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In two days on Netflix, the film that last year caused people to riot in cinemas around the world

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When in a movie theater a baby zombie rides a chicken and the entire room, all teenagers, bursts into screams, throwing popcorn and TikTok is flooded with videos corroborating the chaos in the roomssomething has happened that has gone under the radar of industry forecasts. ‘A Minecraft movie‘ was not exactly the critics’ favorite of 2025, but it undoubtedly had one of the best box offices of the year. This weekend you can see why it happened in Netflix. In just two weeks, the film surpassed $550 million in worldwide receipts. It ended up close to a billion. A true phenomenon that revitalized the industry’s interest in video games, already highlighted by the success of ‘Super Mario Bros. The Movie’ in 2023 with its more than $1.36 billion at the box office. With Sonic, Mario and ‘Mortal Kombat’ having several sequels and a second part of ‘A Minecraft Movie’ scheduled for 2027, it remains to be seen if we are facing a momentary impact or a true trend. The movie does a good job in transforming the almost abstract original game into a story with minimal coherence: Steve (Jack Black) is a doorknob salesman with the dream of working in a mine and discovers a portal that transports him to the Overworld, the cubic world of Minecraft, where he is captured by Malgosha, a pig sorceress who seeks to dominate that world. Some time later he will join four strangers from the real world (including Jason Momoa) to find his way back home. The film’s impact not only translates into box office success, but also into a revitalization of the brand: by April 2025, ‘Minecraft’ had sold more than 350 million copies worldwide, consolidating its position as the most popular video game of all time. Following the film’s release, console and mobile sales of the original game grew by 35% and daily active users on console increased by 41%. A true phenomenon that demonstrates, once again, that while adults point to the moon with a solemn gesture, young people do, essentially, whatever they want. In Xataka | The latest from the director of ‘Longlegs’, streaming tomorrow: almost no one has seen it, but it is the most disturbing of the year

the latest from the director of ‘Longlegs’, streaming in two days

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Oz Perkins has become one of the key names in modern horror thanks to films like ‘Longlegs’ (127 million grossed with a budget of less than 10) or ‘The Monkey’, which adapted a story by Stephern King, all filmed and released in record time. With them still fresh he arrivedKeeper‘, his third feature film in sixteen months, endorsed by Guillermo del Toro, Bong Joon-ho and James Wan. In theaters it did not attract as much attention as its predecessors, but from this Thursday you have the opportunity to see with your own eyes if Perkins is the last great master of horror or a bluff in Movistar Plus. ‘Keeper’ was filmed while work on ‘The Monkey’ was paralyzed by the writers’ and actors’ strikes of 2023. With these time and budget restrictions, a single location and a small cast were chosen: the film follows a couple celebrating their first anniversary in an isolated cabin in the countryside, where the dark secrets of one of them begin to emerge. In this way, Perkins turns topics such as control in the couple or toxic masculinity into horror material. The film relies entirely on the work of its two protagonists, especially that of Tatiana Maslany, known for ‘Orphan Black’ and Marvel’s ‘She-Hulk’. But The most striking thing about the experience is its wonderful monstersappearances and special effects: beings with faces frozen in an infinite scream, creatures with multiple faces, twisted necks… However, the film did not convince. The opening weekend numbers were the worst of Perkins’ directing career. ‘Keeper’ only cost 6 million dollars, and even so, it fell short when it came to recovering the investment, with 6.2 million dollars in collection that pale in comparison to the aforementioned 128 of ‘Longlegs’ or the 68 of ‘The Monkey0. Still, it is a wonderful claustrophobic nightmare that makes clearer than ever everything that Perkins owes to Cronenberg, Aster or Argento. Now you have the perfect opportunity to re-fish it. In Xataka | Today the new film ‘The Lord of the Rings’ arrives on Netflix by surprise, whose genesis is as interesting as its plot

“If a person over 70 years of age walks 20–30 minutes five days a week, benefits are already obtained”

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In 1965, a Japanese company launched a pedometer on the market called Manpo-Kei. That is, a “10,000 step meter.” That is the first time in history that the idea of ​​10,000 steps appears and, for years, many have wondered where that figure came from. The answer is, according to Japanese researchersfrom nowhere: they chose that number because in Japanese (万) is similar to a man who walks. That is, the most repeated advice about walking was born in a marketing meeting and not in a laboratory. Therefore, it is essentially a lie. Especially if you are over 70 years old. 70 years? What happens to those over 70 years of age? Not only has it dismantled the myth of 10,000 steps, it has shown that older people are capable of “capturing” the benefits with many fewer steps (around 6,000). Hence some coaches, as Rafael Hidalgoensure that it is enough to walk half an hour five days a week to obtain the cardiovascular, mobility and well-being bonus. and it’s true: at these ages there is a non-linear dose-response. Walking more does not bring more benefits. It is also true that, after 70, walking is not enough. The trend we fight against. Sedentary lifestyle in Spain is greater the older the person is. If we look the National and European Health Surveys (1987-2020) The highest prevalence of this sedentary lifestyle occurs among those over 65 years of age. In fact, if we analyze the data in detail we see that, even in those people who do not have limiting pathologies, there are high rates of sedentary lifestyle and overweight that lead to a poor perception of health. The bottom line is that it is something relatively easy to solve. Beyond accumulating steps. After 70, the goal cannot be adding steps. Or not only that. Any training or physical activity plan must optimize one thing: remain functional. That’s why, The WHO asks those over 65 years of age several linked activities: balance exercises, strength exercises at moderate intensity three times a week and 150 minutes a week of aerobic activity. Combine these types of exercises reduces the risk of falls by up to 23% (which are one of the main problems as we age). Additionally, as far as we know, it has positive impacts on mobility, mood, and sleep quality. Image | Age Cymru In Xataka | The trap of walking for the sake of walking: “Japanese walks” are much more effective than your daily hour-long walk

We have been fearing the Apocalypse for 100 days due to the closure of Hormuz. The blow is going to be given to us by a heat wave in China

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At the end of February, the clocks in the financial markets seemed to stop. The closure of the Strait of Hormuz was not a simple geopolitical skirmish; It meant amputating, from one day to the next, the main energy artery of the planet. Classical economics manuals dictated that the abrupt disappearance of 20% of the world’s crude oil would trigger industrial paralysis, widespread shortages and an imminent recession. However, more than one hundred days after the start of the blockade, Western economies are still standing and the barrel of crude oil, far from reaching the catastrophic 200 dollars that some investment funds even predicted, has been contained below the $100 barrier. We have survived what, on paper, is the greatest threat to energy security in history. The question that now resonates in the European chancelleries is unanimous: how have we achieved it and, above all, how long will the truce last? The architecture of an unexpected rescue The fact that the world has not collapsed is due to a complex network of counterweights that have absorbed the blow. The first revealing data it is provided by the agency Reuters: The production of OPEC countries has fallen this May to its lowest level since 2000 (16.13 million barrels per day) as a direct consequence of the siege of Iran. Despite this massive hole in supply, global supply has been reorganized in record time. The analyst Javier Blas unfolds in his column of Bloomberg the keys to this logistical miracle. The main lifeline, paradoxically, has arrived from Beijing. China has plunged its oil imports by ship to decade lows (nearly 40% less than last year’s average). According to Blas, this unexpected destruction of Asian demand has acted as a huge escape valve: “If Beijing were buying the same amount of oil as in the past, global inflation would be out of control.” Added to Chinese containment is a tectonic shift in energy hegemony. As documented Reutersthe United States has taken advantage of the chaos to become the largest oil exporter in the world, overtaking Russia and Saudi Arabia by shipping nearly 10.5 million barrels per day in May. Furthermore, the Gulf countries have not sat idly by. The producers They are using a network of pipelines less known through Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates that circumvent the Hormuz bottleneck, keeping some five million barrels a day alive, in addition to maintaining “hot” extraction infrastructures for an eventual rapid restart. The silent blow The fact that there are no kilometer-long lines at service stations has generated a false sense of immunity. Hormuz’s economic blow is landing, but it is doing so through the financial system. The war conflict has blown up the roadmap by Christine Lagarde and the European Central Bank (ECB), since the sustained rise in fuel prices has caused eurozone inflation to rise to 3.2% in May. Given the fear that this extra cost will permanently spread to the shopping basket, the ECB has been forced to resume raising interest rates this June, placing them at 2.25%. The true price of the Iran war is already being paid by European households and companies through more expensive mortgages and restricted credit. And the scenario continues to be a powder keg: the extreme volatility of the markets after the latest crossed attacks between the United States and Iran, which have kept Brent crude stressed above $95. The Asian thermometer: the great threat to Spain While the global macroeconomy deals with interest rates, at the local level a perfect storm is brewing for the Spanish consumer in the coming months. And the trigger will not be military, but climate. According to the forecasts of the consulting firm Tempos Energía, collected by Europa Pressthe price of electricity in Spain this summer will not depend on what happens in the Strait of Hormuz, but on the temperatures in Asia. Until now, Europe has been importing American liquefied natural gas (LNG) without much competition because China was not demanding it. However, the general director of Tempos Energía, Antonio Aceituno, warns of an imminent reversal: “When the heat arrives and the thermometer soars in Shanghai, American freighters will be divided between demand from Asia and Europe.” If the Asian market absorbs the supply to feed its air conditioning networks, Europe will be left without cheap alternatives to cover its own summer demand peaks, and with tanks at less than half capacity. The consulting firm’s forecast for Spain is severe: if China breaks into the purchasing market, the electricity bill for July and August could rise to the range of 88 to 95 euros per megawatt hour. This represents an increase of up to 40%, which “would be equivalent to paying double what was paid in 2019.” A truce with an expiration date We have managed to avoid the precipice thanks to the inertia of pre-war inventories, a historic deployment of emergency reserves and the forced reconfiguration of the global market. If diplomacy triumphs, Blas explains how the intact infrastructure of the Gulf would allow 50% of production to be recovered in a matter of days. However, trusting economic stability to an imminent diplomatic agreement is a dangerous game. Emergency reserves are not infinite and the capacity to cushion shocks has a limit. The world has shown astonishing resilience in surviving without its main oil route, but the armor is cracking. If the situation continues and summer demand tightens, the apocalypse that we avoided in spring could arrive in the form of unaffordable bills and an induced recession. The Hormuz bill, sooner or later, will have to be paid. Image | Unsplash 1 and 2 Xataka | Ukraine turned drones into hunters. A helicopter shot down in Hormuz has transformed them into a Spielberg film

One company tested the four-day work week. Now their workers think that the best thing is to work seven days

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Although in Spain Congress overthrew the proposal for the reduction of working hoursthe debate in Europe is more alive than ever and many countries are reconsidering their working day model with alternatives such as four day work week. Lumena small SEO services consultancy based in Cardiff, tested the four-day work week with outstanding results. However, its CEO considered that the idea could still be improved, so he decided to go one step further and test a model even more flexible: work seven days a week. From the four-day week to the 32-hour week. As Aled Nelmes, CEO of Lumen, told on your LinkedIn profilethe company had changed its four-day workday to a 32-hour workday. The difference may be negligible, implicit in this change is the elimination of an important barrier: the company will not impose whether its employees have to do those 32 hours in a certain number of days or at a certain time. It will be the employees themselves who decide when to work. According to its CEO, in 2023, Lumen implemented the four day work week. The results exceeded all expectations: staff turnover fell to zero, productivity increased, and employees felt more rested and engaged. According to Nelmes, “our workers reported being happier, having better health and being more productive.” According to a study published in the magazine Nature Human Behaviorscience agrees with the CEO. But the model could be improved. Seven days to complete your day. “The idea of ​​the 32-hour week is to go further in the flexibility that the four-day week offered us,” explained Nelmes. In the system proposed by Lumen, the only condition is that employees comply with their projects and objectives, managing their time with total autonomy. Nelmes clarified in statements to The Confidential that “what I require is a lot of self-discipline, the ability to concentrate, self-regulation, initiative and independence.” The company looks for workers capable of directing their own time and offering the best of themselves. “I think we micromanage our workers’ daily lives too much, we assume what kind of day they should have to be productive. My argument is that this is not the case, we do not know, and we need to delegate that decision to each individual,” the young manager highlighted to El Confidencial. The exception: meetings and training. According to what was published for him Financial Timesthe only exception to Lumen’s total flexibility is the time the company spends on team meetings in which mandatory projects and training are defined. Overall, the CEO assures that they do not exceed three hours per week. This guarantees team connection and coordination without sacrificing individual autonomy. For everything else, each of the employees distributes their work week with total work flexibility and no check-in or check-out times. Results and surprises. During the three months that this new flexibility model lasted, Nelmes observed that, in reality, employees did not make major changes to their schedules. The majority maintained routines similar to conventional ones, adapting only small details to enjoy personal activities. “People like to have routines and structure, so many… still prefer to move within a standard schedule,” the CEO explained to The Confidential. Flexibility had been limited to adapting their work schedule to certain personal activities (playing sports, medical appointments, etc.) or to coincide with your children’s schedulesand then recover that time at another time of the week. According to Nelmes, the most extreme case is that of one of his employees, who took advantage of this flexibility to adjust her days of rest during the week according to the weather or her personal needs. Then, I worked on Sunday, because that was the time when found greater concentration and fewer interruptions. Flexibility with clear values ​​and limits. As has counted the CEO, this model does not imply total disconnection from the company. Lumen takes great care in selecting its equipment to ensure that everyone shares commitment values and responsibility. “We wouldn’t hire someone who only wanted to work 16 hours in two days,” Nelmes says. In fact, the manager assures that they have had to let go of people who did not adapt to this level of freedom and demand. The goal is to allow employees to have enough flexibility in their workday to fulfill themselves as people and take care of their familieswhich also helps them save on daycare, cleaning or extracurricular activities. According to Nelmes, “if you let your employees be good parents, they will also be good employees.” The company especially seeks to attract fathers and mothers, convinced that flexibility improves both productivity and quality of life. An adaptable model, but not for everyone. Although the manager assures that the results obtained by his staff have been positive, he recognizes that this model is not viable or for all companies nor for all sectors. Consulting companies, banks, law firms or marketing companies can benefit from this approach as they allow the flexibility of teleworking to be combined with organization by objectives. However, it recognizes that it is an option that is difficult to implement in sectors such as the manufacturing industry, construction, hospitality or tourismwhere physical presence and fixed hours are inherent to the nature of the work. In any case, the results were so satisfactory that Lumen adopted this model permanently. A version of this article was published in June 2025 In Xataka | Spain already has its first municipality with a four-day work week. It is not in Madrid or Barcelona, ​​but in a corner of Cádiz In Xataka | Three Spanish companies tell us how they fared after implementing a work utopia: the four-day week Image | Lumen

Russia thought kyiv would fall within days. Four years later, the war in Ukraine has just “passed” the First World War

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In 1914, millions of Europeans they were convinced that the war would end before Christmas. In fact, the expression “home by Christmas” became popular between soldiers and civilians who believed that the conflict would be rather brief. It ended up lasting more than four years and transforming Europe forever. More than a century later, the Ukrainian war has already grown longer. From days to historical milestone. When Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022, the Kremlin expected a swift campaign that would culminate in the fall of kyiv within days. More than four years later, the reality is exactly the opposite: the war has reached the 1,569 days duration and has already officially surpassed to the First World War. What began as an operation designed to quickly overthrow the Ukrainian government has transformed into one of the longest and most consequential conflicts in recent European history, to the point that many Ukrainians they contemplate with concern another historical threshold even more distant: the duration of the Second World War. The inevitable comparison with 1914. The historians warn that comparisons with world wars have obvious limits due to the differences in scale, number of countries involved and volume of casualties. However, they consider that the war in Ukraine shares enough features with the First World War to become its closest parallel in more than a century. Both began lightning offensives aimed at achieving a decisive victory within a few weeks. Both the German advance to Paris in 1914 like the Russian push towards kyiv in 2022 came close to achieving their initial objectives before being stopped and forced to retreat. The return of trench warfare. After the failure of the initial offensives, both conflicts drifted towards long static fronts where artillery dominated the battlefield. The images from the trenches of eastern Ukraine quickly evoked scenes from France and Belgium during the Great War. Soldiers barely separated a few hundred meterscontinuous bombardments and small infantry assaults became the daily routine. The firepower forced combatants to bury themselves underground to survive, reproducing a pattern that seemed to belong definitively to the past. Drones change the rules. The main difference between both wars came from the air. The drones profoundly transformed the battlefield and ended up making even traditional trenches vulnerable. Permanent surveillance from the sky and the ability to attack with precision forced the replacement of long defensive lines by small scattered sheltersdifficult to detect and more resistant to attacks. In many areas, any open-air movement can be located and attacked in a matter of minutes, turning large areas of the front into veritable death zones controlled by unmanned systems. Tanks, bunkers and dispersal. Technological evolution has also reduced the prominence of some weapons that for decades symbolized modern warfare. Tanks, feared during the early stages of the invasion, have become on easy targets for drones and they appear less and less near the line of contact. Meanwhile, soldiers invest enormous efforts in building shelters each time more sophisticated and profound. Some bunkers incorporate specific designs to absorb explosions and increase the chances of survival, reflecting the extent to which physical protection is once again a vital issue in an attritional conflict. Destruction reminiscent of the last century. Although the casualty figures They are very inferior Like those of the First World War, the visual devastation is eerily familiar. Destroyed forests, towns reduced to ruins and fields covered in craters constantly appear in images captured by reconnaissance drones. Various military analysts hold that the lethality of the Ukrainian front is close to that of the great battles of a century ago, not because of the absolute number of deaths but because of the constant danger faced by those fighting on the front lines. Stagnation and the search for a way out. The slow pace of progress illustrates the nature of the conflict. In some recent operations, Russian forces have progressed at a pace even slower than that recorded in some of the most stagnant battles of the First World War. With negotiations practically paralyzed, neither side has yet found a formula to break the balance. Ukraine tries to weaken Russian economic capacity through attacks against energy infrastructures and oil companies while flooding the front with thousands of attack drones, seeking to impose unsustainable costs on the adversary. The final paradox is that a war that began with the promise of quick victory increasingly looks like to the Great War: a prolonged struggle of attrition, marked by technology and with no clear end in sight. Image | Ministry of Defense of Ukraine In Xataka | The drone war has left a clear lesson for Ukraine: you can’t leave home without a 100-year-old machine gun In Xataka | In case there was not enough “gasoline” in 2026, the attack by a Russian drone has crossed a red line: that of Chernobyl

In two days, on Netflix, the first stop-motion film made in Mexico arrives with the seal of Guillermo del Toro

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There are projects that are literally made with a lifetime’s savings. ‘I’m Frankeldathe first stop motion animated feature film produced entirely in Mexico and which comes with the seal of Guillermo del Toro’s production, comes to Netflix this June 12 with more than one hundred hand-built puppets, four years of craftsmanship. The beginning of its story dates back to 2021 and a semi-unknown anthology miniseries. It was in that year when the Mexican studio Cinema Fantasma, founded by brothers Arturo and Roy Ambriz, premiered on HBO Max (not available in Spain) ‘The Hidden Scares of Frankelda’, a stop motion anthology miniseries starring a ghost writer who tells horror stories to children. The success of the series led to the jump to feature length, initially as a 30-minute special, which grew to become a two-hour film. The Ambriz brothers ended up financing the production with their own savings. We will meet Francisca Imelda in 19th century Mexico, a writer of horror stories whose texts are ignored and dismissed by those around her. Forced into silence, she adopts the pseudonym Frankelda and continues writing until a tormented, supernatural-looking prince, Herneval, guides her on a journey into her own subconscious. Turned into a ghost, she discovers that The monsters he invented have come to life and threaten the balance between fiction and reality.. Just like explained Roy Ambriz: “When Mary Shelley published her books, she had to do so under the name of her husband, Percy Shelley. So we asked ourselves: how many Mary Shelleys would there have been in Mexico?” After seeing a provisional montage, Del Toro congratulated the creators and sponsored the project. The director was already in contact with the brothers since 2015 and the short film ‘Revoltoso’, which he produced. In ‘Soy Frankelda’ he served as creative advisor. It is a role in which the director fits perfectly, since he not only won the Oscar with his own version of ‘Pinocchio’ for Netflix, but he has supported the art of stop motion in very diverse ways, such as with the creation, together with the platform and the Parisian animation school Gobelins, of a stop-motion studio-laboratory. In Xataka | Today on Netflix, 6 seasons of a brutal and fast-paced action series with an impeccable score

This is how he arrived eleven days ahead of schedule to his first big stop

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The tunnel boring machine Mayrit This Tuesday, he crossed an important checkpoint in his journey to leave everything ready for expand line 11 of Metro Madrid. And it has burst into the gap of the future Madrid Río station, on Paseo de Yeserías, thus completing the first major geological section of the work, which is the crossing under the Manzanares River and the M-30 tunnels. The Minister of Housing, Transport and Infrastructure of the Community of Madrid, Jorge Rodrigo, was present at the event to receive the machine. At a good pace. At around 5:30 p.m., Mayrit starred in the cale, the technical name given to the moment when the two excavation fronts (the one that starts in Comillas and the one carried out from the Madrid Río side) meet and are aligned. Just like they count From La Razón, first came a dull noise from the bowels of the earth, then some loose stones and, finally, the impact of the cutting head breaking the station screen. Rodrigo celebrated it as “a moment of joy and pride,” according to the media. The breakdown also occurred eleven days earlier than expected. Numbers. Mayrit began its journey on March 26 from the future Comillas station, in Carabanchel, and in just over two months it has excavated 1,116 meters of tunnel, equivalent to 21% of the total planned for this branch. In its progress, it has installed 656 concrete rings, each one formed by seven rhomboidal-shaped voussoirs, which constitute the definitive covering of the gallery. As well as point El Diario, to cross under the M-30 and the Manzanares, the machine had to descend following the maximum admissible slope in railway infrastructure, around 35 thousandths, and ascend again until reaching the level of the station. Why has it gone faster than expected. The average pace has been about 15 meters per day, with peaks of up to 35 meters at the most favorable times. The general director of Infrastructure of the Community of Madrid, Miguel Núñez, explained that the key has been the soil: peñuelas clay, a soft material that can be found in the underground of Madrid and that behaves “very well” under the pressure of the tunnel boring machine. “We have doubled the theoretical yields because the geological characteristics of the soil, the latest generation machinery, and the segment rings that we have changed have made it reliable and safe to advance at that speed,” counted Núñez in statements collected by Europa Press. The change in the design of the voussoirs also helped, which became more rhomboidal in shape to improve fit and installation speed. Qtechnical plowing. For the next two weeks, the machine will remain housed in the future Madrid Río station. And this Tuesday only the head has arrived, since the remaining 98 meters of the tunnel boring machine will finish entering in the coming days. The idea is that it undergoes an in-depth review. Technicians will replace the most worn cutting head tools, check all computer and structural systems, and get the machine ready for the next leg. The next stage is the longest. Once reviewed, Mayrit will head to the Palos de la Frontera station, its next stop, 1,613 meters away, which is the longest stretch between two stations in the entire expansion. The Ministry’s forecast is that it will arrive there before the end of the summer. Then it will continue towards Atocha and, finally, Conde de Casal, which is the end point of the branch. In total, Mayrit still has more than 4,100 meters ahead of the 5,227 planned between Comillas and Conde de Casal. The seasons. In addition to the front of the tunnel boring machine, it should be noted that the works at the Comillas, Madrid Río and Palos de la Frontera stations are around 70% completed, while Atocha is at 50%. According to they count from 20 Minutos, Madrid Río, specifically, has three levels that reach more than 20 meters deep. The overall progress of the entire work now exceeds 45%. The project in perspective. This section is just one piece of a much larger scheme. As already we have reviewed other times, the investment in this phase exceeds 740 million euros and Line 11 is designed to become the great diagonal of the Madrid Metro network: 33.5 kilometers from Cuatro Vientos to Valdebebas, with 20 stations, connecting points such as Atocha, the airport or the future Formula 1 circuit in Ifema. The total investment in the project exceeds 2.5 billion euros and the works will be carried out in phases until 2031. The General Director of Infrastructure estimates that the complete excavation will take between 13 and 14 months, which would place the end of drilling around May or June 2027. Cover image | Metro Madrid and Community of Madrid In Xataka | Spain and Morocco have been dreaming of a tunnel under the Strait for 40 years. The great enemy of the project is called Umbral de Camarinal

They have five days to open themselves to rivals

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If there is something that the European Commission does not like at all, it is that technology companies use their power to create monopolies. It takes years actively fighting these practices with chases and historical fines. The objective is to promote competition and when Meta introduced your AI chatbot on WhatsApp, came under the scrutiny of the Commission. Now, have taken a historic decision: order Meta to open WhatsApp to any rival chatbot. And that opens the door, for example, for a Mistral or a ChatGPT to sneak into WhatsApp. In short. This Tuesday, June 9, the European Commission ordered the American giant to restore free access to WhatsApp for competing AI assistants. It is about reversing a situation that Meta has been making more and more complicated for the competition since October 2025. Today, we require Meta to restore access to WhatsApp for competing AI assistants while we investigate whether the restrictions may infringe EU competition rules – Teresa Ribera, European Commission Previously, other companies had access to the WhatsApp API, but Meta changed its conditions to block rival AI services on the platform, something that began to be applied on January 15 of this year. Their own AI chatbot had arrived and they didn’t want anyone stepping on their toes. The Commission did not begin to investigate this out of nowhere, but as a result of complaints from several AI assistant companies who reported that Meta was taking advantage of its position of power and dominance of messaging platforms to ‘sneak’ a single chatbot to everyone: its own. Historical. Meta has five business days to restore that access to rivals and, almost as important as the measure for the user (who will be able to choose which AI system they use in WhatsApp), is the way in which it has been taken. Because it represents the first antitrust precautionary measure that the European Union establishes since 2019 because the investigation has not really ended. The competition commissioner of the European Union, Teresa Ribera, pointed out that this precautionary order is necessary so that competition between companies is fair in these rapidly evolving markets. He assures that, if such a measure is not taken, the damage would be “almost impossible to repair” and assures that they continue to review whether the restrictions that Meta applied may violate EU competition laws… or not. That is to say, the European Commission has been investigating this case for six months and they are not finished, but they have already made the decision to order WhatsApp to open its API. Meta’s Response. Not only the European Commission got involved: Meta was already being investigated for the same reason by the Italian competition authority. Since then, the company has taken some actions to prevent an order like this from arriving, offering access to its rivals for a fee and, just a few weeks ago, offering free access to the API up to a certain threshold and, when they exceeded it, starting to charge for its use. Neither the complainants nor the Commission accepted these measures because they considered that, in practice, it was exactly the same as what Meta was already applying: it was not free access, but, in addition, you had to pay to join the platform. “This will allow free access to OpenAI and some of the largest companies in the world. It is a regulatory overreach subsidized by the many European companies that pay” – Meta Spokesperson Obviously, Meta is not amused by this situation one bit, pointing that the EU is using its power to allow some of the world’s largest companies to use its (paid) WhatsApp Business product for free. They claim that Europe is playing along with OpenAI. Whistleblowers, such as The Interaction Company, do seem satisfied. Now…what. Well there are three options. Or Meta relents and opens its API so that anyone can enter WhatsApp as an AI chat (like when Google in its browser It asks us which search engine we want to use by default Instead of assuming we want yours, go) or pay a fine. That fine is not small: up to 10% of your global annual turnover if you do not comply with these provisional measures. The third option is for Meta to appeal the precautionary order before the courts of the European Union. The Apple thing. As we say, the decision of the European Commission is historic because it is a precautionary measure while they ensure that they must continue studying the case. They give Meta only five days to open its tools and let the competition ‘sneak’ into their home and then to wait to see if the decision is ratified or if the Commission backs down. In any case, it is something that comes just when Apple has once again raised its tone against Europe after the presentation of the new Siri AI by announcing that many of its functions will not be available on iPadOS 27 and on iOS 27 due to EU antitrust policies. But, as with Meta, it is not a fight for privacy (as Apple wants to sell), but rather one for control of its platform and its product so that there is no competition and no one else can play. In Xataka | No, WhatsApp Meta AI cannot be deactivated, but this way you can make it bother you as little as possible

A Renfe train was left without air conditioning at 40ºC. 1,056 days later, an affected person has just collected her money

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How much would you fight for the refund of 31.90 euros? Macarena LE, a resident of a town in Teruel, is clear: three years, if necessary. And that is how long it has been behind Renfe for it to refund the price of a ticket between Zaragoza and Barcelona. The reason? The car’s air conditioning. Evident, due to the non-existent air conditioning of the car. What has happened? A Renfe user named Macarena LE, a member of Facua, has gotten the money back for a train ticket she took three years ago. The company had promised that it would do so with each and every one of the people who took that train, but the money never appeared in the user’s bank account. a little odyssey. Despite telling them that they would return the money to the passengers, the amount never arrived so after a few weeks, the affected person filed a claim, they explain in Facua. With no news about it after three months, he decided to put himself in the hands of the legal service of the consumer defense association. Once reaching this point, the association filed a new claim. To this complaint, Renfe responded that it gave the order to return the money but it still did not arrive. After another four months, Facua files a new complaint and Renfe assures him that it has tried to refund the money but that the procedure has been rejected on two occasions. At that moment, Renfe instructs Macarena LE to receive the money through a payment platform. This method also being impossible and the months accumulating, Facua sends a third claim to Renfe in which they simply ask it to deposit the money into the bank account of the affected person, attaching the document that proves its ownership. Three years after taking that train, the associate has ended up receiving her 31.90 euros. A trip… complicated. And, once seated, they assure in Facua that the conductor informed the passengers that the air conditioning was broken and that their travel money would be refunded in compensation for the inconvenience caused. But the journey between Zaragoza and Barcelona had an added problem: July 18 with departure at 3:52 p.m. and arrival at 5:20 p.m. That day maximum temperatures of 44 degrees were reported. Obviously, the heat must have been oppressive inside and the affected person claims that they had to drink water constantly to get through the trip in the best possible way. The expected quality. Due to the numerous claims filed by Facua, and beyond the fact that the money was not returned until three years later, Renfe never fought not to return the money. Instead they admitted that they would send the money back for “not having offered the service with the quality levels” expected. However, the fulfillment of the procedure itself does not seem to have had the expected quality either. And Facua pointed out to Renfe that they were failing to comply with article 21.3 of the Royal Legislative Decree 1/2007, of November 16according to which: “Employers must respond to the claims received in the shortest possible time and, in any case, within a maximum period of one month from the presentation of the claim.”. When Facua presented this second claim in which this regulatory text was recalled, Renfe had not given a response or paid the corresponding money for four months. What if it happens to me? That Renfe has returned the money to a passenger sets a precedent but does not automatically lead the company to return the money in the event of an air conditioning breakdown. In its rules, Renfe states that the traveler has the right to receive compensation for the cancellation of the trip, for its interruption, for a lack or deficiency in the service provided on board or for delay, but it makes it clear that such compensation will not be carried out if: The reason is an extraordinary circumstance unrelated to railway operation, such as extreme weather events (a storm that leaves a train without heating in winter, for example) or natural disasters. Nor if the breakdown or problem was caused by the behavior of the traveler. Nor if it is the damage caused by a third party outside the railway company that causes the incident (people on the track, copper theft, sabotage… etc.) That is to say, the mere absence of air conditioning does not automatically imply that the passenger’s money will be returned. What has happened will have to be taken into account to decide whether the company is obliged to act in this way. Photo | Nelson Silva In Xataka | The Madrid Cercanías have become a nest of problems and delays: their solution is new “megatrains”

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