Love

Who do you love more, bars or Mercadona? Hospitality is taking the battle over prepared food to a zero-sum game

by

Since Spain believe made the “menu of the day” official 61 years agoin Manuel Fraga’s time, workers, travelers and families have gone to bars at midday basically looking for two things, in addition to food: time savings and good prices. That sacred triad turned the menu into the great success of the national hospitality industry (with forgiveness for the omelette). Now it plays against him. The same customers who have been eating in restaurants for generations have found an alternative that offers them food at better prices and with greater flexibility: supermarkets. The hoteliers, of course, they are not willing to give up and have taken out their best weapon: regulation. What has happened? The event was intended to review the data and needs of the sector, but it ended up leading to something else: a call to attention to chains such as Mercadona or Alcampo. Yesterday, during the General Assembly of Hospitality of Spain, the president of the group, José Luis Álvarez Almeida, post against a rival that until recently was off the radar of the country’s bars and restaurants: supermarkets. Without expressly mentioning them, the head of the employers’ association complained about the competition exerted by firms such as Mercadona, Carrefour, Bon Preu or Alcampo (to name a few), which have been betting on the sale of prepared dishes for some time and, in some cases, even include dining rooms in their premises so that customers can consume the food and drinks that they previously bought in the store right there. A model, Almeida insistswhich looks too similar to yours. “Unfair competition”. “Now we have gas stations, stores, hypermarkets or supermarkets that want to be bars. That is unfair competition,” argument the president of Hospitality of Spain during an event that was also attended by the Minister of Tourism, Jordi Hereu. “What we tell them is that, from an economic and competitive point of view, they can do what they want; but we all have to play on equal terms and be equal before the law.” your words have resonated with force in the sector, although it is not the first time that the expansion of the ready-to-eat dishes business within the supermarkets themselves leads to this question: Can it be considered unfair competition? He floated the same idea in December during an interview with SER Emilio Gallego, general secretary of Hospitality of Spain. “It is a controversial question. Either you are a supermarket or you have a space for a restaurant,” argument. “If you have a space where you buy food and eat it, you obviously have to have a restaurant activity license.” The key word: merchant. That the hospitality industry has raised its voice just now is no coincidence. Although supermarkets have been selling pre-cooked and ready-to-eat food for decades, in recent years some chains are shifting towards a new business model: the merchants. It is no longer about buying a tray of sushi, a cold tortilla or some pre-cooked noodles from a factory that the supermarket sells packaged. The key is that the customer can choose what they want to eat on a counter full of steaming stews, stews, fish… and then, if they want, they can devour that same food without leaving the store. The menu dilemma. Things get complicated there for bars, especially those that rely most on the concept of ‘menu of the day’: an affordable, varied and time-saving gastronomic offer. For years bars dominated that field. Now they have to fight with heavyweights like Mercadona, which offer prices that are difficult to match by family businesses that have been juggling for some time to make their menus profitable. This change in trend was summed up wonderfully well a few months ago by a gym instructor who The World interviewed while eating in a Mercadona in Madrid: “Although they pay me for the food, this is more practical and faster. You eat for six euros and I don’t spend 45 minutes. I haven’t eaten from a menu since summer.” In that same reportage The journalist spoke with other customers who came to Juan Roig’s store to buy dishes (stews, casseroles…) that they then ate in their own living rooms or office. Two years ago they might have gone to a bar with a menu or cooked at home. Not anymore. Has things changed that much? The data is revealing. In 2025 Mercadona had a turnover of around 700 million euros in Spain through its ‘Ready to Eat’ section. It may not seem like a big deal for a corporation whose sales exceeded 41.8 billionbut it is good to keep several things in mind. First, the ‘Ready to Eat’ section is very young. It was launched in 2018 and has expanded to more than 1,400 points of sale. Second, that those 700 million of euros are just part of the cake. If we take into account the entire supply of pre-cooked products (refrigerated, trays…) and the business in Portugal, the figure rises to 3,000 million. To give us an idea, this figure exceeds the annual sales of McDonald’s in Spain (2 billion) or Burger King (1,500). In general, it is estimated that the Valencian chain accounts for a 19.7% share of value in food and beverage consumption. That is, almost two out of every ten euros What we spend on that branch ends up in the company’s coffers. A key percentage: 7.6%. To understand how quickly the prepared food business is expanding, it is good to review Algori data advanced a few days ago by theEconomist. According to the consultancy, this segment was (by far) the one that recorded the greatest growth in sales volume last year among supermarkets and hypermarkets in Spain. In general, the sale of pre-cooked and cooked dishes soared by 7.6% in volume. Above fruits and vegetables (7%), meats (6.1%) and fish and seafood (4.9%). The Valencian chain is not the only one that is committed to this business niche, although it has managed to lead it. Your … Read more

Claude has a reputation for being the least accommodating and flattering AI, especially when you ask him for love advice.

by

Anthropic has analyzed a million random conversations with Claude and have reached a conclusion that we have already been observing: More and more people use AI as a personal guide who is asked for advice on all kinds of problems in their life, from work to relationships. Their goal was to see if Claude is as accommodating as other AIs when it comes to giving personal advice. AI as a confidant. There are people who use an AI chatbot as if he were a psychologistothers that looking for friendship and even who They have fallen in love with an AI and have a virtual relationship. ChatGPT is usually the most cited chatbot in these examples, mainly because it is the one with the most users, but the analysis that Anthropic has done with Claude proves that it is not a matter of one company, but that the trend is global. The problem with this is that AI tends to please and agree with the user, so it can end validating harmful ideas and harming our mental health. ANDl analysis. As we said, Anthropic has analyzed one million conversations with Claude, of which they identified around 38,000 in which users asked for advice on personal matters, which represents 6% of the total sample. They then classified them into nine categories: relationships, career, personal development, finances, legal issues, health and well-being, parenting, ethics and spirituality. 76% of the conversations analyzed corresponded to four of these categories, starting with health and well-being with 27%, professional career with 26%, relationships with 12% and personal finances with 11%. Selective flattery. What they saw in the analysis is that Claude usually avoids giving flattering answers when the user asks for guidance on personal matters. According to Anthropic, only in 9% of conversations was a very accommodating response detected. The problem is that, when the conversation was about romantic relationships, that figure rose to 25%. As examples, they cite cases in which the AI ​​agrees with a conflict despite not knowing both points of view, or interpreting romantic behaviors in normal interactions. And there’s more: in cases where the conversation was about spiritual topics, the rate of accommodating responses rose to 38%. Claude has a reputation for being less accommodating and servile, but he seems to abandon his neutral tone on certain topics. A complex problem. It was recently published a study by Stanford University in which they tested several flattering and less flattering chatbots. What they discovered was that the participants generally preferred flattering models, that is, we like to be proven right. One of the authors of the study, Myra Cheng, commented that “By default, AI advice does not tell people that they are wrong or give them a reality check (…) I worry that people will lose the ability to deal with difficult social situations.” Furthermore, this tendency to agree is also responsible for the AI hallucinations because the model prioritizes giving us an answer about its veracity. Image | Xataka In Xataka | When the accomplice in a shooting is ChatGPT, the question is what responsibility does OpenAI have?

They came to believe that the horoscope predicted true love. It was actually a bug in the 2001 British census.

by

When searching a new lovethere are many people who are looking for the best possible compatibility, but not only in terms of tastes or hobbies, but also to the zodiac sign that corresponds to each of the people. Nowadays there are dating applications that allow you to filter by zodiac sign, since it is not uncommon to see or hear that being a Leo or Scorpio sign is something catastrophic. But science has something to say here. Demonstrating it. When asked if the zodiac sign affects the compatibility that exists in a couple, researcher David Voas wanted to give him an answer to see if it is a definitive tool or not. And to do so, he analyzed a sample of 20 million people from the census of England and Wales, which is equivalent to 10 million couples. This way, if there is any relationship in such a large sample, it has to be seen somehow. And here we didn’t want to see if the fire signs get along with each other, but rather something more basic: is there any combination of signs that occurs more or less frequently than pure chance dictates? The first results. At first glance at the different couples analyzed, it seemed that the astrologers were right and that people were grouped according to the affinity of their zodiac signs. But the truth is that the researcher did not stop at this and continued digging into the data in order to see if there was something more. The real results. Upon further investigation, he discovered that this “astrological sign” did not come from the cosmos, but from imputation errors and biases in the collection of census data. Here he observed that in records where the exact day of birth was missing, officials used to assume that it was the 1st day of the month by default, which generated artificial accumulations of people in certain signs and created patterns that were not real. With all this, it was seen that many apparently compatible couples were simply sharing registration errors or rounded birth dates, which is something quite common within the administration. And once these statistical artifacts were corrected and matches by birth month were separated from matches that actually crossed the boundary between zodiac signs, the effect disappeared completely. In short, there was no trace of a “force” that united the signs. It’s always the same. This new research sits in a long tradition of scientific attempts to validate astrology in some way, and the truth is that it always comes to the same conclusion: there is no relationship. As Carlos Orsi explains in his work published by Columbia University Press, the problem with couple astrology is that not even astrologers themselves agree, since there is no homogeneous theory about which combinations are “good.” And given this lack of consensus, the Voas test is the fairest possible: look for any deviation from chance. And chance won by a landslide. Images | lookstudio in Magnific freepik In Xataka | Esperanza Gracia had been explaining the horoscope to the Spanish for three decades. Its closure illustrates a deeper change

The most important question to understand someone is not what they believe in or what they hope for. The question is what does he love?

by

“To know if someone is good, we do not ask what they believe or hope for, but rather what they love.”. One reads this phrase and it is almost inevitable to think that it is the typical self-help junk merchandise that fills feeds, mugs and WhatsApp statuses. But nothing could be further from the truth. And not only because It was written more than 1,500 years ago by one of the most influential thinkers in history, but because (in addition) it has become one of the philosophical concepts of recent months. So maybe the question is not what an old priest can teach us in this time full of haste, but also; The question is why that old priest has returned to the center of public debate exactly now. What exactly did Saint Augustine mean? The phrase is very interesting because, beneath an apparent meaningless string (what do you believe? What do you expect?), it hides a very clear idea of ​​what is important in life. In Christian thought, the three great traditional virtues are precisely faith, hope and love. What the philosopher from Hippo defended is that faith is important, of course; Hope is fundamental, of course it is: but at the center of everything is love. In fact, Augustine himself has another famous phase (“Love and do what you will”) that goes much further in his master-centrism. Nobody can be very surprised, really. Saint Augustine has great hits like: “Lord, grant me chastity and continence, but not now.” That “Do whatever you want” sounds suspicious, but (actually) it’s not so suspicious. We’ll see. Why has all this become popular right now? For politics, of course. On January 29, 2025, US Vice President Vance defended in an interview that canceling most US foreign aid and mass deportations with that argument. That “there is a Christian concept old-school “where you love your family, then your neighbor, then your community, then your fellow citizens, and after that, you can prioritize the rest of the world.” Later, at X.com, he spent the afternoon sending people to google “ordo amoris”. That is to say, Vance endorsed that idea of ​​”love and do what you want” in the most direct way possible. But does it make sense? Translated into a more current language, the Augustinian idea simply tells us that the subject is defined by the direction of his desire, not by the correctness of his beliefs or his expectations. But, without getting into political questions, that doesn’t exactly mean that there is a clear order of obligations that tells us who we should love first and who we should love second. It is not a ranking. Augustine’s idea is more complex because, deep down, he was convinced that love has a transformative power over people: it orders them from within. That is the order he claimed. What we can learn from Saint Augustine without entering into politicking. That what is important are the things that really matter to us; not our ideas about the world, nor what we hope will happen. But, above all, because what we love will end up turning us into the type of person we want to be. In someone, as the Father of the Church would say, good. Image | In Xataka | “If I am wrong, I exist”: 1,500 years ago, Saint Augustine had already given the best argument against the productivity gurus

why Gen Z has fallen in love with technologies that they did not experience

by

Technology has been sneaking into almost every corner of everyday life for decades: how we communicate, how we save memories, how we listen to music or how we entertain ourselves. ada generation has enjoyed its own innovations: from the Walkman to the compact camera, including the Game Boy and the Nintendo DS. As the years went by, many of these devices seemed destined to remain as relics in a drawer, surpassed by increasingly powerful mobile phones capable of concentrating almost all possible functions in a single device. However, in the era of the smartphone, AI or virtual reality, some of these “relics” are regaining prominence among recent generations. Compact digital cameras, retro consoles or cassettes reappear in second-hand stores or in TikTok videos where the young people who use them have not witnessed their birth or their rise. Nostalgia or novelty? The “return” or growing interest in vintage technology could be explained as a new wave of nostalgia. Alvaro Soler, sociologist and disseminator in social networksspeaks of a “retro utopia”: an idealized look capable of commercializing aesthetics and products from the past. “May we consume again retro technology “It has to do with the consumption of retro culture,” he explains, giving as an example the success of series like Stranger Thingswhich “make us go back to the 80’s, with consoles and arcade games, but also with fashion, music…”. In this way, Soler explains the market’s ability to take advantage of previous designs or products and present them as something attractive and desirable again. This is precisely one of the nuances that explains the return of retro from places beyond nostalgia. Although some of these devices do awaken memories and have a nostalgic connotation for those who grew up with them, not all the young people who recover them today have used them. In fact, many of them become familiar with these devices through social networks. Soler attributes to these platforms the power that classic advertising had before. They also come into play influencerswhom Soler defines as “figures of success or in whom you have to see yourself reflected.” In many cases, he adds, a large part of their identity is built through what they consume and display. This makes those who follow them more likely to be interested in or consume what they show in their profiles, including vintage technology. Thus, although many young people have not grown up with these devices, they can become desirable objectsassociated with an aesthetic or a way of being in the world. What for some is nostalgia, for others becomes a new necessity. This is the case of Lara, a young woman – who prefers to keep her identity private – who is fond of analog cameras from the 70s (like the Zenit). Although he did not experience either the arrival or the rise of these devices, he confesses in conversation with Xataka find something “unique” about them that attracts you. A camera not to scroll The return of this type of technology also has another reading. For Claudia Pradas, psychologist and disseminator on social networksin a young population overexposed to constant stimuli, screens and immediate rewards, “a more limited technology can be psychologically attractive” because “it reduces the load.” Compared to the mobile phone, which is at the same time a camera, console and music player, these devices have a single functiona restriction that can feel like a relief. “We are constantly exposed to super-overloaded technology that can fatigue us,” he explains, while these devices “can promote relaxation or deactivation of the nervous system, generating well-being.” Therefore, instead of interpreting this boom as a rejection of the new, Pradas proposes reading it as a search for alternatives: devices that allow us to continue using technology but at a different pace. The type of experience they offer also influences. “Old” devices force a more physical relationship that moves away from using the smartphone: insert a cartridge, rewind, press buttons, print a photo… For Pradas, that tactile dimension is key. In a context of digital saturation, “a sensory experience beyond the visual and auditory can help us become more rooted in the present.” Sociologist Soler agrees that the search for disconnection is one of the factors behind this return to previous technologies. Many of these retro consoles, he explains, they do not depend on the internet: they allow you to continue using digital technology, but without constant connection or online services. Something similar happens with photographs. Uploading images to networks or storing them in the cloud does not generate the same relationship with memories as printing them and saving them in an album. On the Internet, he says, images can become more volatile, get lost among thousands of files or become diluted in the continuous flow of content. Instead, developing photos or physically preserving them creates another way of relating to time and memory, “more tangible and lasting.” In a context of hyperconnectivity, changing memories from the digital environment to the physical dimension can also function as a way to organize and preserve what we really want to remember. This power of disconnection is corroborated by Elena, a 23-year-old young woman whose playing with practically discontinued consoles evokes the same tranquility as “when you watch a movie you’ve seen 200 times”; The simplicity of these devices gives you the calm that current video games do not achieve. “Right now (video games) are like a movie, but before everything happened on a very small screen with drawings that could even be in black and white,” he points out. The simplicity and the imperfection that characterize old games—and that extends to the grain of a compact camera or the less clean sound of a vintage player—are part of their appeal. In the face of increasingly perfect and faster devices, these small failures or limitations are perceived almost as a mark of authenticity and humanity. “Old analog cameras have nothing to do with cell phone photographs. I don’t take photos with my cell phone because for me … Read more

In Spain we love to have dinner at ten at night. To our biological clock and our heart, not so much

by

Eating dinner at 9 or 10 at night is something that is quite normal for Spaniards, but seen by foreigners, it is something that shocks them quite a bit as it is so different from the customs of other countries. And although our normality is to eat at three in the afternoon and dinner at ten at nightthe reality is that our biological clock is not designed to digest large amounts of food when the sun has already set. Time matters. Although in recent years we have been obsessed with looking at the ingredients of what we eat or the amount of calories it contains, the reality is that science gives more and more importance to consumption. This is where chrononutrition comes from, an emerging discipline that studies the relationship between circadian cycles and our diet, and that little by little is seeing that eating late dinners has a direct impact on our metabolic health. our quality of sleep and our risk cardiovascular. The biological clock. Our body works like an orchestra perfectly synchronized by circadian rhythmsand leaving them has serious consequences. We see it, for example, with the famous jet lagthe time change or even when we go to bed at a time that is not ours. The result is that the body has to recover again and has important effects, such as great fatigue. In the case of eating at odd hours, especially at dinner, we are desynchronizing the peripheral clocks that the cells of organs as important as the pancreas or liver have. And this results in a drastic worsening of glucose tolerance and also insulin secretion. Its effect. And it has consequences, since when we eat dinner close to our biological bedtime, that is, when the sun is setting, the body reduces the consumption of nocturnal fats and there is also a large release of cortisol, which is the stress hormone, and the release of melatonin, which is essential for falling asleep, is delayed. This is something that became clear in a 2025 meta-analysis, where it is detailed that eating after nine at night worsens the rhythms of neurotransmitters such as serotonin and dopamine, which not only has a metabolic impact, but also an emotional one, increasing the risk of depression. The Spanish case. If we focus precisely on our country, we have as a reference the study led by the ISGlobal institute that analyzed to 100,000 participants of the NutriNet-Santé cohort. Here it was concluded that dining after 9 pm is associated with a greater cardiovascular risk, especially impacting the risk of cerebrovascular disease in women. In the case of weight. If you want to lose weight, dinner time also has a lot of influence, as noted in a study by researcher Marta Garaulet that showed that people who eat later at midday lose less weight than those who eat early, even when they consume the same calories and expend the same amount of energy and sleep the same amount. Added to this are studies in Catalan adults that associate the delay of the first meal of the day with a higher BMIwhile extending overnight fasting is related to a lower BMI. Beyond the scale. Although we may keep in mind the impact on digestion, the reality is that studies suggest that having late meal times is related to poorer quality of sleep. This was seen in the United States, where science pointed out that in middle-aged women it has been proven that bringing dinner time closer to bedtime prolongs the time it takes to fall asleep, therefore shortening the effective duration of rest. And as we already know, having poor quality sleep generates many other problems, such as a worse cardiometabolic profile, which generates a true vicious circle. Its nuances. Logically, having a late dinner alone does not explain the state of health of the Spanish population, since the context has a lot of influence. This is where the traditional Spanish Mediterranean diet comes in, which makes dinners later meals, but also much lighter, leaving the main energy weight for the midday meal. That is why you should keep in mind that a late, copious and ultra-processed dinner followed by a trip straight to bed is not the same as a light dinner accompanied by some physical activity before going to sleep. Even so, science suggests that, if the objective is to reduce metabolic risk, improve carbohydrate metabolism and lose weight, the winning strategy involves advance dinner time and maintain a longer overnight fasting window. Images | Eiliev Aceron Shane In Xataka | Healthy obesity does not exist: why “being fat but fit” is nothing more than a myth

The AI ​​industry fell in love with OpenAI, but doesn’t trust its CEO one bit

by

At OpenAI they see a future in which the work week should have four days. Not only that: every citizen should receive a share of the economic growth generated by AI. These are some of the proposals that the company has published yesterday with the aim of preparing us for the “age of intelligence.” And just the day they published that proposal full of good and reassuring intentions, a blow arrived for the CEO of OpenAI, Sam Altman. An investigation published in The New Yorker once again called into question his way of acting, highly criticized by experts and engineers who worked with him. The conclusion of all of them: better not trust Sam Altman. The arrival of the age of intelligence. What they call the “age of intelligence” will undoubtedly have a negative impact in some areas, but OpenAI proposes with their document to make changes that mitigate these problems. Among the most striking measures is the creation of a “public wealth fund” that will distribute dividends from AI directly among citizens, regardless of their employment status. Let the machines work (and pay us for it). They also suggest taxes on automated labor to finance social security, and also pilot projects of four-day work weeks without salary reduction. The proposal is striking and seeks, of course, to reassure citizens in the face of threats such as job loss that can be caused by the mass adoption of AI. The problem is that this proposal comes at a delicate moment for an OpenAI in the midst of a reputational crisis. Smokescreen? This optimistic proposal contrasts with the report published in The New Yorker and in which the authors interviewed more than 100 people “with first-hand knowledge of how Altman behaves in business.” And among them, rivals like Ilya Sutskever or above all Dario Amodei who founded their own startups. Both harshly criticized Altman. Sutskever accumulated internal documents and messages showing deception and manipulation. Amodei stated that the obstacle to AI security is Altman himself, who leaves that area in the background compared to the company’s ambition for personal power and excessive growth. For his former partners, Altman is not a visionary, but an actor with a calculated pose. Says one thing, does another. The scandal of dismissal and later return of Altman was due precisely to that attitude in which the council accused him of having “not been consistently frank in his communications.” It’s the same thing we’ve read on other occasions: Altman has a dual personality. In him, the pathological desire to be liked and accepted is mixed with a total lack of concern for the long-term consequences of his misdeeds. He tells his interlocutors what they want to hear, and then does what he really wanted from the beginning. It is something that, for example, Karen Hao narrates over and over again. in his book ‘Empire of AI’in which, it must be said, it erred in calculating the water consumption of data centers mentioned in its studies. In the report they mention how the well-known programmer Aaron Swartz met him before die in 2013 and commented about him even then that “he is a sociopath.” Public image is everything. The publication of the OpenAI document occurs at a particularly critical time for the company, which is involved in a reputational and strategic crisis. Anthropic has managed to become the darling of the AI ​​industry —without being much less perfect— and OpenAI has realized that it was experimenting with too many AI applications that were not profitable and now wants to refocus on what makes it profitable. The good intentions shown in the document try to get public opinion on their side just when the company plans its IPO. Learning from the past. Altman’s critics reveal that he is an expert at designing control mechanisms that go up in smoke. Support AI regulations (at least those that favor you) and publicly promotes ethics committees and alignment and security of the AI ​​that in reality later knocks down internally, at least according to those who work with it. It happened when he promised to allocate 20% of the computing capacity to the super-alignment team, and then actually gave up only between 1 and 2% of that capacity. Jan Leike, who was named co-leader of that team along with Sutskever, resigned in May 2024 indicating that “safety culture and processes have been relegated to the background compared to flashy products,” he explained in a thread in X. He ended up signing for Anthropic. Interested reviews. Although Altman’s career at the head of OpenAI –with what happened to the Pentagon as a recent example—reinforces the comments of those who criticize him, it must be remembered that competition in this industry is currently fierce. Many of those who participate in the report are direct rivals and therefore their criticism, veiled or not, is partly self-serving because it harms their competitor. In Xataka | There is a new generation of AI models at the doors and Anthropic has to sell them: “The biggest and smartest”

We Spaniards love low-cost telephone operators. So PcComponentes has gotten on board

by

In the middle of the operators’ war to offer low cost ratesthe Murcian PcComponentes has decided to enter the battlefield. The company debuts with fiber and mobile rates thanks to Likes Telecom, a Spanish company focused on the creation of telecommunications brands and with the support of XFERA MÓVILES (MásOrange). A new participant. From the PcComponentes website You can now contract fiber and mobile. At the moment, there are three fiber and mobile packages, and three possibilities to contract a mobile line. To stand out from its rivals, PcComponentes ensures that customer service support will be especially taken care of. The rates. At its launch, these are the three rates offered by PcComponentes. Core rate oNers rate hyperuser rate fiber 300MB 600MB 1GB mobile 30 GB cumulative + another 30 GB gift line 100 GB cumulative Unlimited additional Basic TV +3€/month Additional mobile lines from €5/month Basic TV +3€/month Additional mobile lines from €5/month Premium TV +5€/month Additional mobile lines from €5/month permanence No 6 month stay 6 month stay In the case of mobile line only rates, we have these three options. 30 GB Mobile Line for 6.90 euros per month. Mobile Line 100 GB for 13.90 euros per month. Unlimited Mobile Line for 19.90 euros per month. All of them have MásOrange 5G coverage, unlimited national calls, Roaming Zone 1 in the EU, the possibility of eSIM and cumulative gigs without permanence. The conditions. PcComponentes only sets a six-month permanence for two of its rates, which is conditional on the quality of the service. In the event that the client suffers more than two connection incidents for which the operator is responsible, it will be cancelled. Likewise, in rates like Hyperuser, there is a commitment to quality. If there is an incident caused by the operator that prevents the client from connecting to the internet, nothing will be paid during the current month. Go deeper. The company adds that, as customers of its mobile and fiber service, we will access discounts on the PcComponentes website. At the moment, there is no concrete data on how they are going to raise them or what exactly they consist of. The challenge. Digi is staying with practically all the ports in Spain, stealing customers from Telefonica, MásOrange and Vodafone. A fight for low prices that practically no rival is able to match, including PcComponentes. Despite this, it remains to be seen how this small proposal on PcComponentes’ “own MVNO” coexists with Digi, Lowi, Simyo or Finetwork. In Xataka Mobile | The uncomfortable truth about fiber: the speed that the operator promises us can never be maintained

Thousands of people have fallen in love with seven dogs abandoned and on the run in the middle of China. It was just another AI video

by

The image was undeniably powerful, almost cinematic. In the freezing darkness of the night, with temperatures below zero, a pack of seven dogs walked in formation on the shoulder of a highway. The video of just 11 seconds, published in chinese platform Douyinshowed a motley crew: a German shepherd, a golden retriever, a Labrador, a small corgi, and several mixed breed dogs. The clip went viral, quickly racking up more than 230 million views. The audience, saturated with news about wars and disastersfound an emotional balm in these animals. But what the network hailed as a miracle of loyalty and survival, the real version of the Disney movie Homeward Bound or the children’s series Paw Patrolturned out to be a completely prefabricated story. The birth of a viral myth. It didn’t take long for the internet machinery to build an epic narrative. From there, speculation became “truth.” Rumor spread that the seven dogs had escaped from a traffickers’ truck that was taking them to a dog meat slaughterhouse, and it was even claimed that they had walked 17 kilometers together. The anthropomorphization of the pack reached extraordinary levels. As illustrated by the comments of Internet userssocial networks assigned a role to each dog in this pack: the injured German shepherd was the “General” whom everyone protected; the golden retriever was the “guard” that was placed near traffic to shield them; Chinese rural dogs were the “guides” with a sense of direction; and the little corgi was the brave leader and “nurse” who walked 50,000 steps—twice as many as the rest—retracing his steps to make sure no one was left behind. The truth behind this story. The event, however, was much less romantic and lacked villains. Extensive field research carried out by reporters City Evening News dismantled the theory of the great escape. There were no meat traffickers, no kidnapping trucks, nor a 17-kilometer trip. Reporters located the village in Shuangyang district where the animals came from. Three of the most famous dogs belonged to Mr. and Mrs. Zhang: the corgi, affectionately called “Big Fatty” (Dapang); the German Shepherd, “Four Treasures” (Sibao); and the golden retriever, “Long Hair.” As the family explained, around March 13, the German shepherd simply went into heat. Since the dogs in the village usually roam freely, the males in the area were attracted to her and began to follow her, going just 4 or 5 kilometers away until they reached the highway. The rescue was not out of a movie either. Although volunteers from rescue bases such as Tong Tong or Bitter Coffee (led by Professor Liu) used drones to search for the herd, the resolution was purely customary. As detailed City Evening NewsMr. Zhang had a dream in which he was feeding his dogs. Convinced that they were alive, he went out to look for them in neighboring towns and found them safe and sound in the walled patio of a house where they had entered to take refuge. The other dogs in the video turned out to be pets of other neighbors in the area, such as Messrs. Guo and Jing, who returned home on their own. The engine of deception. If the story was so simple, how did it become a global phenomenon full of false details? The answer is in technology. According to an in-depth analysis of cnnalthough the original clip of the dogs walking on the highway was authentic, the story was hijacked and inflated using Artificial Intelligence. After the video went viral, AI-generated “spin-offs” proliferated: cinematic posters of the seven dogs, fake trailers showing their “exciting escape” and hyper-realistic images of the animals tearfully reunited with their supposed owners. The reason is purely economic, since “attention is money on the Internet”, as TJ Thomson explainsassociate professor of digital media at RMIT University. Content creators saw a golden opportunity to capitalize on a trend. As Tama Leaver, a professor at Curtin University, adds, inventing or embellishing these stories using AI is “a very effective way to increase an account’s numbers quickly.” The implications beyond. Although it may seem like an endearing and harmless anecdote, this viral hoax has tangible consequences. On the one hand, it perpetuates stigmas. Although since SCMP contextualizeciting the Dalian Animal Protection Association, that pet theft for meat is a real problem in some areas of northern China (which prompted genuine concern from many), in this specific case the false narrative fueled the fires of racism. As pointed out cnnthe invention of the “meat factory” fueled negative stereotypes against Chinese citizens, something especially dangerous in a climate of growing xenophobia. On the other hand, there is the damage to our information ecosystem. Chinese state media and the Jilin tourist office had to intervene to deny the rumor. as quote Guardianauthorities warned that this incident “reflects deficiencies in the dissemination of information online, where subjective speculation is easily taken as fact.” Professor Tama Leaver warns about danger of complacency: If we let our guard down and accept AI-generated images without questioning them because they are “cute dogs”, our critical skills will be atrophied when faced with false images about serious topics, such as war conflicts. @cnn A viral video showed a group of dogs in China who were purportedly captured to be eaten, escaped, and made the long journey home. The problem? The story’s not real. CNN’s Jessie Yeung explains how this kind of misinformation can spread. #cnn #news ♬ original sound – CNN The fragility of our eyes. The ending of “The Adventures of the Seven Dogs” in Changchun did not require an epic soundtrack, but a leash. Owners now leash their dogs during the mating season. However, the trail they leave on the network is deep. In an era dominated by AI and the desperate search for clicks, our need to consume happy endings it makes us deeply vulnerable to manipulation. The true story of the German shepherd or the corgi teaches us a hard journalistic and social lesson about the contemporary internet: as Professor Thomson … Read more

a story of love and hate

by

To human beings we love to take sides and defend it. We love and hate football teams, foods, cars and clothes, but we also love and hate technology companies. If there are two companies that represent that history, they are Apple, traditionally loved by its users and with a very good image, and Microsoft, which despite its efforts has been massively hated. We do not enter here into value judgments about whether one or the other deserved that love or hate, but we simply expose that this feeling is clearly widespread. This story of love and hate has accompanied us for the last forty years, but now another similar story is beginning to take shape. Still incipient, but striking. It is, of course, how people are starting to hate OpenAI and love Anthropic. The similarities with Microsoft and Apple are striking, especially after the events of recent days and that triangle of loves and heartbreaks that the Pentagon, Anthropic and OpenAI have formed. Two very clear perceptions have ended up emerging from all this scandal. On the one hand, Anthropic has positioned itself as the company that defends ethics and morality. They have not given in to the demands of the Pentagon and they have stuck to their guns, which reputationally has been very positive for her. On the other hand, OpenAI has taken advantage of the moment to steal the government contract from its rival. The perception here is different, and OpenAI has come across as an opportunistic and unscrupulous company. So much so that the impact on popularity has been notable: last Saturday ChatGPT downloads plummeted while Claude’s managed to place her above her rival, who had always dominated that ranking. The effect has been clear: Anthropic has become the good one, the company to love. OpenAI, on the other hand, has become the focus of criticism. In fact, a ‘Cancel ChatGPT’ movement which encourages users to stop using OpenAI AI models. Betrayal, these users seem to say, is paid for. The narrative battle of the good guys and the bad guys Here we are witnessing a unique phenomenon of the evolution of the corporate identity of these companies. While Altman seems to have adopted Bill Gates’ style manual from the 90s —prioritizing aggressive growth, government alliances and market domination—, Dario Amodei positions himself as the “spiritual heir” of that Apple that boasted of “thinking differently”. Anthropic’s refusal to cross certain red lines has served to make the average user feel that by using Claude they are supporting a technology “with a conscience”, so to speak. The curious thing about this story and this rivalry is that Anthropic was precisely born from a split from OpenAI due to ethical differences. There is a certain narrative of purity versus business pragmatism here that again reminds us of the confrontation between Apple and Microsoft since the 80s. OpenAI seems to be the Windows of AI. Meanwhile, Anthropic appears to be the MacBook. These user tantrums usually have an expiration date because human beings we have a very bad memorybut OpenAI still faces clear risks. For example, that this perception of the company complicates talent retention or that Anthropic actually ends up assuming the role of “company that develops ethical AI.” For the latter that is also a risk, because any slip in that immaculate philosophy can be very expensive. In fact, it is already being talked about on networks how Amodei actually he is no saint and your company showed up in January to a competition for a project for swarms of autonomous drones controlled by voice and AI. Thus, we are reviving the assignment of ideological values ​​to technology. Each company wants to position itself differently, but for users everything is once again a matter of good and bad. Users loved Apple computers and hated (or supported) Microsoft computers. Now that debate seems to have moved to AI: we love Anthropic’s because it seems to be ethical, and we hate (or support) OpenAI’s because it is opportunistic. But be careful: this has only just begun. In Xataka | Microsoft had a Discord channel dedicated to AI. They closed it because everyone now calls them “Microslop” Image | Xataka with Freepik

Log In

Forgot password?

Forgot password?

Enter your account data and we will send you a link to reset your password.

Your password reset link appears to be invalid or expired.

Log in

Privacy Policy

Add to Collection

No Collections

Here you'll find all collections you've created before.