learned

ChatGPT voice mode has learned to listen, shut up and respond better

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Greg Brockman started the OpenAI live doing something very simple: talking to ChatGPT and cut him off while he responded. What mattered was not the questions, but the system’s reaction. Instead of stopping with a sharp cut, as could happen in previous experiences, in the demo the voice seemed to adjust the interruption in a more natural way. It was a short demonstration, but it served to show the promise of GPT-Live– Let ChatGPT’s voice mode not only speak better, but know when to respond, when to wait, and when to shut up. GPT-Live is the name chosen by OpenAI for this new stage of ChatGPT’s voice mode. It’s not just a more polished sound layer, but a family of models designed to process speech differently. An architecture called full-duplex allows AI to listen while generating a response, something the company says reduces the rigidity of traditional shifts. Since 2022, OpenAI has been moving the relationship with its models from the keyboard to increasingly closer forms of interaction. ChatGPT marked a before and after in the massive relationship with text models; early voice features added a more natural layer; and GPT-4o took that ambition to a much more expressive experience, inevitably associated with ‘Her’. The GPT-Live announcement comes after that tour. Its promise is not just to sound more human, but to solve a less spectacular and more important friction: how to have a conversation. without it looking like a sequence of commands. ChatGPT voice no longer works only in turns To understand the change you have to look at how previous generations worked. OpenAI explains that ChatGPT’s first voice mode was a cascade system: one model transcribed the voice, another generated the response, and a third converted it back to audio. Advanced voice mode It reduced that friction by processing and generating audio within a single model, but still operated in turns. GPT-Live changes that logic: you no longer work just with separate messages, but with a continuous interaction that allows you to decide several times per second whether you should speak, listen, pause or use a tool. So what can we do in practice? Well, the company led by Sam Altman gives several examples. We can interrupt with a question, pause to think or ask the system to speak more slowly. The voice can also respond with brief signals such as “mmm” or “yes” to indicate that it is still listening, and the company says it has improved its ability to focus on the user’s voice when there is background noise. Added to this are the nine ChatGPT voices remastered for GPT-Live, visual responses in the form of cards for queries such as weather, sports, stocks and other quick data, as well as support for search, memory, images and file uploads. The other important piece is what happens when the conversation demands more than a quick response. OpenAI explains that GPT-Live can delegate web searches, reasoning or more complex tasks to its frontier models, while keeping the conversation with the user alive. At launch, that support layer will be GPT-5.5although the company says that it will update the model used in the background as it publishes new generations. ChatGPT’s voice mode will also allow you to choose between reasoning levels: Instant for quick responses, and Medium or High when you need to spend more time thinking. The company maintains that the jump is not limited to an impression of use. In their internal evaluations, the GPT-Live-1 and GPT-Live-1 mini (the smaller version of the model that lands on free accounts) appear above the advanced voice mode in comparative five- to ten-minute conversations, both in overall preference and fluency, interruptions, turns, and natural feel. OpenAI also cites advances in scientific reasoningagent search and simulated telephone support tasks. Of course, these results serve as an initial reference, but they come from OpenAI itself and we will have to see what impact they have in real life. GPT-Live starts rolling out today for ChatGPT users on iOS, Android and ChatGPT.com. OpenAI speaks of a global deployment and does not mention a specific exclusion for the European Union, although it is worth maintaining the nuance: in other deployments of AI functions there have been doubts or delays in the region. GPT-Live-1 will be the default model for Go, Plus and Pro users, while free accounts, as we say, will use GPT-Live-1 mini. The API will arrive later, without a specific date for now. Now, there is also an important limitation at launch: GPT-Live does not currently support voice with video or screen sharing in ChatGPT, although OpenAI says it is working to introduce those capabilities later. Images | OpenAI In Xataka | Meta already has its rival for Nano Banana 2. Its problem is the same as always: mercilessly invading our privacy

Two 5,000-year-old tombs in Jabal al-Tayr reveal how Egypt learned to build the great pyramids

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The pyramids of Ancient Egypt remain a mystery thousands of years later: we are not even sure how they were made (there are theories that point to ramps and master logistics to hydraulic systems) nor how they reached such a level of knowledge and skill working with stone. Because between a pantheon carved in rock and a colossal pyramid like that of Giza there is a whole world of evolution. Well, at the site of Jabal al-Tayr (Minya) a team of archeology professionals has just found that middle ground. The discovery. The Supreme Council of Antiquities of Egypt has found a funerary complex that brings together two tombs from the Early Dynastic Period and burials from the Predynastic and the Late Period. The first tomb has a particular geometry: the thickness of its walls becomes thinner as it ascends. The second Mohamed Abdel Badie, head of the Egyptian Antiquities Sector, account for Daily News Egypt that this solution could be the engineering antechamber that made the stepped pyramid and smooth-sided pyramids possible. In short, it may be a clue to how the Egyptians began to understand how to support large masses of stone. Why is it important. Because having burials from different periods in the same space makes it easier to analyze the evolution of funerary architecture in the centuries prior to the construction of the great pyramids. These preliminary studies indicate striking similarities between the design of these newly discovered tombs and the famous tomb of King Den at Abydos. According to El-Leithy, this resemblance reinforces the archaeological importance of Jabal Al-Tayr as a necropolis, both architecturally and for the Egyptian civilization itself: it was used continuously from the Predynastic Period to the Late Period. Context. The evolution of Egyptian funerary architecture began with the mastabas of the first dynasties: a rectangular structure with a flat roof, built of adobe or stone, with a vertical well that went down to the burial chamber. From the mastabas they went to the stepped pyramids. In fact, Djoser’s tomb at Saqqara It started as a mastaba and expanded until it became a step pyramid, the first large stone structure in Egypt. The tombs of Jabal al-Tayr belong to the Early Dynastic Period, that is, to the time before Djoser, when the constructive solution that would make the pyramid possible was still being sought. In detail. Mohamed Abdel Badie explains They probably used the first tomb to extract the stone for reuse, but the preserved sections still contain important details about how it was built at the time, such as cut marks and remains of large pieces of wood that reinforced the walls. The second tomb has almost the same shape but is much better preserved because it was not looted. At the site they also found older burials where there were bodies in a fetal position wrapped in plant fiber mats and accompanied by ceramics from the Naqada II and Naqada III periods, prior to the formation of the Egyptian state. Yes, but. This finding does not clearly demonstrate that the tombs are direct ancestors of the pyramids; at the moment it is a hypothesis based on the design and its resemblance to the tomb of Pharaoh Den in Abydos. The archeology team has yet to determine the exact date of the tombs, who lies there and what relationship they have to the known sites of Abydos and Saqqara. In Xataka | If the question is how the Egyptian pyramids were made, science has an idea: hydraulic systems In Xataka | China’s first pipeline network is 4,000 years old and something revolutionary: it was built without the need for kings or nobles Cover | Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities and Alex Azabache

We believed that Meta would have learned his lesson after his privacy scandals. We were totally wrong

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The internal environment in Meta is not at its best. Workers who do not have been fired were relocated to a new AI department described as “the gulag”. Additionally, the company recently installed software on workers’ computers that recorded everything they did. Well, they had to pause it because there was a leak that left the data exposed. what has happened. They tell it in Wired. Meta has had to pause its employee tracking program due to an internal leak. The program, called Model Capability Initiative or MCI, was launched in April and was installed on all company computers. This software recorded screen content, keystrokes and clicks. It was not to control employees (or not only for that), but to train AI agents who, presumably, will one day replace them. As expected, employees were not amused, nor were they amused that a security issue left their data exposed to other workers. The reaction. The notice came from an employee who detected that he could access the MCI data of other employees. According to Meta, the bug was solved in four hours, although the first solution was not permanent and they had to reinforce the data access block. During those hours, employees, who had already expressed their discontent with this program, filled the internal forums with criticism and Meta finally suspended the program. But be careful because it is not goodbye, but see you later. Speaking to Wired, AI research vice president Stephan Kasriel said that “we will reactivate MCI when we are confident in the effectiveness of our data protection controls.” And now they go… The case adds to Meta’s long history with leaks and privacy issues. The clearest and most resounding was the Cambridge Analytica scandal in 2018, but there have been many morelike the massive data theft which affected a whopping 533 million users in 2021 or the use of facial recognition without permission in 2024. We recently learned that Meta’s glasses record even when we take them offmeaning contractors in Kenya have seen users having sex, going to the bathroom or accessing their bank accounts. This questionable way of treating its users’ data and repeated scandals have earned the company a reputation for being unreliable when it comes to privacy. We now know that even employees themselves are vulnerable to this. Fed up employees. As we said, to the employees They were not happy that the company installed this software on their computers. In fact, at least 1,600 employees had signed a petition in which, in addition to describing the program as invasive, they warned that it posed a risk from a security point of view. All this was happening at a time when Meta had announced layoffs, but had not yet communicated who those affected were. For a month, the staff worked without knowing if they were going to be fired, but the anguish did not end with the “execution.” Meta laid off more than 8,000 employees and relocated another 7,000, who now work in the Applied AI department. Many high-level engineers have ended up here and describe the work as mechanical and uncreative. Now, in addition, they leak their private data from the program they were using to control them. It is not surprising that the internal environment is going through its lowest hours. Image | Xataka with ChatGPT In Xataka | Soon you won’t need to remember anyone’s name. Meta’s glasses will do it for you

They learned cinema on YouTube, they have raised 300 million with their films and they have achieved something: defeating Star Wars

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Three horror movies. Budgets ranging from a ridiculous million dollars for one to ten million for another. Directors of 26, 34 and 20 years old trained on YouTube, not in schools for children of. So far in 2026, those three films have grossed more than $300 million in the North American market. Franchise cinema is not dead, of course, and we are going to prove it this year with the premiere of ‘Doomsday‘ (although, for once, surprises are no longer ruled out). But there are issues that seem to be changing in another sense. The ‘Backrooms’ explosion. Last weekend,’Backrooms‘ (directed by 20-year-old Kane Parsons) collection 81.4 million dollars in North America and 118 million worldwide in its first weekend (and it does not arrive in countries like Spain until the end of June), with a budget of only ten million. It is the biggest premiere in the history of A24surpassing the previous record held by ‘Civil War‘by Alex Garland. Parsons also becomes the youngest director to top the US domestic box office, taking that record from Josh Trank, who was 27 years old when ‘Chronicle’ topped the charts in 2012. Unstoppable obsession. At the same time, ‘Obsession’ (by Curry Barker, 26 years old) added 26.4 million in its third weekend, 54% more than the previous week, starting from a budget of one million dollars. Its domestic total already exceeds 104 million. Meanwhile, ‘The Mandalorian and Grogu‘, with a budget of 165 million, fell 69% compared to its opening week and was third on the list of box office receipts that week. We will see ‘Obsession’ this weekend in Spain. The precedent. January had already given the first sign. ‘Iron Lung’ (written, directed, starring and self-distributed by Mark Fischbach, Markiplier on YouTube, 34 years old), debuted with 17.8 million domestic dollars and reached 52 million at the global box office from a budget of three. Fischbach didn’t even go through a study: he self-financed and distributed the film himselfpocketing half of the world gross. Young audience. It is obvious where these collections come from: 86% of the opening audience for ‘Backrooms’ was under 35 years old, and 44% under 21. ‘The Mandalorian and Grogu’, not to get away from Disney’s setback with a financially similar debut the previous week, had a share of those under 25 years of age of 27%, although on paper, it should have attracted more viewers of that age (which corroborates that at this point ‘Star Wars’ is entirely a franchise for kids over forty.) These directors who came from YouTube did not summon a new audience, but rather the one they already brought from the internet. Warner Bros. Motion Pictures co-head Michael De Luca summed it up in a conference in which said that these directors “They are in dialogue with their audience from the first moment.” By the time movies like these hit theaters, he added, “they’ve already had a billion screenings.” Three directors, a common pattern. In 2022, Kane Parsons uploaded a nine-minute short film to YouTube titled ‘The Backrooms (Found Footage)’shot from his bedroom with the help of the 3D graphics software Blender. Over the next few years, episodes of the series They accumulated more than 197 million views. Curry Barker, on the other hand, came from the sketch comedy channel ‘That’s a Bad Idea’ which currently has over 700 million cumulative views across platforms. In 2024 he filmed ‘Milk & Serial’, a found footage horror with $800 budget, almost all of it spent on the camera. He spent a year trying to get mainstream distribution without success. He uploaded it for free to YouTube and accumulated 1.6 million views. Mark Fischbach, for his part, has been on YouTube since 2012. He had experimented with the film format in two of his own productions for YouTube (‘A Heist with Markiplier’ and ‘In Space with Markiplier’) before adapting ‘Iron Lung’, David Szymanski’s indie horror video game published in 2022. Why the terror. American terror has exceeded 800 million dollars worldwide so far this year, and these three films directed by YouTube creators account for a third of that figure. But… why this devotion to the genre, which goes hand in hand with the good state of health that enjoy in recent years? Horror operates well with low budgets, and the young audience that grew up with creepypasta and found footages on YouTube has a particular relationship with that aesthetic space. Testing ground. The video clips of the nineties were the laboratory where authors such as David Fincher or Michel Gondry developed their visual grammar before jumping into cinema. Now, YouTube serves as a testing ground for the new generation of filmmakers. That’s why studios and agents now scour YouTube for new names. Now what. Barker has already filmed his next film, a horror comedy titled ‘Anything but Ghosts’, and A24 has hired him for a remake of ‘The Texas Chainsaw Massacre’. Parsons wants to expand the ‘Backrooms’ universe, possibly in television format. Fischbach, for his part, has already made it clear that he would like to collaborate with a large studio on future projects, without giving up creative control. It is possibly the one with the most traditional discovery profile in the underground and jump to the big leagues. For now, ‘Backrooms’ could end its box office career between $140 and $160 million in the United States alone, which would make the film one of the biggest hits of the year. Not bad for an idea that started as just another meme on 4chan. In Xataka | Cinema can only survive by competing in the “experience” market. That’s why Madrid already has its 70 mm projector

This soprano learned ventriloquism in confinement. He ended up performing in Las Vegas without using dolls

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When ventriloquist Señor Wences became one of the most famous Spaniards on American television with his appearances on the legendary ‘Ed Sullivan Show’, ventriloquism was an art form typical of a variety show. The most unexpected heir to her talent is Celia Muñoz, who not only continues the tradition of talking dolls, but is connecting ventriloquism with opera thanks to her experience as a lyric soprano. And it’s taking Las Vegas by storm. Wences, the teacher. The Spanish ventriloquism tradition is unusually powerful for a country our size. We have the very media-savvy José Luis Moreno (nephew of Mr. Wences himself) and the legendary Mari Carmen and her dolls, yes, but also legends today unjustly half-forgotten like Paco Sanz or Herta Frankel and her dog Marilyn. None achieved as much international significance as Mr. Wences. This man from Salamanca emigrated in 1934 to South America and from there to New York, where his appearances on the Ed Sullivan Show, on Broadway and on the music circuit music hall They made him one of the best-known Spaniards to Americans. His technique was minimalist to the point of absurdity: his character Johnny was his clenched fist with lipstick and a blonde wig; and his Peter was a stuffed head in a box. Wences died in New York in 1999, aged 103. For decades, no other Spanish ventriloquist had managed to penetrate the American circuit with that reach. Until today. A soprano with a foreign voice. Celia Muñoz had no relationship with ventriloquism until 2020. Trained as a lyrical singer at the Madrid Conservatory and the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki, she had worked on international operatic projects in Finland, Berlin, Avignon or New York. There, watching ‘America’s Got Talent’ discovered two ventriloquists spectacular: Darci Lynnewinner in 2017, and Terry Fatorwinner in 2007. He became interested in the discipline and, dedicating himself to the subject almost obsessively, he received training from Gary Owen, Darci Lynne’s own coach. To succeed. The result of this accelerated learning could be seen in 2021. In the semifinals of ‘Got Talent Spain’, Muñoz sang opera with her mouth closed in a ventriloquism number without a dummy that won the Unanimous Golden Pass from the jury, and in the grand final she won, becoming the first ventriloquist to win the format in Spain. Muñoz herself planted her victory in that historical lineage, mentioning historical figures such as Paco Sanz and Señor Wences. The international leap. In season 17 of America’s Got Talent, in 2022, Muñoz finished in third place, was beaten by Sofia Vergara and reached the final, where she performed one of her most famous numbers, combining magic and ventriloquism to recreate the spirit of soprano Maria Callas, earning a unanimous ovation from the jury. Thus he made it clear what his indisputable strong point was: the absence of dolls. On ‘AGT Superstars Live’, the permanent show at the Luxor in Las Vegas that brings together the show’s best performances, she was introduced as “the ventriloquist without dummies, making everything around her talk.” Its most notable technical peculiarity is, in addition to projecting different voices onto everyday objects such as a telephone, a radio or a glass of water, doing so while performing actions that seem incompatible with speech, such as eating, drinking or brushing one’s teeth. To Las Vegas. In December 2022, Muñoz joined the cast America’s Got Talent Presents Superstars Live at the Luxor Theater in Las Vegas, where the greats of American variety entertainment have performed for decades. For a year he headlined the show, performing five nights a week. The similarity with Señor Wences’ trajectory is notable, although Muñoz has done it much faster thanks to the immediate popularity of the Internet: in just three years and starting from scratch in the profession: the virality of a semifinal in a talent show can generate more audiences than years on the road. Next up: symphonic ventriloquism. If the American stage consolidated his career, one of the latest projects he has developed points to something more ambitious in artistic terms. Symphonic Ventriloquism with Celia Muñoz It is a show “where classical music and visual comedy meet the art of ventriloquism”, according to the description of the Gran Canaria Philharmonic Orchestra, with whom it premiered last November 2025. Here the orchestra becomes a narrative thread for a story in which different characters and voices emerge, all articulated by Muñoz without opening his mouth. It is not very clear what the future of ventriloquism is, especially with artists like Celia Muñoz opening paths like this. What is clear is that the wooden doll is definitely no longer essential. In Xataka | For years, I have followed a daily practice to improve my memory, attention and public speaking: doing magic

George RR Martin never had full creative control over ‘Game of Thrones’. Other authors have learned their lesson

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“This is no longer my story” is probably the worst phrase a writer can say, and it is supposed that came not long ago from the mouth of George R.R. Martinmore or less coinciding with the avalanche of audiovisual adaptations of its ‘Game of Thrones’ universe. There is the eternal question of whether the author himself is the best director or showrunner in the screen adaptation of his work, and it will depend a lot on what “author” and what “work”. What is clear is that the shining stars of the publishing market do not want to make the “Martin mistake”: seeing how your world is transformed by others without control or your own voice. Feeling that the story you saw being born no longer belongs to you must be one of the worst experiences for a creator. And given the continuous boom in news of adaptations that have been working deadline at a frenetic pace, names like Brandon Sanderson or Sarah J. Maas are clear that they are not interested in following the path of the eternal debtor of ‘Winds of Winter’. The Martin case As long as you are interested in content, interviews and news about the adaptations of ‘Game of Thrones’, it is easy to come across statements by George RR Martin about his discontentand even something more painful, assuming distance with its own adaptations. At the beginning of the ‘Game of Thrones’ project, his involvement was greater and his role was much more decisive. Although the showrunners main ones were always Benioff and Weissand creative control fell to them, Martin participated as executive producer, occasional screenwriter and advisor. However, starting in season five his role was diluted, and with it his closeness to the direction of the series. Benioff and Weiss, despite having some clues about the outcome, it is true that they had a difficult task to say the least: finish a story that not even its creator had already finished at that time. It is not surprising that given the path that the controversial closureMartin got off the wagon and acknowledged in numerous interviews that his ending was not going to have anything to do with that of the series. Arrive when you arrive. It came out so-so. With this experience, let’s call it bittersweet, one would expect Martin to be more cautious with future adaptations… But not. In ‘The House of the Dragon’ he appears again as co-creator and executive producer and, once again, at first everything seemed to flow normally in the first season. At least until again different points of view with the showrunner of the series, Ryan Condal, once again create creative tensions. The friction already exists, to the point that HBO asked Martin to take a step back from the project. Months later the author would return to production. “George and Ryan had a disagreement about the direction season three should take. At that point, it became clear that the process and communication with them had broken down and we needed to start from scratch. So, naturally, there was a period where we all took a step back for a while until we could find a new way to move forward.” HBO insider And now we have ‘The Knight of the Seven Kingdoms’again with George RR Martin as producer and with active involvement. Everything seems to be going well with this new adaptation, but the first season has just finished and experience teaches us that problems begin to appear after the second, so we still don’t know what direction it may take. Others will not make concessions Even so, one cannot put all the responsibility on him or treat this fact as an isolated case. Without focusing on other disciplines where rights and authorship are also a minefield, in the publishing world the relationship between authors and adaptation rights is always they have been complicated. Just look what happened to Tolkien’s work; a real legal tangle with rights fragmented for decades, limitations of creative control of Tolkien and heirs, while different companies managed books, merchandising or characters. What ultimately resonates is that even having the rights doesn’t guarantee real creative control either. The impact that certain decisions or a controversial ending can generate directly affect your work, fandomto your reputation and, why not say it, also to your ego. Therefore, the emphasis that a few months ago is not so crazy Taylor Swift having recovered the rights to all his music; We’re not just talking about the albums, but about the visuals, creative direction, music videos… and in literature it’s a bit the same, it’s fighting to have control over everything that your creation entails. It’s normal that Sanderson doesn’t want to get his fingers caught. When an author signs with a studio to adapt their work, a sale of rights occurs to transfer the production of the series or film, temporarily or permanently. Here comes an important point: these rights can be exploitative (including books, possible spin-offs, merchandisingvideo games) or they can be separate rights where the production company or studio does not have full ownership. Now, taking into account the stumbles of other writers with this type of agreement, the essential thing for this new generation, even if the transfer of rights occurs, is to negotiate creative control clauses. This is where Sanderson He led the way a few months ago. After years of trying that did not bear fruit, the author of Cosmere is now taking advantage of his editorial power and his legion of followers to take the reins of the adaptation of his work on Apple TV. He will be the architect of the universe; He will be in charge of writing, producing, advising and will also have decision-making power. That is a level of involvement that not even JK Rowling or Martin enjoy. “I flew to Hollywood and pitched my projects to all the major streaming platforms and studios. Basically, everyone tried to bid on ‘Mistborn’ and ‘The Stormlight’. In the end, … Read more

How we learned to take care of what lives on a screen

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Thirty years after its launch in Japan, the Tamagotchi is still recognizable at first glance. The egg shape, the three buttons, the screen that barely shows a few animated pixels. Everything seems taken straight from the nineties and yet, we are not facing an object frozen in time. Bandai has continued to push new versions and the product continues to find an audience, both among those who remember it from their childhood and among new generations who did not experience its original heyday. This journey, from global phenomenon to persistent cultural icon, cannot be explained only as a fashion that returns. The Tamagotchi installed a different relationship with a device: in its original version it was not used when you felt like it, but when you wanted it. Caring, feeding, cleaning and assuming consequences were part of the deal, with a radical element for an electronic toy of the time: there was no pause button to rescue you from neglect. What we interpret today as the “attention economy” did not yet have a name, but the mechanics were already there. A Japanese toy that taught how to coexist with digital Functionally, the Tamagotchi is a basic simulation of care and growth encapsulated in a pocket-sized object. The device executes a set of rules that determine the state of the digital creature, rules that the user can only partially modulate through specific actions repeated over time. There is no learning curve complex nor a clearly defined ending, and therein lies part of its uniqueness compared to other electronic toys of its time. The important thing is not to “win”, but to sustain the bond. The interest is not in dominating the system, but in living with him. That logic, deliberately open, allowed the Tamagotchi to transcend the usual framework of the electronic toy and integrate into the daily routine of those who used it. It was not about sitting down to play, but rather assuming a presence that could demand intervention throughout the day, regardless of the context. It’s a small distinction on paper, but huge in practice, because it moves the game from a “time” to an ongoing relationship. To understand why this product toIt seems in Japan in 1996it is convenient to look at the industrial context without turning it into a closed cultural explanation. Bandai operated in a mature market for toys and licenses, and in the mid-nineties it was looking for formats capable of connecting with a young audience that already lived with electronics. Japan, furthermore, was an environment especially accustomed to portable personal objects, from players to consoles, and to characters turned into everyday icons. All of that didn’t “cause” the Tamagotchi, but it did make it more readable. The key is that the Tamagotchi did not rely on a well-known franchise or a previous history. Its appeal was based on a simple, portable and easy-to-communicate idea, reinforced by an aesthetic close to the Japanese visual culture of the time, where the small and the expressive were already part of the landscape. That combination helped the concept be adopted quickly and, above all, shared naturally. Not as a rare device, but as a personal item that was carried around. Although the Tamagotchi is often spoken of as a singular invention, its origin is the result of a very specific collaboration. Akihiro Yokoipresident of WiZ, proposed the initial concept of a portable virtual pet and presented it to Bandai in the mid-nineties. There, Aki Maita, responsible for the project within the company, was the one who transformed that idea into a viable product from a technical and commercial point of view. This double authorship matters because it avoids the easy story of the solitary genius and better describes how many consumer phenomena are born. The initial concept was that of a portable virtual pet. The process included testing with real users before its launch, something unusual in the development of electronic toys at the time. These tests allowed us to adjust both the design and the focus of the product and revealed a key fact for Bandai: interest was strongly emerging among teenagers, especially girls, which influenced the final aesthetic and the way it was presented. It is not a minor detail, because it explains why the Tamagotchi became a social and visible object, not a device that was hidden. If we talk about the name, we can say that it was not a minor detail or an afterthought either. “Tamagotchi” born from a combination deliberate between tamago, the Japanese word for “egg”and watchreferring to an often consulted object, adapted phonetically in Japan. That choice reveals how the product was thought about from the beginning. Not as a toy that is used occasionally, but as something that is carried around and looked at frequently. As we say, in the original model, the device did not offer full control to the user. There was no way to freeze the system or protect the creature from the consequences of carelessness, and that harshness was built into the proposal. The asymmetry, in which the user responded more than he commanded, altered the traditional relationship between player and toy and increased the emotional cost of abandonment. Bandai assumed from the beginning that this lack of indulgence was part of the experience. The Tamagotchi was not designed to please, but to demand consistency and generate involvement. This logic, which today we associate with much more sophisticated digital dynamics, was key to making the bond with the creature feel less instrumental and closer to an everyday responsibility. When the Tamagotchi left Japan, it did so as difficult-to-anticipate phenomena often do: faster than the market could absorb. In May 1997 it arrived in the United States and, from there, spread to other markets, including European countries, in a very short period. Bandai went from managing a domestic launch to dealing with a global product, with supply problems, resale and a constant presence in media that did not always know how to fit that … Read more

In the middle of the ocean, 250 passengers on a plane learned that one of them was a stowaway. One shaped like a rat

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There are few things that can surprise you when you fly at 10,000 meters high in the middle of the ocean. The problem (the big problem) is that when something surprises you in that context, it is not usually a pleasant surprise. And much less if what surprises you is a rat. Can you imagine the feeling? We assume that something similar is what the 250 passengers They were flying from Amsterdam to Aruba, a small island in the Caribbean. The return trip, which passed through the nearby island of Bonaire, had to be suspended by the company itself, forcing passengers to wait one more night until the return plane was ready. A rat at 10,000 meters high By the time the plane wanted to arrive in Aruba, each and every one of the passengers on the KLM plane that was making the journey had already found out what was happening. Among his dreams of paradisiacal beaches and days of relaxation, the image of a rat had slipped in. Specifically, the rat shown by the videos recorded by the passengers themselvesmoving between the curtains that separate the seating categories or the overhead compartments, as can be seen in the images of the Dutch media Of Telegraaf. Click on the image to go to the Instagram post Evidently, the Dutch media has echoed the matter. According to RTL“the passengers remained calm and the crew did not lose sight of the animal at any time.” In Dutch News They point out that it took KLM 36 hours to hunt the animal after it was first seen. And that was the main problem why the return flight was cancelled. Once the rat was caught, the company had to leave more than 250 passengers on the ground in order to carry out a thorough cleaning and disinfect the entire interior of the plane. Asked if passengers traveling on board can request some type of compensation, experts pointed out Telegraaf which was complicated since it was an exceptional situation and they would have to prove that the airline was the real culprit for the entry of the rat. They explain that they could request a compensation economic if the study of the facts shows that the rat sneaked onto the plane into the compartments in which the catering is transported, but they affirm that it is complicated that this could have happened like this. Photo | Florian van Duyn and Nikolett Emmert In Xataka | In 2019, Iberia lost a dog before flying. Now the European Justice says that it is worth the same as a suitcase

McDonald’s has not learned from Coca-Cola and has presented a Christmas advertisement made with AI. The reactions have been even worse

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Everything indicates that the negative reaction to use of AI in Coca-Cola Christmas ad It has set a precedent… but it has not discouraged large corporations. MacDonald’s has made its own greeting with synthetic images and the reaction has been so overwhelmingly negative that the company has decided to remove the spot from social networks. Once again, issues such as creativity, aesthetics, profitability over ethics and, above all, what majority reactions they are generating are put on the table. What has happened? McDonald’s Netherlands has withdrawn its Christmas campaign generated entirely with artificial intelligence after facing a avalanche of criticism on social networks (and after being forced to disconnect comments on their profiles). The advertisement, ironically titled “It’s the most terrible time of the year”, is a perversion of the classic Christmas carols, and showed disasters with a festive atmosphere: traffic jams in which Santa Claus is involved, rebellious fir trees, unpalatable family members… the whole pack of suffering of these dates, to remind us that at least we have McDonald’s left. The problem. As happened with Coca-Cola, the problem is twofold. Aesthetically, the result is spooky.: Disturbing physics, expressionless faces, slapstick humor taken to the extreme because of that strange elastic and surreal violence of the AI. But above all, it makes viewers and critics wonder about the ethical legitimacy of this type of operationswhich completely dispense with human capital to produce more and faster. We are facing the first steps of an experimentone that corporations will put into full gear as soon as public rejection eases. Who has done it. The burger brand had entrusted production to the Californian duo MAMA (Mark Potoka and Matt Starr Spice), together with the AI ​​division The Gardening.club of the studio The Sweetshop. In a post that has since been deleted, the directors defended their work: The announcement required “seven intense weeks” of work, investing in it “more hours than in traditional production. Their central argument: “AI didn’t do it. We did it.” The controversy with Coca-Cola. The McDonald’s disaster represents the year’s second major Christmas controversy involving AI-generated advertising. A month ago Coca-Cola ignited a similar debate by launching its remake of the iconic 1995 ‘Holidays Are Coming’ spot, this time produced using generative artificial intelligence and starring animals… after the poor reception that a spot with the same concept but starring people had in 2024. The Atlanta multinational hired three specialized studios (Secret Level, Silverside AI and Wild Card), but the reaction from the public and critics was devastating. A reflection on that rejection, in reference to the 2024 ad with non-existent humans: Tim Halloran, who worked for a decade in Coca-Cola’s brand management division, stated that the campaign constituted “a violation of the brand promise” of Coca-Cola since, “for years, the core of that brand has been the idea of ​​authenticity.” Toys R Us too. Ahead of Coca-Cola’s first spot, in June 2024, Toys R Us debuted “the first commercial ad created with Sora,” OpenAI’s text-to-video tool. The one-minute spot narrated the origins of the company through its founder Charles Lazarus, combining images of the boy who would end up creating the store with the mascot Geoffrey the Giraffe in completely synthetic sequences. The industry reaction was almost unanimouswith people like Joe Russo stating in X that the ad It was “shit”. The impact on brand perception was measured Marketing-Interactivedocumenting negative reactions from 53.4% ​​of the spot’s viewers. The problem of authenticity. Behind the rejection of these ads there is a deeper problem than mere poor technical execution. In December 2024, NielsenIQ published research that revealed how viewers cognitively processed AI-generated advertising, and the result was not very promising: consumers consistently rated these contents as “annoying,” “boring,” and “confusing,” even when the technical quality was high. Neeraj Arora, professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, explained why the rejection is particularly acute in the Christmas context, with special attention to the Coca-Cola spot: “The holidays are a time of connection, of community, of coming together with family, and that’s a big part of what the holidays are about. But when you introduce AI into the mix, it doesn’t fit: it doesn’t fit with the festive moment, but also, to a certain degree, it doesn’t fit with Coca-Cola and what the brand stands for.” Christmas, traditionally a space of emotional authenticity, collides head-on with the synthetic nature of AI. Controversial results. The cases of McDonald’s and Coca-Cola illustrate a contradictory reality: the speed of production and cost savings that AI promises do not necessarily compensate for the loss of emotional connection with audiences. The consumers are developing rapidly the ability to identify synthetic content, and their immediate reaction is rejection. In Xataka | The secret formula of Coca-Cola is in a safe in a town in Valencia. The same one who claims his authorship

The domestic robot with which many dream is already real. F.02 Figure has just learned to load a dishwasher

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We have been imagining a future with robots that help us at home. From robotine of ‘The supersonic‘even Andrew from’The Bicentennial Man‘, Fantasy has always been there, but it had never seemed so real. The advances in recent years have taken us to a point where automatons begin to touch the field of everyday life. Figure AI, one of the most ambitious companies in humanoid robotics, has taken a step that brings that future. Your model Figure 02known as F.02, has shown that it can Fold clothes, reorganize packages and load a dishwasher: simple tasks for us, but greatly complex for a robot. A jump that redefines the potential of humanoids With 1.68 meters high and 70 kilos, F.02 is a fully electric robot with an autonomy of about five hours per load. You can walk 1.2 meters per second and transport objects of up to 20 kilos, which places it near the physical range of an average adult. What makes this robot special is that F.02 does not depend on human operators to execute their functions. Unlike Optimus, The Tesla robot we saw in the event ‘We, Robot’ with several assisted capabilitiesthis model works totally autonomously thanks to an artificial intelligence system called Vision Language Action (VLA), designed to interpret instructions and act on your own. The second key point is its ability to learn new skills from training data. F.02 could already fold clothes and move packages, but has incorporated the task of loading a dishwasher No need to redesign your hardware nor to create a new AI model. The company indicates that this task, which seems trivial, hides huge challenges: separating disorder of messy batteries, reorienting them and manipulating them with centimeter precision, coordinating both arms and handling fragile or slippery objects. Each dishwasher is different, each load is a puzzle, and the system must adapt in real time to unexpected errors or collisions. The most interesting thing is that everything has been achieved with the same robot and the same digital brain, only adding data. This draws a future in which domestic robots can receive updates for Expand their abilities without replacing them. They could even learn from their own experience at home, closer to a realistic vision of autonomous and useful robots on a day -to -day basis. Images | Figure ai In Xataka | Anthropic is worth 183,000 million even though he invoices 5,000 million a year. Or it is the business of the century, or it is the madness of the century

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