alter the composition and diversity of this ecosystem by destroying some of the bacteria that we harbor inside us to create a completely different environment that can affect our digestion, but also other parts of the body. How it has been seen. To understand how this happens in real time, CSIC researchers developed a sophisticated patented digestion simulation system known as SIMGI. This is mainly based on introducing artificial particles formed by the typical plastic of water bottles into the stomach and colon and observing how it affected bacterial diversity. From here, different investigations have seen that families of beneficial bacteriaas Lachnospiraceae, Oscillospiraceae and Ruminococcaceaeplummet, while the growth of groups that can generate disease is favored. And we must understand that ‘good’ bacteria occupy a space in our intestine so that nothing else can ‘germinate’ there. But logically, if they disappear, they leave their ‘hole’ for other bacteria to pass through. It goes further. But beyond a bacterial imbalance, there is different research that already points to how microplastics destroy the physical barrier we have in our intestine. In this way, scientists have detected that these tiny fragments cause the generation of oxidative stress and, therefore, the overproduction of reactive oxygen species, which only generates great damage to the tissues. But this chemical attack also adds to mechanical damage, which some experts categorize as ‘sandpaper’, since together they manage to reduce the expression of proteins that are key to maintaining the union structure that characterizes the cells that exist in our intestinal wall. The result. If we destroy the scaffolding that maintains the ‘walls’ of our digestive system, the only thing that will be achieved is that increase intestinal permeabilityso any toxin or bacterial molecule will be able to pass from the intestine to the bloodstream, since there is no ‘wall’ that blocks the access of agents that are not wanted in our body. Logically, the passage of toxins without the control of this intestinal barrier activates our immune system defenses, which results in inflammation maintained over time that favors the destruction of tissues and also progresses in important chronic diseases. There is more. As if that were not enough, it is known that microplastics are excellent transport vehicles, since when they come into contact with our biological fluids they become covered with a “protein crown”. This is something really important, since this layer literally camouflages the microplastic and makes it easier for it to adhere to our living cells. But added to all this, we also see that they can act as the perfect support for bacteria and form what is known as biofilms. In this way, microplastic can be seen as a vehicle for external and potentially dangerous microbial communities directly to our tissues. Where are they going? If microplastics alter our barriers, logically the plastic has a free way and that is why it is capable of traveling to different organs such as, for example, the liver, kidneys or brain. And once here, research already indicates that its accumulation is related to DNA damage, deregulation of the immune system or alterations in our entire hormonal system that can lead to chronic diseases. Images | rimufilms on Freepik In Xataka | Researchers analyzed 280 samples of bottled water. Only one of the brands was free of microplastics

The French AI startup profiting from geopolitical chaos just raised $830 million. For European data centers

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The French startup Mistral has raised 830 million dollars and it has done so with one objective: to create AI data centers in Europe that will be based on NVIDIA chips and technological solutions. That’s good news, but it also has a disturbing side. Merci, Monsieur Trump. There is a geopolitical irony in the rise of Mistral. The French AI startup has become a reference in Europe, but it has done so not so much because of its models or technology (that too) but because of Donald Trump. Since the American president returned to power and began to destroy the era of globalization, the demand for “sovereign” European alternatives to the large US technology platforms has skyrocketed. Governments and companies that previously turned to Microsoft, Amazon or Google without thinking are now trying to look for options that free them from those dependencies. Mistral is precisely the clear alternative in terms of AI. 830 million to have its own infrastructure. The round that Mistral has raised is not venture capital, but debt financing granted mainly by French banks such as Bpifrance, BNP Paribas, HSBC and MUFG. It is an interesting aspect and shows that the company no longer needs to convince investors, but rather finance the infrastructure necessary to scale its business. Those $830 million are destined for its future European data centers, starting with its facilities in Bruyères-le-Châtel, near Paris. Said center will house 13,800 GB300 chips from NVIDIA and will begin operating before the end of June. Debt, not equity. There is an important difference between the venture capital rounds that have financed Mistral until now and this new round of debt. Venture capital is not returned: investors bet on a stake in the company and get paid if the company grows and is sold or goes public. The debt is repaid, and it is with interest, regardless of how the business is going. That Mistral has opted for this mechanism suggests that it is optimistic about the future, but it also represents added pressure for the company, which will not be able to afford consecutive quarters of losses. Betting with other people’s money has its problems, but doing so with borrowed money also has important problems. The success of the 13,800 chips. May that French data center get 13,800 GB300 chipsthe most advanced from NVIDIA, is not a minor detail. These AI accelerators are on the waiting list of many companies, and here Mistral competes with hyperscalers like Microsoft, Google or xAI that buy tens of thousands of units and have priority agreements. That this European startup has managed to secure that amount seems to demonstrate that it has negotiating capacity or a special relationship with NVIDIA and its CEO, Jensen Huang. European AI ecosystem. Mistral is little by little becoming the perfect European ecosystem for companies that want not to be exposed to dependencies on North American partners. Having everything under European control is what more and more governments are looking for in Europe, and here we are facing an effort that wants to offer that certain independence… which of course is anything but complete. Be that as it may, Mistral has become the great European seller of sovereignty as a product. But. Mistral expects to achieve 200 MW of computing capacity by the end of 2027, including a €1.2 billion facility in Sweden with 23 MW that will begin operating next year. These are decent numbers in a European Union that has barely raised its head in this segment, but they are very far from those in China and especially the United States. OpenAI and its partners have agreements worth several hundreds of billions of dollars in infrastructure, and while here we move in megawatt capacities, there we talk about gigawatts. The distance is still enormous. And the dependency still exists. The paradox that no one seems to want to allude to is important: the European “sovereign” infrastructure that Mistral is building depends entirely on chips designed by an American company and manufactured in Taiwan. If for any reason Washington decides to make Europe a banned region for its technology and prohibits the export of GB300 chips, Mistral’s expansion would be paralyzed. The quest for digital sovereignty is interesting, but the reality is that Europe will continue to depend on US technology and Taiwan’s manufacturing capacity to an even greater extent than the US o China depend on its rival. The old continent has activated some measures for mitigate the problembut that will not prevent it from continuing to exist in the long term. Paris, European capital of AI. The French startup has turned France into one of the great European references in AI. Mistral was valued at $12 billion after raising $1.7 billion in financing led by ASML. In addition, they expect to exceed 1,000 million in annual recurring revenue. This company is now joined by the recently launched startup Yann LeCun: Advanced Machine Intelligence Labs (AMI Labs) has already managed to raise more than 1 billion dollars and will also be based in Paris. Another detail should be highlighted: Bpifrance, the French public investment bank, is leading the round. That is significant, because that means that the one supporting this initiative is the French state. In Xataka | Mistral does not generate hype, it is a discreet AI, it does not boost the shares of any company, but it already makes more money than Grok

Iceland, Norway and Switzerland have been boasting independence from the EU for decades. Global chaos is about to change everything

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The war between the United States, Israel and Iran is shaking the foundations of the historic independence of the nations that make up the European Free Trade Association (EFTA or EFTA). Faced with an increasingly volatile geopolitical panorama, Iceland, Norway and Switzerland find themselves at a crossroads and look, each at their own pace, towards the European Union in search of refuge. The question that now haunts European parliaments is no longer just political, but purely industrial: are they willing to sacrifice parts of their sovereignty in exchange for the protection and stability that Brussels offers? As explained to the newspaper Five Days Sophie Altermatt, economist at Julius Baer, ​​these countries face external pressures from increasingly interventionist superpowers. The United States has become a much less predictable ally on trade and security, while China’s growing ambitions endanger European industrial competitiveness and create vulnerabilities in supply chains. The rhetoric of US President Donald Trump, who has even suggested his intention to annex Greenland, has acted as a powerful catalyst for this change in mentality. As the magazine warns The Spectatorquoting a maxim from Mark Carney: “If you’re not at the table, you’re on the menu.” The return of hard power politics is forcing middle powers to reevaluate their place in the world. From the European side, the door is open. As detailed by the Icelandic public broadcaster RÚVEU Enlargement Commissioner Marta Kos has stressed that the current geopolitical context is fundamentally different from the past and that EU membership offers “an anchor in a bloc based on values, prosperity and security.” Are we facing a real approach? Moving towards greater integration implies sitting at the table where decisions are made, but also assuming a clash of sovereignties. Ine Marie Eriksen Søreide, leader of the Norwegian Conservative Party, acknowledged in a parliamentary debate collected by Five Days that remaining outside the Union generates enormous vulnerabilities, since their country remains “on the margins of everything we want to enter into.” However, the price of admission is high. Political analyst Thomas Vermes explains in the Norwegian middle ABC Nyheter that the EU is transforming towards a federation where supranational organizations assume more and more authority. Entering means submitting to decisions by qualified majority – where large countries have more demographic weight – and growing pressure to eliminate the right to veto on key issues. In addition, it would imply assuming joint economic burdens, such as the common debt of 90 billion euros contracted to help Ukraine. In fact, the possible entry of Ukraine would radically transform the bloc’s economy. According to the same Norwegian mediathe incorporation of the 41 million hectares of Ukrainian agricultural land would flood the markets and force rural aid to be restructured. Three countries, three different rhythms The answer to this dilemma varies drastically depending on the resources each nation brings to the table. Iceland: The direct path and the referendum in sight The Icelandic government has stepped on the accelerator and passed a resolution to hold a referendum on August 29, 2026 on resuming EU membership, a measure supported by 57% of the population. Iceland would provide the EU with a vital logistics position in the emerging Arctic trade routes and strategic supply: already is the fourth largest supplier of aluminum of the block, material that accounts for more than half of its exports to Europe. Nevertheless, as reported RÚVthe Minister of Foreign Affairs, Þorgerður Katrín Gunnarsdóttir, has drawn a non-negotiable red line: she will not sign any agreement that involves ceding control over the island’s precious natural resources to the EU. Norway: The fractured debate Although the country rejected joining the EU in 1972 and 1994, the debate has been resurrected. According to The Spectatorthe conservative party (Høyre), now led by the determinedly pro-European Ine Eriksen Søreide, is “clearly a yes party.” Polls show an increase in support for accession, rising from 27% in 2023 to 41% in 2025. However, the current Labor government of Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre is strongly opposed. Despite not being a member, Norway is Europe’s absolute energy guarantor after the invasion of Ukraine: it supplies 51.8% of the pipeline gas and 14.6% of the crude oil consumed by the EU. Precisely for this, the internal opposition is fierce. Columnist Hans Christian Hansen warns in the financial journal Finansavisen that the EU is losing technological ground to the US and Asia. According to Hansen, while the US uses energy to attract industry, the EU uses it to “self-regulate with increasing rigor” and promote projects of uncertain profitability such as offshore wind. The question he asks his compatriots is brutal: “Do we want to link our energy policy, our industry and our future to a team that is already losing?” Switzerland: The pragmatic path and bilateral agreements Unlike the Nordics, Switzerland does not contemplate full accession so as not to compromise its historical neutrality, but it is making progress in its economic and technological integration. President Ursula von der Leyen and Swiss President Guy Parmelin They signed the “Bilateral III” package. This framework modernizes agreements on transport and free movement, and adds crucial pacts on health, food security and Swiss participation in the European space agency and the Horizon Europe and Erasmus+ programmes. In addition, it will allow it to fully enter the internal electricity market in the EU. The objective of the Federal Council is “stabilize and future-proof the proven bilateral track“. The Federal Council approved the sending of this package to the Parliamentor, proposing to subject it to an optional referendum to guarantee its democratic legitimacy on sensitive issues such as salary protection. Switzerland’s weight is undeniable: in 2023, bilateral trade in services reached €245 billion, representing almost 9% of the EU’s total services trade. Forecasts in sight? The geopolitical board will continue to move. If Iceland eventually joins the EU, the pressure on Norway will be immense. As conservative leader Søreide arguesNorway would be in a “completely different situation” if its EFTA partner makes the leap. For its part, Switzerland … Read more

the Transport plan so that the most used Cercanías line in Spain stops being chaos

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The Ministry of Transport has finally decided to transform line C-5 of Cercanías de Madrid, which is, with some 72 million annual travelersthe most used in Spain. Won’t do it until they finish the underground works of the A-5but we already know all the details. It is the largest renovation of the line in decades and the heart of the change are 35 giant trains that are already being manufactured in Valencia. ORa line to the limit. As we said, the C-5 moves about 72 million passengers a year and absorbs 29% of all Cercanías Madrid trips. It is the public transport line with the most users in the entire country, and today it operates with trains that do not exceed 150 meters in length, platforms that do not allow larger vehicles and an outdated signaling system. With a demand that has grown by 10% between 2022 and 2024the margin has narrowed so much that it is time for a change. The protagonist of change: the Stadler Series 453. On March 4, the Ministry of Transportation presented the modernization plan of the C-5, endowed with 1,350 million euros, and confirmed that Renfe will allocate 600 million to the purchase of the 35 Series 453 trains manufactured by Stadler at its plant in Albuixech, Valencia. The service promises, since we are talking about trains that will measure almost 200 meters (specifically 191.16 meters) and will combine single-decker cars at the ends with double-decker cars inside. QWhat changes for the traveler. Where today about 1,565 people fit in the current trains, the new ones will accommodate up to 1,884 people (524 seated and 1,360 standing) in a single composition. Double-decker cars are designed for longer journeys and with a seat; those with one floor, wider at the entrances, for quick ascents and descents. Two-story interior cars According to they count in Trenvista, they will include areas for wheelchairs, multifunctional spaces for bicycles and strollers, a fully accessible toilet, WiFi and USB sockets. In addition, the middle points to greater padding than in other Cercanías trains, but without armrests. Why haven’t they arrived yet. Renfe put out to tender these trains in 2019 and the contract was awarded to Stadler in 2021. The Swiss firm had to expand its Albuixech factory to meet the order, which in 2022 was expanded with 20 additional 200-meter units, and began manufacturing in rented warehouses while the new facilities were ready, according to detailed at that time the medium. The first tests on the Spanish railway network began in the summer of 2024. The arrival at C-5, however, will still take some time. And the Ministry’s plan places the entry into service of these trains with automatic driving in April 2030. The problem that had to be solved before. For a 200-meter train to circulate on C-5, the infrastructure has to be prepared. Today it is not. The current platforms are too short, the LZB signaling system that regulates circulation has reached the end of its useful life, and there are no maintenance facilities capable of accommodating trains of that length. The good news is that in the 1,350 million plan is included the extension of platforms between 40 and 50 meters, the construction of a new maintenance base in Móstoles, the replacement of the signaling system with the European ERTMS Level 2 standard and the construction of a new station in Móstoles-El Soto. What’s coming now. The schedule foresees two service cutsin the summers of 2027 and 2028, to get to work with the most complex parts, and with free replacement buses and reinforcement in the Metro. Testing of the new signaling system will begin in April 2029, the first high-capacity trains will enter service in April 2030, and the project is expected to be completed in October 2031. The objective declared by the Ministry is to go from 72 to 100 million travelers annually, with a capacity 60% greater than the current one. It remains to be seen if the deadlines are met. Images | Snooze123 (Wikipedia) and Stadler In Xataka | In a region addicted to burials, a municipality wants to bury another 2.5 kilometers: Rivas’ plan for the Metro

Clarifying which FP to choose is chaos and someone wanted to fix it with an app. And that someone is… the Government of Spain

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Oppose It is one of the Spanish dreams. For the rest who do not want to follow the path, the alternative is entrepreneurship or private business. And, within this last sector, The FP has been ceasing to be the ugly duckling for yearspractically half of engineers in Spain work in positions in which professional training is required. But choose FP It is not simple, there are partial accreditations of competence, certificates of competence, professional certificates, training cycles, specialization courses… In the face of chaos, solutions. And in this case the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Digital Transformation has published an app to untangle the knot. Does it work well? It works very well. I wanted to try SoyFP, the new app with a Spanish seal to better understand the types of training and have a complete picture of the offer in our country. How to download it. I amFP It is available for both Android and iOS through the Play Store and App Store. It is a completely free application, without any advertising and with a moderate size. In the case of iOS, it requires version 15.6 or later and, in the case of Android, you will need version 9 or later. Nothing out of this world. The welcome. As soon as we open the app, its main objective is explained to us: to help find the entire offer of the officially recognized Vocational Training System. It is divided into several grades (A, B, C and D) and has different levels, each with a specific type of duration depending on whether we are doing basic, medium or higher. The operation. SoyFP has a fairly simple operation: it is an offer search engine. In its search bar we can enter keywords (categories, jobs, etc.) to find offers for each of the degrees. If we have no idea what we want to search for, the app allows us to segment by: Professional Family Degree Level And, within each of these categories, we find even more subcategories to filter by levels. Within each of the FP degree offers, we can find all the information related to them: academic or professional access requirements, tasks to be carried out, what you are going to study, competence accreditations, how you could continue said training… A very complete photograph of the itinerary and the steps to take during the process. The golden era of Spanish administration and its apps. During the last years, Spain is doing a good job with its national apps. My Citizen Folder, MyDNI, MyDGTand now with Soy FP. An era of lights and shadows, with outstanding applications and suspenseful security in a 2025 starring hacks that place us in second place worldwide. Image | Iván Linares for Xataka Móvil

Time magazine decided that “the architects of AI” were ‘Person of the Year’. And chaos broke out in the betting houses

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‘Time’ magazine has named ‘Person of the Year’, its traditional editorial recognition of the most relevant people of the year, to the “Architects of AI”. The topic is sensitive and controversial, and has unleashed opinions for and against the election. But it has also unleashed a parallel and unexpected tidal wave: people losing small fortunes at betting houses because of this Time decision. Beings of the year. When ‘Time’ revealed on December 11 that “AI Architects” (and not simply “AI”) would be its “Person of the Year 2025”, betting platforms Polymarket and Kalshi were plunged into absolute chaos. More than $75 million was left hanging over semantic disputes over what exactly constitutes a “person.” We are not going to go into the legitimacy of that decision or the technical quality of the cover assembly, but we can comment on how The cover effect among betting professionals brings to the table some characteristics of unregulated speculative markets that convert cultural events into casino chips. The collapse of betting. The users of Polymarket who invested more than $6 million betting on “AI” as the winner discovered that its interpretation did not match the platform’s rules. The final decision established that the title “Architects of AI” was not equivalent to designating artificial intelligence as such, giving thousands of bets as losers. The distinction was crucial: Naming those who build the technology differs radically from crowning the technology itself. In KalshiHowever, bets on individual executives (Sam Altman, Elon Musk, Jensen Huang, Mark Zuckerberg, Dario Amodei, Lisa Su and Demis Hassabis) were winners, while those who bet on corporate entities such as “ChatGPT” or “OpenAI” lost. Polymarket had more restrictive rules: betting specifically on “Jensen Huang” was a losing option, validating only the generic “Other” option. Polymarket cited an illustrative precedent: if ‘Time’ awarded “Donald Trump and the MAGA movement,” bets on Trump would win; but if the title were just “The MAGA Movement,” Trump would be excluded even if he was on the cover. Other Polymarket controversies. This scandal adds to a series of episodes that question the integrity of Polymarket. In November 2024, an unauthorized modification to the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) maps temporarily showed a Russian advance on the Ukrainian city of Myrnohrad. The change allowed bettors to earn returns of up to 33,000% before ISW admitted to fraudulent editing and fire the responsible geospatial specialist. weeks latersomeone identified as AlphaRaccoon generated profits of $1.15 million by betting with suspicious accuracy on the results of the 2025 ‘Google Year in Search’. Meta engineer Haeju Jeong documented on social media that the bettor had gotten 22 of 23 predictions right, including that singer d4vd (with just 0.2% probability) would top the searches. the same user had previously won $150,000 predicting the exact launch of Gemini 3.0, which fueled accusations of privileged access to Google information. Semantic controversy. And another one from Polymarket, which got into define whether President Zelensky had worn a suit at the NATO summit in the summer of 2024. Despite more than forty global media describing his outfit as a formal suit, the resolution protocol UMA (a decentralized oracle on Ethereum that verifies real-world data for blockchain applications) ruled “No” in a series of bets that moved $242 million. Numerous media They talked about large holders of UMA tokens manipulating the result through coordinated voting. Person of the Year, or whatever. Time magazine has been deliberately stretching the definition of “person” for decades, setting precedents that preempted this year’s confusion. In 1982 he chose “The Computer” under the title “Machine of the Year”, while 1988 crowned “The Endangered Earth” as “Planet of the Year”. The 2006 edition generated controversy by awarding an indeterminate “You”, referring to all users of digital content. “The Silence Breakers” of the #MeToo movement (2017) and “US Scientists” (1960) are other examples of award-winning collective entities. In Xataka | Five years ago he worked from his bathroom on the brink of ruin. Today he runs a company valued at 8 billion

Buying tickets for Rosalía’s tour has been chaos for everyone. Except for Banco Santander clients

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The sale of tickets for the concerts in Madrid and Barcelona Rosalia have generated the expected collapse. An apocalypse of people running out of tickets, waiting at the seventy-something thousand stall in a virtual queue, and a lot of resellers rubbing their hands. We had the precedent of Bad Bunny, but not only have we not learned, but we have made it worse with an exclusive pre-sale that has left those who have approached through the general sale almost without tickets. He ritual than usual. Frozen screens, virtual queues that exceeded 50,000 people and the frustration of thousands of fans who after hours of waiting were left without access to the many seats available for pre-sale last Tuesday the 9th for the eight Rosalía concerts scheduled in Madrid and Barcelona between March and April 2026. Just 48 hours later, the general sale on Thursday the 11th replicated the same scenario, but much faster: all the tickets sold out in a matter of minutes. The immediate result was predictable: platforms resale offering seats for up to 1,200 eurosmore than ten times its original value. The bank account as an entrance to culture. In September 2023, the Banco Santander launched SMusica platform that links financial services with exclusive offers linked to concerts and musical events after close deals with relevant industry brands, such as Live Nation (owner of Ticketmaster), Universal Music, the Los 40 radio network and festivals such as Primavera Sound and Mad Cool. The mechanism is as simple as, in its essence, exclusive: Bank customers get early access to tickets 48 to 72 hours before the rest of the public. In practice, this means that when the general sale opens, most of the best-located seats (and sometimes all the capacity) have already been purchased. For her part, Rosalía simultaneously activated an “Artist Presale” through prior registration on her website. In this way, two privileged channels were generated before the official sale. But… how many tickets went to pre-sale? There are no official public figures. However, an expert (Chema Lamirán, director of the Master in Digital Marketing at the European University of Valencia) provides data about the usual operation of this system: “as a general and ethical rule of the industry, a quota should always be reserved for general sales.” According to their analysis, between 15% and 20% of the total capacity is usually reserved for general sales. But “in phenomena like Rosalía, where demand exceeds supply by 10 or 20 times, that 20% flies in seconds, giving the sensation that there were no tickets.” This would explain why in social networks comments abounded like this one: “They’re making fun of us, they must have sold all the Lux Tour tickets in the pre-sale, otherwise I can’t explain it.” The system also established differentiated limits: a maximum of two tickets per person in the Santander pre-sale compared to four in the general one, which in theory should leave more seats available for the general public, but in practice it barely makes a difference when the demand is so disproportionate. The precedent of Bad Bunny. May 8, 2025 marked a turning point in public perception of the ticketing system in Spain. What began as the announcement of three Bad Bunny concerts ended up becoming twelve dates spread between Barcelona and Madrid, an improvised increase on the fly while the Ticketmaster website collapsed under the weight of hundreds of thousands of simultaneous users. At 12:45, fifteen minutes before the official start of the pre-sale, the platform began to display errors 503 and 500, leaving buyers trapped in a digital limbo where virtual queues exceeded 400,000 people. But the technical chaos It was just one dimension of the problem. The OCU filed a formal complaint before the Ministry of Consumer Affairs after documenting how an entry initially announced at 79.50 euros It ended up costing 269 euros by including management fees (€36.50), “suggested” donations (€3.30) and additional VIP charges (€150). FOMO and banks. The phenomenon of concerts, without a doubt the “place to be” (and one of the few entertainment sectors that not only enters into crisis but also grows without apparent roof), extends its appeal to entities such as banks. The concerts of Rosalía or Bad Bunny are not considered as recitals for fans, but rather as massive events to which one must go, with the music being only a circumstantial element. The essential precedent of Taylor Swift (whose Eras Tour generated in Spain similar episodes of uncontrolled demand) has established a pattern where megaconcerts are perceived as unrepeatable events that banks, always on the hunt for young customers, are willing to take advantage of. In Xataka | Rosalía has entered her Catholic phase: she is only the latest in a long list of Spanish artists and filmmakers

The chaos that AI has generated in personnel hiring has revealed a type of hidden talent: “invisible developers”

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For years it has been repeated that to have a good work in technology It was necessary to cultivate a good public personal brand and maintain an updated and complete professional profile. However, more and more voices within the technology sector are dismantling that idea, ensuring that many of the most valued developers They don’t do any of that. They are not going to apply to dozens of job offers or optimize their visibility. “Invisible developers” are simply brilliant at their job. This invisibility is something that was put on the table Gergely Oroszengineer, analyst and author of ‘The Software Engineer’s Guidebook’ in a recent message in his X profile, in which he pointed out that this profile of “invisible developers” flies under the radar “the only way to find them is through references and specific searches”, assured the expert Candidates with AI have broken everything. The increase in responses generated by AI to job offers has completely broken the hiring system. They explained it perfectly from the Manfred technological employment platform, where a few years ago they received between 20 and 50 applications a day for each job offer, and now they receive more than 500. Various recruiters they explained on Reddit that this saturation of applications lowers the average quality of the applications and makes it difficult to detect real talent through this route. The situation is so extreme that, as Orosz indicated in an analysis from the tech job market posted on his blog, “many companies hire most engineers through contacts and referrals.” Internal recommendations matter more than ever. In this saturated scenario in which true talent goes unnoticed, word of mouth has become the most reliable hiring filter. It is estimated that around 80% of existing job offers are not made public and are filled internally or through references and recommendations from the employees themselves. In fact, many companies use referral incentives among their employees so that, when a vacancy opens, they recommend their former colleagues and acquaintances as candidates. As Orosz details in his analysis, recruiters increasingly look for candidates more among the pages of their agenda than among the applications that come to them. The myth of the hypervisible developer. Public attention usually focuses on profiles with a lot of activity on networks or with highly visible projects. However, different examples and testimonies reveal the rising trend of “invisible developers”: brilliant workers at their job with little or no activity on their public profiles. A clear example is found in the message published by Max Spero, co-founder of the AI ​​company Pangram, in which he compares the GitHub contribution profile of an unemployed 22-year-old developer, full of activity and contributions, and that of a prominent Google engineer, with a practically empty history. In response to that post, Konstantin K, a software developer from San Francisco, confirmed Spero’s message. “The top 1% of engineers I’ve worked with over the past 10 years didn’t have GitHub, LinkedIn or LeetCode, they don’t speak at conferences or publish podcasts. But they built systems that no one else can,” he wrote. Trust networks between colleagues. Other testimonialsamong which Orosz is also foundreinforce this idea of ​​”invisible developers” and agree that the most effective way to open job doors in the future is to be valuable to colleagues in the present. “From the outside you cannot know how good an engineer this person is until you ask former colleagues. There are many cases like this,” wrote Orosz in X. Even academic research suggest that internal networks—those formed by real collaborations, not superficial digital connections—have a direct impact on career opportunities. In other words, the professional prestige that these “invisible” employees generate within the teams in which they participate weighs more than any public presence and their colleagues become their guarantors to obtain a job in the future. Real contact in a digital setting. It is still paradoxical that, faced with the saturation of digital channels and the implementation of AI-based systems, the technology sector is returning to a classic model: relying on real recommendations to reduce uncertainty. Research reveals that recruiters prefer to spend time on references validated by employees or former colleagues, rather than analyzing hundreds of clone resumes generated with AI. In Xataka | Job interviews have always been a game of cunning: AI is just taking things to another level Image | Unsplash (Vitaly Gariev)

Anti-abuse bracelets were going to be a technical solution to a social problem. They are generating chaos of incidents

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The Cometa system, which manages anti-abuse control bracelets, registered this Tuesday a new technical incident which ended up causing an overload of the service for several hours. The ruling forced the Ministry of Equality to implement the emergency protocol to guarantee the safety of the approximately 4,500 women who use these devices. In recent months, these bracelets have been the talk of the town. the problems that have caused. And while they promised to solve a big problem, they are also generating other parallels. What exactly has gone wrong. This last problem has been located in a router that distributes alert messages according to the type of incident (entry into exclusion zones, manipulation of the device, low battery, etc.). According to Equality, around 10% of these messages has generated incidents recurring events that have collapsed the system. The failure was detected at 4:30 in the morning and the service did not regain stability until 5:25 p.m., although complete normalization did not arrive until 9:00 p.m. During this time, the panic button, emergency calls and Bluetooth alerts remained operational, according to informed the ministry. The Government’s response. From the moment the incident was detected, the protocol planned for these situations was activated: the 4,500 users of the service received text messages informing them of the problem and the Security Forces and Bodies were alerted to reinforce surveillance. Minister Ana Redondo and the Government delegate against Gender Violence, Carmen Martínez-Perza, traveled to the headquarters of the Cometa service and maintained direct contact with the Vodafone-Securitas UTE, the company responsible for the system. “No victim has been unprotected at any time during these hours of crisis,” has assured Round in a message spread through social networks. A device that accumulates problems. This incident comes just two months after the State Attorney General’s Office uncovered an even more serious mistake: During the transfer of management from Telefónica to Vodafone, access to the geolocation data of hundreds of attackers was lost for several months. This caused, according to the annual report of the Prosecutor’s Office, “a large number” of dismissals and acquittals in cases of violation of restraining orders, since the judges could not have the necessary evidence. That episode generated a strong political controversy, with the PP asking for resignation de Redondo, who defended that the victims were never in danger and criticized the “lack of prudence” of the Prosecutor’s Office in making the ruling public without providing concrete data. A technology in question. What was presented at the time as an effective technological solution to protect victims of gender violence is showing that it also has important limitations. The Government has announced that the next tender for the service, scheduled for spring, will include “technical improvements” and that an audit is currently being carried out to check whether Vodafone is complying with the contract. “We will investigate until the end and, if necessary, we will take appropriate action,” has warned Round. Beyond technology. Despite the incidents, anti-abuse bracelets continue to be considered a valuable tool. Since their implementation in 2009, no woman wearing one of these devices has been murdered. The ministry insists that the protection system goes beyond technology and includes an “institutional network” of professionals that guarantees the safety of victims. However, we have also witnessed that technology fails, and it is precisely in these cases that we must prevent this from happening at all times. Cover image | EFE (Herbert Neubauer) and National Police In Xataka | How to share location with your entire family permanently with your mobile

The connected home is chaos. IKEA’s solution is 21 new devices compatible with Matter

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IKEA has been wanting to be the protagonist of the connected home for years. In its catalog we have motorized blinds, door sensorswater leak detectors… The problem was getting everything to work cohesively and without friction. It is just what IKEA wants to change and to do so it has completely renewed its range of smart devices. with a total of 21 products, all compatible with Matter. Goal: full compatibility The promise of the connected home sounds great on paper, but the reality is that, if you have many devices at home, friction between them is the order of the day and in the end it is a chaos of different apps and hubs to be able to control them all. In statements to Wiredthe director of home electronics at IKEA confessed to having “more than 100 smart devices at home, but I also have like 10 different hubs. I hate it.” IKEA has been launching connected devices for many years and has a fairly large offering, but this launch is the recognition that Their offer was quite chaotic. For example, the first light bulbs and their controllers are compatible with the Zigbee standard, but later they launched the hub DIRECT Matter compatible. What they are looking for with this renewal of their offer is to get closer to that total compatibility and for everything to work with everything. To achieve this they have chosen mattera standard that was launched in 2022 and is present in devices from the main home automation platforms such as Amazon Alexa, Google Home, Samsung Smartthings or Apple HomeKit. Despite many devices already integrate itthere is still the problem that many older devices do not offer itbut it is undoubtedly a step in the right direction to solve this chaos. Lights, sensors and more IKEA’s new home automation range consists of a total of 21 products grouped into three large categories: lighting, sensors and control. First of all we have a new range of light bulbs called KAJPLATS. It consists of eleven different models. They will be dimmable and will also come in various shades of white, warm and colored light. In the case of sensors, there will be five models aimed at different use cases. They are the following: MYGGSPRAY: a motion sensor for both indoor and outdoor use. It is designed so that lights turn on automatically. MYGGBETT: It is a sensor to detect door or window openings and allows you to configure notifications. TIMMERFLOTE: to measure the temperature and humidity inside the home. ALPSTUGA: is the new sensor that measures air quality using CO2, temperature and humidity measurements. KLIPBOK: to detect water leaks. You can notify us with a beep or with a mobile notification Finally, BILRESA will be your new remote controls to control lights and GRILLPLATS will be the new smart plug. They will be available from December at prices yet to be confirmed, although IKEA claims they will be more affordable. Images | IKEA In Xataka | There is a new fever among the ultra-rich: fed up with technology, they want houses that are as “dumb” as possible

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