Killed

Microsoft killed the traditional Xbox by saying that everything was an Xbox. Now he wants to resurrect it with Project Helix

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Microsoft has quietly withdrawn its “This is an Xbox” campaign, the initiative with which it had spent 16 months trying to convince the world that any device (television, mobile phone, tablet) It was technically an Xbox.. The deletion coincides with the replacement at the top managementthe debut of Project Helix at GDC and a market paradox: Sony and Microsoft have become, at the same time, the main defenders of the concept “a console is a console.” The campaign. The series of ‘This is an Xbox’ ads were launched under the presidency of Sarah Bond and functioned as the great manifesto of the post-hardware era of Microsoft Gaming. Now it has disappeared without an official statement: the blog entry that opened it on Xbox Wire gives error 404and searching for the term in the official Xbox news repository only returns one article about ROG Xbox Ally. The files indicate that the page was still accessible on March 1, 2026. What was it about? The idea behind “This is an Xbox” was, in theory, reasonable: expand the ecosystem beyond its own hardware, bet on the streaming in the cloud as a gateway and normalize that playing Xbox did not require purchasing an Xbox console. The problem is that the argument, taken to its extreme, destroyed the reason for the hardware. The campaign generated more confusion than interest, with fans wondering why they would buy an Xbox if the titles were available on any platform. The rejection. Apparentlythe initiative was not well received internally, and the company made some strategic lurches. For example, the announcement of an Xbox mobile store in summer 2024 never materialized. A few months later, with the arrival of Asha Sharma as the new CEO of Microsoft Gaming and the departure of Phil Spencer and Sarah Bond, the campaign has ended up being withdrawn. The phrase with which Sharma summed up this new change of direction speaks for itself: “The plan is the plan until it isn’t“. More from Helix. The same day that the 404 of “This is an Xbox” was discovered, Microsoft had a presence at GDC 2026 with the Developer Summit dedicated to Project Helix. Jason Ronald, vice president of Next Generation at Xbox, presented the technical details of the upcoming hardware: a console powered by a custom AMD SoC, co-designed for next-generation DirectX and FSR technology, and which the company describes as “an order of magnitude leap” in gaming performance. ray tracing: pscaling Next Generation ML, ML Multi-Frame Generation and Ray Regeneration for games with path tracing The technical details that AMD provided completed the picture: the custom chip is built on RDNA 5 architecture and TSMC’s 3nm process, and incorporates a dedicated NPU that will power all advanced rendering capabilities, including FSR Diamond. Developer alpha kits will begin shipping in 2027, and the company is committed to maintaining compatibility with games from four generations of Xbox. Not everything is perfect. The complicating point in the “return to consoles” story is that Microsoft told the developers at GDC that “build for PC” is the correct approach going forward, suggesting that Project Helix is, at heart, a PC disguised as a console. That is, it is closer to the ambitious project of Valve with its Steam Machine that of the Sony gives up making more PC games. In addition, Xbox Mode will arrive on Windows 11 in April, bringing the console experience directly to the desktop PC, and the Play Anywhere catalog already exceeds 1,500 titles. The Sony thing. It is commented that Sony is returning to the old strategy of exclusives as a hardware sales lever after the PC ports did not work as expected. Part of the problem was one of timing: games arrived on PC months or years after the console launch, making it difficult to build a stable audience on the platform. There is Steam data very significant: ‘Marvel’s Spider-Man Remastered’, for example, reached a peak of just 66,000 simultaneous players, a figure that did not justify the continued investment in big-budget game ports. Sony and Microsoft, two companies that took opposite paths in the last generation (one opening up to the PC, the other trying to dissolve the very idea of ​​the console), have simultaneously reached the same conclusion. A console is a console, and hardware has to have value. In Xataka | “We will not flood our ecosystem with soulless AI garbage.” We already know what Asha Sharma wants to do as CEO of Microsoft Gaming

We believed that human programmers would end up being code reviewers. Anthropic just killed that

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The rise of the Generative AI The world of software development seemed to follow a clear script: models would write the code and humans would review it. It was the new balance. Well, Anthropic just killed him. The problem of programming with AI. What we know today as vibe codingthis practice of giving instructions in natural language to an AI so that it generates code at full speed, has skyrocketed software production in companies. Anthropic affirms that the amount of code generated by each of its own engineers has grown by 200% in the last year. And now there’s a problem: there’s so much new code that reviewing it has become the bottleneck of the process. Human developers can’t cope. Many pull requests (change proposals that must be reviewed before integrating new code) are skimmed or not read very carefully at all. What Anthropic has done. The company Code Review has been releaseda tool integrated into Claude Code that, instead of waiting for a human to review the code, deploys a team of AI agents to do it automatically every time a pull request is opened. This new system is now available in preview phase for Team and Enterprise plan customers. Cat Wu, Product Manager at Anthropic, explained told TechCrunch that the question they constantly received from their clients’ technical managers was always the same: “Now that Claude Code is generating a ton of pull requests, how do I make sure they are reviewed efficiently?” How it works inside. AI agents work in parallel autonomously the moment a pull request is opened, examining the code from different perspectives. An end agent then aggregates and prioritizes the issues it has found, removing duplicates and sorting them by severity. The result reaches the developer through a featured comment, accompanied by more online comments about specific bugs. The focus, according to Anthropicis in logical errors, not in matters of style, something designed on purpose so that the feedback does not generate too much noise. Issues are labeled by color depending on how important they are: red for critical, yellow for attention, and purple for pre-existing code. Numbers. The company has been using Code Review internally for months before launching it to the market. According to what they saybefore implementing it, only 16% of their pull requests received meaningful review comments. With the tool, that percentage rises to 54%. In large pull requests (more than 1,000 modified lines) 84% returned results, with an average of 7.5 problems detected. And less than 1% of those results are flagged as incorrect by the engineers themselves. In one of the cases documented by the company, they spoke of a single line change that seemed routine. However, Code Review marked it as critical, as it apparently could have broken the entire service’s authentication. The bug was fixed before integration. Furthermore, according to the company, the engineer later acknowledged that he would not have caught it alone. ANDhe new role of the programmer. The narrative that had spread in the last two years was that developers would evolve towards a profile closer to that of a reviewer or supervisor of code generated by AI. Now that transition is also being automated, at least in part. Anthropic does not eliminate the human from the equation (in fact the tool does not approve pull requests), but it does compress the review work that was supposed to be the last bastion. It seems that now the human goes from reviewer to final arbiter. Price. It is not a cheap tool. Each revision has a cost based on token consumption. Anthropic esteem The average price per review is between $15 and $25, depending on the complexity of the code. It is a cost that the company justifies in the context of large technology companies where errors that escape review have a much higher price. Cover image | Compagnons In Xataka | Software companies sank on the stock market for a simple reason: investors are panicking about AI

ASUS just killed its phone line for good reason. Goodbye to the Zenfone

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ASUS, the Taiwanese giant known for its computers, had been competing in the smartphone field for years. The Zenfone family is one of the ones that has convinced us the most at Xataka: phones with a ROM similar to that of the Google Pixel and top-of-the-line specifications. The proposal, solid on paper, has had low commercial success for years. And given the great opportunity in formats that AI allows, ASUS is clear: there will be no more Zenfone for a while. A harsh goodbye. ASUS has made a stoppage official in its smartphone division. It not only affects the Zenfone family, but also ROG Phone, its division of phones aimed at gamers. The company is now emptying its release calendar to leave a division whose future is uncertain. “ASUS will no longer launch new mobile phone models in the future.” Jonney Shih, president of ASUS. What’s wrong with my ASUS. If you have a company device, you will be covered. ASUS will maintain both guarantees and support for existing mobile phones, but there will be no room for new launches. And now what. The company’s strategy is clear: they are leaving the field of mobile phones to focus on new solutions and formats linked to artificial intelligence. The group’s revenue from its AI server business has doubled expected resultsand the robotics and smart glasses divisions will be the main beneficiaries of the death of Zenfone. Why is it important. ASUS’s strategy gives us a clue about where the industry wants to move in AI beyond the smartphone. The race in this field is being won by an unstoppable Gemini that has forced Apple to take its handand with Google distributing Android, competition beyond OpenAI does not seem possible. But in smart glasses Meta operates with its own technologies, Google has its proposals based on Gemini, and There is still room for participants who want to develop their own solutions. Even fiercer is the war in robotics, Why outside the smartphone. The mobile phone business represents a very small part of ASUS’ strategy. Their smartphones are niche products, and they never had it easy to conquer the general public. Abandoning a territory that is high in costs and difficult to obtain profits offers additional room for maneuver to invest in new product categories. Image | Xataka In Xataka | Artificial intelligence guide: main characteristics of the main AI models, points for and against, and comparison

Spotify killed the record and the industry pivoted to concerts. Netflix killed cinema and the industry was left with a “space crisis”

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Never in history have we seen so many movies: the streaming It allows us to see several a week but, nevertheless, the movie theaters are empty. Literally emptier than ever in decades. We consume audiovisual content en masse, but not where we historically enjoyed it. Meanwhile, concerts have become the leisure alternative par excellence. Why do we pay hundreds of euros to go to a stadium with 50,000 other people, but not fifteen to see a blockbuster on the big screen? The answer lies in how we value physical space in the experience economy. Some figures. Let’s look at some box office figures: the summer of 2025, traditionally the most lucrative season in the industry, has been the most disastrous since 1981 adjusted for inflation. There is no dream of returning to pre-COVID figures: in October 2025 in the US, only 445 million dollars were raised, less than half of last October before the pandemicwhich exceeded one billion. The average viewer attended only 2.31 times to theaters in 2024, a drop of 33% compared to the 3.5 annual visits in 2019. In Spain, theThe 2025 data is equally dark: The total box office falls by 14% (almost 30 million less), and Spanish cinema itself declines by 2.5-3%. The author of this last study, Pau Brunet, expressly says that “the Hollywood fantasy is crumbling.” And the erosion is constant: Spain had more than 105 million viewers in 2019, which represents a loss of a third of its volume in five years: we are now at 71 million. Windows that don’t perform. The problem is so multifactorial that it is ridiculous to focus only on the drop in the box office to explain it. For example, we have the collapse of display windows: The pre-pandemic standard was 90-120 days in theaters, three or four weeks later in digital sales and then home formats and streaming. After the pandemic, these windows were reduced by more than 60%, and although they now vary depending on the studio, Universal and Warner leave a 45-day window for their most sought-after productions (it can be reduced to 17 days), with the exception of Disney, which operates them for 60 days. In any case, the rest of the windows have been shortened or disappeared, and it is common to watch a movie in streaming just a month and a half after its release in theaters. It is one of the main reasons why people have left the theaters: even blockbusters like ‘Wicked’ can be seen streaming just 40 days after their release in theaters. Even China. A few years ago, China was the market that seemed destined to save Hollywood accountsbut experienced its own collapse in 2024: the box office fell 23% to 42.5 billion yen ($5.8 billion), returning to figures from a decade ago. Attendance fell by more than 200 million viewers compared to ten years ago. One of the main reasons is the degradation of the theatrical experience: cinemas without air conditioning and without customer service staff beyond the bar, a characteristic that has been spreading to theaters around the world for years. The crisis has been going on for a long time. In reality, this fall does not have its roots in the streaming not even in the pandemic. The attendance of the American public had been falling since the sixtiesgoing from one visit per person every two or three months to just twice a year before the pandemic. The real price of admission (adjusted for inflation) has remained stable since the 1980s, but consumers have decided that they no longer want to go to theaters. The problem, as this Bain & Company study states The thing is that, for decades, the industry has placed all the emphasis of its production on pure content, but the films have ended up arriving home in a few weeks. Meanwhile, music has come to understand something fundamental: the value is not in the recorded content, but in the unique, unrepeatable event. The triumph of music. He Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour It closed in December 2024 after 149 concerts in 51 cities, ggenerating gross revenues of 2,077 million dollars. That is, more than the annual film box office receipts of entire countries (compare with the pyrrhic 71 million box office receipts in Spain in 2024). AND We’re not just talking about the concerts.: The average expense per attendee ranged between $1,300 and $1,500, including transportation, accommodation, merchandising and dinners. More than fans, they are tourists generating systemic economic impact. “Swiftonomics“has ceased to be a metaphor and has become a real analytical category in government economic reports. Beyond Taylor. Swift is not an anomaly. The global live music market generated $28.1 billion in 2023 and projections place it at $79.7 billion by 2030. That growth is equivalent to tripling the size of the market in seven years, while cinema struggles to recover the levels of a decade ago. What does live music have that cinema has lost? The term “funflation“: Consumers prioritize spending on memorable experiences even during periods of high inflation Festivals have capitalized on this logic: They sell identity, belonging and experiences that are impossible to replicate at home. Just the opposite of cinema: a film is exactly identical all over the world and once seen, the incentive to repeat it in theaters is minimal, especially knowing that it will be in streaming in 45 days. Reinvention is required. The cinema crisis is not a death sentence, but it is a demand for reinvention. Because the physical space of entertainment is not dying, it is being reformulated. The path that the music industry has followed by completely pivoting its business model with the disappearance of physical formats is the one that cinema has to follow. At the moment, theaters have not gotten the premium experiences right (sophisticated restoration, more comfortable rooms, improvements in image and sound quality), but that is because they still do not differentiate themselves enough from the domestic experience. Cinema needs its own Taylor … Read more

The bidet is dead. The square meter killed it and Scandinavian design buried it

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In Spanish bathrooms, a classic element is quietly disappearing. The bidet was in almost every home, as inseparable from the toilet as the mirror from the sink. But something has changed. Today, in new urban apartments and modern renovations, the bidet has become a spatial luxury. Instead, as detailed by interior designer Pia Capdevila in Architecture and Design: “Some time ago we replaced them with sanitary showers, which take up less space and are much more functional in small bathrooms.” What do you mean, a faucet? The change has been progressive but unstoppable. Around the 60% of Spanish households They still have bidets, but in new constructions and renovations their disappearance is almost total. The reasons are simple, as interior designer Ana García explains for El Mueble: Bathrooms have been reduced – in cities they are usually around 4 square meters – and every centimeter counts. Maintaining a bidet means reserving about 60 centimeters of width next to the toilet, a space that can be used for a larger shower, a piece of furniture with drawers or simply to gain comfort. In this context, the hygienic shower or “sanitary shower” has become the great substitute. “They are faucets with a small hose and sprayer that are installed next to the toilet. They require almost no space and are very functional,” adds García. In fact, in countries like Thailand or Indonesia, this system—popularly known as boom gun— is the standard of domestic hygiene. A new aesthetic that invades everything. Saying goodbye to the bidet is not just a matter of space, but of cultural and generational change. The architect Carlos Alonso thus sums up the phenomenon in an interview for El Muble: “A client who already has a bidet will surely want to keep it. But one who has never had one will probably not even consider it.” Personal hygiene is understood in a different way, faster and more functional, without additional pieces that interrupt the clean aesthetics of the bathroom. Homes, increasingly smaller and more versatile, prioritize visual order and efficiency. The architect Miriam Gómez in the same medium he points out: “Placing a bidet in the bathroom is a very typical mistake. It takes up a lot of space and is hardly used. We replaced it with a sanitary shower next to the toilet.” Only some cases – large bathrooms or homes with elderly people accustomed to its use – justify maintaining it. But the classic bidet, that low and robust toilet, is already a piece from another era. So what is better? The dilemma is no longer “bidet yes or no?”, but how to maintain the same hygiene without losing space or style. In today’s bathrooms, where the square meter is worth gold, the solutions include compact and functional options. The most common are hygienic showers or side showers, small taps with a hose that are installed next to the toilet and allow you to wash with water without taking up more space. “When space does not allow a bidet, we recommend a faucet attached to the toilet, with two water channels. It is more aesthetic, takes up less space and is just as functional,” explains the architect Carlos Alonso. However, if what you are looking for is one more step in comfort, the future is already here: Japanese toilets – also called smart toilets or washlets – are gaining ground in Spain. According to Architecture and Designmore and more homes are incorporating them, especially in new homes, due to their functionality and compact design. They integrate washing, drying, temperature control and even automatic deodorization functions. Designer Eva Mesa, from Tinda’s Project, explains it with personal experience: “The first time I tried a Japanese toilet I understood that it was a more coherent, cleaner and more evolved system. Once you get to know it, there is no turning back.” And what is more hygienic? Although the bidet has lost ground, medical experts continue to advocate the use of water as the most hygienic method for personal cleansing. According to Dr. Cindy Kina colorectal surgeon at Stanford University Medical Center, water is the standard treatment for removing body dirt in almost all contexts. In addition, it points out that those who use bidets or water showers have between seven and ten times less bacteria on their hands than those who use only toilet paper. Finally, it details that water prevents the irritation that dry paper can cause and is especially recommended for people with sensitive skin, hemorrhoids or in the postpartum stage. The future of the bidet depends on the map. A publication of The Big Data Stats that went viral On networks it showed how more than 60 countries in the world still use the bidet or some similar water hygiene system. The map did not reveal anything that we could not intuit, but it did confirm it with data: the bidet is still alive, although not everywhere in the same way. In Spain, specifically in Zamora, its installation is still mandatory by urban planning regulations, an exception that surprises even municipal architects. Looking towards our Italian neighbors, the bidet is also law: since 1975 it has been mandatory in all bathrooms. For its part, crossing the Atlantic, in Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay, the bidet maintains a strong cultural presence, as deeply rooted as mate or the water bottle. On the other hand, in much of Asia and the Middle East, the custom remains, but in another format: that of the side faucet or manual shower, as occurs in Thailand, India or Egypt, or even in Brazil, where the version with a hose prevailed over the traditional bidet. The bathroom of the future. The trend is clear: the bathroom will be more compact, technological and sustainable. Perhaps in a few years we will remember the bidet as a domestic relic, like the landline or the record player: something that was essential and barely survives today. But its essence—hygiene with water—is still more alive than ever. Because in … Read more

The competition in the AVE has killed its bus line

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Something is moving on the Spanish bus map. That something is the government’s intentions to reform the concessions that make up current photography. On the way there has been talk of reforming the entire system but also how many concessions already where they should be delivered. And that directly attacks very specific lines. In coma. Among all the concessions that Spain has awarded for bus service, The Madrid-Valencia line is one of those that agonizes. In fact, nobody wants to get that concession because with the high -speed line next to him does not come out profitable. After the concession, Alsa (the company that was exploiting this line) resigned to continue with it given its null profitability. Then a contest was convened to exploit a line that crosses all the Spanish width, from Badajoz to Valencia, passing through Madrid. That contest was completely deserted. Concessions? Yes, concessions. Bus lines In Spain they compete for concessions that are then exploited exclusively. These concessions last for years and, obviously, the company has to face the possible changes in the flows of movements that can occur between its passengers. In the system, therefore, it is competed before putting the buses on the road. A line is taken to competition and awarded the best bidder. In high railway speed, companies that demonstrate that they can technically operate on the road come to compete directly. On buses, that does not happen because the chosen company has exclusivity for a certain time. A deep change. What the government raises is that Spain needs a deep change in the concession system. In recent years, the market has been completely opened and that it is the companies that rival on the road at a price. However, the final intention is to take out a great contest maintaining the current concession system. Of course, given the large number of lines whose competitions are empty or companies that do not want to maintain their concessions, from the government advocate drastically reducing the number of runners. The intention is to pass Of the current 77 concessions to a total of 22. From the government they point out that this decision goes through the difficulty of placing these concessions but also because the way of moving of the Spaniards has changed in recent years. The cities have atomized (even more) the exits and arrivals but, in addition, the high -speed train and the competition have completely transformed the panorama. It is not competitive. What happens? When high speed has affordable prices, the bus is not competitive. In the Galician corridor The train has managed to eliminate travelerseven to the plane that is faster. In the case of the bus, the situation is even more complicated because, in addition, it is slower and uncomfortable. That leaves lines like that Badajoz-Madrid-Valencia without interested companies. With such a low volume of customers and a faster and more cheap alternative, prices have to be much more expensive to compensate. It is obviously the worst option. Whenever you travel to Badajoz, Madrid, Valencia or any of the stops where the train stops. What about us? All this directly impacts the paths of those who do not live in those cities or larger populations where there is a high -speed rail stop. The bus is in charge of generating a capillary network of paths among small populations where the only alternative is private transport. This is what they defend from Travel more by busan association that defends a competitive alternative so that this means of transport can survive. They bet on a complete liberalization in these lines that have to fight with high -speed lines. They point out that with the rates raised, The bus trip between Madrid and Valencia would entail an expense of between 40 and 50 euros for the client and a duration of more than four hours. With Renfe, Iryo and Ouigo fighting on the train, it is possible to make that same trip in the middle of time in half of the money. According to the CNMCthe average price of traveling with these companies in a Madrid-Valencia is 27.46 euros. What solution is there? According to this platform in defense of these less profitable bus lines, open them to direct competition. They point out that with the current layout, it is contemplated that the rates for operating will be recalculated with inflation and that, therefore, in 2035 the average price of the ticket will return to around 50 euros despite the fact that at the time of the new award a price of about 40 euros is established. In the other side of the currency we find associations like Confebus They point out that these concessions allow companies to better study the market and their profitability but, they defend, the traveler is protected because once the service has been awarded, the company has not to leave the line overnight. Photo | Artem Makarov and Xataka In Xataka | This Barcelona bus has been working with a fuel that we all produce: our excrements

We believed to know what killed Napoleon’s army in Russia. The finding of a tooth has shown us something else

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In 1812 there is a moment that was going to be registered in the history books. The Russia invasion by Napoleon culminated in one of the greatest military tragedies: The great arméeformed by more than half a million men, was forced to a devastating withdrawal marked by hunger, cold and disease, a combination that cost the lives of hundreds of thousands of soldiers. Or we believed. Health catastrophe. In the summer of 1812, Napoleon Bonaparte gathered up to 600,000 soldiers for his campaign against Russiathe greatest force he had ever deployed. However, the burned land strategy of Tsar Alejandro iwhich involved Evacuar Moscow and deprive the supplier of supplies, forced the withdrawal of the French army to Poland during a brutal winter. Between October and December of that year, more than 300,000 men perishedvictims of hunger, the extreme cold and a wave of diseases that devastated to an already weakened force. For a long time, the testimonies of survivors and the first scientific analyzes pointed to the TIFUS and the trench fever as the main culprits, reinforcing the idea that the bad hygienic conditions had sealed the fate of the great Armée. The new findings. Now, research carried out In the Pasteur Institute in Paris they have contributed a more precise vision thanks to metagenomic techniques, capable of identifying genetic material of any pathogen present in human remains. Nicolás Rascovan’s team analyzed Thirteen soldiers Buried in Vilna (current Lithuania), epicenter of mortality during the withdrawal. The results did not detect traces of typhus or trenches fever, but they did reveal the presence of Salmonella Entericacause of paratyphoid fever, and Borrelia recurrentis, transmitted by lice and responsible for recurring fever. These diseases, although not always fatal, would have deeply weakened soldiers already exhausted by endless marches, lack of food and glacial temperatures. In that context, even pathologies that in other circumstances could have overcome became mortal. Napoleonic invasion in Russia Lethal combination He New scenario It suggests that defeat is not explained by a single infectious agent, but by a devastating combination: physical exhaustion, starvation, extreme cold and a set of diseases that, together, undermined the resistance of tens of thousands of men. The Parathyphoid fever It would have caused diarrhea and dehydration, while recurring fever progressively weakened with cyclical episodes of high fever. All this, added to the lack of hygiene, to the spread of lice and the impossibility of adequate medical care in the middle of the chaos of the withdrawal, turned the Napoleon army into a paid field For the disease. The magnitude of the health catastrophe even exceeded combat losses, and became one of the decisive factors that precipitated the collapse of the campaign. Historical and scientific implications. Although some experts warn that the amount of recovered DNA is reduced and that the results are not entirely conclusive, The study It marks an important advance in the use of modern tools to reinterpret historical episodes. Demonstrates the Metagenomics potential To trace diseases in ancient human remains and offers new perspectives on how biology, and not only military strategy, it can explain the collapse of whole armies and populations. Researchers They point That these techniques could also be applied to the study of communities in America and Australia after European contact, where the lack of reliable records and historical biases make it difficult to understand the true impact of epidemics. The defeat that sealed the empire. The Tragedy of 1812 It is still one of the most studied inflection points in military history. The collapse of the Great Armée Not only stopped the Napoleonic expansion, but triggered the offensive of his enemies and the beginning of the end of his empire. While the epic of the campaign has traditionally been narrated in the key of battles and strategic decisions, the New evidence They confirm that biology and disease played a central role in the debacle. The withdrawal of Russia was, ultimately, both a military disaster and an epidemiological catastrophe, and the DNA of a few teeth found in Vilna has allowed to illuminate more precisely the executioners invisible and tiny that decimated the soldiers of Napoleon in one of the most lethal winters in history, starting with an unexpected “army” of lice. Image | Jean-Louis-Ernest Meissonier, Blaue Max In Xataka | “Even if I told you, you would not believe me”: the mystery of what Napoleon saw when he slept in the great pyramid of Egypt In Xataka | ‘Napoleon’ is Ridley Scott’s most controversial film in years. Not among critics: among historians

Notifications killed our concentration. Now they are kidnapping our mobiles

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For more than and a half, the applications of our mobiles They are perfect machines to suck time that hook us with techniques such as Scroll infinite. We have ended with A generation that lives decentralized Even when we do not receive relevant notifications of work, school, friends or family. And that is precisely one of the big problems we face today: an enormous amount of useless, irrelevant notifications and in many absurd cases that kidnap our mobile. What’s happening. It is increasingly common to receive unwanted notifications on our mobile. And the pity is that, in the face of email, there is no Spam filter. The problem is that there are applications of banks, neoboncos, transport, electronic commerce, food at home or second -hand sale, for putting examples, which do not stop riding advertising notifications without relation to the reason why they are installed. The problem. The engineer and hacker Jaime Gómez-Obregón told Recently the behavior of some of the most popular applications you had installed on your iPhone. Blablacar sent him promotions notifications, despite having deactivated trade communications. Without authorizing offers, they arrived from Cabify, Uber or N26. His followers told him that the same thing happens with Revolution, Wallapop and Banks Applications such as BBVA. A server can talk about your experience with OpenBank: receive more promotional notifications than bizums, payments or transfers, despite having requested that they do not send me more advertising to your customer service by phone. When deactivating notifications as a final measure is dangerous. We talk about kidnapping because, although both in iOS and Android we can deactivate the notifications of the applications we choose, the important thing is what we lose in doing so. If I am waiting for the Uber driver to arrive, I can’t deactivate his applications. If I am waiting for a possible Wallapop buyer to respond to which I am interested in selling something quickly, I cannot deactivate notifications. The same happens if I am waiting for the notification of my payroll or a transfer in the bank or the message of a Blablacar driver for a journey that I cannot do with any other means of transport, and that of not seeing it, I risk not being able to reach a destination. In the end, it is similar to deactivating notifications in a WhatsApp group where a lot about important things are discussed. With the difference of our contacts they know that they can talk to us in private to let us know that something relevant is cooked and we have not heard. In Wallapop you can individually deactivate promotional notices. Without losing user messages notifications. The solution we expect and does not arrive (with exceptions). The rain of promotional notifications is easily solved, if applications developers want. In the APP notification settings it can be offered separately stop receiving notifications of direct messages, a public mention, or advertising. The problem of many applications is that everything gets into a sack, and you cannot deactivate only advertising, or not in an obvious way (without having to send mails, make calls, etc. In this sense, my partner Javier Lacort complained on Twitter a long time ago Wallapop behavior. Without defining the type of promotional message he was learning, Javier learned thanks to The response of a follower That Wallapop is one of the companies that incur this good proposed practice: it lets you deactivate the promotions separately. The general reality? Insufferable. Google is clear that it is wrong. Apple not so much. On its documentation website on developers, Google makes clear “When not using a notification“The reality is that with their services they send similar messages. Apple prohibited notifications with ads until 2020. Changed the rulesand now Send notifications promoting savings in tickets to see ‘F1’ In the portfolio application. Even so, in the Standard 4.5.4 They modified continue to mention the following: Push notifications should not be used for promotional or direct marketing purposes, unless customers have explicitly accepted to receive them through a consent text shown in the user interface of your application. This is how Google explains to developers the bad practices on promotional notifications. And when requesting the notification permit, Wallapop, for example, does not inform in any way that it will later send promotional messages (although in your case we can deactivate them separately). When asking for notifications, applications do not report that they can contain promotional content, as Apple establishes in their terms. In full era of AI, both Google and Apple could implement filters to detect notifications not requested by the user and whose relevance is very questionable. They could also provide the system of functions to filter keywords or list of words allowed and prohibited according to each application. It is just what he does Bullkill Notification Manager on Androidand its users mention being Very happy Just to combat promotions. Android offers control of notifications by category, but, again, it is something that the developer has to activate so that the user can choose what type of messages he wants according to the app. Image | Generated with chatgpt and Jonas Leupe in Unspash In Xataka | I have been following the advice of those who point to the mobile and its notifications such as the tobacco of the 21st century

Europe had killed its hopes to find oil in the continent. Poland has just changed that

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“The oil market is misleading.” This is warned by analyst Javier Blas In a recent article for Bloombergwhere he points out that under the apparent price stability a deep transformation that has altered the seasonality of global consumption is hidden. It is no longer winter, but summer, the moment of greatest demand for crude. And in this new scenario, Poland could be facing a turning point: the finding of the largest conventional hydrocarbon deposit in its history, in the waters of the Baltic Sea. A submerged treasure. The Canadian Central European Petroleum (CEP) company, backed by Norway investment, has announced the discovery of the Wolin Este site (We1), located just six kilometers from the coast. TVN24 He has reported That the site includes 22 million tons of oil and 5,000 million cubic meters of natural gas, with a total estimate in the concession of 33 million tons of crude oil and 27,000 million cubic meters of gas. According to calculations cited by BBCthis figure would represent around 200 million barrels of oil, which makes it a strategic finding both for its volume and its location. It doesn’t change everything, but it changes a lot. Poland consumes about 700,000 barrels of crude oil per day, but its local production does not exceed 18,000. The rest matters. In that context, a discovery that can triple national production represents more than good news: it is a potential turning point. Wolin’s exploitation could multiply national production by three, according to CEP Executive Director, Rolf Skaar, In statements collected by TVN24. In addition, the crude found has an API index of 33.4, which classifies it as light, that is, easier and more economical to refine. This finding comes when Poland has already taken Russia’s energy distance after the invasion of Ukraine: it has connected to Norwegian gas through Baltic Pipe, has reinforced its import capacity of LNG since świnoujście and has diversified its access to crude oil through Naftaport, in Gdansk. But still depending, to a large extent, abroad. Wolin can start changing that. From the finding to extraction. The concession of Wolin, of 593 km², was perforated by the specialized platform Noble Resolve, reaching a vertical depth of 2,715 meters. The We1 well was left in future conditions and geological analysis confirmed a 62 -meter hydrocarbon column in the main dolomite formation (CA₂), As detailed Gospodarka Morska. CEP has already invested about 200 million Zlotys in seismic studies and drilling, and now looks for Polish and international partners to undertake the exploitation phase. Conversations with companies such as PGNIG (now integrated into Orlen) have been restarted after the fusion of state energy. International Resonance. Wolin’s discovery occurs while the international crude oil market navigates uncertain waters. According to ReutersBrent’s futures closed Monday under 70 dollars. The reason: the new sanctions of the European Union against Russia, which now prohibit the importation of refined products in third countries with Russian crude, such as India. Although analysts believe that the supply will find new paths, concerns arise about the impact on the diesel market, more difficult to replace. That tension adds an important nuance: the new deposits in European soil are not only an energy advantage, but also a geostrategic asset. And now what? The new site will not solve the Polish energy dependence on its own, but it could mark a turning point. As the energy expert points out Wojciech Jakóbik in BBC, the finding “will strengthen energy security, provided that estimates are confirmed in practice and develop the necessary infrastructure.” Today, it is not clear if a new pipeline will be built or existing infrastructure will be used. Meanwhile, CEP holds conversations with multiple actors and, as Jakóbik recalls, the project requires companies with “greater risk tolerance and investment capacity”. An energy window in convulsive times. The discovery in the Baltic Sea comes just when the global market enters its moment of maximum seasonal demand, in the middle of the northern hemisphere. As Bloomberg explained, the seasonality of crude has changed: it is no longer winter, but the summer months that mark consumption roofs. The big question is whether Poland can take this opportunity without repeating the mistakes of the past. The window is open. But it will not be forever. Image | Pexels Xataka | This graph shows that Venezuela has more oil than anyone. Your production is another song

Ten years ago, we were happy with microSD cards on mobile phones. The manufacturers have killed them for a good reason

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Far was that time when buying a MicroSD card It was practically an essential for our mobile phone. The mobiles from ten years ago They came with a scarce internal memory (8, 16 GB), insufficient for devices that, despite their limitations at the hardware level, recorded Full HD video and had an ecosystem rich in applications. Today, it is increasingly difficult to find devices compatible with this memory expansion. And, yes, this is good news. The golden age of the microSD. There was a time in using an SD was the best possible option on an Android mobile. In fact, the operating system itself allowed to move some of the apps to external memories, releasing the local memory of this load. In 2010, Android 2.2 Froyo He had this option as a native from the adjustments, something that remained immovable until years later. The key was that Android was a much more insecure system than is now. In fact, with Android 6.0 It was possible to expand system storage using microSD cards. The party is over. There are two milestones that mark the progressive disappearance of MicroSD cards on Android. The first is the Popularization of Unibody mobiles: The end of the removable housings. The extra groove to incorporate the SD next to the SIM (or double SIM) hinders stagnant designs, somewhat incompatible with the Current IP protocols They protect the water and dust device. The second reason is imposed by Google with Android, and that is that the operating system was progressively restricting the permissions until they prevent them from moving apps to the SD, limiting it only to the passage of files. Reading speed. As internal memory modules have been improving progressively, reading and writing speed has shot in recent years. A UHS-1 micro SD around 200 MB/s reading speed (speeds that are never reached). EMMC’s most modern standards (slower technology in internal memories, only used in low range) can double this figure. If we talk about UFS memories, standards such as UFS 2.2 around real writing speeds close to GB, something that doubles with UFS 3.1 and almost quadruplica with UFS 4.0. Next to nothing. The size of the apps has increased considerably in recent years, as well as their requirements, and moving them from an SD is not too realistic. The focus on security. By default, the memory of any commercialized Android mobile comes encrypted, something that protects the local data of the device. SD memories do not come with this protection layer, nor do they meet the requirements to do so. Android is an increasingly sure system And, according to the latest data, it is exposed to 90% less malware than in 2016 thanks to the Play Protect scanguaranteed windows of security patches, Automatic reset and constant purge of fraudulent applications in Play Storeamong others. The microSD today. Although relegated in general terms to low -cost mobiles, The MicroSD continues to give a dummy In 2025. If your mobile has support for them, you can continue moving simple apps such as Telegram or Instagram (giants such as WhatsApp do not allow it), and even some games allow you to send part of your reading data to the SD. The same goes for multimedia: nothing prevents us from saving and reproducing content from a microSD card externally. The limitation of speed and stability (if you use a low quality microSD) will be present, but the function has not died at all. A necessary evil. Smartphones manufacturers and Google itself have been closing the door to microSD cards. It is a evil necessary to improve the stability of the system, to make Android a safer platform and continue allowing the apps to grow (in size and requirements) to the frantic rhythm to which hardware evolves. Image | Samsung In Xataka | It is 2024 and I still use an SD card on my mobile: what can I do and what is different about the storage of my phone

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