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At Microsoft they are clear that Windows will end up being an agentic operating system. Users have jumped on him

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Microsoft has big plans for Windows and, how could it be otherwise in these times, artificial intelligence is in those plans. The president of Windows has boasted about the next evolution of Windows to an agentic system, but the response from the community has been clear: no. what has happened. They tell it in Windows Central. Pavan Davuluri, current president of the Windows division, has made a post on X in which it states that “Windows is evolving into an agentic operating system, connecting devices, the cloud and AI to drive intelligent productivity and ensure secure work from anywhere.” The news will be announced on November 19, when the Microsoft Ignite event will be held. The answer. “Enough of this nonsense. Nobody wants this. You live in a Twitter bubble where AI will create a ton of wealth and you will die unless you adopt it now,” he says the answer with the most likes. It is not the only one, the majority of users agree that they do not want an agentic system, some ironize that the evolution of Windows is to make users go to Linux and Mac. The positive comments are in the minority, it seems clear that the majority does not want an authentic operating system. Talk to your PC. Recently Microsoft released “Hey Copilot”; Not only is it integrating AI, they also want us to use voice. The problem with this is that experience tells us that We don’t feel like talking to our PC. The figures make clear that we are more accustomed to doing voice searches on mobile phones than on PCs, with 77% compared to 38% of users who speak with PCs. One reason for this is that we use the PC in places where there are more people and we cannot take it to a corner to do the search, but everyone can listen to us. General discontent. The effort to integrate AI into the operating system is not the only reason for rejection by the community. One of the most criticized points recently is that Microsoft forces that you can only use Windows 11 with an online account. The reason is obvious: trying to sell us services like OneDrive and Microsoft 365. Users also reproach Microsoft for first solving the problems. stability issues and constant updates. Decline. Windows continues to dominate the desktop operating system market, but Statcounter data They say there has been a decline. In September Windows had a 70.81% market share and in October the figure fell to 66.25%. We know where those users have gone: the drop coincides with a rebound in MacOS, which went from 8.33% in September to 14.07% in October. There have been other months with similar changes and it is not a very large variation, but perhaps those who talk about migrating to other systems are not so misguided. Image |Windows in Unsplash In Xataka | The unexpected return of Windows 7: it reaches almost 10% of the market when Microsoft prepares to retire Windows 10

Five years ago, Airbus promised a zero-emission aircraft. Now it’s not so clear

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The transport sector has been fighting for some years against a great enemy: its own CO₂ emissions. According to the European Environment Agency, this sector was the responsible of approximately 30% of emissions. And, of the total of these emissions, civil aviation represented 13.4%. The answer? The electrification in the case of land transportsomething that has been evolving at a good pace. In the case of commercial aviation, electricity was not opted for, but for hydrogen. The European Airbus was one of the companies that first jumped into the pool with a commitment to achieve the decarbonization goals with which the European Union seems to be very committed. Your proposal: hydrogen-powered zero-emission aircraft. That was the proposal in 2020 with a view to being achieved by 2035, and the prototypes of some companies they seemed hopeful. However, hydrogen has not done as well as many expected and the consequences are there: where it said “I say”, it says “Diego”, and now Airbus is not so clear that your zero-emission plane arrives on schedule. Airbus, its “green” plane and the turnaround of the industry Airbus’s proposal was extremely ambitious, since its hydrogen-powered aircraft would mark the greatest aeronautical revolution since the appearance of the jet engine. The idea was have hydrogen planes in the air by 2035for which presented three concepts: A turbofan for 200 passengers and 3,704 kilometers of range. A turbofan mixed wing model also for 200 passengers and 3,704 autonomy. A turboprop for 100 passengers and 1,852 kilometers of range. Its roadmap included the design of gas turbines with fuel injectors for hydrogen combustion to occur, but also models with completely electric systems powered by hydrogen fuel cells. They invested 1.7 billion dollars in the projectbut things began to go wrong both for Airbus and for the hydrogen industry as a vehicle “engine.” Germany is a good example of the difficulties of hydrogen as a fuel, at least for private vehicles. By the end of 2024, the main hydrogen station operator began to close facilities because there was no demand. The German Association of Energy and Water Industries itself revealed in a report that planned storage projects were significantly behind projected demand. For the private car, it seems that electrification has won the game, but in other types of vehicles such as trucks, buses or airplanes themselves, this fuel seemed to continue to be a valid option. At the beginning of this year, however, Reuters reported that Airbus was having problems obtaining green hydrogen. There is many types of hydrogen and their colors indicate how they have been obtained. What the sector needs is the so-called green hydrogen, which is produced thanks to renewable energies such as solar or wind. It is a process that needs a lot of investment and the company’s CEO doubted that enough could be produced to make commercial flights with hydrogen aircraft profitable. They did not shelve the project and, in fact, at the Airbus 2025 Summit reaffirmed their engagement, but soon after it seems they thought better of it. As we read in The Wall Street Journalthe company cut the budget allocated to green hydrogen airplane research by a quarter. Citing “technical challenges,” the company has reassigned staff other departments and the engineers responsible for the project appear to have gone back to the planning table. It is not a “never will arrive”, but it does seem to represent a slowdown in the plans that would imply that they would not arrive with that plane by 2035. In fact, in TWSJ they comment that Airbus defends that the money has not been thrown away and that delaying the project will allow the technology to be perfected. “Our destiny has not changed, but we need to adjust to reality to get there,” commented Bruno Fichefeux, head of future aeronautics programs. But it is not only Airbus that has taken a turn in its green policy. At the beginning of this year we saw that large oil companies began to stop or cut investment in their renewable energy programs to refocus on fossil fuel production. In this case it is not because the technology is green, but because there is an entity that has appeared on the board that requires large amounts of energy immediately: the data centers for AI training. Returning to hydrogen aircraft, although Airbus has put the brakes on its strategy, assuming a delay of five yearsthere are other companies that had a similar roadmap. For example, ZeroAviawhat’s next committed with hydrogen-powered flight and that has several models programmed in its roadmap, with 200-seat aircraft by 2040. Images | ZeroAviaAirbus In Xataka | The plan to clean the air by capturing CO₂ has just received a blow of reality: the Earth does not have as much space as we thought

‘GTA 6’ is the most anticipated game, but it is not clear if it is so untouchable as to emerge unscathed from the continuous delays

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Rockstar has dropped a new bomb that, like before in the pastmakes the video game industry shake: GTA VI will not arrive in spring 2026 as planned. The most anticipated game of the decade is delayed until November 19, 2026, adding six more months to the wait. That is, one year from this moment. Reactions of discontent from fans have not been long in coming, but beyond the digital noise, an uncomfortable question arises: can Rockstar afford these continuous delays without its reputation, its finances or its dominant position being affected? Are they really that untouchable? Keep winning. Rockstar continues to have a privileged position. Take-Two Interactive, its parent company, reported in November 2024 about net profits of $1.96 billionits best fiscal second quarter in history. The reason? A video game released in 2013 that continues to sell as if it were a novelty: ‘GTA V’ has exceeded 220 million copies soldconsolidating itself as the second best-selling video game of all time, only behind Minecraft. The entire saga has sold more than 425 million units. They are not simple numbers. These monstrous sales are the only excuse Rockstar needs to operate under its own rules. While other studios live game by game, Rockstar swims in a pool of money generated by a game that is more than a decade old. And it goes further: ‘GTA Online’, the multiplayer component of GTA V, does not stop giving benefits with constant updates and microtransactions. This economic reality confirms that Rockstar does not need to rush: there are no investors or producers demanding immediate results, and they can take all the time in the world. Some financial cracks. However, if we closely examine this invulnerability we can find some flaws. The stock market has sent alarm signals with each delay: Take-Two shares have fallen up to 18% after the announcement of the last delay to November 2026, before stabilizing. In the first delay to May 2026, shares fell 10%going from $235.17 to approximately $211 – billions of dollars in market value evaporating in minutes. Problems in the offices. And to this is added that last week we learned that the studio had laid off between 30 and 40 employees in its offices in the United Kingdom and Canada. The IWGB union accused the company of union bustingdescribing an increasingly tense work environment. The team, after so much delay, is working under monumental pressure. The news of these layoffs comes at a critical time in development. Are they a symptom of a management that, despite its financial muscle, is beginning to show cracks in its work model? Delays have a human cost in the form of tyrannical days and burned out professionals, not very pleasant details that have already appeared in the past in Rockstar’s history. The earthquake. Each new delay is like a very heavy stone falling into a peaceful lake and generating shock waves that affect very distant launches. For example, games like ‘The Elder Scrolls VI’, ‘Fable’, the next ‘Assassin’s Creed’ or the new ‘Mass Effect’ still do not have a release date, all waiting for Rockstar to make a move, and now they find themselves with a dilemma: the first half of the year was better for them, which until today was a forbidden zone. Now what: bring the launch forward a few months or go to 2027? (Remember that we are not talking here about calendar whims, but rather possible losses of millions of dollars). This is the total absorption power of the Rockstar game market. Untouchable, but not invulnerable. This new delay leaves Rockstar in a peculiar position: no one doubts that ‘GTA VI’ is going to be a successbut date cancellation after date cancellation, the image of the game and the company itself are eroding. If we add to that that we are experiencing turbulent times in the industry, where the exorbitant budgets and the pace of hardware releases are absolutely broken, we can come to a conclusion: Rockstar and its ‘GTA’ are untouchable, but to what extent can they allow themselves to continue going indefinitely free of the industry and the public? In Xataka | The ghost of video games at 100 euros is closer than ever. And the owners of ‘GTA VI’ know it

A guy has been studying the diets of the oldest people in the world for years and is clear about what a good breakfast is.

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Dan “Longevity” Buettner is a controversial guy. He was the one who popularized the idea that five specific regions (Sardinia, Okinawa, Icaria, Nicoya and Loma Linda) had two things in common: a very high longevity and a diet with particular characteristics. Over time, the idea of ​​blue zones has been harshly criticized and rightly so. However, studying what people over a hundred years old were like, what habits they had and how they ate, has given us very interesting reflections. The importance of breakfast is one of them. We already know that breakfast is not the most important meal of the day. Although, of course, that doesn’t mean we can neglect it. Therefore, in a recent videoBuettner has given some recommendations. “The breakfasts of people who live longer do not include sugary cereals or greasy bacon,” he explained. On the contrary, the best breakfasts can be defined by three characteristics: it’s salty, it’s simple, and it’s rich in fiber. And it makes sense. For example, the evidence supporting fiber consumption. A diet with between 25 and 29 grams of fiber per day is associated with a reduced risk of cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes and even “all-cause mortality.” This is especially recommended in Spain where dietary surveys show the majority of the population below the recommendations. Something similar happens with “simplicity.” It’s not that more elaborate breakfasts are problematic per se. The fact is that the current rhythms of life make it easier for us not to complicate our lives and the “quick breakfasts” that the market offers are usually accumulate very high amounts of sugar (and salt). If we do not find simple and healthy alternatives, the drift will lead us to worse solutions from a nutritional point of view. Just the kind of things that “shorten” our lives. And then? Buttner makes some suggestions, of course: things like beans with rice, bread with avocado or even minestrone. That is, except perhaps the avocado (and thanks to the millennials), all the options are proposals that are somewhat far away from us – culturally speaking. However, breakfasts with legumes, whole grains and vegetables are not impossible. On the contrary, there are things “very much ours”, like tomato toast, that with a little care, would work as a scandal. What is clear is that, beyond Buttner, the available nutritional evidence is clear: we have to abandon cookies, cereals and other sweet breakfasts and adopt cheap, satiating and fiber-rich options. It doesn’t matter if it’s avocado and hummus or tomato, bread and olive oil. The important thing, as always, is to be more aware of what we eat. Image | Leti Kugler | Mae Mu In Xataka | Eating late in the morning is a bad idea. Now science knows better why

In Castilla y León, a baby of an eagle that became extinct in the 19th century has been born. What is not clear is that it is good news

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The skies of Castilla y León have left a historical imagesomething that had not been seen for a long time in our country: a native baby eagle flying over the territory. The specimen of this bird of prey was born on Spanish soil a few months ago, early mayand has already taken flight, as has just been said reveal The Confidential. Something like this hadn’t happened in a long time. That a species that was supposed to be extinct in the Iberian Peninsula since the 19th century manages to recover ground is usually positive news, but in the case of the eagle it comes clouded by something else: controversy. There are those who believe that its reintroduction in Spain is a “historical milestone”. And who thinks it is a blunder. First of all, what is the eagle? A bird of prey that stands out for its enormous size. With its wings extended it can reach 2.4m wingspan and usually measures between 80 and 90 cm long. His name appeared in a list published years ago by the Ministry for the Ecological Transition and Demographic Challenge (MITECO) with extinct species susceptible to be reintroduced. After all, there are those who consider that the eagle, which continues to live in Scandinavian countries, it disappeared from the peninsula among the 19th and 20th centuries due to the degradation of their environment. How did you return to Spain? Thanks to Proyecto Pigargo, a plan released in 2021 with the approval of the Principality of Asturias, the Cantabrian Government and above all the support of MITECO, which invested more than 300,000 euros in the recovery of the species. In August of that same year was announced the arrival of almost a dozen young specimens born in Norway that were introduced in Pimiango, in the municipality of Ribadedeva (Asturias). As time went by, more birds were released until add 25. Of them survived about 17almost all (12) paired. And have they bred yet? Yes. The news I advanced it on September 18 GREFA, the group that has promoted the reintroduction of the species on the peninsula. In a statement The group explains that the calf was born in May in the north of Castilla y León, in an area that had been identified as “optimal for the species”, although GREFA has not specified the exact location “to avoid any disturbance.” “The birth of the first European eagle chick in Spain represents a historic moment for nature conservation in our country,” celebrate the association before highlighting the collaboration of the Junta de Castilla y León and the “technical support” of both MITECO and agents of the autonomous community. Perfect, right? It depends on who you ask. If we listen GREFA is “a historic milestone for biodiversity in Spain and Europe”, the result of a well-studied plan, which accumulates hours of work and has achieved the support of IUCNthe International Union for Conservation of Nature. The group insists that it is the first breeding after “the extinction” of the species in Spain and highlights “the success” of having achieved a chick in a few years with 25 specimens released. “An exciting and motivating result that allows us to hope for more views next season,” celebrate. Don’t everyone think that way? No. The launch of the Pigargo Project may have generated expectations at the time, but it certainly did not achieve something equally or even more important: scientific consensus. Already in 2021 there were voices that warned that releasing copies in Spain meant “a bad idea”. In fact, that was the key message of an article published in The Conversation by three experts from the University of Oviedo in which they pointed out the weak points of the program and questioned whether the eagle is really a native and extinct species. The controversy escalated to such a point that the central government and the autonomies that had initially endorsed the project they decided to back out after just two years. What arguments do they use? GREFA recalls that the releases of eagles that began four years ago in Asturias had the endorsement of the IUCN and the species was included in the list of extinct fauna prepared with the endorsement of the committee of scientists that advises the ministry. Not only that. The group defends that the birth of the first baby in the wild in Castilla y León a few months ago proves the adaptation to the environment of a bird of prey that, argues“contributes to keeping under control” other species that can damage ecosystems, such as carp. “Thanks to its scavenging habits, the European sea eagle plays an important role as a ‘health police’, helping to control the spread of diseases by effectively removing animal corpses from the environment,” they point out from the entity. In fact, GREFA trusts that the birth of the first chick marks a turning point in the program and will allow it to recover the institutional support that it has been losing in recent years. “We hope that this historic event encourages strengthening or resuming support for the project, especially in the case of the Principality of Asturias and the Government of Cantabria, whose initial collaboration was fundamental although they later withdrew it,” Ernesto Álvarez slidesits president. And what do the critics say? They go to the root of the approach and question its most basic premise: that it has really been proven that the eagle is a species native to the peninsula. “To consider a species as extinct, the evidence must be irrefutable. In the case of the eagle that does not happen. The documentation that has been used for its classification as an extinct species is reduced to some reports on archaeological remains, several citations of solitary specimens and dubious signs of breeding,” he points out. the article published in The Conversation. One of them, Germán Orizaola, Ramón y Cajal researcher in Zoology, warned in 2023 in statements to The Country of the risk that the initiative may pose … Read more

The message is clear, if you use my data without paying, prepare your lawyers

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The Internet business model has been based on a tacit agreement for decades: If something is free, the product is probably us. For years, this logic was assumed without major shocks, but the emergence of artificial intelligence is changing the rules. Platforms that store human conversations have become gold mines for training models, and that has reopened old questions about the value of data. In the midst of this new scenario, Reddit has planted itself strongly. Although its millions of users do not receive any compensation for the content they generate, the company has made it clear that it will not tolerate others using it without paying for it. Reddit’s firmness has materialized in a new lawsuit filed before US justice. The company accuses Perplexity AI and three data scraping service providers of having circumvented its protection mechanisms to access copyrighted content. In its complaint, Reddit describes “scraping on an industrial scale” and maintains that the objective of these companies is to illicitly obtain the material that feeds artificial intelligence engines. It’s a new chapter in a strategy to control the use of your content. A rather particular case. At the center of the complaint are Perplexity AI and three mass data scraping intermediaries: SerpApi, Oxylabs and AWMProxy. Reddit describes them as “wannabe bank robbers,” a metaphor with which the company illustrates the attempt to access their content through indirect means. Instead of signing a licensing agreement, the lawsuit claims, these companies would have chosen to use third-party services to collect posts, comments and copyright-protected data. The conversational search engine is listed as a customer of “at least one” of those providers. The court document details a pattern of behavior that, according to Reddit, has been repeated for months. The accused companies would have used automated methods to extract information from the platform despite the restrictions imposed on their public file. The result, the company denounces, was a constant flow of publications that ended up integrated into the defendant’s artificial intelligence engine. For Reddit, it is scraping “on an industrial scale” and for clearly commercial purposes. The test that turned it all on. One of the most relevant episodes of the complaint is an experiment that Reddit considers key. In May 2024, the company ordered the defendant to stop collecting its data. However, shortly thereafter he saw an increase in Reddit mentions within the Perplexity answer engine. To verify this, he published an entry designed to be visible only by Google. According to the complaint, a few hours later the full text of that publication already appeared in the results generated by the accused company’s system. Perplexity does not hide. Perplexity noted on Reddit’s own platform. In that message, it explained that it is an “application layer” company and that “it does not train artificial intelligence models with Reddit content.” “He has never done it,” the text added. According to the company, this difference makes it impossible to sign a licensing agreement like those that Reddit has reached with other companies. “A year ago, after explaining this, Reddit insisted that we pay anyway. Giving in to these types of tactics is not the way we do business,” the statement concluded. When there is an agreement, there is money. Reddit’s position against Perplexity contrasts with the agreements it has signed with other technology companies. In February 2024 it expanded its collaboration with Google to allow access to its content through the data API, in a structured and licensed manner. Three months later, announced a similar alliance with OpenAI: ChatGPT and other company products can display recent Reddit posts in their responses. What we accept (many times) without reading. Behind all this debate there is an element that many users overlook: the Reddit Terms of Service. By creating an account, each person grants the platform a worldwide, perpetual, irrevocable and sublicensable license to use their content. This license allows you to copy, modify, distribute or publish any contribution, including making it available to other associated companies. The text also specifies that Reddit can use this material to “train artificial intelligence and machine learning models.” In other words, permission is already granted. Something we have already seen, and what remains to be seen. Reddit has been drawing a clear pattern of action for some time. In 2023 it toughened its conditions for access to the APIwhich led to widespread protests and the temporary closure of thousands of communities. A year later, in May 2024, it sent a cease-and-desist letter to Perplexity for unauthorized use of its data and subsequently filed a lawsuit against Anthropic for similar reasons. The current litigation fits that same logic: protecting the value of your content and tightening your control over who can use it. The case between Reddit and Perplexity is still in its initial phase, but its implications are evident. What the courts decide could set a precedent for future disputes between platforms and artificial intelligence developers. On the one hand there is the defense of free access to information; on the other, the right of companies to protect the content generated in their communities. The result will define the extent to which platforms control the material that users share daily. Images | Reddit | Xataka with Gemini 2.5 | Perplexity In Xataka | The race to put a humanoid robot in our house has begun. It’s an absurd race

If the question is whether we can have a cheap electric car in the short term, Skoda’s answer is clear: “no”

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The cheap electric car is, at the moment, a mythological being. At least if we want it to offer us the same autonomy performance as a combustion car. And that variable continues to be what puts manufacturers back when they have to electrify their access versions. The last to make it clear: Skoda. “That’s for sure”. These are the words of Klaus Zellmer, CEO of Skoda, who has confirmed that “we will not electrify our basic models, such as the Fabia, the Kamiq or the Scala” in an interview with Automobilwoche. He then noted that they will keep them as mild hybrid models but “we will not launch them as purely electric vehicles, that’s for sure.” Why does an electric car have less autonomy than advertised? What Zellmer is not clear about, he explains in the interview, is that there is enough potential customer to make this cheap electric car a sufficiently profitable product. “But…”. The “buts” are the big problem with the low-cost electric car. And that big but is, without a doubt, autonomy. Yesterday we explained that an electric car can be much cheaper than a combustion one if the type of use accompanies it. This “cheaper” is more pronounced in cities where electric cars gain in consumption, in the price of electricity compared to fuel and maintenance (due to having a lower risk of breakdowns). The problem is that when the driver wants to go on a long trip he has to accept some discomfort. And not everyone is willing to do so. Does it make little sense to define your purchase by two long trips a year? Maybe, but here each one must evaluate How much is your time and money worth? Many people are still not compensated. The strategy. For now, we know that Skoda will have its own version of a 25,000 euro electric car but it will not be released below this price. That is, he will have a brother Volkswagen ID.2 either Pole ID but he will not put on the market a brother of the Volkswagen ID.1the electric version that the German company will have in the range of 20,000 euros. The movement makes a lot of sense. The Volkswagen Group uses the pull of the Volkswagen brand to champion the electrification of the automobile conglomerate. Launching an electric Skoda would force it to place it below its German brother due to the positioning of both companies in the market and they do not believe that there is sufficient demand to keep two models alive. There is another detail to take into account, Renault has demonstrated with the Five that can sell many units of an electric car for between 25,000 and 30,000 euros. But it has done so with a very strong commitment to design and care, positioning it as a perfect car for the urban environment but also positioning it as the second beautiful, practical and cheap car in a home. sell a lot. This is what a manufacturer needs if they want amortize the investment in an electric car low price. And the profit margins have narrowed in that segment given that the price of the battery continues to represent a very high cost in relation to the final price of the vehicle. To this we must add the safety obligations of the European Union, which have also made the survival of this type of automobile difficult. Although the price of the battery has been falling (and is expected to continue doing so in the futureThe truth is that making a low-priced electric car profitable is very complicated. It is necessary to adapt production lines, have an adequate supply of batteries and, if you want to achieve maximum performance in autonomy and behavior, design your own platform. That is why some manufacturers have chosen to share platforms (like Volkswagen and Ford) or renew cars that were becoming obsolete with a profound update to reposition them in the market as a new car, trying to amortize the initial investment, as in the case of the Dacia Spring. Run before walking. What they defend at Skoda is that the transition has been done too quickly and that it is impossible for manufacturers to meet the given deadlines. We may more or less agree with this statement but the truth is that the public is not buying electric cars at the expected rate. And those cars worth between 20,000 and 25,000 euros are testimonials. In fact, of the 10 best-selling electric cars in Europeonly the Renault 5… and the Skoda Elroq are sold for less than 30,000 euros. Of course, for now the threats of multimillion-dollar fines remain. first with a term that ends in 2027. Those who exceed an average of 93.6 gr/km of CO2 in their fleet sold since 2025 will be punished with a fine of 95 euros per gram of CO2 exceeded and car sold. That is, if the fleet of cars sold is one million and the average has been exceeded by one gram/km of CO2, we are talking about a fine of 95 million euros. In 2030, that limit should be cut in half, leaving virtually everything that not be an electrified carthat’s why at Skoda they talk about maintaining their access models “until the end of the decade.” From there, 2035 should be the year in which cars with combustion engines will not be sold. Something that is in the air at night pressure from big manufacturers and countries like Germany o Italy with a large automobile related industry. Photo | Skoda In Xataka | Denmark wants to make the electric car its only path. And it has done so by punishing those who buy cheap gasoline cars

We have been talking about microplastics for years without being very clear about how they affect us. Science is close to solving it

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Plastic no longer only wraps our food or makes up the clothes we wear, but it has silently colonized our body. And microplastics have been found almost everywhere in the body: placenta, blood, lungs, testiclesbreast milk, brain human… But when faced with the big question of What effect does it have on the body?we are already having answers. The measurements. Studies already suggest that we could hold up to five grams of this material in our own brain. The image is shocking: the equivalent of a plastic teaspoon lodged in the deepest part of our being. Microplastics are particles, in this case they are very tiny, that come off from packaging, synthetic clothing, tires, cosmetics and countless everyday objects such as lettuce. But some are so small that they are able to cross the barriers of our lungs and intestines, travel through the bloodstream and deposit in our internal organs. What happens once there is the great unknown that scientists strive to clear up. The studies. Dr. Christian Pacher-Deutsch, from the University of Graz (Austria), recently presented a study in which he exposed human intestinal bacteria to five types of common microplastics. The result was quite clear: bacterial populations were altered, producing chemical changes, in some cases reflecting patterns observed in patients with depression and colorectal cancer. Although the researcher himself was cautious in pointing out that “although it is early to make definitive statements, reducing exposure to microplastics is a sensible precaution.” But the effects don’t stop in the intestine. Dr. Jaime Ross, a neuroscientist at the University of Rhode Island, conducted a revealing experiment: gave a group of mice water contaminated with microplastics to drink. Soon, the mice began behaving strangely, anxiously venturing into open spaces, an atypical behavior that is associated with aging and neurological diseases. Analyzing their brains, Ross found plastic in all organs and a reduction in GFAP, a key protein for brain health. This same pattern of exhaustion is seen in humans with depression and dementia. Caution. In this case, microplastics have been detected in arterial plaques, and an analysis concluded that people whose plaques were loaded with plastic were almost five times more likely to suffer a heart attack, stroke or die within three years. The practice. Faced with this avalanche of data, The Guardian wanted to move from theory to practice. The British journalist herself decided to undergo a test from the company Plastictox which, for £144, promises to reveal the amount of microplastics circulating in the blood. The test result indicated a concentration of forty microplastics per milliliters of blood. And although this figure placed her in the 25% of people with the least exposure, the laboratory gave her the total result: about 200,000 plastic particles in the bloodstream. However, other experts urge caution. Professor Stephanie Wright, a researcher at Imperial College London, calls this evidence “very premature.” He points out that although an analysis shows that there are 40 particles per ml, it is unknown if this is good or bad or if it will depend on the type of plastic it is or its origin. We live in real uncertainty. The advice. Although it is impossible to avoid exposure completely, there are a number of tips to avoid consuming this type of microplastics. For example, you can choose not to use plastic kitchen utensils or drink hot liquids from plastic cups. Even with the tap water either bottled we can have the same problem. Outside of food, the material composition of bedding or pajamas should also be reviewed, as they can release these types of particles, making cotton the best. Images | FlyD Chad Montano In Xataka | When Tap Water Tastes Like Hell: The Invisible Chemistry of Drinking Water That Explains Why It Tastes How It Tastes (And Why It’s One of the World’s Greatest Inventions)

The new trend in AI is “AI agents.” The only problem is that almost no one is clear about what they are.

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It is not the first time that a word becomes fashionable in the technology sector. It has happened with IoT, Big data, Blockchain and even 5G. In English they call it buzzword and refers to those terms that are repeated and repeated until they almost lose their meaning. It has happened with AI and, now that we have overcome that first stage, it was time to give it a surname. The chosen one is agentic AI and, suddenly everything is agentic AI. I experienced it a couple of weeks ago in the Qualcomm Snapdragon Summit. During the different conferences, the most repeated words were “agents” and “agentic”. The problem is that they didn’t show any real products that actually fit this definition. They are not the only ones, there is a whole wave of companies that already call agentic AI literally anything that has minimal automation. Agents all the time everywhere Agentic AI It was going to be a revolution in 2025but reality ended lower the smoke to the gurus of the sector. With this I don’t mean that everything is a hoax, AI agents are very real and they are already here. We can try them If we have the ChatGPT Plus plan. At the development level, Anthropic allows create scheduling agents with Claude and Google with Gemini. Other platforms like Salesforce offer their own custom AI agents for specific sectors such as public or industrial. They are improving a lot, but the reality is that AI agents They are still very green as has been demonstrated in enough tests. There is no real product, not even one that they are developing, everything is part of a dream, one in which AI agents are even in the soup. Being cautious and waiting for technology to develop does not suit many companies. Returning to the case of Qualcomm, in the “The Ecosystem of You” conferenceits CEO Cristiano Amon drew us a future in which “the agent” does everything for us, absolutely everything: “The agent will understand our world and will be helping us, anticipating every need.” The problem is that everything he showed It was simply a demo. There is no real product, not even one that they are developing, everything is part of a dream, one in which AI agents are even in the soup. What is agentic AI It is also known as agentive AI, agential AI or simply “AI agents”. Google defines it as “an advanced form of artificial intelligence focused on autonomous decision-making and action.” For NVIDIA is an AI that “uses sophisticated reasoning and iterative planning to autonomously solve complex, multi-step problems.” For amazon It is “an autonomous system that can act independently to achieve predetermined goals” and they add that, unlike generative AI, agential AI “is proactive and can perform complex tasks without constant human supervision.” It seems pretty clear, generative AI responds to one request at a time, while agentic AI can achieve more complex goals, making decisions autonomously. An AI agent must be able to collect information, use tools and solve problems to achieve the objective we have given it. They call it agentic AI because “AI with slight automation” doesn’t sound so good In another of the Snapdragon Summit conferences they showed us several products that were real, one of them is Page.aian AI assistant that works locally on mobile. During the intervention, the presenteror stopped repeating that the app had agentic functionswhen the most they showed was how the AI ​​was capable of organizing a barbecue: it created an event on the calendar and then invited a friend. What caught my attention is that the creator of the app did not use the word, but was the presenter. The reality is that many of the use cases presented as agents are, at best, a kind of IFTTT on steroids. In this CNBC articlethe head of AI at the consulting firm EY assured that “Many in the market want to take advantage of it. We have witnessed an incredible change of image of everything related to generative AI, which is now presented as agentic AI.” “Agent washing”: when products that are sold as agents are actually products that already existed. At the beginning of the year, Gartner surveyed more than 3,000 companies who promote AI agents and discovered a trend they call “agent washing.” That is to say, many products sold as agents are actually products that already existed. Gartner estimates that of the 3,000 companies, only 130 sell real AI agents. “Most agency AI proposals lack significant value or return on investment,” said analyst Anushree Verma. The firm predicts that more than 40% of agentic AI projects will be canceled before the end of 2027. Why so much hype? In May of this year, a survey of senior American executives revealed that 88% of companies had planned to increase their AI budget before the arrival of agents. Most respondents believed agentic AI was going to change workplaces more than the internet did, and nearly half were worried about competitors adopting AI agents before them. The fear of being left behind has encouraged many companies to jump into the pool without fully understanding what agentic AI is. It makes sense that they want to hype it up and even “cheat” by calling agents who really are not: they are investing a lot in this and they need it to turn out well. Image | Gemini In Xataka | A group of AI experts attended a party at a mansion. The topic of conversation: what will happen when AI ends humanity

Mobile phone manufacturers first stopped including the charger with every purchase. Your next threat is clear: the USB cable

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There was a (wonderful) time when when you bought an iPhone, Apple not only included the cable and charger, but also included EarPods headphones. In 2020 the iPhone 12 arrived and They broke that tradition: that box It included the phone and the charging cable, but nothing else. All manufacturers released following that trail with the same speech from Apple: at that point, users they used to tell with their own headphones and some charger, so what they were doing was protect the environment although that argument was not particularly convincing. Of course, they did something else: first They saved money by not including those elementsand then they earned it when you bought them official headphones and adapters if you ended up needing them. Of course one could resort to third-party accessories, although Lumafield CT scans have been demonstrating for some time that cables, chargers and headphones from companies like Apple are expensive because they are small works of art of engineering. In fact, those same images reveal that the same you shouldn’t trust of “strange” cables, lest they be tools to hack your computers. The truth is that Apple’s decision – which other companies such as Fairphone had previously made – made a deep impact on the industryand nowadays it is very rare to find a mobile phone whose box includes a charger, much less headphones. But the thing is can go further. USB charging cables may also be about to disappear from those boxes. Do we really need the USB cable to be included with our devices? A Reddit user revealed recently how when buying his Sony Xperia 10 VII he had found a surprise: in the box There was no charger, but there was no charging cable either.. In the photo included in the post it was clearly seen how this absence was made evident on the back of the box. The Sony Xperia 10 VII does not include a charger or charging cable. It is true that Sony is no longer a major player in the field of mobility, but these types of decisions are what can begin to establish an important precedent that other manufacturers end up adopting as well. At Xataka we have contacted those responsible for Sony to try to find out the reasons behind that decision. In the absence of confirmation, it seems clear that the environmental protection and the reduction of electronic waste may once again be the clear argument, although obviously the savings for Sony may also be relevant. The European Union precisely wanted mitigate the problem of electronic waste years ago. He did it at set the USB-C connector as the standard connector to charge mobile devices, something that for example forced Apple to ditch your Lightning connector. In these years it seems clear that users We have ended up accumulating a good number of USB-C cables to charge our devices. It is something similar to what happened with chargers: a priori we all have one at home, so the need to include them in the box, as is now the case with cables, is debatable. Of course, it also happens that over time mobile phones tend to allow charging at higher power or transferring data at higher speeds, and this makes it necessary to use chargers and cables specially prepared to take advantage of these options. But even in those cases, including the charger or cable doesn’t seem to make much sense. Especially because Those accessories that manufacturers include are the “basic” models that allow you to upload or transfer data, but not at maximum speed. The usual thing here for years is that manufacturers offer that option on the mobile, but we have to buy the specific charger and cable separately, which imposes an extra cost. Will we therefore see fewer and fewer USB cables included in mobile phone boxes? It seems quite possible. Now all that’s left is for the manufacturers of those USB-C cables to solve their big problem: label them well so that we know which one to use at all times. Image | Zana Latif In Xataka | The USB-C standard promised to solve the connector chaos. The situation is worse than ever

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