invent

Doomsday. Disney’s response has been to invent its own IMAX

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On December 18, 2026, two of the most anticipated blockbusters of the last decade share release date. Warner Bros. has contracted exclusivity on all IMAX screens in the United States for ‘Dune: Part Three’ for three weeks. It is a vital space for the box office blockbusters of this type, so Disney, following Bender’s teachings on the moon from the legendary pilot episode of ‘Futurama’, decides to set up its own IMAX for ‘Doomsday‘. He called it Infinity Vision. The contract of evil. The key is in a contract signed before both premieres collided. Warner Bros. booked December 18, 2026 for ‘Dune: Part Three’ in June 2024, almost a year before Disney moved ‘Avengers: Doomsday’ on that same date. Under this contract, Villeneuve’s film has all IMAX screens blocked for three consecutive weeks starting December 18, leaving the Marvel film without access to that circuit in the US market. In favor of ‘Dune’. In addition to the contractual issue, there is an added topic: ‘Dune: Part Three’ has been filmed mainly with 65mm IMAX cameraswhile ‘Avengers: Doomsday’ has done so with IMAX certified digital cameras. For the IMAX standard, there is a difference: the 65mm negative produces a native image in the expanded format of the characteristic IMAX screens, which makes ‘Dune 3’ a more technically competent release. Something that IMAX will undoubtedly use as a selling ingredient. Despite insistent rumors, it seems that Marvel will not move the release date, and Kevin Feige confirmed it at CinemaCon. Infinity Vision arrives. It was there where Disney announced Infinity Vision as a new certification for premium rooms. This is a seal that will help the viewer “find the best screens in their area.” This rating refers to the largest possible screen sizes, laser projection for superior brightness and sharpness, and premium audio formats for an immersive sound experience. That is to say, about 75 certified rooms in the United States and more than 300 globally. What Infinity Vision is not. It is not a new format. It is simply a certification for rooms that already exist and can boast high-quality equipment. IMAX, with its characteristic aspect ratio of 1.43:1, is a different experience from traditional cinema, a space that Infinity Vision does not come out of, no matter how much it is applied to high-quality screens. The Infinity Vision certificate will start with the re-release of ‘Endgame’, as an appetizer before the arrival of ‘Doomsday’. Why IMAX matters. To understand why Disney has a problem, let’s look at the numbers. IMAX occupies less than 5% of the screens, but for large studio productions it represents between 15% and 25% of the collection of the first weekend. For example, ‘Dune: Part Two‘ grossed $81.5 million domestically and $178.5 million worldwide in its opening weekend, with premium formats (IMAX and 70mm) accounting for 48% of the total opening business. That is, almost half of the box office concentrated in a small percentage of the theaters. With ‘Oppenheimer’, IMAX generated 35 million global dollars in the premiere alone, 20% of the opening total. EITHER said by the CEO of IMAX himselfRichard Gelfond: the format has added 15% of the box office in premium releases during 2025. IMAX’s global revenues are on track to exceed $1.4 billion in 2026and ‘Dune 3’ is one of the main drivers of that growth. Disney, for its part, is the largest contributor to IMAX revenue among all the Hollywood studios, which gives an idea of ​​the volume of business that is at stake with ‘Doomsday’. The precedent. In 2025, Jurassic World Rebirth was one of the few big blockbusters that could not have a premiere in IMAX for scheduling reasons. Some analysts blame this for its somewhat weaker performance than other deliveries. Meanwhile, Warner has already reported that the 70mm IMAX screenings of ‘Dune: Part Three’ they have already sold out in 19 locations in North America and London. A panorama for ‘Doomsday’ that, although it does not point to problems for what will undoubtedly be one of the great assets at the box office this year, may have more than one anxious executive in the Disney offices. In Xataka | If you download ‘Torrente Presidente’, Santiago Segura has the same message for you as if you downloaded ‘Torrente 3’

invent the remote control before television

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Televisions change, technologies change, but there are interactions that last despite the passage of years, decades and even centuries. An example of this is the remote controller, which has historically allowed us to interact with devices from a distance, although what we currently know is very different from the first concept of remote control. Although televisions did not become more common in the last decades of the 20th century, the concept of the remote controller appeared much earlier. Specifically, in 1901. And a fact that you may not know is that one of the pioneers of the remote control was a Spaniard, the engineer Leonardo Torres Quevedo. The controller anticipated the televisions The history of the remote control dates back, as we said, to the first years of the last century. In 1903, the inventor, mathematician and engineer Leonardo Torres Quevedo (1852-1936) conceived, built and patented the first remote control in history. He called it Telekino, and as one might think It is far from the controls for televisions and other devices we see now. Miniaturization was not a reality until much later and the Telekino took up an entire table. Telekino in Abra. Image: Torresquevedo.org Of course, the Telekino was not created with the idea of ​​controlling televisions remotely, which in reality did not become a reality almost until the incorporation of the cathode ray tube (with the push from Telefunken and other manufacturers). The idea was to control airships without anyone being in danger in the tests, but finally he tried it with boats as they recalled in the written edition of The Country in 2007, when the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) recognized the invention by including it in its official list of milestones in the history of engineering. It was the first time that a Spanish creation became part of this list, in which we find inventions by Benjamin Franklin, Alessandro Volta and Guglielmo Marconi among others. Telekino, as you may have deduced, comes from TV (from ancient Greek, “far”, meaning “at a distance”, “remotely”) and kinein (also from the Greek, “movement”), by the way. IEEE Recognition Plaque. Image: YouTube We already talked about Telekino in Xataka precisely because of this historical recognition, also to remember that at the time it was not highly praised. In fact, Torres Quevedo himself would abandon the project as he did not receive sufficient support. The valuable legacy of Torres Quevedo One of the prototypes of the Telekino is located in the Torres-Quevedo Museum, in the Higher Technical School of Civil, Canal and Port Engineers of the Polytechnic University of Madrid. And thanks to a short (virtual) visit to that museum for the centenary of one of the Spanish engineer’s inventions we can discover more of them, also very relevant. Torres Quevedo is credited with nothing more and nothing less than the first Spanish airship, as well as the first ferry suitable for transporting people (or in other words, an open cable car for people). The invention was patented in 1887, and it would not be until 30 years later when it materialized, being launched on Mount Ulía in San Sebastián in 1907. Compensation also came in the form of international export, since the system reached neither more nor less than to Niagara Falls. Thus, the call Spanish Aerocar It continues to operate today in the well-known region and celebrated its centenary in 2016, having completed more than 10 million transports without recording incidents. Torres Quevedo was also a precursor of modern computing with his Ajedrecista, considered the first chess computer game, and the electromechanical arithmometer, a calculator accompanied by a typewriter, a precursor to digital calculators. In Xataka | In 1925, procrastination was already a problem and someone found the definitive solution: the isolation helmet. In Xataka | We have been fascinated for years by the geniuses who come up with revolutionary innovations out of thin air. It’s always been smoke This article was originally published on Xataka a few years ago, and we have recovered it from the archive.

In 1901, a Spanish man had one of the ideas of the century: invent the remote control before television

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Televisions change, technologies change, but there are interactions that last despite the passage of years, decades and even centuries. An example of this is the remote controller, which has historically allowed us to interact with devices from a distance, although what we currently know is very different from the first concept of remote control. Although televisions did not become more common in the last decades of the 20th century, the concept of the remote controller appeared much earlier. Specifically, in 1901. And a fact that you may not know is that one of the pioneers of the remote control was a Spaniard, the engineer Leonardo Torres Quevedo. The controller anticipated the televisions The history of the remote control dates back, as we said, to the first years of the last century. In 1903, the inventor, mathematician and engineer Leonardo Torres Quevedo (1852-1936) conceived, built and patented the first remote control in history. He called it Telekino, and as one might thinkIt is far from the controls for televisionsand other devices we see now. Miniaturization was not a reality until much later and the Telekino took up an entire table. Telekino in Abra. Image: Torresquevedo.org Of course, the Telekino was not created with the idea of ​​controlling televisions remotely, which in reality did not become a reality almost until the incorporation of the cathode ray tube (withthe pushfrom Telefunken and other manufacturers). The idea was to control airships without anyone being in danger in the tests, but finally he tried it with boats as they recalled in the written edition ofThe Countryin 2007, when the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) recognized the invention by including it in its official list of milestones in the history of engineering. It was the first time that a Spanish creation became part of this list, in which we find inventions by Benjamin Franklin, Alessandro Volta and Guglielmo Marconi among others. Telekino, as you may have deduced, comes fromTV(from ancient Greek, “far”, meaning “at a distance”, “remotely”) andkinein(also from the Greek, “movement”), by the way. IEEE Recognition Plaque. Image: YouTube We already talked about Telekino inXatakaprecisely because of this historical recognition, also to remember that at the time it was not highly praised. In fact, Torres Quevedo himself would abandon the project as he did not receive sufficient support. The valuable legacy of Torres Quevedo One of the prototypes of the Telekino is located in the Torres-Quevedo Museum, in the Higher Technical School of Civil, Canal and Port Engineers of the Polytechnic University of Madrid. And thanks to a short (virtual) visit to that museum for the centenary of one of the Spanish engineer’s inventions we can discover more of them, also very relevant. Torres Quevedo is credited with nothing more and nothing less than the first Spanish airship, as well as the first ferry suitable for transporting people (or in other words, an open cable car for people). The invention was patented in 1887, and it would not be until 30 years later when it materialized, being launched on Mount Ulía in San Sebastián in 1907. Compensation also came in the form of international export, since the system reached neither more nor less thanto Niagara Falls. Thus, the callSpanish AerocarIt continues to operate today in the well-known region and celebrated its centenary in 2016, having completed more than 10 million transports without recording incidents. Torres Quevedo was also a precursor of modern computing with his Ajedrecista, considered the first chess computer game, and the electromechanical arithmometer, a calculator accompanied by a typewriter, a precursor to digital calculators. In Xataka | In 1925, procrastination was already a problem and someone found the definitive solution: the isolation helmet. In Xataka | We have been fascinated for years by the geniuses who come up with revolutionary innovations out of thin air. It’s always been smoke (function() { window._JS_MODULES = window._JS_MODULES || {}; var headElement = document.getElementsByTagName(‘head’)(0); if (_JS_MODULES.instagram) { var instagramScript = document.createElement(‘script’); instagramScript.src=”https://platform.instagram.com/en_US/embeds.js”; instagramScript.async = true; instagramScript.defer = true; headElement.appendChild(instagramScript); – The news In 1901, a Spanish man had one of the ideas of the century: invent the remote control before television was originally published in Xataka by Anna Marti .

In 1932 Hedy Lamarr performed the first nude in film history. And then he went to invent WiFi

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Throughout its 85 years Hedy Lamarr He dedicated himself to chaining lives. First there was Hedwig Eva Maria Kiesler, the name her parents gave her when she was born in Vienna in 1914, and with which she became a gifted child and a pioneering actress: the first to appear naked from head to toe and fake an orgasm in a commercial film. For a few years she was also Mandl’s Lady, his wife and “slave” (as she herself would later define that stage). by the Viennese Fritz Mandla jealous, controlling and tyrannical magnate, who provided weapons to Hitler and Mussolini. Towards the end of the 1930s, in Hollywood, she became Hedy Lamarr, the name with which producer Louis B. Mayer baptized her and with which she would rise to fame. Already a diva of the cinema, she was the engineer Lamarr, who dedicated her nights to cultivating her side of inventor and managed to develop a key technology for the subsequent development of wireless communication of mobile phones, GPS or WiFi technology. Already in the last years of her life she had to assume the saddest role: she secluded herself in her mansion in Florida, obsessed with operating rooms, kleptomaniac and hooked on pills. How to improve WiFi at home The life in three acts of a woman who passed through the world as if she were playing her best and most demanding Hollywood role. Lamarr won the title of “most beautiful woman” of golden cinema and (already at the end of his days), when his technological contributions were echoed, he obtained numerous recognitions from the scientific community: the Pioner Award, from the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), or the Viktor Kaplan medal from the Austrian Association of Inventors and Patent Holders, among others. The date of his birth, November 9, has become International Inventor’s Day. Act one: the first nude in cinema The future Hedy Lamarr was born in Vienna, in 1914, with the name Edwig Eva Maria Kiesler. Theirs was a Jewish family, cultured and wealthy. His father was a prosperous banker from Lemberg and his mother, a pianist from Budapest raised Catholic. Since she was a child, she received a careful education that soon revealed her prodigious intelligence. It is said that when he was only five years old he satisfied his scientific curiosity by gutting musical boxes that he would then put back together piece by piece. Kiesler began his engineering career, but abandoned it to dedicate himself to his other great vocation: acting. In 1932, at only 19 years old, he starred in his first bombshell: Ecstasy, a film by Gustav Machaty in which she broke molds by appearing on screen as God brought her into the world and faking an orgasm. That bravery was met with the anger of his family, the indignation of a good part of the prudish society of the time, and even provoked the wrath of the Vatican. The sensual and intelligent Viennese woman fascinated Fritz Mandl14 years older than her. The tycoon got Kiesler’s parents They approved the wedding and the couple walked down the aisle in 1933. Mandl, an arms businessman who worked with the Nazis, soon showed himself to be a sexist tyrant. In a fit of jealousy he tried to buy all the tapes of Ecstasy so that no one could see Kiesler’s scenes, and he even prohibited her from bathing or undressing if he was not in front of her. He also forced her to accompany him to his business meals. Fed up with that slavery, in 1937 the young woman he pulled his wits to escape: He hired a maid who looked like him, sedated her, dressed like her and managed to evade the surveillance of his confinement. She sold her jewelry and set sail for the United States after stopping in London. “He had played at keeping me prisoner. I played at escaping. He lost,” she would later relate. This first act of her life closes with a thrilling escape while Mandl’s thugs are hot on her heels to force her to return to her golden cage. Second act: the great diva of Hollywood Destiny awaited Kiesler around the corner. Specifically, on the ship he boarded to travel to North America. There he met Louis B. Mayer, the famous producer, who showed off his unfailing eye for celluloid. He offered her a job and renamed her Hedy Lamarr, a peculiar tribute to the actress Bárbara La Marrwhose life had been taken prematurely by tuberculosis and nephritis just a decade earlier. In Hollywood, Lamarr deployed all his talent in front of the cameras, she won the title of “most beautiful woman” and fulfilled the role of femme fatal. He acted in Algiers, Lady of Tropics, Comrade…And dozens of other titles. He shared the bill with some of the brightest stars in Hollywood and they say that the creators of snow white and catwoman They were inspired by her stunning beauty. The most famous role he played was that of Delilah in Samson and Delilah. Her fame could have been much greater if Lamarr or those who advised her had had more aim when choosing roles. He rejected the main characters in two bombshells that would go down in cinema history: Casablanca (!) and Dying lightwhich together had almost twenty Oscar nominations. Throughout his career, Lamarr produced his own films. In his private life, he had six marriages that ended in as many divorces. She ended her days retired in Florida, a kleptomaniac, obsessed with cosmetic surgery, succumbing to drugs and starring in notorious scandals. She died at the dawn of the new century: on January 19, 2000. “She was a victim of the system,” comments one of her sons in one of the documentaries filmed about her. Proof of how little society knew how to value her is the anecdote that happened to her when, during the Second World War, she offered her collaboration to the United States as a brilliant engineer. The answer … Read more

There are people using AI to “invent” their own memories from photographs. And that has opened a philosophical debate

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In the photo the kid smiles, abholly happy. His mother, also smiling, hugs him while looking at the camera. The photo could be that of any of us with our mother, but with this happens one thing: that an AI has made it a video. One that immediately has the potential to become a memory. A memory of lie. That photo shared it in x Alexis Ohanian, co -founder of Reddit, millionaire and entrepreneur. Ohanian – caught with Serena Williams since 2017 – told in that message how when he created that video innocently “I was not prepared for how I would make me feel this.” In his family they had no video camera, so he never had a video with his mother. So almost without thinking he used that photo in the newly released Midjourney video generator so that from it generated a video for AI. The result left him astonished. “This is how she hugged me,” he explained. “I have seen it 50 times again.” But with that message A great moral and philosophical debate was unleashed. One about how something like this can impact us individually and as a society. While Ohanian himself He defended himself Before those who criticized the idea (“I really don’t understand why you wouldn’t use AI for this”) others They explained to him that those memories were not real: “Creating a video for someone loved is not to create a memory of them. You are putting words they never said in their mouth.” As said Another user named Erich Thilow, “is (a memory). But seeing it will make it real in your memory. I am not a fan of something like that.” Other users took advantage of cinema as the center of the debate. A user named Vanillaelle shared A Harry Potter photogram revealing with a false memory of his parents in the mirror (which has inspired the image of this theme). Another user called Andro toward The analogy with ‘Matrix‘. In that movie, he explained, one to see her wondered why people would want to face reality. “Now he doesn’t have to ask him,” said said user. The era of false memories That new capacity of the generative AI Generate false memories It is disturbing, and it could well be part of that concept already studied in psychology. These lies memories did not happen or are the distortion of a real event, and according to experts, such as the American psychologist Elizabeth Loftus, it is possible to induce them such as hypnosis or with techniques such as the essay: repetitions of an event that was confirmed as fantastic. Upon listening or visualizing the same event, the person can begin to remember as if it had really happened. That idea thrown by this psychologist also collects it Francisco Taberneroclinical psychologist in Puertollano (Ciudad Real). According to him “memories are usually quite distorted”, but for him there is no special risk in that type of process that converts a photo into a souvenir of lie: “The general experience of memory will be subjective and more or less the same we had. I do not think that a few seconds of movement change the memory that you already had. At the emotional level the memory is all emotion, what causes you remains the same as what you have told to the AI.” Loftus – criticized by the pseudoscientific concept he created, the “false memory syndrome” – published A study In this regard, together with Ira E. Hyman Jr., and both explained how “memory is always constructive. People create the past based on the information that remains in memory, in general knowledge, and on social demand to recall situations.” Ethical and moral issues are definitely huge, and to talk about them we wanted to contact more experts. Santiago Sánchez-Migallón (The von Neumann machine) It is defined as a “philosopher of AI” and is usual collaborator of Xataka. For him, “we must understand the emergence of a technology as an opportunity and no, a priori, as something perverse only because of the fact that he treats a delicate issue as, in this case, the death or authenticity of memories.” Sánchez-Migallón makes it clear that the first thing is to make technology safe and that the user “can differentiate true and false memories”, but assured this, this expert thinks that with this technology it would be possible to help “erase traumas” and even imagine a not very distant future in which it was possible to gain procedural memories or skills: “Could we record in our brain the ability to play the piano or talk?” Darío Benítezpsychologist and co -founder of PSYCHOFLIX and of the podcast Validlyit is optimistic with AI, but you see “few or no advantage” to this type of application because “if you are reliving an image of a loved one you expose yourself to an emotion that you did not expect and that can rekindle a type of duel that you had already prosecuted.” Something like that, he indicates, can change the perception of your values ​​because this type of lies memories “can make you feel that you lived them and that that effectively happened.” It is like Ohanian’s own example. For Benítez it could happen that in the video generated the mother looked at the child with a subtle disdain and generated a reaction of the type “yes, it is true that my mother did not treat me at all well”, thus generating a hallucination that connects with another idea that perhaps had of her past, which in that case would be of the type “my childhood was not so good.” All that “would even more entangle things,” says this psychologist. The danger of being able to mold memory An technology also has another danger that we have already perceived in many other technological areas. Especially in mobile phones and social networks, which tend to isolate us and catch us in the doomscrolling. With these videos created by generative, “it could be … Read more

Modern oil did not invent anything. China already extracted natural gas 2,000 years ago and transported it by bamboo pipes

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Possibly, many consider that oil industry And modern gas, with its platforms, deep wells, pumping systems and distribution networks, is a creation of the nineteenth century onwards, one associated with Western industrialization. And although they are not entirely wrong, the truth is that there was already a nation that had developed techniques for drilling, extraction and transporting energy resources with a simply amazing level of sophistication. That nation was China, and he did it a thousand years before Edwin Drake will pierce the first commercial oil well in 1859. Before the crude. As we said, although the collective imaginary places the beginning of the exploitation of hydrocarbons in the industrial revolution From the nineteenth century, history shows that ancient civilizations had already developed surprisingly advanced techniques of energy extraction. In fact, in the Chinese province of Sichuan, more than one millennium before the first commercial wells in the United States or Russia, entire communities already They pierced the earth To get brine And, later, natural gas. The salt searchvital for food conservation and human nutrition, led Chinese engineers to devise sophisticated Performant drilling systemsoperated with bamboo towers, pulleys, jump platforms and specialized metal tools that remember, in many ways, those used in the modern oil industry. Challenging your time. The wells, initiated during the PERIOD OF THE COMBATING KINGDOMS (480–221 AC), reached depths of up to 250 meters already in the Tang dynastyand exceeded the kilometer in the nineteenth century, long before the West even dreamed of such achievements. For each phase of the process they were used Different Broks (Fish tail, silver or horseshoe ingot) adapted to the type of rock. I also know They developed solutions for problems such as broken bits or collapsed wells, using ingenious technologies such as elongated bamboo tubes With fin valves, hydraulic cements based on Tung oil, and shutter with expanded straw. Then, around 1050, the introduction of flexible bamboo cables It allowed to achieve greater depths and simplify the operations a little more. By 1835, the Shenghai well reached officially The 1,000 meters deepa milestone in the world. From the byproduct to the energy treasure. Everything changed at a given time. During drilling in search of brine, workers began to run into Natural gas bagsinitially seen as dangerous or useless. But over time, that gas (mainly methane, often mixed with hydrogen sulphide) was recognized as energy resource and used for lighting, heating and, above all, to feed the boilers that evaporated the brine. This transition became crucial when deforestation prevented continuing to use firewood. The need promoted the invention of the call Drum Kang Penwhich allowed to extract and separate simultaneously gas and brine, and early carburetor that mixed gas with air to achieve more efficient combustion. In turn, the old perforators also included geology rudiments, placing gas wells in high areas and brine in valleys, according to the formation of underground bags. Industrial Network Without Pare. Over the centuries, the region was filled with bamboo towers, merchant ships and an infrastructure that included hundreds of kilometers of pipes Bamboo built completely. Far from being rudimentary, those pipes were precisely sealed by tung oil cement and braided rope, which made them surprisingly stagnant and durable. To get an idea, in the 1950s they were still operational More than 95 km of these conductions. A complex system that transformed Zigong and other cities into industrial, commercial and cultural centers. The operation was so extensive that it required uninterrupted shifts and written legal contracts (some of the first in the history of China) to distribute tasks and resources. Historical and legacy. The scale and sophistication of the Sichuan gas field eclipsed other premodern operations in Europe or Central Asia, such as those of Naples or Bakú. Beyond the volume produced, the most notable was the continuity and efficiency of the system itself. Even today, the region produces some 30,000 million cubic meters of gas annually, in many cases from perforated wells centuries ago. However, the work is still dangerous: in 2003, an explosion of gas near Chongqing He killed 233 people and left 9,000 intoxicatedbut the accumulated experience over almost 2,000 years avoided a major catastrophe. That technical and human legacy is, in fact, honest in the Shanxi Salt Museumwhere original tools and detailed models are preserved that document an industrial feat advanced to their time by millennia. If you want too, the Sichuan history Not only does it rewrite the origins of oil and gas in a certain way: redefine what we consider possible in ancient civilizations. Image | Thomas dependb, CSEG In Xataka | In its effort to extract oil, China is beating records: it has drilled a well -deep well In Xataka | 2025, a raw year: the sanctions to the Russian ships and the tension with China are raising the price of oil

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