man

Tesla robotaxis are autonomous, except when driven by a man from Texas

by

Taking a trip in an autonomous taxi is an unsettling feeling of a future that is already here. However, even if the driver’s seat is empty, we now know that sometimes there is a person at the controls who is controlling it remotely. It happened recently with Waymo and now we have learned that Tesla does it too. Self-employed, sometimes. They count in Futurism that Tesla has recognized (after being required by the US Senate) that it has human operators who can take complete control of the vehicle in certain situations. These operators are located at the headquarters in Austin, Texas, or Palo Alto, California. Exceptional situations. As explained in the letter sent to the Senate, this is “As a security measure in exceptional cases (…) as a last resort once all other available intervention actions have been exhausted.” When this remote mode is activated, the operator cannot exceed 16 kilometers per hour. For example, it is used if the vehicle is stuck on a road. Why is it important. Self-driving taxi companies like Waymo and, now, Tesla, have gone to great lengths to hide these types of remote interventions because it is a way of admitting that we are far from 100% autonomous driving. At the beginning of the year, Elon Musk boasted that their robotaxis were circulating without a safety monitor, but shortly after we learned that what they had really done was converting that safety monitor into a vehicle with a driver that followed each robotaxi. The Waymo case. The leading robotaxis company in the US was the first to recognize human intervention in driving their cars. It also happened as a result of authorities’ scrutiny of its technology. However, unlike Tesla’s system in which the human takes full control of the vehicle, in Waymo the human intervenes to guide the stuck vehicle, but does not drive it directly. The workers who carry out these interventions do so from the Philippines. Risks and criticisms. Tesla speaks of “exceptional cases”, but refused to give details about the frequency of these interventions, which for the Senate was insufficient since remote driving entails significant risks. If, for example, there is latency in the network, it would cause a delay in the remote driver’s orders and may have consequences. Tesla defends itself by arguing that revealing that information would “reveal highly sensitive trade secrets and confidential business practices” that Tesla needs to maintain its “competitive position in the autonomous vehicle industry.” Image | Xataka In Xataka | The robotaxis did not need a driver, but Waymo has ended up paying delivery drivers to close ajar doors

The Tax Agency has not made the income tax return manual accessible for decades. A Valencian man did it in three hours

by

“Javier, has the program PADRE come out yet?” Every year, at the end of March, my father—not to be confused with my FATHER—asked me the same question, because I was like an AI alerting him that he could finally get down to it. the income tax return every year. For him that was not just an obligation. I would say it was a hobby. Almost a passion. Something to which he dedicated hours and hours in his office armed with his pens, his tight handwriting, his calculator and of course with the Nobel package next to it. He is no longer here, but if I have not inherited something from him, it is that passion for filing income tax returns. In fact, I have never done it, perhaps because as I saw that he dedicated so many hours and effort to making it perfect, that caused me some trauma. “Ugh, this costs too much,” I told myself then and I continue to tell myself now. And here I am, with a reverential fear of completing that task, which I end up entrusting to a manager because time, they say, is money. And yet, it is a small outstanding debt that I have. Last year I tried to try it, and this year I told myself that maybe with the help of some local AI model (because of privacy) I should try it again. But while I was thinking about it, these days the practical manual of Income 2025and one person decided to do something very interesting with that information: he turned it into something useful. This is how the LaRenta.es Open Source project emerged This manual, no matter how complete and detailed it may be, has a problem: it is very inaccessible. The information is there, but neither the wording nor the structure or its organization make it a particularly useful document for most users. That’s where it came into action. Paul March (@paumrch), a public administration worker who lives in Valencia and who, at 31 years old, has a profile completely aligned with the so-called civic technology. Although his training is not technical, he is a very restless self-taught person who has been “tinkering” with all kinds of personal technological projects for more than 15 years. And the latter has become especially popular. We have had the opportunity to speak with Pau and he told us that by working in public administration and being interested in the application of technology to his field, “I have always been interested in the issue of digitalization of the administration because I know it and I know the room for improvement there is and I am convinced that citizens need that improvement.” When the Income 2025 practical manual appeared, he realized that he could try to do something with it. With the experience of previous projects and the new AI tools that he had been using for months, he got the ball rolling. In just three hours, he confesses, he created LaRenta.esa web service that allows any user Know what state and regional deductions you can take advantage of in this statement. The first question of the questionnaire is important: where we pay personal income tax. The deductions to which we may be entitled depend on this parameter. To do this, it has created a very simple system in which, from a small questionnaire that takes two minutes to complete, we can obtain information about these deductions. The process is reduced to going through seven stages of this questionnaire with a few questions, from which it is possible to obtain a final summary with deductions to which we may end up being entitled. And in each of them, we will have an indicator to know what percentage of the total of each deduction we may be entitled to, as well as detailed information about each particular deduction. In these details, the information present in the 2025 income manual is used more clearly and directly, but although the language is still somewhat harsh, at least in this project only that which is directly related to that deduction is shown in a more readable format. We are therefore faced with a project that is not intended at all to prepare your income tax return, but rather to at least provide the information that exists is more accessible and easier to understand. And as March says, it is far from being a perfect project, but it certainly shows that all that information offered by the public administration can be converted into something even more useful in a relatively simple way. From idea to application in three hours These days this entrepreneur explained the process of creating this webapp in an article posted on his Twitter account (X), and as I said there, the cycle was surprisingly simple. AI was his companion throughout the project, and he took advantage of his experience with previous projects to then take advantage of several tools: The interface design was carried out with the help of GoogleStitch The programming was done with the plugin Claude Code in Visual Studio Code. He used Opus 4.6 to plan the entire project, and Sonnet 4.6 to program it, although for some basic tasks he indicates that he also used Anthropic’s basic model, Haiku. He did it all on March 19, right during the Cremá, the big day of the Fallas in his city, Valencia. The project absorbed him so much that he didn’t even enjoy the party and he spent that afternoon and part of the night polishing the errors he was detecting. The result, as can be seen on LaRenta.es, is a fully functional, fast, clear and practical web application. Not only that: it is totally private. Pau explains that no data is saved except for the email if a user wants the summary PDF report to be sent to them. The potential of civic technology When the project was finished, Pau decided post a message to share it through your Twitter … Read more

“The tiger cannot stop being a tiger but man lives in permanent risk of being dehumanized”

by

“And here it matters to me what a tiger can or cannot stop doing?” That, I imagine, is the only reasonable question one can ask when listening to this famous phrase of Ortega y Gasset. “The tiger cannot stop being a tiger,” said the philosopher just before adding: “but man lives in permanent risk of being dehumanized.” This is the interesting thing: that for Ortega the tiger has it easy. Tiger is born, tiger lives and tiger dies. It’s not that I have a simple life, nothing in this world has simple lives. But, at least, there are no head warm-ups. Being a human, however, is something else. As explained in ‘The man and the people’human beings have a problem that no other animal has: they have to decide who they are going to be. It is a central idea of ​​Ortega’s thought: that the human being does not have nature (he does not have a fixed behavioral repertoire, nor a series of concrete capacities, nor a ‘way of being’ in the world that comes as standard), what he has is history. It is true that contemporary science (by pulverizing the qualitative distance between us and them) has questioned this idea, but on a personal level still makes sense. In many ways, the philosopher would tell us, we are a project that is being carried out over time. However, the idea has problems: on the one hand, it empowers us, it gives us tools to take control of our own lives. On the other hand, it subjects us to pressure and anxiety (that of being “the unique and non-transferable self”) that can be counterproductive. How not to dehumanize ourselves, then? “Dehumanize“It is not becoming bad, or anything like that: it is simply betraying our individuality. Whatever that means. What Ortega did give us some ideas about is how to avoid it. For him, life oscillates between two poles: self-absorption and “alteration”: between locking yourself inside yourself and letting yourself be carried away by what is happening around you. The key is not to fall into any of these poles: neither reject society, nor get confused with it. We have to orient ourselves within it to get closer to who we are in the midst of the chaos of the contemporary world. It is an invitation to stop living without autopilot on. The difficult thing, I imagine, is doing it. Image | ChatGPT In Xataka | What did Immanuel Kant mean when he argued that patience is not “a force of resistance, but rather one that hopes to make suffering satisfactory?”

In 2021 a man made a military prediction and since then Taiwan and the US have been preparing for a date: 2027

by

In a military sense, there are few things as influential as a date that no one has officially set. Sometimes one sentence in a parliamentary hearing is enough for governments, armies and analysts to begin reorganizing budgets, exercises and strategies for years. In the Indo-Pacific, a figure pronounced some time ago ended up becoming a kind geopolitical clock. In fact, today marks the planning of various powers. The prediction on the calendar. In March 2021, a seemingly technical testimony before the US Senate ended up becoming one of the most influential points of reference in the Indo-Pacific military strategy. Then Admiral Philip Davidson warned that the rapid growth of Chinese military power could endanger Taiwan “within the next six years,” a statement that implicitly set a date: 2027. That estimate, based on intelligence analysis on the modernization of the People’s Liberation Army, quickly became what many strategists called the “Davidson window”. Since then, the number was installed in military planning of Washington, Taipei and their allies, triggering an investment careerwar exercises and military reinforcements throughout the Pacific. 2027 and the centenary. Of course, the reason why that date seemed plausible was closely related to the people themselves. Beijing’s strategic objectives. 2027 marks the centenary of the armed wing of the Chinese Communist Party, the People’s Liberation Army, and Xi Jinping’s leadership has set that year as a key stage to complete a major phase of military modernization. The plan is part of a broader calendar that seeks to have “basically modernized” armed forces by 2035 and capable of rivaling any world power around 2049. Although Beijing has never officially announced that this anniversary is linked to an invasion of Taiwan, the temporal coincidence between military modernization and increasing demonstrations of strength around the island has reinforced the perception that 2027 could become a critical moment. The strategy in the Pacific. As the years went by, that prediction took on a life of its own. Washington increased significantly its military spending aimed at competing with China and began to reinforce strategic infrastructure on Pacific islands to facilitate the deployment of forces. At the same time, the United States approved billions of dollars in arms sales to Taiwan, while Taipei began to adjust its military planning around a possible invasion scenario towards the end of the decade. Even the major Taiwanese military exercises have passed to simulate explicitly a Chinese attack in 2027, reflecting how a single strategic estimate ended up becoming a true geopolitical clock for the entire region. A surprise attack. For a long time, military analysis assumed that a Chinese invasion of Taiwan would be impossible to conceal. A deployment of hundreds or thousands of ships, troops and equipment along the Chinese coast would generate obvious signals detectable by satellites and intelligence services weeks before the start of the operation. However, some analysts now warn that this assumption could be too optimistic. Recent research has suggested that China could attempt forms of attack faster or surprisingleveraging new tactics and technologies to reduce advance notice time. This scenario is especially worrying to Taiwan, which has historically relied on having enough time to react and mobilize its defenses. Increasingly intense military career. Meanwhile, Chinese military power has continued to expand at great speed. Beijing’s defense budget has increased steadily over the last decade and the country has introduced new capabilities that could be key in an eventual conflict: long-range missiles, advanced drones, new aircraft carriers and ships designed to transport troops and material to hostile coasts. These transformations do not guarantee that an invasion is imminent, of course, but they are changing the balance military in the Taiwan Strait and fueling concerns about the future of the region. The domino effect of other wars. The international context adds another layer of uncertainty to this strategic calculation. Conflicts in other regions, especially the Middle East, are forcing the United States to consume large quantities of ammunition, interceptors and military resources that were originally intended to reinforce deterrence in Asia. Analysts warn that a prolonged war in other theaters could delay deliveries of weapons to Taiwan and further strain US defense industrial capacity, where there is already a significant delay in military orders destined for the island. A strategic watch. Although neither China nor the United States have officially set a timetable for a conflict, the idea of ​​2027 has become a point psychological reference for governments, military and analysts. Some believe that this date has fueled unnecessary fears and an arms race in the region, while others believe that it has served to wake up Washington and its allies facing a historic change in the balance of power. In any case, the prediction made in 2021 has left a more than profound mark: today, in the barracks, offices and strategy centers of the Indo-Pacific, the calendar advances with a figure marked in red. 2027… and China. Image | 中文（臺灣）：​中華民國總統府, 總統府, Al Jazeera In Xataka | “We have never seen anything like this”: if China invades Taiwan, Taiwan will not notice because a drone has been disguised as an optical illusion for months In Xataka | An island has become the new red line against China: it has Taiwan in front of it and Japan is going to fill it with missiles

When a mountaineer experiences extreme experiences on the mountain, his brain begins to imagine something: a “third man”

by

Not all adventures have to be successfully resolved to become epic. It happened with what is known as Imperial Transantarcticthe expedition that left England in August 1914 under the orders of explorer Ernest Shackleton with an enormous purpose and not for the faint of heart: cross Antarcticafrom Vahsel in the Weddell Sea to Ross Island at the other end. Due to the harsh conditions at the South Pole, the ship Endurance ended up trapped between ice and Shackleton saw how his plans became complicated until they dragged him into a real feat that took his endurance and that of his colleagues to a limit level only achievable between icebergs, glacial temperatures and extreme exhaustion. The explorer’s feat also served something that he probably did not even suspect: coining the expression “third man factor or syndrome”. Well known by mountaineers and which is, even today, a fascinating phenomenon. “Who is the third person walking beside you?” Ernest Shackleton (left) with Robert Falcon Scott and Edward Wilson in Antarctica, 1902. The phenomenon was described by Shackleton when he recalled the very hard two and a half days during which he advanced—along with Frank Worseley and Tom Cream—towards a whaling station located on the northern coast of South Georgia. The group walked 36 long hours between terrible conditions, with hardly any material and avoiding death. On their shoulders they also carried the responsibility of having to help the rest of their companions from the ill-fated Imperial Transantarctic. Only the three of them, Ernest, Frank and Tom, wandered through the desolate Antarctica, although if someone had asked them how many people made up that desperate entourage, they would probably have answered something different: that with them was another person, a fourth member, nameless, faceless… but undeniable. “I know that during that long and stormy march over nameless mountains and glaciers, it often seemed to me that there were four of us, not three,” the explorer wrote. That common feeling, precise Guardianoverwhelmed the three men who undertook the journey: the presence of a “fourth” that accompanied them. Such an expression must have surprised the poet. T. S. Eliotwho some time later, in 1922, after reading Shackleton’s story, picked up the idea to capture it in his popular poem The Waste Land: “Who is the third one who always walks by your side? When I count, there is only you and me together, but when I look ahead on the white road there is always another walking at your side.” Eliot’s license, which changed Shackleton’s “fourth” man for a “third” was successful and since then we usually talk about the “third man syndrome” to refer to that: the feeling of a ghost companion, a presence that in a way comforts people who face a borderline sensation. Shackleton was not the only one to describe it. Several years after his death, in 1933, Frank SmytheBritish and explorer like him, recounted an experience similar while trying to summit Mount Everest. “The whole time I was climbing alone I had the strong feeling that I was accompanied by a second person. It was so strong that completely eliminated all the loneliness I might otherwise have felt,” the explorer wrote in his diary. So vivid was the sensation that, Smythe explains, at one point during the ascent he searched in his pocket, took out a piece of Kendal Mint Cakebroke it and turned to offer one of the halves to that companion who felt so close. He didn’t see anyone, of course. You don’t have to go back that far in time. Not that far. The Madrid mountaineer Fernando Garrido wrote in his notebook the feeling that came over him when, at the beginning of 1986, he spent more than two months on the lonely summit of the Aconcaguaat almost 7,000 meters, to achieve the altitude survival record. “Today, like other times, I woke up with the feeling that there was someone outsidenext to the store. Have you spent the night there? Why didn’t he call me to let him in? (…) —said the mountaineer in statements collected for him The Confidential—He’s my brother, my brother Javier! Javi, wake up, come on, wake up! I turn it towards me. “He is dead, his head is a skull.” “A solid science” A good handful of articles and references have been written about the phenomenon, some in media within the reach of Guardian either NPRand in 2008 the writer John Geiger dedicated a monographic book to him, ‘The Third Man Factor: Surviving the Impossible’ after spending five years tracking down similar stories. It is more complicated than collecting experiences, however, to give them a plausible explanation. Years ago, during a chat with the journalist NPR’s Guy Raz, Geiger reported that there are those who turn to spirituality, although he insists that the syndrome can be explained by “a solid science”. “Many skeptics and non-believers have had this experience and attribute it to other causes,” claims the author, who in his volume even includes the case of a 9/11 survivor. In 2009 Geiger pointed out explanations such as biochemical reactions or simply failures in brain activity. “If we understand that the third man factor is part of us, like adrenaline is… then we can access it more easily. It is not a hallucination in the sense that hallucinations are disordered. This is a very useful and orderly guide,” he reflected. Years ago, researchers Ben Alderson-Day and David Smailes commented on the phenomenon and they explained that “strong feelings of presence” do not occur only in dramatic circumstances. Cases have been recorded after bereavement, during sleep paralysis or in cases of neurological disorders, such as Parkinson’s disease or brain damage. “The different contexts in which they occur give us some clues about what could be happening,” they say. “Understanding more about how and why felt presences occur has the potential to tell us many things about ourselves: how we react under intense mental or physical stress, how we deal with danger and threat, … Read more

The wildest race on the Olympic tracks in Cortina was in 1981. A man launched himself dodging bullets and assassins on a motorcycle

by

There are places that seem calm until someone decides to take them beyond reason. Scenarios conceived for precision and discipline that end up becoming, through a combination of ambition and audacity, within the framework of feats that border on the impossible and they leave a mark that is difficult to erase. The slopes of Cortina, in Italy, have seen all kinds of sporting feats, but few like the one that occurred in 1981. Return with the aroma of cinema. When the Winter Games They return to Cortina d’Ampezzothe tracks not only recover their sporting history, but also one of the sequences more wild and brutal never shot in the snow. The scene in question turned these mountains into the scene of impossible chases, shootings adrenaline in full descent and suicidal jumps that were etched in the collective memory long before he was once again at the center of the Olympic calendar, or even before Tom Cruise himself will amplify the scene in his Mission Impossible saga. The wildest chase. The story took place in 1981, during the filming of For Your Eyes Only which led to James Bond himself (then played by Roger Moore) to flee skiing of armed killers, motorcycles and even a biathlete who shot him while he was descending at full speed. In fact, the brutal sequence culminated with a maneuver as absurd as it was legendary: sliding down an Olympic bobsleigh track at more than 80 kilometers per hour and be thrown into the void as if it were a ramp. It was an extreme scene even for the saga, which came from sending the agent into spacebut which found in the Italian Alps a new limit for its formula of constant danger. Six weeks on the brink of disaster. The sequence in question required more than a month of filming, expert drivers inherited from The Italian Jobpiano wires, cameras mounted on bobsleighs and snow transported by trucks in the middle of the drought. Not only that. The team continued despite injuries from Roger Moore himselfburning bobsleighs and a level of risk so extreme that it was necessary to check every screw on the cameras before launching across the ice. Bogner and the men who did know how to ski. Behind the camera was Willy Bogner Jr.former Olympian and pioneer of ski filming, who decided roll the action back and designed double-tip skis to survive the challenge. Around them, specialists as John Eavesworld champion freestyle skier, learned to bobsled down the slopes again and again, while some actors struggled simply to stay upright on skis. Curtain, specialists and memory. Another of the key names was in the figure by Giovanni Dibonaa local specialist recruited to test whether it was possible to ski in and out of the ice channel, a feat that defined the entire final sequence. Decades later, The Wall Street Journal said that Dibona barely remembers why they were chasing Bond, but he remembers the titanic effort involved in filming in those conditions, an experience that made him understand that action cinema was not very different from extreme sports. Between glamor and tragedy. Plus: the filming was also marked by death. During a break for the 1981 world bobsleigh championships, an American athlete died in competition and, on the last day of filming, a young Italian stuntman He died when his sleigh overturned. All of this contrasted with the glamorous premiere of the film, a grand premiere attended by the then Prince Charles and Diana of Wales. Bond got off his skis, Cortina didn’t. The truth is that, over the years, the character of James Bond left the snow behind for other purposes such as hanging of trains and helicoptersbut Cortina remained a temple of vertigo, one shared by cinema and sport. There, those who lived through that filming know that the Bond films and the Olympic Games have something essential in common: they both look elegant from the outside, but they hide a hardness that only those who have ever gone downhill understand (or above) without network. Image | United In Xataka | One of the best comedies in history turned this simple scene into the most expensive. 9/11 and a highway were to blame In Xataka | In 1987 a death was filmed so savage that people had to cover themselves. The trick to achieve it turned RoboCop into a cult work

In 1986 a man parked on the wrong side of the gas station. That day he solved an embarrassing problem for all drivers

by

The history of innovation It’s full of big names and epic breakupsbut also of silent advances born from minimal errors, from everyday mistakes that anyone could have made. Sometimes, a small mistake reveals a problem so common that no one had thought of it or knew how to formulate it, and it is enough to look at it differently to find a solution that ends up benefiting millions of people without it being barely noticed. In this case, one man saved millions of drivers from embarrassment. A universal problem. Maybe his name doesn’t sound familiar to you, but the story of Jim Moylan It is more important than it seems. The story begins with a scene as trivial as it is recognizable: a Ford engineer (Moylan) soaked by the rain, standing at a gas station, realizing that he has parked in the wrong side of the pump. Where anyone would have felt frustration or perhaps some embarrassment, he saw an everyday problem that could be solved elegantly, cheaply and definitively, and in a matter of minutes. wrote a memorandum proposing a small symbol on the instrument panel to indicate which side the tank was on, a simple idea born from personal experience and the conviction that eliminating that doubt would save time, inconvenience and, yes, small humiliations for millions of drivers. The path to a great idea. Moylan was not a media figure or a senior manager, but an engineer with a long and discreet career within the all-powerful Ford Motor Company, a man, yes, professionally obsessed. with instrument panels and with making them as clear and useful as possible. Thus, after sending his original proposal in 1986, the man did not think about it again, but the company did: the symbol he had scribbled on a page quickly went into development, it was approved without much resistance. and ended up integrating in the first models of the late eighties, demonstrating that in large organizations there was still room for a good idea, no matter how small and coming from whoever it was, to cross the hierarchy and become a reality. From Thunderbird to the entire world. Months passed until the first public appearance of the arrow came, an almost imperceptible moment, hidden in the instrument panel of a Ford Thunderbird 1989. It didn’t matter, its power lay precisely in that simplicity. It was so obvious and useful that the competition It didn’t take him long to copy itand in a very short time it went from being an internal Ford solution to becoming a de facto standard in the global automobile industry, and it did so to the point that today it appears in practically any car in the world, including electric ones, where it points to the side of the charging port with the same unbeatable logic. The inventor without a patent (or ego). Unlike other innovators, Moylan He never patented his idea nor did he ask for financial compensation or public recognition, content simply to see how his arrow worked and helped people. For decades, millions of drivers benefited from his invention without even knowing his name, while he silently watched as that little “walk of shame” at gas stations disappeared, getting closer sometimes to strangers to explain the usefulness of the symbol, but without ever mentioning that it had been his doing. Late recognition. I remembered a few weeks ago the wall street journal which was not until many years later, thanks to a chance investigation from a podcast and to the rescue of internal files, when Jim Moylan’s name came to light and he was publicly recognized as the author of one of the most discreet and universal innovations in the automobile. The man died without having sought famebut he left a legacy that lives on every time someone stops at a pump and, with a simple glance at the instrument panel, knows exactly where to stand, reminding us that sometimes true genius lies in solving the obvious in the simplest way possible. Image | Josh In Xataka | An engineer decided one day to put the BMW airplane engine in a car. The result was tremendous In Xataka | When an engineer wanted to cross Africa by car, he invented a wooden one. It would be the beginning of the end

In 1968 a man had the idea to create the first tablet in history. The problem is that he was decades ahead of his time.

by

If I tell you to think of the oldest tablet you remember, you may go back to the first iPad, which was released in 2010 (and, by the way, I turned seven last week). Or, if you’ve been following the world of technology since before the turn of the century, you might be familiar with the Microsoft Tablet PC from HP Compaq that was announced in 2001. In reality, there was someone who already tried to create one and it was much earlier, in 1968before the term “tablet” was even coined. At that time, Alan Kay was a young worker at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center who had been mulling over the concept of a personal computer for some time (in contrast to the military, business and professional use that reigned among manufacturers at the time). After speaking with other colleagues who were beginning their research on how the programming language Logo could help younger children advance in math, Kay came up with an idea: “This encounter finally made me see what the real destiny of personal computing was going to be. Not a personal dynamic ‘vehicle’, as Englebart’s metaphors had it as opposed to IBM’s ‘railway tracks’, but something much deeper: a dynamic personal ‘medium’. With a vehicle, one could wait until high school to take ‘driving lessons’. But if it was a medium, it had to extend into the world of childhood.” In 1968, Kay created the Dynabook conceptwhich he would spend several years profiling. in the book “Tracing the Dynabook: a study of technocultural transformations” They define it like this: “Kay called it the Dynabook, and the name suggests what it was going to be: a dynamic book. That is, a medium like a book, but one that was interactive and controlled by the reader. It would provide cognitive scaffolding in the same way that books and print media had done in recent centuries but, as Papert’s work with children and Logo had begun to demonstrate, it would take the advantages of the new computing medium and provide the means for new kinds of exploration and expression.” “A personal computer for children of all ages” With the idea of ​​its function clear, Kay then began to shape it into cardboard prototypes (as can be seen in the image at the top of the article). In 1972, the researcher presented his paper “A personal computer for children of all ages” in which he offered more details not only about his motivation and his vision of personal computing at the time, but about the own device that I had in mind. His idea was to get a kind of tablet-shaped personal computer aimed at education. This would have a reduced thickness, a liquid crystal touch screen and a keyboard. Like a regular notebook in size, with a graphical interface (a revolution for the time) that allowed the reproduction of graphics, music and text, and with internal storage for 500 pages. The keyboard would not be the only way to enter information: it could also be done via voice. In the image that Kay drew, the word “stylus” can also be seen, although he did not comment on it in his paper. Kay’s idea is that the Dynabook that could be connect to other systems to “copy” information to it (among them, the ARPA Network) and even predicted the existence of content “vending machines”, which could not be accessed until payment had been made. “The books can be installed instead of being bought or loaned,” he said. Regarding digital “ownership”, Kay said the following: “The ability to easily make copies and own the information yourself is not likely to weaken existing markets, as has happened with xerography, which has strengthened publishing; and just as tapes have not hurt the music industry but have provided a way to organize one’s own music. Most people are not interested in being a source or a smuggler, but rather like to trade and play with what they have.” According to Kay’s calculations, the components to manufacture it could cost $294, so it was not unreasonable to be able to sell it for $500, something expensive for the time. “The average annual amount spent per child on education is only $850,” he said, and that is why he even proposed a different financing model: “perhaps the device should be given away as if it were a notebook, and only sell the content (cassettes, files, etc.). “This would be quite similar to the way TV packages or music are now distributed.” “Let’s do it!” he said to finish his paper. Unfortunately for Kay, the Dynabook never materialized. Despite Kay’s enthusiasm, the Dynabook itself was never manufactured for lack of support at Xerox and due to the technological limitations of the time. Do you remember what computers were like then? Well, imagine what it would be like to build a tablet. Two Xerox PARC engineers, Chuck Thacker and Butler Lampson, asked for permission to try to replicate a similar machine on their own, and so it came to light. Highwhich was also known as “Interim Dynabook”. It was not a tablet, far from it, but it maintained some of the ideas that Kay had raised in her publication. He Xerox Alto was one of the first personal computers of history and Steve Jobs and Apple engineers they were inspired in some of its innovations and concepts, such as the use of a graphical interface for its own computers. Starting at Minute 2:27, the Xerox Alto graphical interface in action Kay is not only remembered for the Dynabook itself, but for the educational vision he gave to the project, for his peculiar vision of the personal computing paradigm and for how he came to anticipate some of the problems (and even technologies) that would come later. Not only that: in 2001, Microsoft presented its Microsoft Tablet PC, a project that Chuck Thacker and Butler Lampson had led. Yes, the same ones who once tried to implement … Read more

In Mejorada del Campo there is a cathedral built from scratch by a single man. Now it has closed due to lack of permits

by

There are crazy projects and then there is the one undertaken 65 years ago by Justo Gallego on a plot of land in Mejorada del Campo, a town in 25,000 inhabitants of the Community of Madrid. In October 1961 Justo, a farmer and former monk without the slightest experience in architecture, embarked on the titanic task of building a temple from scratch. At first it was going to be a hermitage, but over time the project aimed at something much more ambitious: a Christian cathedral. A cathedral built without formal plans and with more will than means. Against all odds the temple is a reality today. In fact, it has not been the technical or logistical challenges that have complicated the dream of Justo, who died four years ago. Their big problem is municipal permits. The same ones that have now led the Mejorada City Council to close down the building. What has happened? That the one known as ‘Justus Cathedral’ has had to close its doors. The City Council of the municipality in which it is located, Mejorada del Campo, has ordered the cessation of all public use of the building, a veto that will be maintained in theory until its current managers (the Messengers of Peace organization) obtain the permits that it now lacks. What does that imply? The news has advanced it The Worldwhich clarifies that the Madrid City Council has made the decision after verifying that the building was operating without permits. On their website, Messengers of Peace confirm that the cathedral “will remain closed while waiting for the license to be processed.” Until then you will not be able to receive visitors or engage in any other public use, including the distribution of food for vulnerable people. The NGO has already contacted Cáritas to use its Mejorada del Campo facilities and that the municipal veto does not stop the work that was being carried out in the cathedral. Why now? The ‘Justus Cathedral’ is not new, it has been a popular icon for years (in 2005 it appeared in an Aquarius spot) and Messages of Peace took over the premises five years ago. So… Why is it closing now? The explanation must be sought in municipal offices. A few weeks ago a foundation consulted the City Council about the necessary permits to organize an artistic exhibition in the temple. By doing so, he launched the administrative machinery that ended up leading to the closure order. And what is the reason? That in reality the temple does not have the necessary permits. “Urbanism confirmed that the cathedral lacks licenses and that there was no processing in progress, which prevented the activity and led to the opening of a file that concluded with the closure order,” they explain from the Town Hall The World. The decision was transferred a few days ago to Messengers. In reality, the NGO had already moved to regulate the situation of the building, but did not present a key document: an architectural project endorsed by the Official College of Architects of Madrid. The Europa Press agency clarify Once this administrative requirement is met, the City Council will review the closure. The NGO already anticipates that it will deliver “as many documents as are required.” Why is it news? That a temple ceases its activity due to lack of municipal permits is curious, but it would not have made it past the pages of the local Madrid press. If the closure of the ‘Justus Cathedral’ has awakened so much interest It is because it is not just any cathedral. In fact it is not a ‘cathedral’ as such. Last September the NGO itself I remembered that in reality the building houses a “social center” that does not have official recognition by the Catholic Church as a cathedral. It has not even been consecrated as a temple. “It is a community space that welcomes social, cultural and spiritual initiatives,” needed then Messengers of Peace. The clarification was not free. It arrived shortly after skip the controversy for the opening of a mosque in the building. The decision generated such a stir that the NGO founded by the media Father Angel had to clarify that it is a “inter-religious prayer space” located in an annex at the request of the Muslim community. Are there more reasons? Yes. Beyond its religious status or uses, the Mejorada temple generates interest for his story. After all, it is not every day that you see a cathedral building built basically by the efforts of a single man, a farmer with no experience in masonry who in 1961 began building it to fulfill a religious promise. Without plans. With more will than means. In the 90s the temple was already so advanced that it began to arouse curiosity beyond Madrid: in 2004 Justo received an invitation to participate in an exhibition in New York, in 2005 he starred in an Aquarius campaign and in 2017 it reached the pages of The New York Times. The former monk died in 2021 and the property was passed to Messengers of Peace for completion. Images | Messengers of Peace, Wikipedia and M. Peinado (Flickr) In Xataka | It has been difficult but he has achieved it: the Sagrada Familia has just become the roof of Christianity in the world

In 1901, a Spanish man had one of the ideas of the century: invent the remote control before television

by

Televisions change, technologies change, but there are interactions that last despite the passage of years, decades and even centuries. An example of this is the remote controller, which has historically allowed us to interact with devices from a distance, although what we currently know is very different from the first concept of remote control. Although televisions did not become more common in the last decades of the 20th century, the concept of the remote controller appeared much earlier. Specifically, in 1901. And a fact that you may not know is that one of the pioneers of the remote control was a Spaniard, the engineer Leonardo Torres Quevedo. The controller anticipated the televisions The history of the remote control dates back, as we said, to the first years of the last century. In 1903, the inventor, mathematician and engineer Leonardo Torres Quevedo (1852-1936) conceived, built and patented the first remote control in history. He called it Telekino, and as one might thinkIt is far from the controls for televisionsand other devices we see now. Miniaturization was not a reality until much later and the Telekino took up an entire table. Telekino in Abra. Image: Torresquevedo.org Of course, the Telekino was not created with the idea of ​​controlling televisions remotely, which in reality did not become a reality almost until the incorporation of the cathode ray tube (withthe pushfrom Telefunken and other manufacturers). The idea was to control airships without anyone being in danger in the tests, but finally he tried it with boats as they recalled in the written edition ofThe Countryin 2007, when the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) recognized the invention by including it in its official list of milestones in the history of engineering. It was the first time that a Spanish creation became part of this list, in which we find inventions by Benjamin Franklin, Alessandro Volta and Guglielmo Marconi among others. Telekino, as you may have deduced, comes fromTV(from ancient Greek, “far”, meaning “at a distance”, “remotely”) andkinein(also from the Greek, “movement”), by the way. IEEE Recognition Plaque. Image: YouTube We already talked about Telekino inXatakaprecisely because of this historical recognition, also to remember that at the time it was not highly praised. In fact, Torres Quevedo himself would abandon the project as he did not receive sufficient support. The valuable legacy of Torres Quevedo One of the prototypes of the Telekino is located in the Torres-Quevedo Museum, in the Higher Technical School of Civil, Canal and Port Engineers of the Polytechnic University of Madrid. And thanks to a short (virtual) visit to that museum for the centenary of one of the Spanish engineer’s inventions we can discover more of them, also very relevant. Torres Quevedo is credited with nothing more and nothing less than the first Spanish airship, as well as the first ferry suitable for transporting people (or in other words, an open cable car for people). The invention was patented in 1887, and it would not be until 30 years later when it materialized, being launched on Mount Ulía in San Sebastián in 1907. Compensation also came in the form of international export, since the system reached neither more nor less thanto Niagara Falls. Thus, the callSpanish AerocarIt continues to operate today in the well-known region and celebrated its centenary in 2016, having completed more than 10 million transports without recording incidents. Torres Quevedo was also a precursor of modern computing with his Ajedrecista, considered the first chess computer game, and the electromechanical arithmometer, a calculator accompanied by a typewriter, a precursor to digital calculators. In Xataka | In 1925, procrastination was already a problem and someone found the definitive solution: the isolation helmet. In Xataka | We have been fascinated for years by the geniuses who come up with revolutionary innovations out of thin air. It’s always been smoke (function() { window._JS_MODULES = window._JS_MODULES || {}; var headElement = document.getElementsByTagName(‘head’)(0); if (_JS_MODULES.instagram) { var instagramScript = document.createElement(‘script’); instagramScript.src=”https://platform.instagram.com/en_US/embeds.js”; instagramScript.async = true; instagramScript.defer = true; headElement.appendChild(instagramScript); – The news In 1901, a Spanish man had one of the ideas of the century: invent the remote control before television was originally published in Xataka by Anna Marti .

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.