free

The best websites to download free applications and other software safely

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We bring you a small list with the 14 best websites to download applications and programs safelyso you can find the tools you need for your computer. Some pages of this type can end up playing tricks on you by installing programs that you did not want without your permission, so it is a good idea to have on hand those that are safe and recommended. Here, the recommendation is always download the programs from the official website as far as possible. But sometimes, when you want to install more than one or want to find different types of tools, it can also be useful to turn to third-party repositories, and sometimes even the developers themselves may upload their tools there. GitHub We start with GitHub, which continues to be one of the reference portals to find and download open source projects. Its goal is to offer a platform for developers to upload their creations, which can range from tools to games. On the Github pages you will find the source code of these creations, so that everyone can freely access them. In the profiles of most programs uploaded to Github repositories you can also find download sectionswhere you can download the source code or installer of each application or tool. They are clean and safe installers, controlled directly by the developers, who are the ones who decide to offer their program for free. SourceForge It is, together with Github, the other great platform for hosting open source programs. In it, developers will be able to show the rest of the users the code of their tools, and you will also have a download section to download them on the platforms for which they are compatible. It has a voting and comment system so you can see the opinion of other users about each of the projects, and a search engine so you can find the one you need. In addition, in the file for each program you have its license, the list of updates, screenshots and everything you need. AlternativeTo This website has been a great reference for years for those who want find applications similar to others. Come on, if you want an alternative to a certain application, search for that program and it will show you a list of all those that are similar. In both the reference app and the alternatives you will have sheets that tell you about them, and links for downloads. They do not host the programs, they take you to the links of their official websites, notifying you if there is any warning that the tool has recently contained a virus. European Alternatives This is another page where you can find alternatives to popular applications and services, but it focuses on offer you European alternatives. Thus, if for your privacy you prefer to search European alternatives to browsers, office services or social networks, this is the portal to visit. Ninite Ninite It has been one of the most recommended websites for downloading applications for a few years, especially when you need to download several at once and don’t want to have to deal with dozens of downloads. Ninite offers you a single installer to install multiple applications at once selected by you. This makes it an essential portal to equip new computers. Its repertoire of applications is small, but just by entering the website you can see a list with all the available tools organized by categories. So you just have to choose the applications you want to installand then the website will generate a link for you to download them all. MajorGeeks This is a website specialized in the dissemination of freeware, which is what proprietary software is called that, without having to have open source, decides to disseminate completely free of charge. This means that it is the creators themselves who have decided to distribute it for free. All programs offered are of high qualityalthough the catalog is not very extensive. The appearance of the page is old, but keeps updating with great frequency. In addition, this design also means that you can access it from any device. You will install all the applications easily without an installer that tries to sneak in additions. APKMirror All the websites that we have told you so far are designed for computer applications. But this is the most important website to download Android apps. It is the best repository of APK files that you are going to find, although I already warn you that sometimes browsing it is a little confusing due to the lot of advertising it has. The website of this service has an index with the latest app updates, and also a search engine and a category system in which you can discover new applications or games. In addition, you can also find to download the different versions that the same application has had. F-Droid Possibly this is the great alternative to APKMirror when it comes to offering you installable files for your Android mobile. It is another of the pages where you will find the same apps as in the official application stores, but also other completely free ones that are not in them. Flathub This is the reference application store for those looking for Flatpak apps for GNU/Linux. On this website you will find the latest versions of your favorite Linux applications, which They will work for any distribution that you are using. SnapFiles A repository to download all types of applications, with different categories for different types of free app licenselike one for freeware and another for shareware. It also gives you a list of latest releases and some useful app suggestions so you can discover new programs. It also includes a category for portable applications that do not require installation, something useful if you want to carry the most useful ones on a USB. In addition, it also has a list of the best rated ones. In each program you will be able to see … Read more

Tim Ferriss has been selling productivity tips for years that ChatGPT now gives away for free

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sell books it was already difficult before AI. Now it is starting to get almost impossible. This is exactly what Tim Ferriss, productivity guru and author of historical bestsellers such as ‘The 4-Hour Work Week’ or ‘The Perfect Body in 4 Hours’, is confessing. This writer has made a analysis of sales evolution of his catalog and his conclusions are shocking. 80% drop in sales. Relying on official data from BookScan and Publishers Weekly By the start of 2026, Ferris has confirmed that sales of self-help and personal development books have taken a nosedive: Sales are 80% lower than before the explosion of generative AI. The reason is simple. I already have ChatGPT. For millions of people, the best format to learn how to optimize their time is no longer a 400-page book. Instead, they talk with a free chatbot that is in fact capable of condensing all that wisdom in just 20 seconds and that never stops encouraging us and adapting that knowledge to each of us. The data. According to Ferriss’ study, the first quarter of 2026 already points to worrying data, because it has detected a global decline of 9% in the adult non-fiction category. Things are even more serious for the self-help books and instruction books segment, which plummeted 26.3%. This writer’s conclusion is disturbing: in his opinion, the most powerful literary franchises on the market could be suffering a contraction of between 40 and 60% so far this year. Ferriss’ bestsellers aren’t such bestsellers anymore. Your own catalog It is a clear example of what is happening. Following the launch of ChatGPT in late 2022, its sales saw a slight decline of 5% in 2023 and 13% in 2024. The real problem came in 2025: sales of its books plummeted 46%, and the projected decline for 2026 is even greater and Ferriss estimates it will be 57%. If the current trend continues, this author’s books will sell 80% fewer physical copies this year than four years ago. Books 0 – ChatGPT 1. Ferriss pragmatically analyzes what is happening: works such as ‘The Perfect Body in 4 Hours’ or ‘Weapons of the Titans’ essentially function as decision trees. Until a few years ago, books of this type were a perfect way to package knowledge and advice, but in 2024, 2025 and 2026 users prefer a conversational, often free, interface that AI chatbots such as ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini provide transparently. Not only that: they adjust to our needs instantly, we can ask questions and the advice is more personalized than ever, something that a self-help book cannot achieve. YouTube videos, the next to fall. Literature dedicated to self-help therefore seems condemned according to Ferriss, who assures that there will also be an imminent collapse for YouTube video tutorials: there the AI ​​will filter the 40 useful seconds of a 20-minute video. In his opinion, something similar will happen with podcasts based on practical advice, online courses, newsletters and productivity and self-help blogs. Original content will not disappear, he says, but it will become increasingly difficult for the average user to access it directly. The trap of paywalls. Ferriss does not foresee a very encouraging future for the media either. “What happens when 99% of the fact-checking media is behind a paywall? The short answer: people bypass them and ask the AI.” Pew Research Statistics reveal that 83% of users have not paid for information in the last year, and only 1% end up paying when they hit a paywall. Readers who want to be informed are turning massively to social networks and increasingly to AI chatbots to bypass restrictions and offer them a summary of the protected article. Nuances are lost, immediacy and freeness are gained. The 1,000 real fans. For Ferriss, the situation has some salvation. In his opinion, the publishing sector will return to its origins and will be an increasingly smaller space in which the authors will search its “1,000 true fans” who seek the personal voice and tone of certain authors. The connection with those fans will theoretically sustain these businesses. Image | Shiromani Kant In Xataka | In Oslo there is a library where books are being written with one condition: that they not be read for 90 years.

Big Tech offers you up to 15 GB of free cloud storage. O2 Cloud makes them look ridiculous and gives 10 TB to its customers

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O2 customers are in luck. The operator communicated yesterday a fantastic change in your offer – so far O2 Cloud offered 1 TB of cloud storage included in that plan. Now that capacity is expanded dramatically, with customers now able to access 10TB of cloud storage. It is something amazing if we compare this offer with the space offered by default by Google, Microsoft or Apple, but there are some drawbacks. 10 TB “free”. Years ago, Movistar created Movistar Cloud as an option to create backup copies of your files, and that was striking from the first moment because it also the service’s storage space was theoretically unlimited. O2 Cloud joined that offer some time later, and did so initially with 1 TB of free space (included in the plan) which is now multiplied by ten. If you only have an O2 mobile, you also have 10 TB. Until now this offer was valid for fiber users (whether they also had mobile lines or not), but now O2 offers O2 Cloud with 10 TB of storage included to any user of its services: if you have an O2 mobile line, with or without fiber, you have 10 TB of O2 Cloud for free, included in the plan. Apps for Android and iOS. The service is intended to be a “Dropbox” or “iCloud” that constantly backs up your photos and videos to O2’s cloud storage space. Just install the android app or that of iOSconfigure it by registering for the service and that’s it: we will have those copies for free as we are O2 customers. In the image, the O2 Cloud interface from the web browser. We can view the photos directly there, and the operation is surprisingly fluid. Also on Windows or Mac desktop. It is also possible to use O2 Cloud to save images, videos or documents from a personal computer. I have tested it on my Mac, and it is possible to download the desktop client so that it works in the background: everything you put in the “O2 Cloud” folder will automatically be synchronized with the operator’s cloud storage space. Integrated image editor. This service seems especially designed to safeguard the photos on our mobile phone so that if we lose it or it is stolen, they will remain safe. But it is also a great service for viewing them (it runs very smoothly) and even editing them: the integrated editor offers some basic filters (Sepia, Gray, etc.) and also a few editing tools that give more added value to the solution. The integrated editor is limited, but it can get us out of a quick fix. Customize folders or albums. From there, it is possible to access and download content from our devices, and in O2 Cloud we can also create personalized folders or albums to organize photos and documents based on their theme, location, etc. O2 makes Big Tech look ridiculous. The O2 Cloud service is surprisingly generous, especially when compared to what big technology companies offer. Google offers 15 GB of free storage when you create an account, while Apple and Microsoft offer 5 GB. If you want more, you have to pay, and that’s where subscriptions to paid plans like Google One/Workspace come in, Apple iCloud+or Microsoft 365/Family. We have made a small comparative table, and it is clear that those 10 TB of O2 Cloud are a true gift for the operator’s customers. Ability Monthly price o2 cloud 10TB Included with Fiber/Mobile plan Apple iCloud+ 6TB 29.99 euros Google One 5TB 21.99 euros Microsoft 365 Family 6TB (Up to 6 users, 1 TB per user) 13 euros Dropbox 3TB 12 euros But Big Tech offers other things. It is important to note that it is understandable that big technology companies are so stingy with the free space they offer to users: with hundreds (or thousands) of millions of customers, offering more capacity would force them to grow extraordinarily in resources in their data centers. But in addition, payment services such as Google One, iCloud+ or Microsoft 365 are rather “multiservice” because mix storage with productivity tools, security and, in some cases, AI plans. But if you only had iCloud for photos… However, many users are forced to contract Apple iCloud+ or Google One to maintain that backup of your photos in the clouds of these companies and “everything just works.” The O2 Cloud proposal presents a fantastic alternative for these users, because they get the same thing without paying extra: the plan they have with O2 would already serve to enjoy this service. The integration of those services will always be superior to that of O2 Cloud, of course, but for that basic backup use, the alternative seems extraordinary. What happens if I leave O2?. There is no permanence in O2, but logically if we go to another operator, we will lose access to O2 Cloud. The company gives 30 days to download the files if you unsubscribe before deleting them, which of course gives the option to recover all that data and save it, for example, on an external hard drive and then move it to another cloud service if we wish: there are no (unfortunately) tools or services that allow this “migration” from one cloud to another. Common Terms of Use. O2 Cloud has some terms of use and of privacy which are already common in this type of services. In O2 they explain for example that: “To manage some of the functions necessary to provide the service, we have contracted trusted suppliers who may have access to personal data, who will act as data processors and who will be contractually obliged to comply with their legal obligations as data processor, to maintain the confidentiality and secrecy of the information.” They also clarify that “some of the functions necessary to provide the service are contracted to data processors located outside the European Economic Area”, although they guarantee “an adequate level of protection of personal data”. The personal data … Read more

when AI doesn’t free you from work, but instead creates a new task that ends up exhausting you more

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Imagine that you hire someone to help you manage your email. Of course, the first week you have to explain to him how you like him filter messages and tell you the most urgent thing. The second week, you correct the mistakes he is making and, for the third week, you have to explain again what you already taught him the first week because he forgot the instructions. At the end of the month, you have a helper, but it takes longer than before because not only do you have to be aware of what he is doing, but you also have to manage your email. That is, in essence, what is happening right now with AI at work, according to the report. Work AI Index of the Glean Institute, carried out by researchers from the universities of Stanford, Berkeley and Notre Dame. According to their findings, employees spend an average of 6.4 hours per week making AI work. Almost one day of work lost every week. Time is not saved, it is transformed. 87% of workers who participated in the study acknowledge that they use AI at work. Of these, 75% affirm that AI makes them more productivesaving them approximately 11 hours per week with automation alone. However, only 13% of companies claim to obtain a real increase in productivity. The gap between what the individual perceives and what the companies’ results show is enormous, and the report has an explanation: those hours do not disappear, they are only redirected towards a new layer of work that no one was taking into account. The authors have called this new task botsitting (a play on words that translates as “bot care”) which consists of little more than “AI kangaroo” to give context to the tool, review errors in the results it generates, relaunch prompts that do not go well and clean up results that seem correct, but are actually full of invented data or hallucinations. As Rebecca Hinds, director of the Work AI Institute, describes, this guardianship is “often tedious and exhausting work”, which no one measures or rewards, so the time that AI saves ends up being a loan that you have to return a few hours later. Too many tools and context switches. The researchers highlight that part of this excess time spent using AI not only comes from reviewing its results but also from how each tool is used. 77% of respondents use multiple AI tools each week, and a third of participants combine four or more. Each jump from one app to another has a cost of time which is rarely countedbut that implies repeating the same instructions or rewriting the prompt on another system because the previous model did not deliver the expected result. Nearly half of workers (46.5%) have to jump between two or more AI tools to complete a single task. Researchers call it the “toggle tax”, the cognitive tax of constantly changing context. Harvard Business Review already calculated the cognitive cost of changing applications and the consulting firm McKinsey calculated that workers waste an average of almost two hours a day searching for information between tools, inboxes and chats. AI, which is sold as the panacea of ​​productivityhas only added a new layer to that chaos instead of reducing it. Of the botsitting to the botshitting. The study found that when the worker spends too much time fixing AI bugs and maintains its delivery deadlines, begins to skip reviewing the results, generating something that the report has called botshitting or “bot crap” which would be delivering work generated by AI without having previously verified. 69% of the participants admitted to having done this at least on occasion. The consequences go beyond the quality of the work itself, when that content reaches the next link in the production chain. without anyone having reviewed itsomeone who did not produce it you have to clean it. That is, both the cost and the time are transferred to another person, but you don’t save that much as it seems. To no one’s surprise, more AI doesn’t solve the problem. Bob Sutton, professor emeritus at Stanford and founding member of the Work AI Institute who produced this report, has pointed out On other occasions, one of the solutions usually taken from management positions when a process generates friction is to add more of that element. In this case, trying to solve a problem of misuse of AI…with more AI. The data in the report suggests that the organizations that are ahead are not those that use AI the most. They are those that have built what the authors call “human infrastructure.” 53% of workers say that the information they need does not come through their AI systems. In companies where it does arrive, employees are 64% less exhausted and are 52% less likely to deliver works that have not been reviewed. In Xataka | OpenAI assures that AI has not had that much impact on employment. Anthropic believes just the opposite and therein lies the problem Image | Unsplash (Flipsnack)

The EU puts an end to some of the most desperate airline practices. The fact that the carry-on suitcase is free is really not one of them.

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Thirteen years after the European Commission opened the reform process, the European Parliament and the EU Council They have closed a political agreement to give a twist to the issue of the rights that passengers have when getting on a plane. The current rule dated back to 2004. At that time, Ryanair transported about 23 million travelers a year. Today it moves more than 180 million. The world has changed a lot since then, and regulation will have to too. We tell you all the details. Why has it taken so long? The European Commission launched the reform proposal in 2013. The European Parliament positioned itself relatively earlybut the Council, where the national governments are, blocked the file for almost a decade. There were several discrepancies, including delay thresholds for compensation, which some states wanted to raise; the issue of regulatory burden on the plane, and more. What has ended up unblocking the process has been in part the calendar. And in July the presidency of the EU Council changes hands to Ireland, which is precisely the headquarters of Ryanair. And so, according to sources cited by El Mundowould have complicated the negotiations even more. What changes for the passenger. The agreement introduce several measures Important for those who buy a plane ticket in Europe: Carry-on suitcase in the base rate. Airlines must show from the first moment of purchase a price that includes the transportation of a trolley-type cabin suitcase (up to 7 kg and maximum dimensions of 100 cm in total). This measure is the one that most affects the low-cost business model, which For years they have started from the lowest price and then add extras. Now the starting point will include the luggage. And those who do not want to take it can opt for a reduced rate. Always free personal item. The right to board the plane with a small piece of luggage (a backpack or bag of up to 40x30x15 cm that fits under the front seat) will be guaranteed at no additional cost, regardless of the contracted rate. Families and people with reduced mobility, together without paying more. Airlines will not be able to charge for ensuring that minors under 14 years of age travel seated with an adult companion. The same applies to people with disabilities or reduced mobility and pregnant women. End of some lower rates. Charges for correcting spelling errors in the name on the ticket or for printing the boarding pass disappear if the passenger has already checked-in. Delay compensation, unchanged. This has been the other major front of the negotiation. The threshold of three hours of delay to be entitled to compensation remains intact. The amounts too, paying 250 euros for flights of up to 1,500 km, 400 euros for journeys between 1,500 and 3,500 km, and 600 euros for the rest. What’s wrong with the suitcase?. Regulation around cabin baggage has been a constant tug-of-war for years. The European Parliament came to the negotiations asking for carry-on luggage to be included in the ticket free of charge and universally. It has not completely succeeded, since airlines will be able to continue charging for this service, but they must reflect its cost and make it visible from the beginning of the purchase process. Javier Gándara, spokesperson for the Association of Airlines (ALA), which brings together companies such as Iberia, Vueling, Ryanair and easyJet, account to El Mundo that the standard “does not respond to current needs and goes against consumer philosophy in recent years.” How airlines read it. The ALA employers’ association celebrates that Europe has recognized that “it is perfectly legal to offer a cheaper fare to those passengers who only carry a carry-on bag”, something that indirectly validates this business model against the sanctions imposed by the Government in Spain. But they criticize that forcing the cost of the suitcase to be included from the first price shown “distorts the principle of consumer choice” and can lead to many travelers “ending up paying for a service that they do not need.” For companies like Ryanair, services not included in the ticket generate more than 4,000 million euros annual in revenue, so it seems more or less inevitable that the airline will end up raising the cost of its base fare. And Spain?. The country has voted against the agreement in the Council, along with Latvia. Finland and Austria abstained. The Ministry of Consumer Affairs, led by Pablo Bustinduy, continues to maintain that the fact that hand luggage is free is a right already recognized by the Spanish courts and by a ruling from the Court of Justice of the EU, and that this criterion was what it was based on. that fine of 179 million euros imposed in 2024 on five low-cost airlines. Brussels, however, opened infringement proceedings against Spain for these sanctions. The new agreement does not resolve that conflict. And it is that the Ministry considers it insufficient because it has not really managed to force the airlines to include the cabin bag in their lowest fare, and the airlines now have a guarantee to strengthen their position. What remains pending. The political agreement must be formally ratified by the plenary session of the European Parliament, whose vote is scheduled for July. Once adopted and published in the Official Journal of the EU, the new rights will come into force twelve months later, expected in 2027. The Commission has also committed to assessing in three years whether the scope of the regulation can be extended to third country operators flying to the EU. Cover image | Suhyeon Choi In Xataka | The fastest civil aircraft since Concorde has just set its first record. Speed ​​is only part of the story

It is the most faithful recreation of a Viking battle in history, in a film that you can watch for free on streaming this week

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There is a sequence in sensational viking epic ‘The man of the north where the attackers move in columns, not in lines, as the Vikings actually fought. Any other production would have ignored that detail, but its director Robert Eggers remained faithful to reality. Now you can check it out for free and until June 19 on the platform RTVE Play. Historian William Short analyzed the combat in the film, evaluating how faithful the film’s depiction of battles was, and gave it a 9 out of 10 for historical accuracy, recognizing that the depth of Eggers’ research is reflected in the attention to these types of details. From Viking combat techniques to the credibility of the costumes, weapons and rituals of the time. For comparison, Short was much less generous with the 1958 classic ‘The Vikings’ with Kirk Douglas, to whom he gave just a 5 out of 10 for historical accuracy. Short’s starting point was precisely that battle formation in columns: the Vikings did not advance in long lines along the battlefield, and in the film three very characteristic advancing columns are distinguished. But his successes go further: Short also examined the figure of berserker played by Alexander Skarsgårdand although the nature of the berserkers remains somewhat mysterious, sources document that they went into a battle frenzy, howling like wolves and biting at their shields. As for the language, Eggers did not opt ​​for the usual English in these productions. He worked with Icelandic linguist Haukur Þorgeirsson to reconstruct Old Norse in ritual scenes and chants, taking poems written in medieval Iceland and reinterpreting them into what would have been the pronunciation of his time. In short: a must-see film for devotees of Nordic culture that is worth claiming, especially considering that it was a failure at the box office with just 69.6 million in worldwide receipts. In Xataka | Today on Netflix: the first stop-motion film made in Mexico arrives with the seal of Guillermo del Toro

The Free Plan for 4.99 euros looks better and better (and can be shared)

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Throughout the year, we have talked to you about Movistar Plus when, for example, it has broadcast an important football match live, like the last Classic. It is true that LaLiga and the Champions League have already ended, but new releases continue to arrive on this platform that are worth it. In fact, between today and tomorrow they arrive two films that were nominated for the last Oscars. The best thing is that you can see them (and many other things) in the Free Plan that costs only 4.99 euros per month. Monthly subscription to Movistar Plus The price could vary. We earn commission from these links You can download whatever you want and watch it offline This Free Plan is identical to the one that Movistar Plus was offering and, beyond the price, there is only one difference between the two: the one that costs 4.99 euros per month does not include sports. This means that we have access to a huge catalog of movies, series and documentaries for very little, all taking into account that we can subscribe, whatever operator we are and without permanence. And being able to share the account with a friend or family member. Now, let’s talk about these new releases. The first movie to reach this platform is ‘F1: The Movie‘, starring Brad Pitt and winner of an Oscar award. This one will land today, June 12, and for the other we won’t have to wait too long: it’s about ‘The Secret Agent‘, which will arrive just tomorrow, Saturday. These two movies join a catalog where there are already several Oscar winnersas ‘The Sinners‘ either ‘Weapons‘. In addition, we also have the presence of films that triumphed at the Goya awards, such as ‘Sirat’ or ‘Los Domingos’. All rounded off by many original series such as the new ‘Many people have to die’ or documentaries with the presence of many true crime by Carles Porta. Finally, a couple of things to keep in mind. The first is that this Movistar Plus Free Plan also allows download what we want and watch it offline on a tablet or mobile phone, for example. This is great if you plan to travel this summer by plane or train, since it will make your trip more enjoyable. The other is that new releases will continue to arrive this June, such as ‘One battle after another‘ Some of the links in this article are affiliated and may provide a benefit to Xataka. In case of non-availability, offers may vary. Images | Espinof, Movistar Plus In Xataka | Movistar Plus activates its Free Plan with complete programs and a lot of content, regardless of which operator you are In Xataka | Less than five euros per month and without permanence: this is the new Movistar Plus plan that you can even share with a friend

Would you let them clean your house for free in exchange for filming it from top to bottom? This startup thinks you’ll say yes

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Your floor like the jets of gold down your face. In principle, this is how good the proposal sounds. shifta service launched in New York that offers comprehensive home cleaning services. Is it perhaps an NGO? Well no, the company does not charge in currency: an operator enters your house to the kitchen (literally) wearing a recording device that allows him to record his movements on video during the entire cleaning session. That video is then converted into training data for robotics and AI. In other words, the user does not pay with money, they pay with data. This exchange is not new by any means, but the saying “if something is free it is because the product is you” has gone from the screens to the most intimate part: your home. Clean your house and pay with your privacy. The mechanism is direct: a service in exchange for data. According to says Harry KilbergShift’s US CEO on his X/Twitter profile, upon your request, the company sends a “verified” operator to clean up and leave. In exchange, it records the cleaning so that robotics companies have access to those movements and, through training, their units can replicate it. In other words, there is a camera monitoring the movements of the operator and in the background, your dirt, the rooms of your house and each and every one of your things that are visible and can be cleaned. The Service FAQ They detail that the recordings are anonymized before being processed and that they blur any information that could identify you. But of course, “anonymized” is not the same as private: There is research that shows that anonymized data is not so anonymized: it can be re-identified quite often when crossed with other sources. And in a house it is even easier: the distribution of space, objects and your routines They make up a unique image of you, your tastes and your habits.. Anonymizing the video does not eliminate that trace, it only hides it in plain sight. How does it work? shift Why is it important. Because the home has historically been the last stronghold of privacy. You may post photos of yourself having brunch on a terrace in Malasaña, but you might think twice before sharing your breakfast muffin in a cup of Mr. Wonderful with a cosque while wearing a threadbare robe with cheese stains from last night’s pizza. It is true that the fever of connected devices and wearables had reduced that redoubt, but Shift goes one step further: it is an active recording of the interior of private homes made by an outsider and that is expressly dedicated to a market. The company accumulates a huge amount of information about you: how you live, what you have, how you behave in private. In return, you have a vague idea of ​​what he does with your data and you don’t know who he sells it to or how he uses it. It is, in short, an imbalance of information from which there is no turning back. On the other hand and as Shift explains, home cleaning and its automation towards an eventual service carried out by robots is just the beginning: there will be an expansion towards home maintenance, repairs and errands. If the model scales, the volume of private indoor data that would be generated would be enormous, an asset as valuable as it is sensitive. Context. The closest examples of the digital attention economy are well known: Google and Facebook have built their respective empires by offering free services in exchange for behavioral data, only Shift takes it to the physical world, one step further, more intimate and more complex to revoke. Its business model is part of the trend of training robots by knowing how humans move and how we perform in real spaces, something that companies such as Figure AI either Physical Intelligence (Pi) because in reality, we are living in a race to obtain this information. How they do it. Its operation consists of three steps: verifying the operators, recording during service and anonymization before processing. The Shift project begins in New York and on its website it announces its presence in 15 countries (although it seems that it is more of a promise of deployment than a reality). Its beginnings are common in these times of social networks and virality: respond to the publication with “Shift” to receive early access and gain visibility. Of course, what is not publicly explained is the technical architecture behind data anonymization, which third parties receive the data, the security standards applied to the devices carried by the operators or the audit mechanisms (if they use them). Yes, but. In fact, as explained it would not meet the standards of the GDPR European (article 5 refers to the fact that any processing of personal data must be transparent, limited and justified). One of Shift’s slogans is: “You get a spotless apartment. We get training data. Everyone wins.” One thing must be given to the startup: it is honest from the beginning when it comes to making it clear that the recorded data is going to be commercialized. How many conditions of use of applications that we use daily are less clear when it comes to talking about the destination of the data. Of course, informed consent is weak precisely because of the opaqueness behind it and because of an obvious reality: a recording of your home is not a tweet and the consequences of sharing it are much more serious. In Xataka | Have I been Trained: how to know if your data and work has been used to train an artificial intelligence In Xataka | AI has become the best example that if you don’t pay for the product, you are the product Cover | shift with Gemini

Japan is desperate to revive its birth rate, so an idea is spreading across the country: free daycare

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For a long time in Japan there has been a more delicate issue than unemployment, tourist overcrowdingthe relationship with China either the weakness of the yen: babies. Or rather, the lack of babies. Despite his multiple (and costly) attempts to revive the birth rate, the country has been seeing for years how its demographic chronicle is filled with catastrophic headlines. The last one arrived last Marchwhen the Government confirmed that in 2025 births fell in the country for the tenth consecutive year to mark a new low historical. Faced with such a panorama, an idea is gradually gaining strength in the country: daycare open bar in a desperate attempt to encourage the population to have children. One figure: $142,000. a few months ago Mainichi Shimbunone of Japan’s leading newspapers, echoed from a curious survey by the National Center for Child Health and Development: how much it costs to raise a child in the country. According to their calculations, taking care of a boy or girl (at least the first one) up to the age of 18 costs $141,700, a figure that is close to $170,000 if extra expenses are included. If we go down to detail, at least in 2024 the raising of preschool children was between 5,800 and 7,200 dollars annual. That figure, added to other factors, such as cultural changes, difficulties in reconciling professional and family life or one’s own aging dynamics the nation has been plunged into, leading more and more Japanese to choose not to become parents. In 2025 they signed up only 705,809 birthsalmost 15,200 less than in 2024. Lightening the load. In view of these data and with the country immersed in a “silent emergency”Japanese society has been looking for ways to make parenthood more bearable for some time. A change in the labor model has been put on the table (betting on the four-day weekly), the ban of overtime in the office or ‘pro-birth’ programs millionaireswith government support per child comparable to Sweden. Some initiatives come from companies, others from regional governments or the central Executive, but they all basically seek the same thing: to make parenting more bearable and activate birth rates once and for all. One of the measures that has sounded the loudest in recent years is free preschool education. That is, allowing families to leave their little ones in daycare. without any cost. Not all experts share that economic aid policies are going to get Japanese demographics out of the hole (they point to much more structural reasons, such as changes at a social level); but they certainly show the importance that the authorities give to the issue. October 2019. One of the most important steps in that direction was taken by in 2019 the Government of Japan. As details The Children and Family Agency (CFA), since October of that year, attendance at kindergartens, nurseries and children’s centers is free for children between three and five years old. The program also includes the same facility for children under three, but as long as their homes comply certain conditions. Since then, other institutions have moved to fully cover that group, that of children between zero and two years old. “No time to waste”. The Tokyo Metropolitan Government has stood out in this effort. In 2023 It also began offering free childcare to children under two years of age. The only requirement, in a clear effort to encourage births, is that they have an older brother. In other words, the measure was limited to the second child onwards. In 2024, however, that coverage already knew little and the governor of the region, Yuriko Koike, advertisement that free birth would be extended to all children under two years of age (including first-born children) starting in September 2025. The idea, Koike stressed at the time, was to “continue promoting efforts to combat the low birth rate without sparing resources.” “There is no time to waste.” At the beginning of last fall BCNR echoed that the measure had already begun to be implemented in the Japanese capital. Setting an example. The most curious thing is that Tokyo has not been the only city that has decided to make it easier for families who want to expand. In early 2026, Urayasu, a town in Chiba Prefecture, advertisement also their plans to offer free daycare starting in April for children up to two years old. The idea was the same: to alleviate the financial burden of parents and, in the process, give a boost to the local birth rate. Your goal, according to Mainichiis to cover 55 schools in the city with an investment of almost four million dollars in 2026 and benefit 1,900 children. Is there more? Yes. With the birth rate indicators not rising and collapsing at a speed that even exceeds the worst forecasts of the experts, Japan has redoubled its bet. In April Kyodo revealed that the country has implemented a public system that allows children between six months and three years old to be left in daycare for ten hours a month. The initiative is important because several reasons. To begin with, it provides extra help to families with younger children, preschool age, regardless of whether or not they live in municipalities with similar programs. On this occasion, however, the Japanese authorities have wanted to go further: the measure does not take into account the employment situation of the parents, which also covers children of couples with an unemployed member, who until now faced certain limitations. Images | Design for Health by Ann Forsyth (Flickr) and Note Thanun (Unsplash) In Xataka | In a Japan in the midst of a birth crisis, an idea is gaining traction: late-night cafes for crying babies

There are different ways to get Movistar to put your new WiFi 7 router at home, although not all of them are free

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The router is usually one of those devices that stays at home for years, almost as part of the furniture. We only remember it when the WiFi fails or when we discover that there is a new model that promises to make everything a little better. Movistar already has that model: its WiFi 7 Router. And there begins the important question for many customers: if I already pay for fiber with the operator, can I simply request it? The short answer is that getting it is easy. Get it for free, not always. What the new router promises. Movistar does not only put a new WiFi label on the table. The operator assures that your router Wi-Fi 7 It allows up to 70% more traffic capacity, reduces latency by up to 50% and improves coverage by 10% compared to its predecessor. These are figures designed to explain a very specific scenario: homes where not only mobile phones and laptops are connected, but also televisions, cameras, home automation, consoles and other equipment that compete for the same network. Add to that 10 internal antennas, EasyMeshWPA3, one 10 Gbps high-speed port and three Gigabit Ethernet ports. The most direct route: 10 Gbps. Our colleagues from Xataka Móvil explain Hiring Movistar’s 10 Gbps fiber is the easiest way to get the WiFi 7 Router at no additional cost. It doesn’t matter if we are talking about a new registration, a portability from another operator or a client who is already in Movistar and decides to make the jump to that modality: in that case, the installation of the new equipment is included. The explanation is quite simple: the previous model only supports Wi-Fi 6. Not all highs play the same. The point that can cause confusion is that “being a new customer” is not always enough to get the included WiFi 7 Router. The equipment is incorporated free of charge into the new miMovistar convergent rate registrations from February 16, 2026, and the operator’s website It already shows it included in miMovistar unlimited with 1 Gbps fiber or in 600 Mbps fiber. But if the contract is for fiber only, 300 Mbps, 600 Mbps or 1 Gbps, the equipment included is Smart WiFi 6. The price of change. When the WiFi Router 7 is not included, the alternative is to buy it. Movistar sets two options: 60 euros If the client chooses the self-installable mode and 110 euros if you want the installation to be carried out by a technician. This is the scenario that applies to current customers with Smart WiFi 6 who want to change to the new model, but also to those who contract a rate where the equipment included is not WiFi 7. In both cases it can be ordered on the website, in store or through 1004. Images | Movistar In Xataka | After more than 20 years using Microsoft Office, I have switched to LibreOffice. Now I realize everything I’ve missed

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