Millions

We believed that laboratories and millions were needed to build a GPU. A maker is setting one up at home

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For years we have assumed that build a GPU It was a field reserved for companies with advanced factories, engineering teams and million-dollar budgets. It wasn’t an absurd idea: just look at the complexity of any modern graphics card to understand why it seemed out of reach for a person. But what he has done Matthias Balwierzknown as Bitluni, forces us to qualify that certainty. It has not replicated a GeForce nor does it intend to compete with NVIDIA, but it does is building from home a graphics machine with thousands of RISC-V microcontrollers. The first phase brings together 8,192 of those microcontrollers, each linked directly to an RGB LED. This decision makes the montage difficult to fit into the usual categories: the design brings together in the same structure the graphic processing and the surface on which the result must appear. In technical terms, it is designed to act as both a graphics card and a screen, without depending on a separate monitor. Of course, the project remains a partial prototype, still far from the scale and capabilities planned for the complete system. A GPU made pixel by pixel That architecture was not defined from the beginning. The maker began thinking about building some type of screen, but when studying the cost and difficulty of the project he ruled out resorting to components Addressable RGBwhich would have made the whole set too expensive. The alternative was more direct: solder an LED to each microcontroller and turn each chip into a visible graphics unit on its own. The decision contained part of the budget, although it multiplied the design, assembly and programming work necessary to coordinate thousands of elements. The scale becomes clearer when we look at the complete objective. A resolution of 1920×1080 would have required more than two million microcontrollers, shooting the cost and complexity far beyond what Bitluni had set itself. The maker then lowered the ambition to 320×200 pixels, a resolution associated with video games of the DOS era, but which still requires 64,000 chips. The components installed so far represent just a first stage of a machine that would multiply its size almost eightfold if it is completed. To organize such a large amount of hardware, Bitluni divided the system into 16×32 “pixel” boards, conceived as independent modules within the set. These are distributed in a circular arrangement that reminds of Cray-1the historic supercomputer of the seventies, although the reference is mainly visual. Internal coordination is also hierarchical: each group of 32 microcontrollers is under the control of a more powerful CH32V unit, in charge of organizing the operation of that section and serving as an intermediate level within the machine. The choice of the QingKe CH570 explains part of the economic logic of the project. It is a microcontroller with a 32-bit RISC-V CPU, a limited instruction set and a frequency of up to 100 MHz. It also integrates a USB controller, a 2.4 GHz transceiver and support for Bluetooth 5.0 LE. Bitluni was able to buy each unit for about $0.13, but the advantage is diluted when multiplied by the entire planned matrix: only the chips necessary to reach 320×200 pixels would exceed $8,000. The problem grows when projecting the power supply of the complete system. It speaks of an estimate of 2,161 W, equivalent to about 655 amps at 3.3Vfor the final planned configuration. The media points out that each microcontroller consumes around 10 mA, although it does not offer a breakdown that allows us to separate the expense of the chips, LEDs and auxiliary electronics. To support such a load, Bitluni has turned to a source Corsair WS3000 and own converters capable of transforming the 12 V output into the required 3.3 V. A big part of the project is also making the infrastructure that allows everything else to work. Bitluni designed the PCBs, power circuits, interface boards and breadboards, tackling a six-layer board for the first time. The complexity of the design ended up pushing him to the limits of the manufacturing service he used. In parallel, he studied an immersion cooling solution and came to the size of the acrylic container he would have needed, although he left that option on hold for economic and environmental reasons. Programming posed another problem of scale: it was not enough to manufacture the boards, the code also had to be loaded into each microcontroller. To avoid doing it by hand, Bitluni 3D printed a small tool with three contacts and attached it to the carriage. a 3D printer. A Python script sent G-code commands to move it to the exact position of each chip and complete the process in a repeatable manner. The printer thus stopped manufacturing parts to become an automated programming machine. This machine does not compete in performance, efficiency or size with a modern graphics card, nor has it yet reached the scale that Bitluni projected. Its value lies in exposing, through separate components, tasks that a commercial solution concentrates or distributes among specialized chips and circuits: calculation, control, power, coordination and visualization. By rebuilding them with low-cost microcontrollers, the maker has turned an unusual idea into a system that can be designed, tested and expanded in stages. It is not a conventional home GPU, but an engineering experiment taken to unusual limits. Images | Bitluni In Xataka | Huawei’s He Tingbo: “This is the first time China has proposed a new principle for the chip industry.” Not everyone is convinced

Millions of men wake up every morning with an erection. This is excellent news for them.

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There is a deep-rooted popular belief that associates the presence of morning erections exclusively to testosterone levels and the “virility” that man has. But recently it is being seen that this is something that can be an indicator of having good cardiovascular health, although logically not having them does not categorically mean that there is a disease in the heart or arteries. Its foundation. Here the scientific literature has a very important position, since, although there is a real basis to point out that the absence of these erections is an important symptom, it does not function as a ‘yes or no’, but is a continuous and complex marker. In this way, if we analyze the evidence from the most powerful population studies of recent decades, we discover that morning erections speak much less about our hormones and much more about our arteries. A thermometer of cardiovascular health. To understand why an erection matters at a systemic level, we must remember that we are dealing with a fundamentally vascular phenomenon. The arteries of the penis in this case are much narrower than the coronary arteries, and that is why, if we have a process of atherosclerosis or endothelial dysfunction that is beginning in the body, the smaller arteries will be the first to fail. This is why erectile dysfunction is a very important predictor for cardiologists and urologists to know what the inside of the arteries may be like without having to do any extra tests. Risk in escalation. A landmark study published in PLOS Medicine in 2013 continued to more than 95,000 men and showed that cardiovascular risk is increasing. In this way, it was seen that men with severe erectile dysfunction had almost double the risk of general mortality compared to those who did not suffer from it. This adds to a second study published in Circulation with almost 93,000 men which confirmed that erectile dysfunction increases the risk of total cardiovascular events by 44% and the risk of acute myocardial infarction by 62%. Testosterone. This is where popular culture collides with the data provided by scientific evidence. It is true that testosterone reaches its maximum peak in the morning and it is logical to think that this enhances the morning erections that men have, but a 2019 observational study carried out on 761 men showed that those who maintained their nocturnal erections had, on average, slightly higher total testosterone and lower libido. But testosterone does not explain the risk of suffering from serious disease in our arteries. Here the European Male Aging Study followed about 1,660 men for more than 12 years and analyzed different specific symptoms: erectile dysfunction, low libido and loss of morning erections. And here they saw that having poor erections in the morning increased the risk of mortality by 28%. It’s not testosterone. The key to this study is that, when adjusting the results based on the patients’ testosterone levels, the risk of mortality remained exactly the same. This means that it does not matter whether you have more or less testosterone, because what is truly important here is to have ‘clean’ arteries that allow blood to be carried to the penis without any type of obstacle. There is no need to obsess. We must not fall into the trap of stating that the absence of morning erections is the same as having a major underlying disease. What we must keep in mind is that we are faced with one more risk factor or symptom that is added to many others in a complex puzzle that must occur for a specific disease to occur, and that is why this is something that is left in the hands of medical specialists to determine what may be happening inside the arteries. Images | Tania Mousinho In Xataka | The strange syndrome of painful erections: there are only 66 cases in the world and science is just beginning to understand it

The US has realized that millions of workers have no future because of AI. And he got to work

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A question has been going around the councils of ministers and the main world economic forums since ChatGPT showed its capabilities in November 2022. How many jobs is going to destroy the AI? The founder of OpenAI himself has been one of the more pessimistic voicesand has even financed studies and pilot tests on universal basic income as a tool to mitigate the impact of AI in the world of work. Dario Amodei, CEO of Anthropic, is also not optimistic about the impact of AI on the labor market: up to half of office jobs of recent graduates They could disappear in five years. Now, the same people who develop the great AI models are putting money on the table to cushion the coming labor blow. The concern about a labor apocalypse is such that it is even uniting political adversaries to find a solution together. United against the AI ​​workplace apocalypse. As and how he published The Wall Street Journallast week he was born RAISE USa non-profit organization that aims to train US employees in profiles with a future within the new AI economy that is coming in the coming years. The organization will be led by Democrat Gina Raimondo, former Secretary of Commerce in the Biden administration, but, what is more curious, is that she will do so together with the former Republican governor of Indiana Eric Holcomb. Yes, AI has achieved something that seemed impossible: that political parties and rival companies join forces to prevent millions of employees from being left without jobs due to the arrival of AI. The problem also wants to be the solution. The initiative starts with more than 500 million dollars already committed, half of a budget goal that is set at 1,000 million for several years to come. The goal of RAISE US is to harmonize the evolution of the AI ​​career, but without leaving people behind. “If we build the best AI systems in the world and leave millions of Americans behind, we will have gained nothing,” said Raimondo in the presentation of the project. The most striking thing of all is that, among the main donors of this initiative we find some of the main protagonists of the race for AI. Namely: Amazon, Microsoft, Bank of America, IBM, Cisco or the pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly. Of course, Anthropic and the OpenAI foundation have also joined in. That is, the same people who are building the tools that can put their users out of work want to provide them with training for a future in a sector less exposed to AI or to cover the new professional profiles that will be created. AI is going to change everything. AI is evolving much faster than systems designed to protect workers, and that makes them more vulnerable. Goldman Sachs calculated that some 300 million jobs globally will be affected by the automation of generative AI. In the US, young people between 22 and 25 years old with jobs exposed to AI they already accuse the blow and its unemployment rate has risen almost three points since the beginning of 2025. The problem is that the current unemployment aid and subsidy systems are not designed to cover employees of entire sectors who, suddenly, lose their jobs. for AI automation. In Spain, unemployment benefits it is more guarantee when an employee becomes unemployed, but in countries like the US, only 27% of the unemployed receive unemployment benefitaccording to data from 2025. RAISE US objectives. An analysis 2025 Brookings Review reviewed decades of job training and retraining programs, and concluded that their results have been modest at best. RAISE US wants to redesign incentives so that companies prefer to retrain their employees rather than lay them off. It also proposes reforms in US unemployment benefits, so that a laid-off worker can continue collecting unemployment benefits while starting a business or starting training, instead of losing it as soon as he signs a new contract, something similar to what It is already applied in Spain in some specific cases to encourage their reintegration into the workforce. Get it started before it’s too late. The first pilot tests of the job training platform are already underway in four US states. In Arkansas, an AI-based career guidance platform is being tested that connects students and unemployed people with training programs tailored to their profile. In Maryland, the focus is on expanding a paid course program of at least nine months that gives candidates real-world experience in sectors with high demand of personnel, such as healthcare. The biggest fear of those who promote the platform is that their measures arrive on time. Labor markets already show signs of adjustment with changes in demand for certain technological profiles on the rise, while junior profiles they are in free fall in technology, law firms and consulting firms. In Xataka | We believed that AI was going to retire an entire generation of workers early. The opposite is happening Image | Unsplash (Shamin Haky)

Spain planted millions of eucalyptus trees to have cheap wood. 90 years later, we have confirmed that they are a green desert

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If you usually move around the Cantabrian coast, you are surely already familiar with that long and stylized tree that is so abundant in its mountains. However, the eucalyptus already covers 30% of the forest area in areas such as northwest Spain. The omnipresence of the eucalyptus is the result of a forestry policy that started in the 40’s whose main objective was to supply the paper industry: it was cheap, it grew quickly, so it had all the potential to be the ideal candidate to repopulate unproductive forests. Decades later, a scientific study of the University of Santiago de Compostela and the CSIC has put numbers to suspicions: For the fauna, these plantations are almost a desert. The environmental cost of the ubiquitous eucalyptus. This research analyzed 240 areas of native Atlantic forest and eucalyptus forest in the Parque Natural das Fragas do Eume and They found an abysmal difference in richness and abundance of birds. In short: the more eucalyptus there is, the fewer birds live in that area and it is no coincidence. Mature eucalypts cannot replace mature trees as functional habitat and their foliage offers very limited support for birds. The most affected are those that eat insects and those that breed in the holes of old trees, such as the great woodpecker or the great tit. The eucalyptus does not generate enough insects to feed on, it has no undergrowth and it is cut down before it forms the cavities that these birds need to nest. On the less bad side, they have also found a fairly simple solution that does not involve eradicating the eucalyptus: simply letting wild vegetation grow in some areas, without clearing it. Why is it important. Because the role of forest birds is important in the balance of the ecosystem: they regulate insect pests, help in seed dispersal and act as an indicator of environmental health. In fact, the EU Birds Directive 2009/147 obliges member states to conserve bird populations in good condition and this study documents that this obligation is being breached in the most eucalyptus of Galicia and the Cantabrian coast. The situation is more complicated than it seems because already in 2017 the scientific committee of the Ministry for the Ecological Transition recommended include eucalyptus in the Catalog of Invasive Exotic Species in 2017, but the proposal was rejected due to the economy behind it: in Galicia this sector generates 2.5 billion euros annually in wood and paper pulp and employs more than 19,000 people, according to the report A Cadea Forestal-Madeira de Galicia 2025 prepared by XERA. It is a complete conflict of interest. Context. The eucalyptus arrived to the Iberian Peninsula in the 19th century for ornamental and medicinal purposes, but its true boom arrive with the repopulation plans of the Franco regime and the commercial demand for cellulose. Parque Natural das Fragas do Eume, the place where the analysis was carried out, is one of the last remaining coastal Atlantic forests on the Iberian Peninsula. There, eucalyptus plantations are currently the second largest type of forest: 1,340 hectares, only behind the native forest. But the species has already colonized its surroundings. In any case, the problem with eucalyptus trees is not local: in Portugal the eucalyptus already covers more than 800,000 hectares and is the most widespread forest species in the country. according to data from the National Forest Inventory of Portugal prepared by the Instituto da Conservação da Natureza e das Florestas. It is also under scrutiny there due to its relationship with large fires. In fact, on a global scale the scientific community has been documenting for years the impact of eucalyptus on Mediterranean and temperate ecosystems outside its native Australia. In detail. Eucalyptus is a silent killer: it releases chemicals that prevent the growth of other plants under its canopy (allelopathy), which eliminates native shrubs and with them, the insects that feed the birds. Furthermore, since it is cut down every ten or fifteen years, it never ages enough to develop the holes needed for nesting by cave birds such as woodpeckers. The problem does not stay on land: dead eucalyptus leaves release oils and toxic compounds when they reach river courses, harming aquatic insects and amphibians that form the base of the river food chain. Yes, but. The damage to the diversity of the eucalyptus is a reality as undeniable as its socioeconomic importance: it is an economic vector and population fixation in these rural areas and eliminating or restricting its cultivation would have a notable impact in communities where alternatives are not abundant. Hence, the study itself does not call for its eradication, but for something simpler and more practical: leaving strips of vegetation uncut within the plantations so that the native flora can recover and the birds can return. It is a low cost solution that has already proven to be effective in other European contexts. On the other hand, there is the limitation that the study has been carried out in a single forest and is focused on birds. Not all species respond the same. In any case, science does not say that eucalyptus is evil, only that covering 30% of your forests with it has a serious biological toll. In Xataka | The Iberian Peninsula is being invaded: more than 1,200 exotic species have come to stay In Xataka | The Ebro is filling with brown prawns, an invasive species that we are going to find more and more on our plates. Cover | Flickr

Italy planted millions of fir trees to protect the Alps. 90 years later they have discovered that biodiversity has been reduced by half

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The ecologist Aldo Leopold wrote a phrase that would end up defining all modern conservation in 1949: “maintaining each piece is the first rule of ecological intelligence.” He said it decades before science could measure it, but today studies like the one in the Alps Italians demonstrate the extent to which removing pieces of an ecosystem can seem invisible… until generations pass. A forest that seemed like a solution. In the 1930s, Italy by Benito Mussolini He decided that the best way to stabilize the Alps was to cover them with trees. The logic seemed impeccable: stop erosion, ensure wood for the future and display an image of order and national productivity. For this they chose norwegian sprucea fast-growing conifer, straight trunk and profitable wood. Thousands of hectares of alpine meadows and native forests were razed to plant dense, homogeneous rows of this species. For decades, that decision was sold as a forestry engineering success. From afar, those green forests looked healthy. But almost a century later, science has discovered that beneath that appearance a silent impoverishment was hidden. Ninety years later, the ecological bill. The studyled by ecologist Gianalberto Losapio and published in the journal Ecology, analyzed two areas of the Italian Prealps, near Lake Como: Monte Bisbino and Vicere Alp. There, the researchers They compared three habitats Neighbors: spruce plantations, native deciduous forests and traditional alpine grasslands. During five months of field work they identified 136 plant species and 201 arthropod species. The results were devastating. In plantations there was a median of only seven plant species per plot, compared to 18.5 in native forests and 37 in grasslands. Translated: more than 50% less diversity than in natural forests and almost 75% less than in the pastures. The problem of planting only one type of tree. The big mistake was believing that more trees automatically equaled more nature. Monoculture works well to produce wood, but It’s an ecological trap. When a landscape is filled with a single species, complexity disappears, because each plant, insect and microorganism plays a role in the ecosystem. Reducing this variety implies reducing resistance to diseases, pests or extreme phenomena. In the Italian Alps, diverse landscapes were replaced by uniform blocks coniferousand the result was a brutal simplification of the ecological network. What seemed like reforestation ended up being a substitution of biodiversity for productivity. A: Location of the study sites. B: Satellite image of the Monte Bisbino site. C: Satellite image of the Alpe del Vicerè site. Satellite images B and C represent the location of the fixed plots. “SM” = monoculture spruce plantations, “DF” = native deciduous forest and “GR” = grassland (prairie/mountain grassland). Map data: Google, Maxar Technologies Darkness as a silent weapon. The norway spruce It has a key characteristic: it is perennial. While beech, maple or chestnut trees lose their leaves and allow light to reach the ground in spring, the spruce maintains a closed canopy all year round. It is not trivial. In fact, that difference changes everything. Many alpine plants flower precisely in that window of early light, before the forest canopy closes. Under a spruce plantation, that opportunity disappears because the ground remains in constant shade and many species simply cannot survive. That is, it is not an open competition, it is a physical and permanent exclusion. The ground was also transformed. There is more, because the damage did not remain on the surface. Spruce needles acidify the soil as they accumulate over decades. The researchers found 25% more organic carbon in these plantations, although that did not mean greater fertility. It was just the opposite: organic matter decomposed more slowly, a sign of lower biological activity. Not only that. The balance between carbon and nitrogen also I was upsetindicating slower and less efficient nutrient cycling. In simple terms, the forest continued to accumulate remains because the system had lost the capacity to recycle them. It was a stuck ecosystem. A poorer and more fragile forest. Beyond the number of species, scientists measured something even more important: the “functional uniformity”that is, how ecological roles are distributed within the plant community. In spruce plantations, this index was 30% lower than in natural forests. That means less balance and more vulnerability. It’s not just that there are fewer species, but rather that entire functions within the system are missing. Some niches were left empty and many ecological jobs stopped being done. In other words, the forest is still there, but it works worse. It didn’t even create a new ecosystem. The researchers of the study said that one of the most revealing findings was verifying that these plantations they did not generate a new community adapted to the spruce. In fact, no specialized boreal species appeared nor a new equilibrium built. No, what they found was a version mutilated of the original forest: the same species as always, but less numerous and diverse. The spruce did not bring new life, it simply eroded what already existed. The insects resisted better, but with nuances. The only less alarming data appeared in the soil arthropods. Its diversity barely varied between plantations and natural forests. Reasons? Scientists believe that this due to their mobility and their ability to move between nearby habitats. Be that as it may, even here there is caution among experts. Soil chemistry suggests that microbial activity and the finer network of underground life have also changed, although they were not directly measured. The surface may give an image of partial recovery, but the subsoil continues to tell another story. The global lesson that comes too late. If you also want, what happened in Italy is not a historical rarity. Today, a good part of the global reforestation commitments continue exactly this model: plant quickly, cheaply and uniformly to meet climatic and accounting objectives. According to previous studies cited by the authorshalf of the areas committed to forest restoration in the world are monocultures of non-native species. Although it is an efficient formula in the short term … Read more

He believes that in 20 years millions of people will live there

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Blue Origin, Jeff Bezos’ aerospace company, does not stand still since the tycoon moved to Florida to be closer to their headquarters. Now Bezos has given an enlightening talk about how he sees the future of the space sector. The businessman believes that millions of people will voluntarily live in space in 20 years. Don’t be sad. During a talk with John Elkann (president of Ferrari and Stellantis) at the Italian Tech Week TurinBezos did not mince his words. The tycoon said he did not understand how “someone who is alive right now can be discouraged” about the future. The reason for your optimism? A near future where artificial intelligence, robotics and, above all, space exploration, converge in “multiple golden ages.” The future of humanity is not only on Earth; according to Jeff Bezos, it is about to expand exponentially through space. The role of Blue Origin. “I think in the next couple of decades, there will be millions of people living in space; that’s how quickly this is going to accelerate,” said Bezos, who I had already confessed in the past his expectation that Blue Origin will end up being bigger than Amazon. This optimism is not just rhetorical. Bezos is investing billions of his personal fortune each year to build new technologies for the commercial exploitation of space: New Glenn, Blue Origin’s heavy rocket successfully completed its first mission for NASA: launching the two probes of the ESCAPADE mission heading to Mars (the probes will set their final course for the red planet in November 2026). Blue Origin He also recovered the first stage of the rocket on the high seas, becoming the second private company in the world to achieve this. However, the year 2026 has been complicated: in May, the fourth New Glenn exploded on its only launch pad during a static power-up, destroying towers and key infrastructure. NASA estimates that the platform will not be repaired before 2028. Orbital Reef, the commercial space station in the form of a luxury hotel for millionaires that will have scientific modules for when the International Space Station is removed from orbit. The project overcame a series of habitability tests with real people within full-scale models of its modules, within the framework of NASA’s space station development program, which foresees that the first private platforms will replace the ISS in the second half of this decade. bluemoon, the lunar module with which Blue Origin It aims to surpass Starship by solving one of the big problems of the SpaceX ship: the evaporation of cryogenic propellants in space. NASA has assigned Blue Moon the mission Lunar Base Ischeduled for fall 2026, which will land at the lunar south pole. Blue Moon will also participate in the Artemis III mission (2027, in low Earth orbit) and in Artemis IV, the first manned lunar landing scheduled for early 2028. The explosion of the New Glenn complicates the launch schedules, although NASA is working to undock the lunar module from the rocket so as not to delay the mission. Other lunar developments, such as the ability to make solar cells from lunar regolith. Bezos was clear: “If you’re going to go to the Moon and stay on the Moon, you need to use the Moon’s resources.” Exploit the Moon and space. One of Bezos’ goals is to turn the Moon into an industrial launch pad. “The Moon is a gift from the universe,” he said, noting that its low gravity makes it cost 30 times less energy to launch a kilogram of mass from the Moon than from Earth. In his vision, the Moon becomes a “rocket fuel depot” that will allow us to explore the rest of the solar system. Bezos’ vision directly connects the space race with the other great revolution of the moment: artificial intelligence. AI is a technology with an enormous energy thirst, and its data centers are becoming a true “energy hole” on Earth. Bezos’ solution: get them off the planet. The proposal is build gigantic data centers of gigawatts in space. The advantages are obvious: “We have solar power there 24/7, and solar power there has no clouds, no rain, no weather.” It’s not science fiction. In fact, Bezos predicts that this apparent science fiction will be economically viable very soon: “We will be able to surpass the cost of terrestrial data centers in space within the next two decades.” Space, he believes, will go from being a place for communications satellites to being the center of heavy industry and data infrastructure. In the end, Bezos’ vision unifies all the revolutions underway. If AI and robotics will take over production, what is left for humans? According to him, the freedom to choose. Bezos doesn’t believe we need to live in space to survive. Robotics technology will be so advanced that “we will be able to send robots to do that job.” So why will those millions of people go? Bezos’ answer is simple: “The majority will live there because they want to.” A version of this article was published in November 2025 In Xataka | The first civilian to take a spacewalk with Polaris Dawn is a millionaire, but he also pilots fighter jets Images | Blue Origin

China has found an unexpected shortcut to bring AI to millions of homes: the robot vacuum cleaner

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You may already be using Chinese AI at home without giving it much thought. Not necessarily in the form of a chatbot, nor as a hidden function on the mobile, nor as another promise within the television. Maybe it’s in something much less solemn: a robot vacuum cleaner that runs across the floor of your living room while you do something else. The history of the robot vacuum cleaner did not begin with devices running around pointlessly. He Electrolux Trilobitemarketed in Europe in the early 2000s, and the Roomba Intelligent FloorVacpresented by iRobot in 2002, already incorporated sensors and navigation routines to move around a home with a certain autonomy, although their capabilities were far from current ones. What has changed since then is the perception layer: advanced models no longer just detect walls or stairs, but build richer maps, recognize objects and make decisions with more context. Electrolux Trilobite The scale data helps to understand why this story is not just about technological curiosity. According to IDCthe global home cleaning devices market reached 32.72 million units in 2025, up 20.1% from the previous year. Within that universe, smart robot vacuum cleaners remained the main category, with 24.12 million units and a growth of 17.1%. IDC measures shipments, not installed homes, but the scale helps to understand the dimension of the phenomenon: we are talking about tens of millions of home cleaning robots moving through the global market in a single year. AI also enters the house through the floor The most striking thing is who occupies the center of that category today. In the first three quarters of 2025, the global Top 5 of smart robot vacuum cleaners consisted of five Chinese brands: Roborock, Ecovacs, Dreame, Xiaomi and Narwal. The consulting firm speaks of a reorganization of the market, with 17.42 million units shipped in that period and a year-on-year growth of 18.7%. The reading is quite clear: China is not entering this sector as an aspirant, but as the block that sets the commercial pace of an increasingly technological category. And here the interesting thing begins: we are not just talking about a cleaning product. An advanced robot vacuum cleaner is probably one of the most complex home devices we can have moving around the house, because it must clean, orient itself, avoid problems and make decisions in an environment that changes every day. When he avoids a wire to avoid getting trapped, surround a sockdistinguishes a carpet or adapts its route room by room, there is more than just aspiration: there are sensors and artificial intelligence. Xiaomi H50 Pro At Xataka, for example, we have tested the Roborock Saros Z70, a robot vacuum cleaner with a robotic arm capable of lifting objects weighing up to 300 grams. In our experience, it reached for a sneaker, and Roborock claims it can also pick up socks, small towels, or tissues, although it doesn’t always recognize everything it finds. When we talk about the artificial intelligence race, we usually look towards the great models: OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, DeepSeek or Alibaba Qwen, systems designed to summarize, schedule or respond from one screen. That terrain is still the most visible, but it is not the only one. China is also pushing a much more physical and everyday path: products capable of bringing perception, navigation and decision capabilities to household tasks. The iRobot case summarizes the change of era very well. Roomba made the idea of ​​the robot vacuum cleaner famous, but the company no longer occupies the central place it had for years: it was left out of the Top 5 global smart robotic vacuum cleaners indicated by IDC and declared bankruptcy before pass into the hands of the Chinese firm Picea Robotics. This, added to the most recent market data, suggests that the old Western benchmark lost ground while a new generation of Chinese brands conquered the market. Images | Roborock | Electrolux | Xiaomi In Xataka | A man tried to control his robot vacuum cleaner with a remote control: he ended up having access to 6,700 devices around the world In Xataka | The problem is not that there is AI on TikTok. It’s already more than half of what you see as soon as you enter.

In 1999, a farmer donated his land for a children’s playground. Now the city council has sold them for millions for a data center

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There are times when a good deed turns against you. Or against an entire town. In 1999, a Texan farmer named Charles Bland decided it was time to give something back to his town, a small town called Taylor. It occurred to him to donate about 35 hectares of his land to the city of 15,000 inhabitants with one condition: The city council had to use those lands to create a public park. To formalize the transaction, the city paid a symbolic amount of $10 to the farmer. 27 years later, the accounts come out in favor of the city council: it has sold part of the property not to create the promised park, but for a data center from the Blueprint company. The operation? one of 10 million dollars. And the neighbors were quick to light the torches. An offer that could not be refused This story is one of the most bizarre that we have seen in this matter of relationship between cities and data centers. The middle 404 has echoed the situation and the anger that is being aroused by both Bland’s initial objective and the fate of the land and, above all, the vague explanations of the city council is logical. The farmer initially donated his land to the Texas Parks Foundation, a nonprofit organization, with the goal of holding it in trust for future use exclusively as a playground. This is what appears in the documents and in the land deed, but there is a problem: in the following years, the property changed hands. The Parks Foundation gave it to a different nonprofit called the Williamson County Parks Foundation in 2003, but a month later, it gave it to the city itself. In 2008, the land changed hands again after a $15,000 sale to the Taylor Economic Development Corporation (TEDC). According to your page government, it is a non-profit corporation funded by the City of Taylor and, although it is a separate entity, it is the city council that appoints the five members of a Board that change terms every three years. Is this important? Well yes, since as 404 points out, it was this TEDC that, last year, sold part of the plot to Blueprinta company that plans to build a data center next to the town for those aforementioned 10 million euros. For a non-profit, the business has been successful. When they found out about both the sale and the plans to build a data center, the neighbors took to the streets to protest. Not only was the intention of that farmer who gave his land to the city with the sole interest of children having a place to play being violated, but an installation was going to be built that heats the air and that increase the electricity bill for the neighbors. Because of this, the TEDC has published a document in which he explains what is going to be done and what the city is going to get out of all this. They state that Blueprint’s data center will be used “for a wide variety of purposes including data storage, website hosting and artificial intelligence processing” in a facility that will have a total investment of 1,000 million dollars both to construct the main buildings as well as an electricity substation, backup generators and a closed-loop heat cooling system. It’s… too close to the city In a very brief way, The document addresses the complaints and concerns of neighbors referring to a report that ensures that the facilities will comply with everything necessary in terms of emissions and impact on air quality, noise pollution, light pollution, fire risk and water consumption. Always, of course, stating that the risk and consumption is minimal and that everything will go in the best possible way. Yes, the project will be connected to the electrical network for power supply. They expose that there is no way to go back and that, basically, that is what it is. Doesn’t anyone think about the children? The City Council does There will be no park, but it will be a great benefit for the city. As we see in Straight to the Palatethe facility will not occupy the 35 hectares donated by the family, but 21 hectares. The other 14 continue to belong to the city and the intention is to build a barrier to limit the impact that this data center may have on the neighbors. In addition, and as detailed in the aforementioned document, “the City expects to receive up to 30 million in total additional income that can be used to reduce property taxes and invest in streets, sidewalks, parks and other services”. With more conditionals on the list, they say that “the school district projects up to $20 million that could be used to improve facilities, increase teacher salaries and provide a better education for our students.” The truth is that the justification could well come from an episode of ‘The Simpsons’, but if we pay attention to that phrase that points out that, no matter what happens, the decision is irrevocable, the options for the neighbors do not seem very hopeful. The United States is currently experiencing two speeds in this artificial intelligence infrastructure. On the one hand, Big Tech raising monumental data centers. On the other hand, the people and political parties (both Republican and Democrat) that are rising in some states against these facilities. Studies are already appearing that leave aside tabout water consumption (minor one that was talked about a few months ago) as energy consumption (this one is tremendous) to point to the havoc on the environment what these “giant computers” cause. But hey, in the end Taylor won’t have a new park, but he will have a few million that could be used to make a park next to a giant radiator. In Xataka | AI has caused the collapse of even a non-AI industry: gas turbines

Millions of teenagers have turned AI into their go-to psychologist. It is an unprecedented challenge for medicine

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In society there is a fairly well-established debate about how affect social networks to the mental health of the youngest and there is even debate about the possible consequences they have, going so far as to propose very clear limits to access them. However, while the focus was on the recommendation algorithms of TikTok or Instagram, a new trend has been quietly growing on the screens of millions of teenagers: the use of generative AI as a therapist. New therapies. Here, research led by the RAND Corporation has put on the table the magnitude of this phenomenon when analyzing a sample of 1,058 young people between 12 and 21 years old. And the figures paint a quite revealing picture by pointing out that 13.1% of adolescents and young adults use generative artificial intelligence to obtain advice about their mental health. But the most worrying thing is that this percentage shoots up to 22.2% if we look exclusively at the oldest age group, that is, those between 18 and 21 years old. And although it can be defended as something specific, the reality is that 65.5 of these users turn to AI on a monthly or even greater frequency. Works? The most striking thing we have learned from this study is not only that young people consider AI as a psychologist, but that those who attend leave quite happy, since 92.7% of users stated that they found the advice provided by the AI ​​useful. And among the reasons they give for their satisfaction, what stands out above all is the possibility of resorting to their ‘services’ at any time, the absence of economic barriers and, above all, the feeling of privacy and lack of human judgment. All of this together is turning large AI models into the first line of emotional support for Generation Z. The other side of the coin. Just because a tool is perceived as useful by the user does not mean that it is clinically safe, because the intersection between generative technology and psychiatry is a minefield, and major medical institutions are already raising their hands. In summer 2025, the American Psychological Association issued an official warning about the risks of relying on AI for the diagnosis or treatment of mental disorders. Among the reasons they give, it stands out that language models are designed to predict the most likely next word and sound empathetic and convincing, but they lack real understanding, clinical context and the ability to manage severe crises. The security. Added to this warning is the devastating context contributed by researchers from Stanford University, who also in 2025 evaluated the responses of several chatbots to mental health queries. Their conclusion was worrying as they saw that in 1 in 5 cases, the artificial intelligence provided advice that was unsafe or inappropriate for the user’s situation. A real challenge. Right now we are at an inflection point where AI is filling a huge gap in a mental health system that, globally, is collapsed and inaccessible for a large part of the young population. And furthermore, prohibiting or blocking access to these tools does not seem like a realistic solution in the face of millions of users who have already integrated them into their emotional well-being routine. That is why the real challenge for technology companies and health agencies is twofold: on the one hand, improving the security barriers of the models so that they refer users to human emergency services when necessary. Images | Daria Nepriakhina 🇺🇦 In Xataka | There is a weapon of mass destruction against our ability to remember things: stress

There are millions of squash players in the world. Unknowingly, they owe a debt to an 18th-century London prison

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If you are one of the 20 million of people who practice squash in the world you owe a debt to the bankrupt British of the 18th century. The reason is very simple: several centuries ago those held in the fleet prison (London) because of their debts, they devised a game to kill time that was played with a ball, racket and wall. Over time that hobby, “rackets”became popular and led to a somewhat more sophisticated (and prestigious) version among the students of Harrow School that laid the foundations for what we know today as squash. All thanks to bill-stifled Londoners. The pleasure of hitting a ball. Maybe they didn’t do it like Alcaraz, but our ancestors they already enjoyed of the pleasure of hitting balls with spin. In fact they did it even before the Dutch invented the racket. in the 15th century. We know that almost a millennium ago French children entertained themselves with he game of paumea game that consisted of throwing leather or cloth balls filled with sawdust against the walls, and the monks also entertained themselves in a similar way in the cloisters, sometimes hitting the ball with branches. Over time the game was refined until it became tennis, a sport that caught on in Great Britain and soon fascinated the Tudors. It is said that Henry VIII (1481-1547) had courts built in all his palaces. Also that around 1600 in Paris there could be at least 250 courts. The success of the game was not only measured by its popularity at court or the number of clues. The old one game of paume It also led to different games, with their own styles and rules, such as he fivesor much later racquetball. Athletes behind bars. At the beginning of the 18th century, the love for tennis took root even in fleeta former London prison. Perhaps fed up with seeing hours pass by between walls and bars, its inmates created their own version of the fivesa fairly simplified one that was played they had it on hand in prison: a small ball (similar to those used in golf) of rolled cloth and a racket. The game ended up being known as ‘racquets’ or “rackets” and its dynamics were simple. The players were dedicated to hitting the ball against a wall. A special prison. It may sound strange, but the truth is that Fleet was not any prison. And not only because of its age, which can date back to 12th century. Murderers, rapists and thieves did not sleep in their cells. Not at least in the 18th century, when prison was reserved for people convicted of debt or having committed contempt before certain courts. In the 1770s John Howarda philanthropist who wrote the treatise ‘State of Prisons in England and Wales’, visited Fleet and left us this snapshot about life within its walls: “The prisoners play bowling in the yard, the mississippihe fivestennis… And not just the prisoners. I saw among them several butchers and others from the market, who are admitted as in another tavern.” Why is it so important? Because the ‘racquet’the game that had worked so well in Fleet or King Bench, soon spread throughout Great Britain. Far from being seen as a stigmatized sport, typical of prisoners and ruined men, it began to be practiced in the courtyards of taverns and alleys. Special fields were even built. The hobby spread so much that we know that in 1830 The Royal Artillery built a covered track in Woolwich so that its soldiers could play games even on stormy days. And then came Harrow School. One of the places where the racquet and fives was Harrow Schoola prestigious boarding school founded in the 16th century in the London borough of Harrow, northwest of the city. It was there that what we know today as squash would come to fruition. His students used to play in the courtyard outside the main building, a corner with side walls and a front wall, although they soon adapted the rules to their tastes. For example, they replaced the rigid balls that were used until then with rubber ones. It was not a minor detail. The new balls, hollow and larger, influenced the dynamics of the game, its rhythm… and opened the doors to squash. A sport with hook. “At first squash was a sport exclusive to Harrow. Like other private schools with their particular sports, it only existed in their school,” they explain from the International Squash Federation. That didn’t take long to change. As they went on holiday, with their balls and rackets, or simply graduated and left boarding school, Harrow students spread their love of squash to the rest of the country. Over time, other British schools and organizations ended up adopting that game devised between the walls of Harrow and the courtyard of an old prison. What was Fleet’s actual role? Some authors, such as JR Atkins, consider that in reality racquets and tennis are so similar that “it is impossible to separate them historically”, which would reduce the weight of Feels’ role. In any case, most accounts agree that the British prison played a relevant role in the development of the game and helped it become popular in taverns and other venues in the country. The final development of the game (and its respectability) was the merit of Harrow School, but even so the contribution of the Feel convicts is recognized for example World Squashthe Oxford University or the IOC. “At some point in the early 19th century the obsession with rackets and balls gave rise to another variant of this sport in a place as unusual as Fleet Prison,” explains Ted Wallbutton of the World Squash Federation (WSF). “The Fleet prisoners, mostly debtors, exercised by hitting a ball against the walls, of which there were many, with rackets. Thus began the game of ‘Rackets’. By some strange path they led to Harrow and other select English schools around 1820, and it … Read more

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