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Leica is teaching Xiaomi everything it knows. When the student no longer needs the teacher, the agreement will have fulfilled its function

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This week there have been two presentations of flagships which, seen together, say something interesting about where each manufacturer believes the industry is going: Samsung introduced the Galaxy S26 Ultra like an AI exhibition: three integrated assistants, the mobile phone as an external brain that anticipates what you are going to need before you ask for it. A few days later, Xiaomi presented the 17Ultra. And his big argument was not AI. It was the camera. And inside the camera, above all, it was Leica. It is advisable to take this collaboration seriously before reducing it to a marketing seal, because it is not. We had the opportunity to check it out in a session with TJ Waltonglobal product manager at Xiaomi, and Pablo Acevedoat the head of Leica’s mobile division. A round with around twenty journalists from Japan, Germany, France, China and other markets, in which Xataka It was the only Spanish medium. Left, TJ Walton. Right, Pablo Acevedo. Image: Xataka. I opened the question session with a very direct question: what does this co-creation model mean in reality, and at what point in the process does Leica come in? Acevedo’s response was also direct: “We are involved from the beginning, from the conception of the device, when we define the concept of what it should be.”. It is therefore not a certificate that is awarded at the end. It is shared engineering from the beginning: color tuning, contrast, physical adjustment of the lenses, testing of the final product… Walton summed it up: “Everything from the beginning to the end of the imaging experience on our smartphones is powered by Leica.” And still There is something in the details of the agreement that deserves attention, because Leica does not give the same thing to everyone. He Leitz Phonethe device that Leica markets as its own with Xiaomi hardware, includes ‘content credentials’, a certification of image authenticity that the Xiaomi 17 Ultra does not incorporate. When a Japanese journalist asked about this asymmetry, Acevedo was clear: “Authenticity is one of the important points for us. There are specific experiences aimed at professional photographers, those who really care about the smallest details of the photographic experience.” Said without euphemisms: Leica gives a lot to Xiaomi, but keeps for itself what it considers most defining of its identity. This ‘co-creation’ has limits. And those boundaries map out quite precisely where the partner ends and the customer begins. The presentation of the Xiaomi 17 in Barcelona just before the MWC. Image: Xataka. There was another moment in that same session that was like someone turned on the lights. When another journalist asked how the revenue from Leitz Phone is divided financially between the two companies, the response was: “I’m not sure if we can talk about that.” That is to say, The part of the agreement that would most reveal the true nature of the relationship is exactly the part that remains opaque.. Which is, in itself, an answer. Collaborations between equals do not usually have silence clauses on how the money is divided. OnePlus went with Hasselblad. I live with Zeiss. All different, all with the same underlying logic: a European name with decades of photographic history placed where the buyer sees it as soon as they take a Chinese phone out of the box. What they are buying is not only technology but the right to be given the benefit of the doubt in a segment where distrust of Chinese brands continues to be a real factoralthough decreasing. Each generation of product with Leica normalizes Xiaomi’s photographic excellence a little more. There will come a time when this standardization is complete, when the European buyer will not need anyone from the West to certify what he already knows. That day Xiaomi will not need to renew the agreement. And Leica will discover that she gave up part of her aura to someone who no longer needs it.while what Xiaomi gave in return (technology, scale, relevance in the smartphone market…) will have remained integrated into its products forever. And there is something there that is worth remembering. Leica has built its value on a very specific idea: scarcity. 8,000 euro cameras, limited production, a community of insiders who pay precisely because not everyone can… That’s the business. And now andHE same name appears on a device that sells tens of millions of units a year. Every Xiaomi 17 Ultra that comes out of a box does not destroy that aura, but it dilutes it a little. But there is something deeper than trade asymmetry. What happens, agreement by agreement, generation by generation, is a silent transfer of the center of gravity of technological prestige: For decades, European and American brands were the ones that certified the excellence of others. Now they are the ones who need someone to call them. Leica is not a victim in this process: it has made its decisions with its eyes open and has probably calculated its short and medium-term benefits well. But the long term has its own logic, and that logic says that when a historic brand becomes the endorsement that others need to grow, something in the balance of power has already changed. Although it is not yet noticeable in the price of their cameras. In Xataka | A week with the Xiaomi Mijia Smart Audio Glasses has shown me how great it is that your glasses are also your headphones Featured image | Xataka

will no longer pause dangerous models if the competition releases them first

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Anthropic is in the middle of an important issue with the Pentagon in the United States that may end up shaping the future of the company. Founded with security as its reason for being, it has just rewritten the rules that defined it. And his “Responsible Scaling Policy“, the document that established when to stop the development of a model that is too dangerous, has evolved into a mere roadmap with flexible objectives. And this change is much more important than it seems. Not only for Anthropic, but for the rest of the industry. Let’s get to it. What exactly has changed. Until now, Anthropic policy stated that the company would pause training or delay the launch of a model if its capabilities exceeded the speed at which sufficient safeguards could be developed. That is to say: if the model was too powerful to be controlled safely, it was stopped. This is over. And it is that the new policy removes that automatic braking mechanism and replaces it with a series of public commitments, along with regular third-party audited risk reports. The change was confirmed by the company itself in an official statement. Why have they done it? The company gives two main reasons. The first is the competitive environment: OpenAI, Google and xAI advance without those types of restrictions. “We didn’t feel it made sense to make unilateral commitments if competitors are moving full speed ahead,” counted Jared Kaplan, chief scientific officer at Anthropic, told Time. The second, as it could not be otherwise, is political: Washington has turned its back on AI regulationand Anthropic acknowledges on its blog that the current anti-regulatory climate makes its own safeguards asymmetrical with respect to the rest of the sector. Paradox. From Anthropic’s point of view, it is not a renunciation of security, but a decision made based on it. Their reasoning: if the actors who are more responsible (they fall into this bag, logically) stop while the less careful ones move forward, the net result is “a less safe world.” The logic has a certain coherence, but it also means accepting that security depends on what the competition does. And that is a very dangerous game. Context. Anthropic was founded by former OpenAI executives, including Dario Amodei, who left that company precisely because they believed that it did not pay enough attention to the risks of AI. The new policy comes at a time when several security researchers have left the company. Just like shared Wall Street Journal, one of them, Mrinank Sharma, wrote a letter to his colleagues this month saying that “the world is in danger” because of AI, before announcing his departure. In fact, according to sources close to the media, his departure would be partly related to this decision. What’s happening with the Pentagon?. The announcement comes in full tension with the Pentagon. US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth gave Anthropic an ultimatum the same Tuesday that the policy change was made public: modifying its red lines on the use of Claude or risk losing a $200 million contract with the Department of Defense. Anthropic has made it clear that both issues are independent, but the temporal coincidence has not gone unnoticed. What remains of the security policy. It is not a total abandonment. Anthropic remains committed to delaying the development or deployment of “highly capable” models in specific circumstances, and is committed to publishing detailed, externally verified risk reports every three to six months. The company also now separates its own internal guidelines from its recommendations for the rest of the sector, implicitly acknowledging that the commitment to a “race to the top”, which other companies are adopting, has not worked as expected. Cover image | Wikimedia Commons and Anthropic In Xataka | The US has a message for AI companies: if necessary, that AI belongs to the State

Samsung no longer sells you a great processor. A good intermediary sells you

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He Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 It is surely the most powerful processor that has ever come to an Android phone. Samsung has it in S26 Ultra. And in the launch communications of this mobile he has barely mentioned it, contrary to his modus operandi of yesteryear: the chip used to be one of the big arguments along with the camera and battery. What Samsung has developed with the S26with a lot of time and detail, has been AI. Specifically, the S26 will work with three: Gemini, Bixby and Perplexity. That you choose. That each one does different things. That the device is responsible for coordinating them between them. High-end hardware has reached a point where the differences are marginal for most users. Nobody buys an Ultra anymore because it has 20% more performance in the vapor chamber. But he can buy it because the phone asks him for the Uber only when he has an event on the calendar and calculates the times without him doing anything.to. Or because it filters the calls from spam (there will be trials for this), because it answers for you if you don’t want to pick up the phone, or because it suggests photos of the trip when a friend asks for them via chat. Samsung calls this ‘agentic upgrade’although what it describes is easier to understand: the mobile phone does things in the background without you asking it. There is the twist that the briefing already hinted. Samsung no longer sells itself as the maker of the best hardware. It is sold as the one that best connects you with the intelligence that others have built. It’s not Google, which has Gemini. It is not Perplexity, which has its search engine. It’s not even the chip, which is sometimes an Exynos but sometimes it’s from Qualcomm. Samsung is the layer that unites all thatthe operating system that decides how those agents talk to each other, the hardware that runs them. He is, in the most literal sense, an intermediary. And that’s where he’s focusing now. Perplexity in action, integrated into the S26. Image: Xataka. Galaxy AI. It is not its own AI but rather the integration of someone else’s. Image: Xataka. The bet makes sense as long as that role is difficult to replicate. One UI, Samsung DeXthe integration between native apps and Bixby, the brutal hardware privacy screen that only the Ultra has… All of these are things that you can’t have on another device even if you use the same AIs. For now, at least. The uncomfortable question is what happens when Gemini, Perplexity and Bixby are free on any Android. When what matters is not what AI you access, but how the manufacturer integrates it. Samsung is betting that this difference will be enough of a purchase argument. That’s why it doesn’t sell you the processor. You already assume it’s good. In Xataka | Samsung has a plan to become the greatest AI power in mobile phones. And that is why it has teamed up with Perplexity Featured image | Xataka

Aragón produces so much energy that it no longer knows what to do with it. And that’s great news for data centers

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Aragon has always served as a great battery for the rest of the country, sending gigawatts to the industrial centers of Catalonia or the Basque Country, but now the script has changed. The community now has a “problem” that many would envy: it produces so much energy that it has attracted those who need it most. As if it were a magnet, the technological giants have landed in the Ebro valley to convert the region in what The Country already calls “Spanish Virginia”, in reference to the North American state with the highest concentration of data centers in the world. The x-ray of a bittersweet record. To understand the magnitude of the change, you have to look at the counter. According to the data collected by The Aragon Newspaperthe community once again broke its historical record for electricity production in 2025, reaching 22,365 gigawatt hours (GWh), 2.1% more than the previous year. However, this milestone hides an important small print: the record was not achieved thanks to the wind or the sun, since these fell by 4.8% due to the drought (which sank the hydraulics by 19.1%) and a less windy year. Here comes the bittersweet part, to compensate for the green decline and cover the gap left after the great blackout in April, the gas combined cycles increased their activity by 112.2%. But the data that really confirms the change of era is not how much is produced, but how much is spent. While electricity demand in Spain grew by a modest 2.7%, in Aragon internal consumption shot up by 7.1%, a figure that the provincial media describes as “true structural change” and that it attributes directly to the takeoff of the Amazon Web Services (AWS) complexes in Villanueva de Gállego, El Burgo and Huesca. The rain of millions (and megawatts) This energetic appetite is no coincidence; It is the fuel for an unprecedented investment. As we have explained in Xatakathe autonomous government has given the green light to the expansion of AWS, which contemplates an investment of 15.7 billion euros in a ten-year plan. It is not about building isolated ships, but about creating an “AWS Region” (Europe Spain), a system of eight campuses interconnected by fiber optics that function as a single operational unit protected against failures. But it’s not all servers and algorithms in the cloud. From the Herald have detailed that Amazon will not only save data, but will also build a server recycling factory in Aragon. With an additional investment of 200 million euros, this circular economy plant promises to create up to 1,100 direct jobs, a balloon of labor oxygen that goes beyond highly qualified technical profiles. Jam in the network and flight to Teruel. The Aragonese paradox is that, although there is plenty of energy, there are no “roads” to transport it. The electrical distribution network in the community is at its limit, with an occupancy of 94.3%well above the national average. There is electricity, but there are no free outlets for so much industry. This saturation in the Zaragoza logistics hub has caused an unexpected movement towards “emptied Spain.” As my colleague in XatakaGiven the impossibility of connecting in the capital, AWS has decided to take one of its new centers to La Puebla de Híjar, a town in Teruel with barely 900 inhabitants. The choice is strategic: the N-232 highway acts as the backbone and, there, the electrical grid has the capacity (100 MW guaranteed) to feed the beast. Side B: water and territory. Every revolution has a cost, and in this case it is measured in natural resources. Digital euphoria collides with the physical reality of a dry land. The alarms went off, as reported The Countrywhen Amazon requested to expand its water concession by 48% to cool its servers. The conflict is palpable on the ground, the Gaén irrigation community in Teruel keeps negotiations blockedrefusing to give up water from the Ebro if that compromises the agricultural future of the area. The most critical view brings it Ecologists in Action. Its renewable viewer warns that the deployment is not harmless: there are more than 12,000 hectares of authorized solar plants and thousands of wind turbines in the pipeline. The organization warns that, if all the data center projects in the portfolio are approved, their electrical consumption could reach five times the current demand of the entire community, turning the Aragonese landscape into a continuous industrial estate and drying up its water resources. The new balance. Aragón closed the year 2025 at a fascinating crossroads. How to conclude The Aragon Newspaperthe community continues to be surplus, but less and less. Electricity exports have fallen from 56% to 52% in just one year. The region has achieved what seemed impossible: from being a mere service station to becoming the engine of the digital economy. But the question that remains in the air, between million-dollar investment figures and environmental warnings, is whether the electricity grid and water resources will withstand the weight of being Europe’s hard drive. Image | freepik Xataka | Aragón is not afraid of AI: it has just approved three more new mega data centers in full commitment to renewables

deadlines no longer count the same

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Driving a vehicle that is not your own is a much more common situation than it seems in Mexico and, in legal terms, does not represent any inconvenience as long as the requirements to circulate are met. The problem arose when the driver, without being the owner, received a fine: the big question was when the deadline to file an amparo began to run. The Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation (SCJN) has finally resolved this issue with a ruling that for years generated different criteria between courts and that now seeks to give certainty to an everyday practice. The origin of the problem. The courts did not have a unified criterion on when the deadline to promote a protection trial against a traffic ticket imposed on a person other than the owner of the vehicle. While some considered notification to the driver sufficient to activate this legal calculation, others warned that this circumstance did not guarantee that the owner had real knowledge of the sanction. This disparity generated practical uncertainty and could leave without defense those who did not even know that an infringement existed, which led the highest court to establish a clear criterion. The rule that sets the start of the term. The SCJN’s decision is based on a simple idea, but with important effects in practice: no one can lose the opportunity to defend themselves for a notification they never received. For this reason, the Plenary established as a mandatory criterion that, when the fine is imposed on a person other than the owner of the vehicle, the period to promote indirect protection must be counted from the moment in which the owner has direct, exact and complete knowledge of the sanction, or appears to be aware of it. Here we must highlight a very important point: it is not enough to hand the ticket to the driver. The real benefit for whoever owns the vehicle. As we can see, in practice, the resolution does not eliminate fines or modify the responsibility of the person who commits the driving violation, but it guarantees that the owner has an effective possibility of defending himself. This is especially relevant in everyday situations, such as borrowed cars, family vehicles, or units used by employees, where the penalty can be imposed without the owner being present. The Court also stated that the joint liability between owner and driver in the face of traffic violations, that is, both can legally respond for the sanction, cannot nullify the right of the former to file an amparo lawsuit within the legal period. From formal notice to real knowledge. In some administrative procedures, the authority you can take the notification for granted without direct contact with the owner, which opens the risk that the deadline to challenge begins to run before he or she finds out about the existence of the fine. The amparo trial, as a way to question acts of authority that may violate rights, depends precisely on that temporal calculation in order to be exercised effectively. With its resolution, the Supreme Court shifts the center of gravity from the mere formality of the notice to the certainty that the person really knows about the violation. Key question. How the date on which the owner became aware of the fine is determined. In an amparo trial, that moment must be proven in the file. To do this, the notification records addressed to the owner and other verifiable resources are reviewed. In this context, everything indicates that the interested person himself can provide documentation that supports the moment in which he became aware of the fine, precisely to support the opportunity with which he promotes the protection. What doesn’t change. The fines remain in force, the administrative procedures are not altered and the driver’s responsibility remains the same. What the ruling provides is a clarification with concrete effects: the calculation of the period does not depend on a notification beyond the direct knowledge of the owner. Now it remains to be seen to what extent its practical application manages to reduce the usual conflicts around traffic fines. Images | Juan Luis Alejos In Xataka | “Chinese money is expensive”: Peru gave the keys to a giant door to China that the US now wants to blow up

China has just crossed a red line in Taiwan. They are no longer drones, they are their fighters shooting “attached” to the Taiwanese F-16s

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China has been tightening the siege on Taiwan for years with pressure constant and calculated: increasingly frequent air raids, naval exercises large scalesymbolic crosses of the midline of the strait and military deployments designed to rememberwithout firing a single shot, that the island lives under permanent surveillance. This strategy of attrition, made of demonstrations of force and controlled ambiguity, has marked the relationship between Beijing and Taipei long before the current pulse reached disturbing levels. One (another) red line. If a few weeks ago we said that China had taken a qualitative step in its military pressure on Taiwan by crossing the island’s airspace with a military dronehas now redoubled its efforts, going from intimidating maneuvers to direct aerial encounters with manned fighters flying meters away and firing flares near Taiwanese planes, an escalation that multiplies the risk of accident and turns intimidation into something much closer to a deliberate clash. during exercises “Justice Mission”J-16 planes of the People’s Liberation Army not only came dangerously close to Taiwanese F-16s when they came to intercept them near the middle line of the strait, but they also arrived to launch flares at close range, a maneuver considered unsafe even by demanding military standards and that marks a before and after in the face of previous, more indirect provocations. From symbolic pressure to physical risk. In just 24 hours, dozens of Chinese aircraft crossed the midline of the strait and penetrated the airspace controlled by Taiwan, showing a pattern of behavior that no longer seems to seek only to saturate radars or send political messages, but rather to put enemy pilots in extreme situations. Unlike radar jamming or the presence of military drones, these encounters centimeters away introduce a human and physical factor. much more dangerouswhere a mistake, turbulence, or knee-jerk reaction can trigger an immediate crisis between China and Taiwan. One of the Chinese J-16 fighters photographed during Chinese People’s Liberation Army military exercises while being monitored by a Taiwanese F-16V aircraft Intimidating maneuvers. The actions were not limited to direct harassment: Chinese fighters used concealment tactics flying close to H-6K bombers to evade radars, revealing itself, according to local Taiwanese media, “ostentatiously” by displaying missiles at close range, in maneuvers compared by observers to historical tricks of military infiltration. They remembered in the Financial Times That this behavior, described by some sources as more typical of a “thug” than a professional pilot, reinforces the feeling that Beijing is testing new risk thresholds to measure the Taiwanese and allied response. A regional pattern. What happened around Taiwan is not an isolated event, but part of a incident sequence in which the Chinese air force has raised the tone towards neighbors like Japan and the Philippinesincluding blocking radar and firing flares against patrol aircraft. In fact, analysts warn that the next logical step in this escalation could be to operate regularly within the 12 nautical miles of Taiwanese territorial airspace, a scenario that would then exponentially increase the risk of collision or armed confrontation. Political pressure and risk of lack of control. If you like, this increase in boldness coincides with those publicized changes in the chain of command China and with political pressure from Xi Jinping for the armed forces to demonstrate their preparation for an eventual conflict, which could be pushing pilots and commanders to take risks that were previously avoided. Under that prism, Beijing would not only have crossed another red line against Taiwan, but would have entered a phase in which aerial intimidation ceases to be a calculated game and becomes a much more dangerous gamble, one with potentially explosive consequences for regional stability and security. appearance of “third parties” on the board. Image | 日本防衛省・統合幕僚監部, Ministry of National Defense In Xataka | China already has drones capable of shooting with surgical precision at 100 meters. Not good news for Taiwan In Xataka | The biggest geopolitical risk on the planet is not Greenland. It’s a smaller island with a disturbing neighbor: Taiwan

the plan to turn Asturias into the great energy shipyard that Europe no longer knows how to build

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For decades, the West operated under a mirage: believing that making things was no longer relevant and that the future lay only in software. However, China has woken up Europe of that dream, showing him that national sovereignty depends, ultimately, on knowing how to melt metal. Now that “bath of reality” has just docked in Asturias. The Port of Gijón, El Musel, has ceased to be just a strategic enclave for local coal and steel to become the epicenter of a global ambition. The Asturian group Zima and the Chinese giant Dajin Offshore they have sealed an alliance to build a foundation plant for offshore wind. However, there is a problem and size does matter, a lot. The landing of a colossus. Dajin and Zima have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to develop a facility that will not only manufacture components, but will function as a port for marshalling —the logistics area where these pieces are collected and pre-assembled—. As detailed in The Economistthe objective is to supply the European market and alleviate bottlenecks in the sector. Dajin is not just any actor. As detailed in local media, It is the largest Chinese private manufacturer of offshore wind structures. This alliance will reinforce the strategic role of the region in the European energy transition. The Gordian knot: the crisis of space. Zima’s initial project occupied 153,753 square meters on the North Pier. However, the entry of Dajin changes everything: the multinational need more space. Making XXL “monopiles” is not like making cars. According to technical data provided by Energetica21Dajin has the capacity to manufacture structures up to 12 meters in diameter, 120 meters in length and 2,500 tons in weight. “Moving and storing these steel cylinders requires massive esplanades that are currently compromised,” warn industry sources. in LNE. El Musel finds himself facing a puzzle. The land requested by Zima borders Ionway’s future battery plant. As LNE explainsthe Port Authority is studying with “the best disposition” how to meet this demand, either by extending towards the sea or looking for non-contiguous plots. An “Electrostate” in the Cantabrian Sea. To understand this project you have to look at the global context. Today, China builds 74% of the planet’s renewable energy. By settling in Gijón, Dajin brings what the West has lost: heavy industrial capacity. As Miquel Zorita, director of Zima, points out, in The Economistthe desire is to integrate local suppliers. This is vital because European wind turbine manufacturers such as Siemens Gamesa or Vestas are going through a deep profitability crisis. Chinese technology in Asturias could be the necessary oxygen ball, even if it is under a foreign flag. The industrial clock against the bureaucratic clock. The success of this operation will not be measured only in the millions of euros of investment or in the jobs created, but in the size of the facilities it will depend exclusively on the space they obtain in the port. Asturias has before it the opportunity to stop being a “quarry” of resources and become a center of high added value. But, as Craig Tindale’s thesis warnsa civilization that sacrifices its material base ends up losing its independence. Gijón is redesigning its map; Now it remains to be seen if El Musel has enough soil to support so much weight. Image | Bafpg and ShellAsp Xataka | Inspecting an offshore wind turbine no longer requires stopping it: the drone that uses AI to ‘x-ray’ moving blades

young people are alone and no longer want to flirt like before

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I’ve never been much into dating apps. I tried it once—shortly, just enough—and it overwhelmed me. Too many faces, too many conversations started at the same time, too much feeling of choosing men as if they were menu options. I closed the app and thought maybe the problem was mine. For years, that feeling seemed to remain in the minority. The dominant narrative was different: if you weren’t in the apps, you were missing something. He matches as a gateway to an active, modern and socially validated sentimental life. But something has begun to break in that story. And it is not their critics who say it, but the companies themselves that built the business of swipe. Today, dating platforms recognize that young people still want to love, but they feel less and less capable of starting a relationship. Not because of a lack of desire, but because the process has become emotionally burdensome, socially exposed, and psychologically demanding. In the midst of a hyperconnected generation, the result is not more love, but more loneliness. According to a report Elaborated by Match Group with Harris Poll and The Kinsey Institute, 80% of Generation Z believe they will find true love one day, more than any other generation. However, only 55% feel ready for a relationship right now. This distance between desire and action is what the company has called the readiness paradoxor “paradox of readiness.” Contradiction is key to understanding the current moment. Young people want relationships, but they don’t know when—or how—to start them. The same report notes that almost half of Generation Z say they are not ready for a relationship right now and that 75% are in no rush to get into one. As I explained to Fortune Chine Mmegwa, head of strategy at Match Group, the process becomes a cycle that feeds on itself: very high standards of emotional preparation lead to waiting; waiting, loneliness; loneliness, to the desire for connection; the desire, the fear of not being ready. The result is not detachment, but paralysis. Hyperconnected loneliness This paralysis does not occur in a vacuum. It occurs in a context where youth loneliness has skyrocketed, even among people with an active social life and constant presence on networks. a study published in PLOS One defines this phenomenon as a “social ambivalence”: young people surrounded by people who, even so, feel deeply alone. In Spain, data from the State Observatory of Unwanted Loneliness show that Almost seven out of ten young people admit to having felt lonely recently, regardless of the number of friends or followers they have. The amount of interaction does not compensate for the lack of emotional depth. Have likes It is not equivalent to feeling accompanied. The Match Group Report confirms this feeling where more than 50% of Generation Z say they feel lonely despite having online connections. And, unlike previous generations, many admit that they seek connections not so much for love as to avoid loneliness, something that later generates guilt or the feeling of entering a relationship “for the wrong reason.” The fear is not of the appointment, it is of public failure Added to this emotional fragility is a decisive factor: social networks have changed the very way of starting a relationship. An appointment is no longer requested. Instagram is requested. And many times, everything stays there. Follow each other, watch stories, react with an emoji, observe for weeks—or months—without taking a clear step. A permanent phase of trial and error that reduces risk, but also blocks progress. When a relationship seems to be moving forward, the pressure doesn’t go away; moves to the public showcase. According to data collected by Fortune From Match Group reporting, nearly half of Gen Z’s relationships begin with a soft launch on Instagram —an ambiguous photo, a story without context— compared to 27% of the population as a whole. He hard launchon the other hand, is perceived as a serious commitment by 81% of those who have done it. Making a relationship official is no longer just another phase, it is experienced as a symbolic contract. Fear of public failurehaving to delete photosmanaging explanations, exposing oneself to judgment—works as a brake before even starting. Better not to start anything than to have to undo it in front of everyone. Match Group describe this climate as a real “performance pressure” applied to one’s love life. This retreat is not exclusive to dating. As we already analyzed in XatakaGeneration Z is consciously reducing their public exposure on social media: fewer posts, more private messages; Less footprint, less risk. This climate is reinforced by a change in the ways of dating. How to collect Business Insidertraditional flirting is on the decline: asking for a profile has replaced asking for a coffee. Dating apps and the pandemic have weakened the “muscle” of talking to strangers in person, creating more social anxiety. The result is not rejection of contact, but rather a passive, prolonged and unresolving approach. Some experts clarify, however, that it is not so much a loss of skills as a code change. Generation Z is more direct with its boundaries and expectations, and less tolerant of prolonged ambiguity. The indefinite is tiring. The confusing is exhausting. That fits with report data Year in Swipe 2025 of Tinder, where there is a growing rejection of “minimum effort” and ambiguous signals. Trends like clear-coding or the loud looking —explicitly saying what you are looking for and from where—reflect that desire for emotional clarity in an ecosystem that, paradoxically, pushes us to say nothing and wait. Apps adapt: ​​less pressure, more context Faced with this scenario, dating applications have decided to change their approach. They no longer sell the promise of hooking up quickly, but rather on reducing the anxiety of the first contact. Tinder, owned by Match Group, has been the most explicit in this turn. Last year he launched Modesa system that allows you to choose how and from where to meet people: classic mode, … Read more

The Model 3 is no longer the best-selling premium electric vehicle in China

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The automotive industry is giving us not-so-subtle clues about its changes and the baton it picks up. China as an influential country in this sector It is taking more and more shape. Just two years ago, dethroning the Tesla Model 3 as the best-selling electric sedan might seem like a joke. However, this same thing has happened in China, as it is the Xiaomi SU7 the one that has taken that position from him, and even more of an achievement if we take into account that it is the first car from the now also automobile manufacturer. Figures. Xiaomi’s SU7 reached 258,164 units sold in China during 2025, exceeding the 200,361 deliveries of the Model 3 by almost 30%, according to data of the Chinese Passenger Car Association (CPCA). It is the first time that a Chinese manufacturer has managed to take the lead from the Tesla model in its category since it began to be assembled in the Shanghai Gigafactory at the end of 2019. Context. Xiaomi has only been delivering vehicles since March 2024, making this success even more significant. With a huge user base on its mobile devices and other technological products, the Chinese manufacturer has managed to boost sales of its first vehicle with very outstanding features such as its sophisticated autonomous driving system preliminary and software and technology that has become a reference. There in China, the basic model of the SU7 has a price of 215,500 yuan (about 26,400 euros at the exchange rate), 9% cheaper than the Model 3, which starts at 235,500 yuan. The decline of Tesla in China. Elon Musk’s brand has seen how its market share was plummeting from 16% in 2020, when it began producing the Model 3 in Shanghai, to 6.9% in 2024. Tesla’s total deliveries in the country fell 4.8% in 2025 to 625,698 units, representing just 4.8% of total electric vehicle sales in China. “Tesla’s Chinese competitors are able to make technologically comparable vehicles while offering them at lower prices,” counted Eric Han, from the consulting firm Suolei, to the SCMP media. Lights and shadows of SU7. Despite Xiaomi’s great success, the SU7 has also been marked by tragedy. And in March 2025, three people died in an accident with an SU7 in the province of Anhui while the driving assistance system was activated, which led the Chinese authorities to tighten supervision over these technologies. In October, another fatal accident in Chengdu involving a SU7 Ultra once again generated debate, this time because neither the members of the vehicle, nor the people who wanted to help them, were able to open the doors of the burning vehicle. New versions. The company presented in early January a renewed version of the SU7 with a range of more than 900 kilometers on a single charge, launched in pre-sale from 229,900 yuan (about 28,000 euros at the exchange rate). The top-of-the-range edition reaches 902 km of autonomy, compared to 830 km for the Pro version that currently exists. Tesla doesn’t look good in Europe either. Things are starting to look ugly for Tesla, because if we are going to its overall figuresElon Musk’s company delivered 1.64 million vehicles in 2025, compared to 1.79 million in 2024, accumulating two consecutive years of declines. In Europe, where Tesla launched trimmed versions of the Model Y and Model 3 to defend volumes, registrations fell 25% in the eight main markets. Its share in our market fell from 2.4% to 1.7% until November, according to the European association ACEA. Between the lines. Nor can we say that Tesla already has everything on order, especially considering that the Model Y remains the best-selling SUV in China. However, the ability of Chinese manufacturers to compete in the premium segment with technologically advanced vehicles and more competitive prices is redrawing the map of the sector. We were recently talking about BYD surpassed Tesla as the largest electric vehicle manufacturer in the world, with 2.25 million units sold in 2025. Of course, the fragmentation of the Chinese market, which already has more than 50 electric vehicle manufacturers, and the fierce price warraise doubts about the long-term profitability of the sector. Cover image | David von Diemar In Xataka | There is an unexpected victim of the rise in RAM memory prices: the very modern connected cars

music streaming has changed and there is no longer an obvious winner

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Long gone are the times when Spotify was practically the only option to listen to music on your mobile. Today the panorama is much more interesting: Apple Music and YouTube Music They have gained weight, they have made a real place for themselves in the daily lives of many users and they have turned a decision that was previously automatic into a question that is much more complicated than it seems. If you are paying to listen to music, which one do you choose? At Xataka we want to help you solve it. Instead of asking you to try each service on your own, we have done it ourselves. Specifically, our colleague has done it Ana Boria in a new installment of ‘Versus’the video format where we have already brought products and platforms face to face with very different approaches, such as AirPods Max vs. Sony WH1000XM6 or the iPhone Air vs. Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge. Three services and a decision that is no longer obvious Ana starts from a very recognizable situation: she has been using Spotify for years, but lately she has been wondering if the time has come to change. With that doubt as a starting point, the video starts with the essentials, the catalog. “Both Spotify and Apple Music tend to stand out for their huge library of official songs from record labels,” he explains. And from there he highlights the fact that makes YouTube Music start to play with a differential advantage. The comparison also stops at an area where not everything is so obvious: sound quality. Before getting into technicalities, Ana makes clear an important idea to ground the debate: “There are technical differences that are not always noticeable if you use them with cheap headphones or common speakers, but that can be appreciated if you have good equipment and also have very fine hearing.” With that context, review the strengths and weaknesses of Spotify, Apple Music and YouTube Music in this section. Beyond what they offer on paper, it also matters how each service is experienced in daily use. And there the application makes a difference. Not everyone is looking for the same thing: some prefer a clean and minimalist interface, while others value having more options, more controls and more customization possibilities. The video goes into this point in depth and, in addition, addresses something especially useful if you come from another platform: the tools to import playlistsjust the scenario that Ana is exploring. In the final section, our colleague focuses on one of the factors that most determine the choice: subscription plans and price. It explains it very clearly and with tables to compare at a glance what each service offers and what concessions each modality implies. “In the case of Spotify, as we all know, we have a free version, with many ad cuts, low audio quality…”, he remembers, before laying out the advantages and disadvantages of each proposal. If you want to know all the details of the test, in addition to the winner of this ‘Versus’ with the new star rating system that we have just released, we invite you to see the full video on the Xataka YouTube channel. And, as always, you can leave us your opinion both there and in the comments of this article. Images | Xataka In Xataka | Apple Creator Studio is not just a subscription. It’s Apple looking to conquer the little tiktoker who uses CapCut and Canva

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