losing

Movistar Plus+ was making a comeback after four years of losing customers. Telefónica has decided to cut its workforce

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Telefónica has set 119 final departures in Movistar Plus+part of the ERE that will eliminate 4,554 positions in Spain. It is a reduction compared to the more than 200 losses initially planned, but it comes at the worst moment: when the platform was finally adding clients again. Why is it important. Movistar Plus+ has 3.75 million (the most recent data is from September 30) , the best data since 2018 after years of collapse. It lost almost 650,000 clients between 2019 and 2023, hit rock bottom, and was already beginning to recover. Now Telefónica is cutting muscle just when it needed to step on the accelerator. The paradox. The company bet a lot of money buying Canal+ and launching its own productions to compete with Netflix and Prime Video. When the numbers improve, he reduces the workforce. The inevitable question: how are you going to keep up with global giants with fewer people and a tighter budget? Yes, but. Subscriber growth does not guarantee profitability. Telefónica has reoriented Movistar Plus+ towards a more flexible and cheaper offer, unrelated to convergent packages. That adds customers but compresses margins. And competing in streaming without a global scale is very expensive. The unequal context. Netflix already has more than 300 million subscribers in the world. Prime Video exceeds 200 million. Disney+ around 120 million. Movistar Plus+ has 3.75 million in Spain, at the end of the third quarter of 2025. The difference in scale is brutal and translates directly into budget for content, technology and distribution. What works. Football continues to be the lifeline. LaLiga and the Champions League keep many subscribers hooked who, without that content, perhaps would not have stayed for so long. But a platform cannot be built only on sports rights that also increase in price every cycle, as we saw a few days ago. What deserves more luck. Movistar Plus+’s own series and documentaries have objective quality. ‘Poison‘, ‘The Messiah‘, ‘The Plague‘, ‘riot police‘, ‘The Pioneer‘ either ‘Rapa‘ demonstrate the ability to find powerful stories with local cultural sensitivity. Netflix and Prime also produce Spanish content, but Movistar Plus+ has built its own catalog that transcends obvious trends and connects with the public in another way. The problem is not the quality of the content. Quality is sometimes not enough when you compete against infinite budgets and recommendation algorithms fine-tuned with data from hundreds of millions of users. The big question. What will become of Movistar Plus+ if it continues to contract? It was beginning to regain ground, but doing so with 119 fewer people makes it difficult to maintain the pace. Without the investment capacity to match the Netflix-Amazon-Disney triumvirate, the room for maneuver narrows every quarter. The background. This ERE is not an isolated case. Telefónica has been thinning its workforce for years while it pivots towards infrastructure and gets rid of unprofitable Latin American subsidiaries. Marc Murtra, president for one year, has renovated its entire dome. The 2024 one cost 1,300 million and took 3,421 positions. This new adjustment will be more expensive and deeper. Between the lines. The unions have ended up accepting forced dismissals in minority companies such as Movistar Plus+, despite having set it as an initial red line. The pressure from the workforce to guarantee early retirements in other subsidiaries has weighed more than maintaining positions. UGT and CCOO have appealed to “common sense” and “responsibility”common euphemisms to justify a capitulation. In Xataka | Telefónica is preparing a tough ERE, but for many veterans it will be like a prize Featured image | Xataka with Mockuuups Studio

‘Avatar 3’ is going to be a movie so disproportionately expensive that it runs the risk of destroying and losing money

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‘Avatar: Fire and Ash’ is already, as has happened with all previous installments of the franchise, one of the most anticipated films of the year. Each new installment breaks box office records, and yet James Cameron’s statements are more pessimistic each year about the continuity of the series. Are you sure that ‘Avatar’ is as good a deal as it seems? We snooped into his finances. The paradox. ‘Avatar: Fire and Ashes’ arrives wrapped in an economic paradox: its production budget exceeds 400 million dollarsa figure that places it among the most expensive films ever filmed. And yet, its own director is not clear if the business is worth it. Cameron has been unusually frank about his franchise’s finances and he put the question bluntly: “Will we make money on Avatar 3? Surely some. But the real question is what kind of profit margin there will be, if any, and whether that will be enough of an incentive to continue in this universe.” The wild mathematics of break-even. The arithmetic of ‘Fire and Ashes’ defies standard Hollywood logic. With 400 million in production expenses and a marketing budget that analysts place between 100 and 175 million, it would need to exceed $1 billion at the box office simply to break even or break evenaccording to the more or less assumed industry rule that a film must gross 2.5 times its production budget to be profitable. The case of ‘The sense of water’. The previous installment of ‘Avatar’ gives us some previous lessons on the subject. The sequel cost more than $1 billion in total costs: $400 million in production, another $400 in global marketing, $300 million in shares for Cameron and producer Jon Landau, plus cast salaries, residuals and general expenses. Cameron was not exaggerating when declared that ‘Avatar 2’ was “the worst business case in the history of cinema” and that it needed to become “the third or fourth highest-grossing film of all time” simply to not lose money. The film fulfilled that apocalyptic objective: raised 2,320 million and finally generated 531.7 million net profit. But that deceptively solid figure hides a crucial detail: The studios do not receive all the money from the box office. Movie theaters take approximately 50% of US domestic revenue, 40% from international markets, and up to 75% in China. That is, of those 2.32 billion, Disney actually received just over 1 billion. The rest stayed at the box office. The crisis of inflated budgets. ‘Avatar’ is one of the most visible symptoms of a disease that affects all of Hollywood. The industry has a systemic problem of out-of-control budgets, which affects such well-known films as ‘Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker‘ ($490 million), ‘Jurassic World: Dominion’ (584 million) or ‘Mission: Impossible – Deadly Sentence: Part One’ (400 million). A analysis of the causes It leads us to multiple factors that explain this phenomenon: inflation has increased the value of the dollar by 15% since 2020, making all aspects of production more expensive. But in addition, streaming platforms altered the economy of stars, accustoming them to higher initial charges, demands that they later transfer to traditional productions. And there is also a visual effects arms race: franchises like superheroes try to surpass each other in spectacularity, and infect the rest of the blockbusters. For this reason they are films that “might not make money even with objectively decent box offices.” The unique case of ‘Avatar’. James Cameron invests in developing pioneering technology that then benefits the entire industry: the underwater motion capture that Cameron and Weta FX took a year and a half to perfect for ‘The Sense of Water’, now reduce costs for the sequels being already invented. But the budget escalation is relentless: ‘Avatar’ cost between 237-280 million, ‘Avatar 2’ between 350-460 million and ‘Avatar 3’ exceeds 400 million. The franchise is a guarantee of box office success, but the profit margins are worryingly narrow. In Xataka | Cameron’s ‘Titanic’ was going to be a flop. Until a trailer that broke several Hollywood rules changed the narrative

BYD CEO is clear about why the company is losing steam in China

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Wang Chuanfu, president and CEO of BYD, has publicly acknowledged for the first time the reason behind the company’s sales decline in the Chinese market. During an extraordinary shareholders meeting held on December 5 in Shenzhen, the CEO bluntly admitted that the manufacturer has lost the technological advantage that differentiated it from the competition. According to local media, Wang said that they had lost that ‘wow factor’ in the domestic market, in reference to the impact that their innovations previously generated. The underlying problem. The local media China Securities Journal collected the statements of the head of BYD, who stated that the drop responds to two main factors. On the one hand, he admits that BYD’s technological advantage is no longer as pronounced as in previous years, which has reduced the surprise effect of its products in the market. On the other hand, the CEO acknowledged that unresolved practical problems persist, such as the slow charging speed of its vehicles in low temperature environments, a critical aspect for users in certain regions of China. The numbers confirm the trend. In November 2025, BYD sold 480,186 new energy vehiclesthe highest monthly figure of the year, but which represented a decrease of 5.25% compared to the same month in 2024. It is the third consecutive month of year-on-year decline. Domestic sales were particularly weak, at 348,300 units, a drop of 26.81% year-on-year. In contrast, exports exceeded 100,000 units per month for the first time, reaching 131,700an increase of 297% that has become the company’s main growth engine. We have already seen how they have broken into Europe. For BYD and the rest of the Chinese manufacturers, it is important to continue consolidating their foreign business for two main reasons: to continue feeding their factories and to increase their profit margins in the face of a China that seems to live in a constant price war. The competition tightens. Chinese manufacturers such as Geely, Changan and Chery They have intensified their offensive with efficient hybrid and more affordable electric models, eroding their market share. Furthermore, the homogenization of products in the industry has made it difficult for BYD to stand out like before. In September 2025, SAIC Motor even temporarily surpassed BYD in monthly sales, according to they counted from CarNewsChina. BYD’s response. Wang Chuanfu hinted that the company is preparing “heavy technologies” that will be announced soon, although it did not offer details. The CEO stressed that BYD’s strength lies in its team of approximately 120,000 engineers, who will be key to regaining technological leadership. The company plans to intensify its investment in electrification and smart technologies over the next two to three years. Self-criticism included. Wang also made an exercise in self-criticism by admitting that favorable market conditions in previous years generated a certain complacency in the areas of marketing and merchandising, as they point out from CnEVPost. And now what. BYD revised its global sales target for 2025 downward, from 5.5 million vehicles to approximately 4.6 million. Between January and November, the company accumulated 4,182 million units soldwhich represents 90.9% of the adjusted objective and a growth of 11.3% year-on-year. Figures that contrast with the spectacular expansion rates of previous years: 218% in 2021, 209% in 2022, 62% in 2023 and 41% in 2024. Stella Li, its vice president, already warned us during the Xataka Awards gala We will soon have very interesting news from the manufacturer. So we can only wait to see what the firm’s strategy will be to alleviate the effect of competition. In Xataka | The world’s rare earth reserves, laid out in this graph showing the brutal dominance of a single country

We are discovering how the brain “hacks” us to make us hungry. And it is a key step in the race towards losing weight.

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Right now, treatments to lose weight are the order of the day, with a clear protagonist like Ozempic. The problem is that beyond the aesthetic effects that are achieved, there are many doubts about both the side effects as well as all the effects it has on the body. But little by little science you understand much better how they achieve their effectwhich seems like a real miracle for many. What we knew. In general, these treatments They are ‘copies’ of GLP-1 which is a hormone that we produce normally in our body and makes us have the feeling of satiety. The moment we increase it exogenously we have a greater feeling of satiety that allows patients to lose weight (although with a risk of bouncing when treatment is stopped). But beyond this effect, the action it could have directly on the brain was something that had only been explored in animals. Now, a new study published in Nature has crossed this frontier thanks to Casey Halpern’s team, which has taken advantage of a “unique opportunity” to observe, for the first time in humans, the impact of Mounjaro (tirzepatide) directly into the reward center of the brain. Why it is important. The discovery of how the brain can ‘hack’ our body to eat much less opens many doors for us in the field of pharmacology to be able to continue working on definitive treatment. against obesitybecause we are seeing that it is something in high demand by many people who find it necessary to have this help (although it is not a miracle) to be able to reduce their weight. And we even see how in the United States purchasing is becoming more and more accessible. And we say that it is a miracle, because Ozempic or Mounjaro does part of the work, but we must not leave aside the change in eating habits to adjust the diet and be able to maintain it after stopping the treatment. The problem is that there are people who after stopping the treatment continue eating normally, and logically they see that there was no miracle involved. How it was done. The study focused on a 60-year-old woman with treatment-resistant obesity and type 2 diabetes. This patient was already taking Mounjaro for diabetes, and coincidentally, she was participating in another trial to treat dysregulated eating. This coincidence allowed the researchers to do something unprecedented: use the electrodes, already implanted in its nucleus accumbens (NAc)for hear brain activity while the drug took effect. And this brain nucleus is really important as it is the center of pleasure in humans and reward, that is, it is the point that can be modulated to restrict food consumption. The sign of craving. Those cravings we have for eating a little chocolate, a greasy pizza or a hamburger are something we all have because it is what gives us pleasure. In this case it was seen that the signal changed over the months, specifically the delta-theta frequency band. In the first months of treatments with Mounjaro, the patient had no desire for food in that sense of craving. Something that corresponded to a null signal in this nucleus, so it could be said that the medication was silencing this ‘noise’ that is generated in the pleasure center. The problem is that in the fifth to seventh months, despite being on the maximum dose of medication, the patient again had severe concern about food. And here again the signal in the nucleus had spiked to match that of those people who had no treatment. An advantage for the future. The most important finding here is that the change in the brain preceded the behavior. That is, before having a relapse this signal was increasing as if it were a warning signal. That is, a future where a sensor can detect this brain signature and alert the patient or doctor that the effectiveness of the drug is decreasing, before that the person will feel the cravings again in an uncontrolled way. Much ahead. This is a study with a single person, and it has many limitations and its conclusions logically cannot condition the clinical activity of the use of these medications. What it is useful for (and a lot) is to understand that the brain has a lot to do with this weight loss as if it were a real button to control eating habits. Perhaps silencing this brain nucleus in a very specific and sustained way may be the ‘holy grail’ that weight loss science seeks to control these cravings that can ruin a diet imposed by specialists. Although there is still a lot to investigate and it is only a first door for other medications that can complement Ozempic or Mounjaro, which has given great results. Images | Shawn Day Victoria Shes In Xataka | This is the great hope of the competition to replace Ozempic. Your weapon: banish needles with a pill

Neobanks break 25% market share in Spain. Traditional banking is losing young customers

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They are no longer an anecdote, they are a main actor. For the first time, neobanks have exceeded 25% of the market share among individuals in Spain. A new report echoed by some media, places the penetration of these entities in 27.2%. It is a significant jump from the 21.8% they registered in 2024. The data confirms a clear trend: traditional banking is losing the battle for the young customer, although it continues to retain the main business. Image: Revolut What is a neobank. Unlike traditional bankingneobanks operate 100% digitally, without physical branches. Their model is based on a very light cost structure that allows them to offer commission-free services all managed from a mobile app. The Bank of Spain itself defines them as entities that offer banking intermediation services in a completely digital way. The assault on the young public. Neobanks entered the Spanish market attacking a very specific niche: young people and travelers. a study from Adyen and OpinionWay reveals that practically all Spaniards (93%) reject paying banking fees abroad. This has caused 59% of millennials and 55% of Gen Z to trust them more than traditional banks when traveling. Part of the “win” in innovation and reputation It’s not just in the product, but in the marketing. They understood that an app was not enough to attract the new generations; You had to be where they are: social networks and platforms like Twitch and YouTube. Revolut has been the most aggressive, renewing for a third year its alliance with Ibai Llanos and sponsoring its “Evening of the Year.” It seems that traditional banking has reacted to this trend, and has used the same weapons: now, Banco Santander has signed the YouTuber Plex. With almost 15 million followers on their networks, He is the protagonist of the last campaign. The Revolut surprise. This growth is not uniform; It is led by the well-known Revolut. A report from the CNMC was devastating: in 2024, Revolut led the acquisition of new accounts in Spain with 19.8% of the total, surpassing giants such as BBVA and Santander. The CNMC was blunt and recognized that “neobanks and fintechs pose a real competitive threat.” Figures. That leadership in recruitment now translates into real money. According to data from Expansion and El Mundo, the total neobank customer base in Spain exceeded five million in 2024. Revolut quadrupled its deposits in a single yeargoing from 739 million euros to 3,127 million. Meanwhile, its competitor N26 (with one million clients) suffered a 9% decline in deposits since December. Image: BBVA Fintech in traditional banks. The reactionary stance of some entities has led them to a strategy: launch their own neobanks to compete in the same field. Imagin stands out, promoted by CaixaBank. Your numbers They do not leave many doubts: they can boast 3.5 million clients and a 48% market share in the 18 to 34 year old segment among the main neobanks. But very few trust them with their payroll.. Despite the good penetration figures, traditional banking continues to dominate the main relationship with the customer. According to a report by Inmark, banks such as CaixaBank, Santander and BBVA account for almost 84% of the business market. Among individuals, only 4.2% use a neobank as their main entity. However, the goal of neobanks is stop being a complement. They are ripening to attack the core business of banking: Revolut has already announced its plans to offer mortgages in Spain and yes it has materialized installment payment services. The official view: necessary competence. The rise of fintech is a trend validated by official organizations. The Bank of Spain, in its 2025 Observatoryconfirms a 50% growth in the number of entities since 2020 and a 249% increase in their total assets since 2018. At the European level, the president of the Single Resolution Board recently warned that the Revolut model reinforces the need for a deposit guarantee fund mutualized in the EU. For its part, the National Commission of Markets and Competition (CNMC) and your report It is important to understand why they succeed: The traditional banking sector is highly concentrated. Spain (HHI of 1,331) has a higher index than Germany (323) or France (567). This lack of competition is one of the reasons why traditional banks do not remunerate deposits. It is the neobanks who break this dynamic. The Spanish banking sector is four times more concentrated than the German one, according to the CNMC. Neobanks have not grown by chance: they have taken advantage of the void that traditional banking left by not competing Now, there are always stones on the road. The CNMC points out that Spaniards have a “relatively high level of distrust” in online banking – only 23% feel “very comfortable” compared to the 41% average in the eurozone – and “below” average financial education. This paints a battlefield for the coming years. The growth of neobanks shows that they have won the usability war: they are easier to use and have masterfully conquered the young public. However, CNMC data reveal that traditional banking still has the most important defensive moat: customer trust and inertia. Cover image | Composition with images of CardMapr.nl and Revolut In Xataka | There are more and more millionaires in the world and that is a problem: luxury products are no longer exclusive

There is an industry losing 42,000 jobs and bleeding before us: Hollywood

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The entertainment industry in Los Angeles is going through its worst crisis in decadeswith a dizzying drop in the number of productions and jobs, which has caused a feeling of “economic disaster” in the creative heart of California. It seems like a well-known story that we recover cyclically every few years, but this time some abysmal figures, never seen before, accompany: the media have detected how companies are entering a real emergency situation. Are we contemplating Hollywood’s last great crisis? Two years of chaos. According to The Wall Street Journalthe crisis that Hollywood is going through not only affects the large studios and production companies, but also has an impact on thousands of indirect jobs and the commercial fabric of the city: restaurants, technical services, prop stores and housing have seen how the activity linked to film and television is drastically reduced. In the last two years, more than 40,000 jobs have been lost in the sector, leaving animators, technicians, scriptwriters, operators and small businesses in a precarious situation, and raising the local unemployment rate above the state and national average.​ Some data. These 40,000 direct jobs disappeared represent a drop of more than 20% of the sector’s total. With this, the unemployment rate in Los Angeles County for industry professionals has reached 5.7%, exceeding not only the state average of California (5.5%) but also the national average of the United States, around 4.3%. All this has led to a drop in local production to historical record numberswith a decrease of at least 30% in film and television projects recorded in Los Angeles, continuously since 2023.​ And how is that reflected for practical purposes? In it production exodus: The number of Hollywood projects filming outside of California, primarily in states with more competitive tax incentives such as Georgia and New Mexico, has risen 25%.​ The signal from the sets. The occupation of the Hollywood sets It is perhaps the clearest sign of how the area’s economy has fallen. In 2024, the average occupancy of sets in Los Angeles fell to a historic 63%, a significant decrease from the average of more than 90% that remained constant between 2016 and 2022. And there is another fact: only 20% of the activity on sets was destined for television, down from 30% in previous years. The cause, as we will see below, is the reduction in expenses that the platforms of streamingimmersed in extreme savings policies.​ But why does it happen? First of all, prolonged strikes of scriptwriters and actors since 2023, which paralyzed a good part of local production, generating million-dollar losses and discouraging new investments from being generated. Added to this is the considerable increase in the cost of living and production in Los Angeles, which has led many studios and production companies to seek alternative destinations with tax incentives and more attractive subsidies, such as those mentioned above, Canada or other emerging markets.​ Another significant cause is the transformation of the entertainment economic modelparticularly with the proliferation of platforms streaming. These platforms, faced with market saturation and pressure to maintain profitability, have reduced their budgets and the number of projectstaking away part of the total production volume in Los Angeles. The combination of lower demand and budgetary adjustments has pushed the industry into a prolonged contraction.​ And finally, there is the emergence of artificial intelligencewith its challenge to traditional labor, especially in fields such as animation, visual effects and post-production. And now what. To begin with, an immediate effect: The position of the United States as a global leader in audiovisual production is in danger. Not only are a significant number of productions moving to other regions and even countries, attracted by better fiscal conditions, lower costs and cheaper technical equipment. It is that thanks to the globalization of entertainment that has brought streamingticket offices like those in Korea or China They are no longer secondary. This week’s highest-grossing film worldwide it has been an anime. The animation phenomenon of the year has been a k-pop idol movie. The throne is more disputed than ever. Header | Braden Egli in Unsplash In Xataka | While Hollywood goes through a slump, one film industry is constantly filling theaters: the Chinese one

does everything the other way around in Spain, is losing a fortune… and plans to open more stores

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Costco has announced that it will continue opening warehouses in Spain despite accumulating 150 million euros in losses since its arrival in 2014, according to reports Digital Economy. The Spanish subsidiary recorded another 7.5 million losses in 2024, although its sales shot up to 607 million. The company already operates five centers (Seville, Getafe, Las Rozas, Sestao and Zaragoza) and is looking for new land. Its latest establishment in Zaragoza started with 15,000 members on the day of its inauguration. Why is it important. Costco represents the complete opposite of the model that dominates Spain: Mercadona triumphs with medium storesa reduced assortment and no membership. He doesn’t even have his own card. Costco is committed to large stores of more than 15,000 square meters, buying in bulk and charging a membership fee. It is the clash between two philosophies: the Spanish one that lives in your neighborhood and offers small, domestic formats, versus the American one of “pay 36 euros a year and get 24 rolls of toilet paper.” The strategy. Costco is playing the game Amazon played for two decades: lose money in a controlled way while it grows and build market share. Its 750,000 members (15% more than in 2023) and constant sales growth suggest that the model is finding its place. The company earned 11.5 million just from membership fees in 2024. Each new center comes with a gas station and Kirkland’s own brand products. Its average salary of 24,044 euros is above the sector. The contrast. Where Mercadona has immediate success, Costco has sustained losses. Where Mercadona optimizes margins (3.88% net profitin an upward trend), Costco optimizes volume and loyalty. Where Mercadona dominates with a 28% national share, Costco is building small niches. Yes, but. The bet has obvious risks. Costco needs critical mass for its model to work, and Spain is not the United States. Spanish purchasing habits favor proximity over volume, and competition in large stores – dominated by the French – is fierce. In fact, the hypermarket is going down in favor of the supermarket. We no longer make shopping a three-hour ritual on Saturday, but instead take advantage of empty spaces to make small purchases any day. And now what. Costco maintains that 2025 will bring more investment and land prospecting. The key will be if it manages to replicate in Spain what it achieved in other markets: convert initial losses into long-term leadership. It took Amazon twenty years to become profitable. Costco has been in our country for ten years and continues to invest. In Xataka | Spain has become a country addicted to something that a few years ago enjoyed little prestige: white label. Featured image | Marcus Reubenstein

Amazon kept losing money on its Echo devices. He has found a way to stop the bleeding: flood us with ads

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Amazon has been losing a fortune with their Amazon Echo devices. Connected speakers and displays are in millions of homes, but they have never been profitable. The company’s hope was that they would become a vehicle to sell more products on its e-commerce platform, but that goal was never met. Now Amazon has found a way to get a lot out of them: to put advertising in them for good. Lots of advertising. Why is it important. Amazon has just launched on the market your new Echo Show and Eco Dot. Prices have risen in all cases, but they also arrive with Alexa+ —although not in Spain at the moment—, the AI ​​assistant that the company has been working on for several months. These products are supposed to offer important advantages in the user experience, but at the moment what is happening is that these devices are displaying advertisements frequently. Wasted. Between 2017 and 2021 Amazon lost more than $25 billion with its Amazon Echo. The idea seemed good: they could sell them at a loss if they later amortized them by converting them into products to sell us things. Instead, users ended up taking advantage of them for little more than setting timers and musicand that has ended up being a huge problem for Amazon. Ads everywhere. There are several users of Amazon’s connected screens—the Echo Show—who are seeing surprise ads appear on these screens. a user Reddit account how the alarm clock feature on your Echo Show 5 became an annoying ad. Other user checked that in addition to one advertisement, songs that he had not specified were playing, while another he complained about how his Echo Show kept advertising the Amazon Plus service. Ads now appear more frequently on Prime Video. Source: Xataka. Flooded with advertising. These screens don’t stop showing ads, match other users, but in addition none of those users accepted that their devices could be used to display advertising, and there is no switch or configuration parameter that stops this behavior. Even people who are paying $20 for Alexa+, Amazon’s new AI assistant, are complaining from all that advertising avalanche. Also on Prime Video. Personally, I don’t have an Echo Show, but I have noticed that when enjoying series and movies on Prime Video, advertisements are broadcast with greater frequency and duration. I am not he only (not much less). Amazon allows customize preferences regarding advertising, but those who have done it affirm that this does not hardly reduce the frequency with which advertisements appear. What Amazon says. An Amazon spokesperson stated the following: at Ars Technica: “Advertising is a small part of the experience and helps customers discover new content and products they may be interested in. If customers don’t like a suggestion, they can swipe to the next card on the screen or directly provide feedback by tapping the info icon or tapping the screen.” If you move away, I announce to the song. The Amazon Ads website details the ad formats, and the text explains that “The ad viewing experience dynamically adapts based on the customer’s proximity to the device.” Once it is detected that the user is more than 1.2 meters away from their device, “the ads are displayed in full screen alternating with other content, such as the weather, recipes, sports and news.” This seems to be getting worse. The latest comments seen on Reddit or on X (formerly Twitter) seem to make it clear that Amazon is increasing the amount of advertising it displays on its devices and services. The question, of course, is how far they will go… and how that will impact both sales of their devices and subscriptions to their platforms. In Xataka | Amazon missed the AI ​​train, but it wants to catch it back. The new Alexa with AI will arrive this month to try it

Green tea has always been thought to be good for losing fat. Now we know why

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Green tea has been known for centuries for its antioxidant properties and medicinal, and modern science has therefore wanted to investigate whether it really has clear effects on metabolic diseases important such as diabetes or obesity. Now, a new study published in Cell wanted to delve deeper into its mechanisms and reveals that green tea significantly improves glucose sensitivity in obese mice. The diet. To reach these conclusions, the research team put mice on a high-fat diet for four weeks to induce obesity. After this time, they divided the animals: one group continued with the high-fat diet and received a standardized green tea extract (500 mg per kg of body weight), while another group received only water. A third control group consumed a normal diet for comparison. The temperature. The key to the study, and what differentiates it from many others, was temperature control. Mice were maintained in a “thermoneutrality” environment at 28°C. This is crucial because the usual laboratory temperature (about 22 °C) means cold stress for the mice, which forces them to spend more energy to stay warm and therefore lose ‘artificial’ weight. This extra energy expenditure can mask the true effects of the substance studied, such as green tea in this case. In this way, by eliminating this factor, scientists were able to “cleanly” observe the real impact of green tea. The result. They confirmed the powerful effect of green tea on weight control and metabolic health. According to a previous study by the same group, obese mice treated with green tea reduced their body weight by up to 30%, a very significant result. In the current research, it was noted that the treatment “effectively prevented body weight gain.” But in addition to the weight, which can be very good, the most interesting thing is undoubtedly the ability of green tea to make the body better manage blood sugar. Obese mice treated with the extract were seen to restore their glucose levels to levels similar to those of healthy mice, as demonstrated by glucose and insulin tolerance tests (GTT and ITT). Although if you look at the fasting values ​​there are also important changes, since the treated mice had lower sugar values ​​than the obese mice that were not treated. Protective effect. One of the most notable findings was the effect protector on muscle mass. Obesity usually causes a reduction in the diameter of muscle fibers (atrophy), but the study revealed that green tea not only prevented this deterioration, but caused a “significant increase in the cross-sectional area of ​​muscle fibers.” This suggests that green tea protects muscle from the harmful effects of obesity. The mechanism. There are several systems to understand why these effects occur in the body: Fat metabolism: treatment increases the expression of key genes involved in lipid uptake in the muscles, and the creation of new mitochondria is also enhanced, which in the end are the ones that will use up the energy. Glucose uptake: sugar uptake was improved by improving the number of insulin receptors in cells as well as the famous transporter GLUT4 which allows the muscles to capture and use this sugar much better by removing it from the bloodstream. Energy production: increasing the enzyme LDH in the body it is related to an increase in energy metabolism that increased in treated mice. It’s not a miracle. Although the results are promising, researcher Rosemari Otton warns that this is not a miracle solution. The dose used in mice would be equivalent to about three cups of green tea a day for a human, but quality is essential. Otton recommends the use of standardized extracts, since the tea bags we have in the supermarket do not always guarantee the quantity or quality of the flavonoids, which in the end are the beneficial compounds. Images | Towfiqu barbhuiya In Xataka | Solving one of the great myths of losing weight: if “walking quickly” works by itself to lose weight

Madrid plays 23.4 billion with data centers. The risk of losing them is in the electrical infrastructure

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Madrid has managed to position itself as The great HUB Digital of Southern Europe For the data centers industry, but the electrical infrastructure of the twentieth century cannot support the growth of the 21st century. Why is it important. The Community of Madrid leads Spain in data centers with 23.4 billion euros in investments planned until 2028. But 82% saturation This leadership puts this leadership against other European regions. In figures: Madrid concentrates 54.8% of the national capacity of data centers with 216 MW in operation. The forecasts point to 522 MW when the works under construction and up to 1.7 GW in 2030. The sector has grown 33% last year and will generate 35,000 jobs in six years. The threat. Ayuso is preparing allegations against what he considers A “over -regulation” of the Ministry of Ecological Transition, but the real problem is on the network. Electric distributors denied six out of ten access requests last year. Without immediate improvements, Spain would have already lost 60,000 million in investments, according to the employer’s calculations, Spain DC, collected by Digital economy. Between the lines. The Madrid paradox is evident: The region produces just 1,334 GWh … … but consume 27,487 GWh per year. It is an energy black hole that works because Spain exports electricity and technological ones sign long -term contracts. But that does not solve the saturation of the distribution network. What is happening. The Government He has put a Royal Decree until September 15 which will force data centers to report their environmental footprint, energy consumption and water use. Madrid considers that it can subtract competitiveness, but it is a minor problem compared to the lack of electrical capacity. Deepen. Spain DC claims an urgent modernization plan, and The electric ones ask the CNMC to raise the remuneration rate of 6.46% to 7.5% To invest in a network. The cost will be paid by consumers at the light bill, but without that investment Madrid will lose the train centers train against Frankfurt, Amsterdam or Paris. In Xataka | Emptied Spain has been filled with solar mills and panels, but waste energy for a simple reason: there are no cables Outstanding image | Community of Madrid

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