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We are in 2026, but you will only see part of the World Cup in 4K because of DAZN: TV manufacturers are already rubbing their hands

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You have a 4K TV, you have contracted Movistar Plus, Orange TV or DAZN and you are ready to live the Soccer World Cup 2026 in the best possible quality so as not to miss any details. Well we have bad news for you: almost all the games will arrive on your screen with a 1080i resolution, even if your television platform can broadcast in 4K. The fuse was lit as a result of the message from a user from Movistar Plus on X, in which he asked if he could watch the World Cup in 4K HDR. The initial response from Movistar was “Yes, as long as you have the UHD disc you can watch the games that will be broadcast on DAZN in 4K HDR.” The problem is that, when asked by our colleagues Xataka Mobileboth Movistar Plus and Orange TV have discarded that those matches are going to be broadcast in 4K. The controversy is served. The World Cup signal comes in 1080i: that changes everything DAZN is the one who has the rights to broadcast the 104 matches of the tournament in Spain. The problem is that your DAZN World signal arrives in 1080i resolution, not 4K. Since Movistar Plus and Orange TV only limit themselves to distributing the signal, what they receive is what they give you. Both operators have confirmed it: there will be no 4K on their platforms for the World Cup matches. In Xataka The gap between Samsung and TCL in the television market seemed unbridgeable. Until it stops looking like it This represents a clear setback in terms of resolution and image quality since in Qatar 2022, World Goal It broadcast the 64 matches of the championship in 4K UHD both on Movistar Plus and on its own app. However, all is not lost. In a corner of the reviled DTT we have a glimmer of hope left for those of us who want to see the World Cup in the USA, Mexico and Canada with the best possible quality: La 1 UHD (Ultra High Definition). Yes, on DTT RTVE took over the rights to World Cup broadcast and will offer 33 open matches, including the opening match, the two semi-finals, the third and fourth place and the grand final, in addition to all the matches in which the Spanish National Team participates. These 33 matches will be the only ones that can be seen openly and in 4K in Spain. However, this RTVE signal also has small print for television platforms such as Movistar Plus and Orange TV, since on its grid They carry La 1 HD, but not La 1 UHDso to watch the games in 4K it will be necessary to tune in to the La 1 UHD channel on DTT, not the platform. First impressions of the TCL RM9L with RGB MiniLED: the alternative to OLED for large format screens Only Vodafone TV customers, you just added the RTVE channel in 4K on your grill, and Digi TV They will be able to watch the matches broadcast by the public entity in 4K quality from their platform. In short: if you want the 33 games in 4K, you need DTT (free to air) or Vodafone TV and DigiTV (with subscription). If you want to see the rest, you’ll have to settle for 1080i resolution. All is not lost: your television can save the game This is where something that few people take into account comes into play. when buying a TV: he image processor and its algorithms image enhancement and scaling. No matter how good your TV is, it’s not going to convert a 1080i resolution signal into 4K by magicbut it can improve a lot quality in which you watch the World Cup. Current televisions apply a process called upscaling, in which they take the input signal and upscale it to the panel’s native 4K resolution by adding, through AI and other algorithms, data that was not in the original source. In fact, it is the same process used by 8K TVs to display content that is in 4K. {“videoId”:”x95se90″,”autoplay”:false,”title”:”How technology has changed football ⚽️”, “tag”:”webedia-prod”, “duration”:”708″} In this way, the processor “generates” an image that emulates 4K quality, improving the sharpness, color and motion processing of the original signal along the way. Therefore, how much the better the processor and the more refined the scaling and enhancement algorithms, the more convincing the result will be, reducing the difference between native content in 1080 and 4K. Amazon Prime Video, for example, has entire teams dedicated to ensuring make your signal look good on every type of screen and in every network condition. In practice, a high-end TV from Sony, Samsung or LG with a powerful processor can improve its quality when a 1080i game is displayed on a 4K panel. There is more detail, less noise, and the movement of the ball loses that artificial texture that poorly scaled signals have. On the other hand, with an entry-level television that does not have a reliable image processor and does not have optimized scaling algorithms, the signal is shown as it arrives: a 1080i expanded to cover the 4K panelbut without providing any improvement to the resulting image. In Xataka | Xiaomi castles in the QD-Mini LED in 2026: five new TVs and makes the leap to 98 inches with a knockdown price Image | Unsplash (Vitaly Gariev) (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 We are in 2026, but you will only see part of the World Cup in 4K because of DAZN: TV manufacturers are already rubbing their hands was originally published in Xataka by Ruben Andres .

Mexico has so many dogs abandoned in its streets that are part of the landscape that has made them a “representative breed”

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A few years ago, a story went viral in Mexico City. She had a stray dog ​​nicknamed “Hachiko of La Raza” as the protagonist, and became famous because he spent day and night at a subway exit waiting for an owner who, according to neighbors and users, had died shortly before. Thousands of people began to leave him food and water when they saw him always in the same place. Hachiko was actually a symptom now turned into a race. A national symbol. Mexico has reached such a peculiar point with its stray dogs that one of them has ended up being officially recognized as a representative “race” of the country. The call Candy dogwith its yellowish fur, sharp snout and medium size, has been part of the Mexican urban landscape for so long that millions of people instantly identify it as something everyday and almost cultural. We are talking about an animal that sleeps in front of stores, follows invisible routes through the colonies and survives thanks to small scattered gestures from neighbors who leave it food or water. The phenomenon reveals something deeply latin american: abandoned animals that have ceased to be perceived as exceptions and have become partly natural of urban life. The problem is that this normalization is also a sign of the enormous structural failure surrounding animal abandonment. A “race” born of abandonment. Behind the myth of Caramel there is no real race, but entire generations of miscegenation produced by decades of neglect. A genetic study conducted in Brazil discovered that these dogs contain traces of hundreds of different lineagesfrom German Shepherds to Pekingese. However, the environment has been molding the same extremely recognizable physical pattern: resistant size, short hair, agile body and that yellowish color that helps it better withstand the heat. and certain diseases. The street has acted as a kind of urban natural selection where the animals most adapted to living among asphalt, traffic and extreme temperatures survive best. The result is paradoxical: Mexico has ended up developing its own “type of dog” not through planned breeding, but through mass abandonment. Everyone knows them, but no one adopts. Caramelo generates collective tenderness, memes, movies and millions of interactions on social networks, but that does not mean that it will easily find a home. Rescuers and associations they explain that these dogs tend to become the most invisible in shelters precisely because they are too common. While breeds like the Golden Retriever or the German Shepherd receive hundreds of adoption applications, yellow mixed breed dogs can spend years waiting without anyone asking about them. The contradiction is brutal: they are probably the most recognizable dogs in the country and at the same time the most ignored when the time comes to assume real responsibilities. The collective affection towards them often functions as a kind of abstract affection that rarely translates into adoptions, sterilizations or permanent care. Mexico and a gigantic crisis of animal abandonment. The background to the phenomenon is much harsher than the cute images of dogs resting in the sun suggest. Mexico has one of the largest populations of stray animals in Latin America. Official figures estimate that about 70% of the country’s dogs live homeless and that millions of them were once abandoned pets. And every day more than a thousand animals they are left to their fate. This pressure has generated extreme and deeply controversial situations, such as the case of Tecámac, where authorities recognized the sacrifice of thousands of dogs street during the last years. The discussion reveals the enormous institutional vacuum around the problem: neither shelters, nor public campaigns, nor administrations seem capable of managing an animal population that is already a structural part of the Mexican urban landscape. From everyone and at the same time from no one. If you also want, the figure of Caramel summarizes an uncomfortable idea: many of these dogs survive thanks to an informal network of small community care, but without no one really assumes full responsibility on them. A neighbor gives them food, another takes them to the vet sometimes and someone else lets them sleep in front of his business. However, this chain of solidarity is extremely fragile. Without an official owner, many animals are left out of vaccinations, sterilizations or stable medical care. They live in a kind of limbo where they receive occasional affection, but are still completely exposed to abuses, illnesses or violence. That Mexico has ended up turning these dogs into a recognizable symbol says a lot about the emotional bond that exists with them, but also about the extent to which abandonment has been integrated into everyday normality. Image | Doggo19292 In Xataka | More than a thousand years ago the Mayans exploited a business almost as profitable as gems: the sale of pedigree dogs In Xataka | The easiest way to receive a fine for the Animal Welfare Law: leaving your pet on the terrace

AI has skyrocketed Nokia shares by 140%. Now comes the hard part

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For years, Nokia seemed to be trapped in our memory as a company from the past: indestructible mobile phones, the ‘Snake‘, recognizable tones and a fall which ended up becoming a warning for the entire technology industry. But that image is somewhat unfair. Nokia did not disappear when it lost its step in the smartphone market. The company continued to exist, far from the consumer’s showcase, in a less visible and much more difficult to explain business: the networks, the infrastructure for operators and the technology that allows modern communications to work. And now, suddenly, AI has put it back on the map. The stock market turn. According to BloombergNokia shares have risen more than 140% so far this year, a move that has made it the fourth best value in the Stoxx Europe 600 and has taken its shares to levels not seen since 2008. The key is that investors are beginning to read the company in a different way: less as a traditional supplier of telecommunications equipment and more as a piece of the infrastructure that can sustain the rise of AI. Not for phones, but for their optical equipment for data centers. The important clarification. The signature of the rise is Nokia Oyj, not to HMD Global. The difference matters because HMD is the company that has marketed mobile phones under the Nokia brand under license, while Nokia Oyj is the listed Finnish company. The separation point came in 2014, with the sale of the mobile division to Microsoft. From then on, the Nokia name continued to circulate on two different levels: as a recognizable brand for many consumers and as an industrial company within the global telecommunications market. An assessment that becomes complicated. The stock market euphoria has left Nokia in a delicate position: the more a stock rises, the harder it is to justify what comes next. Information from the American economic media places its 12-month forward P/E, the relationship between the share price and the expected profits for the next year, at about 36 times, more than double the approximately 17 times at the beginning of the year. The data that cools the enthusiasm is another: the part linked to AI and cloud, which is fueling much of the new narrative, barely represented 8% of the group’s sales in the first quarter. The technical piece. Nokia’s appeal lies in a layer that often falls beneath the more visible narrative of AI. While much of the conversation revolves around chips, models and applications, data centers also need optical networks to move information quickly between computing systems. The purchase of Infineraa company specialized in optical networks, gave Nokia more muscle in that field and now seems like a particularly timely operation. Added to this are three signals collected by Bloomberg: sales linked to AI grew by 49% in the first quarter, the company raised its forecasts in April for segments exposed to cloud clients and NVIDIA made an investment of 1 billion dollars. The bottom ballast. The enthusiasm for optical networks does not erase the size of the business that Nokia already had before investors began to read it in terms of AI. The mobile networks division still contributes more than half of total sales and, according to the information cited by the American economic media, works with lower margins than the part more linked to cloud and artificial intelligence. That weight conditions any optimistic reading. Operators have reduced spending in recent years and Nokia has also suffered important contract losses in the United States, so the company is not starting from a blank slate. The real test. For years, the big question around Nokia was whether anyone would look at it again as anything more than a memory of another technological era. That part, at least in the stock market, has already happened. The problem is that investors do not forgive second chances when they become too expensive: after a rise of more than 140%, the company no longer only has to prove that it has exposure to AI, but that that exposure can be converted into orders, revenues and margins. The story is attractive again. Now the most difficult thing remains: for the numbers to be up to par. Images | NOKIA In Xataka | Huawei has found a way to counteract US sanctions: overcoming Moore’s Law

make China part of Spain

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Some of the greatest historical ambitions began with ideas that, on paper, seemed surprisingly simple. During European expansion into Asia, it was not uncommon what reports and letters described distant territories as rich and accessible places, ready to be influenced with relative ease. On more than one occasion, these optimistic descriptions ended up marking strategic decisions that later collided head-on with a reality much more complex than expected. It happened to Spain… with China. When you think you’re unstoppable. The story began at the end of the 16th century, when Philip II ruled an empire that spanned several continents and was coming to chain conquests fast and spectacular in America. In that context, he fueled an idea that today seems like many things, but, at the very least, unthinkable: if it had been possible to overthrow empires like the Aztec or the Inca, it could also be done. the same with China. In that climate of almost absolute trust, the court began to seriously contemplate a project that was not a simple expedition, but a definitive leap into the void towards global hegemony. Conquer the unconquerable. The plan took shape in what became known as the “China Company”in essence, a structure organized by the monarchy itself to study, plan and eventually execute the conquest of the Asian giant. It was not an isolated occurrence or a joke in bad taste: the work included detailed reports, diplomatic missions, missionary presence and intelligence gathering from the Philippines and Macau. The idea was a mix where trade, evangelization and military force were combined, replicating the model that had worked in America, with the ambition to subdue the territory, reorganize it and make it part of the Spanish imperial system, who knows if in a future autonomous Iberian community. Planned phases in the China Company Detailed… and deeply unreal. Documents from the time even described how the invasion would be carried out, with tens of thousands of soldiers entering along the southern coast of chinaadvancing towards Beijing and replacing the emperor with a like-minded power in the blink of an eye. Not only that. A complete integration based on evangelization, the creation of loyal local elites and, attention, miscegenation, following the American pattern, was then proposed. What’s more, some councilors went so far as to affirm that a few few hundred soldiers to achieve this, reflecting the extent to which the real complexity of the territory and its capacity for resistance was underestimated. Portrait of Philip II China is not America, even if it is believed to be so. Indeed, the great underlying error was assuming that China would function little less than the American empires. Interested reports described her like rich but weakopen to internal alliances and susceptible to being transformed with relative ease. However, it was an organized statewith very advanced military, administrative and technological structures. That distance between perception and reality made the project more hyperbolic of Philip II in a mixture of imperial ambition, incomplete information and a certain strategic illusion that is difficult to sustain. The blow of reality: logistics, politics and defeats. The truth is that the “China Company” It was not executed due to a combination of factors. The distances, logistics and cost made the operation extremely difficult. complex and prolonged in time. Added to this were internal tensions between those who defended a military conquest and those who bet through the missionary waydiametrically opposite options. However, the final blow came in 1588 with the failure of the Invincible Armadawhich forced other fronts to be prioritized and made it clear that even the largest empire of the moment had very specific limits. More than a military plan, a window. Although it never materialized, that “China Company” clearly reveals how far he went Spanish ambition at its time of greatest expansion. It was not just a military project, but a way of thinking the world: a system in which trade, religion, diplomacy and war were part of a same global strategy. Be that as it may, in the end the plan remained an exercise in imperial imagination that collided with harsh reality, but which reflects better than anything to what extent Spain came to consider something as extreme and surreal as integrating China into its own empire. Image | Nagihuin, CC0 1.0 – Ruland Kolen, Sofonisba Anguissola In Xataka | Rise and Fall of European Empires: A Journey of 550 Years of Colonialism Through an Enlightening Chart In Xataka | That time Spain bombed Istanbul: nine ships, a movie escape and the obsession of Octavio of Aragón

Get four months free of one of the best VPNs on the market just for being part of Xataka Xtra

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At Xataka we are not only passionate about technology: we are obsessed with understanding how it impacts us on a daily basis. That is why we have launched Xataka Xtraour community for readers who want to go one step further. And since we want to make being part of this worthwhile from minute one, we will tell you one of the advantages you get with Xtra: four free months of NordVPN for all subscribers on one- or two-year plans. We don’t want this to be a discount code and that’s it. We want to take the opportunity to explain to you why in 2026 a VPN is no longer a mere addition for people jealous of their privacy, but rather a basic tool for anyone who uses the internet. It’s not just hiding your IP (that’s the least of it) You probably associate using VPN to bypass geoblocks for certain services and applications. NordVPN has more than 9,000 servers in 111 countriesso this does it very well, but it does much more: Malware Protection: NordVPN is not just a VPN. Its function Threat Protection Pro It analyzes the files you download and the websites you visit in real time. Not only does it protect you from viruses, it blocks intrusive trackers and ads before they load. Post-quantum security: We already know that quantum computers will have the ability to break any encryption that exists to date, present and past. NordVPN already implements post-quantum encryption for when that time comes. This is important because it provides protection so that your current data cannot be decrypted even with the technologies that are to come. Extra layer against phishing: Many security breaches occur due to theft of credentials or phishingso having extra protection against these types of attacks comes in handy. Compatible with 10 devices: With a single account you can protect your mobile phone, your laptop, your partner’s and even your Smart TV, as it allows up to 10 devices to be connected simultaneously. NordVPN 76% discount on NordVPN (this offer does not include the 4 months of Xataka Xtra) The price could vary. We earn commission from these links Why we choose NordVPN At Xataka we try to avoid marketing promises and always look for support in data. And in that NordVPN gives us a lot of confidence: they have just overcome your sixth independent “zero records” audit (no-logs) conducted by Deloitte. This implies that one of the world’s largest auditing firms has gone into the kitchen of its systems—interviewing employees and analyzing each server—to confirm that NordVPN does not track, collect or store anything you do online. Whether you choose NordVPN or any other VPN service, we highly recommend making this one of the basic requirements you ask for. It is important because in this sector there are many companies that claim to protect your privacy but then end up selling your data. With this independent audit, NordVPN opens its doors to demonstrate that they deliver what they promise. It is a transparency that gives us a lot of peace of mind. We are waiting for you at Xataka Xtra In Xataka Xtra We want to build something different: more closeness, exclusive content and advantages that really add to your digital life. This collaboration with NordVPN is just the beginning. Yeah You join today with an annual or two-year planyou take those four extra months as a gift to start browsing as you should: quickly, safely and without anyone tracking your steps. In Xataka | What is a VPN connection, what is it for and what advantages does it have?

3.6 million people watched the Goya gala. Only a small part went to see the nominated films

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The gala of the Goya 2026 has scored a 26% screen share, its best figure since 2020 and the second highest since 2010, in a context of television consumption down. Paradoxically, this massive attention contrasts with a box office that remains stagnant and with an audience that prefers to see Spanish cinema on television platforms and events rather than in theaters. Technology and new consumer habits explain this gap. The figures. The broadcast of the gala on RTVE’s La 1 brought together an average of 2,396,000 viewers and reached a 26% share. In his analysisVertele emphasizes that linear television consumption has been significantly reduced in the last decade, with fewer people watching DTT at the same time than in 2010. That the gala reaches percentages comparable to fifteen years ago in an ecosystem fragmented by streaming and delayed viewing platforms suggests that the Goya remains an event capable of bringing together a mass audience in real time, in the style of a sporting event. These good figures are part of five consecutive years of growth for the gala in audiences, with an increase of 1.6 share points and 56,000 viewers compared to the 2025 edition. However, the majority of the films that competed for the award that night had not managed to recover their investment in theaters. Less box office. According to the official data published by the ICAASpanish theaters closed 2024 with 72.9 million spectators and a collection of 484.6 million euros, figures that represent a 5% decline in attendance compared to the previous year. The share of national cinema within this shrinking market was around 18.65%. But that percentage is not sustained by the auteur films that dominate the Goya nominations, but rather the exact opposite: family comedies and commercial thrillers. This can be applied to the big winners of this editionwhich we summarize in this table. All of them enjoyed subsidies between one million (except Sorda, with 800,000 euros) and 1,200,000. That is to say, they are films highly valued on the awards circuit, rather than by the general public. In this way, the market bifurcates, and the cinema that really fills theaters, such as the family comedies by Santiago Seguraare left out of the Goya. QUALIFICATION BUDGET COLLECTION SIRAT 6.5 million euros 2.87 million euros Maspalomas 5 million euros 716,000 euros Deaf 2 million euros 735,000 euros Sundays 4.7 million euros 3.7 million euros dinner 5 million euros 716,000 euros The captive 9.8-15 million euros 5.2 million euros lto Spanish exception. It is not something that happens in all countries: in France, the eternal model in which we want to see ourselves, French films raised 44% of the year’s box office. But at the same time, the three most watched French titles of the year (a comedy with disabled actors, an epic adaptation of Alexandre Dumas and a romantic drama) are films that also aspire to the Césars, their equivalent to our Goyas. Subsidies are also comparable in quantitybut here the number of releases has skyrocketed (168 in 2016, 364 in 2025), while the collection has decreased (from 111.5 to 85.6 million in the same period). And yet… the Goya audience demonstrates every year that there is interest in the industry. There is a potential audience that debates whether ‘Sirat’ deserved to win more awards than ‘Los Domingos’, but they did not go to the cinema for the premiere of ‘Sirat’. The hinge of the platforms. Three weeks after its very limited theatrical release, ‘The Snow Society’ landed on Netflix: in its first eleven days accumulated 51 million views and closed the first half of the year with 103 million views, becoming Netflix’s third most viewed film globally. The fact that he had that success right after leaving the theater sums up the problem. In October 2025 Netflix advertisement that they would spend one billion euros on Spanish production between that year and 2028. All this in Tres CantosNetflix’s largest production space in the entire European Union. Since its arrival in Spain, Netflix has produced more than a thousand titles with Spanish teams, generating 20,000 jobs in the sector. Amazon Prime Video follows a similar logic, although with less weight in its own original production. The money from the platforms has allowed Spanish cinema to produce on a scale outside the traditional financing system (subsidies, investment from traditional chains). For this reason, and in the face of competition from platforms, which produce and release almost immediately in their space, in 2022 the Spanish exhibitors They formally requested a minimum window of one hundred days between the theatrical release and the arrival on platforms, shorter than the windows in France (15 months) and Italy (3 months). At the moment, there is no regulation and each window is negotiated separately. The power of the Goya. However, there is a Goya Effect at the box office. Last year, when ‘El 47’ and ‘La infiltrada’ won the award for Best Filmthe two tapes their box office skyrocketed by more than 70%. It is something that carries lifetime happening with the Oscars, but here we do not have the muscle of international Hollywood distribution. In Spain, ‘Los Domingos’ continues in 50 cinemas and ‘Sirat’ in 35 throughout Spain. It is insufficient for them to experience notable growth. But these are the highest grossing ones: the Goya, their audience proves it, they generate real interest, but the majority of the winning films, such as ‘Sorda’ or ‘Maspalomas’, are already streaming. The impact of the awards does not benefit the box office because there are no open avenues to do so. In Xataka | Santiago Segura is so clear about his success that with ‘Torrente Presidente’ he is trying something: without a trailer or a pass for critics

If the question is who is going to illuminate part of the new A-5 tunnel, the answer is simple: the sun

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He burial of the A5 continues its course. It is one of the most ambitious works in the recent history of the Spanish capital and, after months of headaches, you can see the light at the end of the tunnel. There is still a way to go, but the light thing is quite literal if we take into account that, in the surface park, there will be enormous pergolas that will not only serve to provide shade. They will be the battery of the tunnel. The pergolas. From the beginning The project took into account the installation of an infrastructure that would allow the use of sunlight to power the tunnel through which the vehicles will circulate. The idea with this burial is to create a large green area of ​​80,000 m2 that, in addition to trees, will have another solution to shelter pedestrians: eight pergolas to combat the sun and rain. They won’t be the only thing they will do. As the Urban Planning, Environment and Mobility area of ​​the Madrid City Council has commented to ABCall of them will have photovoltaic panels that will total 1,055 panels for a nominal power of 437 kW and an annual production of 561 MWh. It is the equivalent of the annual consumption of 200 homes in Spain and the energy that will power the installations of the underground section. We will see when the works are completed, since the Madrid City Council already calculation a production of 1,158 MWh per year. Geothermal. All the pergolas will not be the same and the panels will be installed in the most optimal way possible to meet this estimated production, but it is not the only system planned to supply the park facilities with electricity from renewable sources. An example is the Ángel González Municipal Public Library, located at one end of the project. Currently, and as detailed the town hall, the thermal installation compose of a 285 kW boiler and a 220 kW chiller. In their place, two 150 kW heat pumps will be installed and will employ low temperature geothermal energy to create a water circuit tempered at a constant 25 degrees. It is a form of renewable energy that takes advantage of the constant heat of the shallow subsoil to air condition buildings and produce hot water. Undertaking work to switch to low-temperature geothermal is a complex and expensive process, but on the scale of the A5 underground, it makes a lot of sense. In this way, a pump will exchange heat with the ground to extract ground temperature in winter and, in summer, transfer heat from the building to the subsoil and, thus, cool the library. All this without local combustion. Mountains in the capital. And since we’re talking about renewables and reusing, it’s curious what they will do with some of the land they are excavating. Instead of having to manage it as waste, in part of the walk will be created three artificial hills. It is a good way to take advantage of surplus land, but it will also have a useful function. They will house thousands of trees that must be relocated due to current works, but, in addition, each of the hills will have a purpose. One will be a park with picnic areas and biodiversity areas, another will house a skatepark and another will become a viewpoint. Let them finish now…That is the feeling of the neighbors who have been enduring headaches from noisebut also an urban ‘Mario Kart’. Because it is very good to undertake works that use renewable energy to solve specific problems, but it is normal that there are those who are choking on these works. In the end, it is not easy to cut one of the access arteries to the city for almost two years to bury 3.2 kilometers of a highway on which 80,000 vehicles circulate a day. There is less left until the end of 2026… Images | MadridMadrid City Council In Xataka | Madrid wants to put 110,000 tons of weight on the M-30. And the challenge is not technical: it is not to collapse the road

part of the Mac mini will be manufactured in the US

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It’s not every day that Apple can announce that one of its products will begin manufacturing in the United States. The company, whose supply chain has been supported for years in Asia, has confirmed what part of mac mini will be produced in Houston later this year. We are not talking about the iPhone or its best-selling laptop, but rather its most affordable desktop computer, a model that, according to estimates by Consumer Intelligence Research Partners, represents less than 1% of total sales. Still, the movement is symbolic and comes at a time when domestic manufacturing is once again at the center of the industrial debate in Washington. The announcement is specific. Apple will begin producing the Mac mini at a facility in north Houston later this year. Manufacturing will take place at a plant operated by Foxconn, the same industrial partner that already assembles the company’s advanced AI servers there. “Apple is deeply committed to the future of American manufacturing and we are proud to significantly expand our presence in Houston with Mac mini production beginning later this year,” said Tim Cook in the official statement. The company presents the move as an expansion of its industrial presence in Texas and as part of its commitment to strengthen operations on US soil. What’s in Houston. The complex in the north of the city is not starting from scratch. Over there Foxconn It already assembles the advanced servers that Apple uses for its artificial intelligence services, including equipment that incorporates logic boards produced on site and shipped to data centers within the United States. The campus will have two buildings: one operational for servers and another, described as a large warehouse, which will be converted into about 220,000 square feet of space for the Mac mini. The pressure and the tariffs. The step is part of Apple’s commitment to invest $600 billion in the United States over the next four years, a promise the company made following President Donald Trump’s threats to impose a 25% tariff on products manufactured abroad. As we can see, these types of spending commitments occurred in a context of pressure to increase domestic investment, in exchange for tariff exemptions. Limited movement. Sabih Khan, Apple’s chief operating officer, explained to The Wall Street Journal that production in the United States is designed to cover local demand as the line gains capacity, but that thousands of units will continue to be manufactured in Asia. Additionally, the Mac mini represents less than 5% of global Mac computer sales and less than 1% of total sales, according to estimates by Consumer Intelligence Research Partners. And something very important: there is also, for now, no plan to move the manufacturing of the iPhone to the country, the product that really supports the bulk of the business. Texas was already part of the map. Before the Mac mini, the Mac Pro had been the flagship of Apple computer manufacturing in the United States. Since 2013 it has been assembled in Austin and in 2019 the company reiterated its commitment to that facility, relying on American suppliers and a tariff exclusion for certain components. More than a radical change, the decision represents a calculated adjustment. Apple expands its manufacturing presence in Texas with a product of moderate scope, in a context in which supply chains remain international. Images | Apple In Xataka | NVIDIA was founded by three engineers, but only Jensen Huang remains CEO: “I wish I had kept some shares”

We have found an ancient bone in Córdoba. Some believe it is part of Hannibal’s war elephants.

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What the hell is the bone of an elephant that lived more than 2,000 years ago doing in a Córdoba site surrounded by ammunition for catapults and arrows like those used in the scorpions? The question arises, but it is what a team of researchers who have just signed have been guessing for years. a fascinating article in one of the most reputable archaeological magazines in the world. In it they slip that this mysterious proboscis bone unearthed by pure chance in Andalusia could be neither more nor less than the first test direct from the war elephants employed by the Carthaginian general Aníbal Barca. What is this bone? A question similar to that must have been asked. towards 2019 archaeologists who, during a emergency excavation to expand the Provincial Hospital of Córdoba, they found a peculiar bone fragment. The piece was not larger than a baseball (measures between 15 and 8 cm), preserved its porosity and peeked out from under what looked like a ruined adobe wall from the 3rd century BC, which probably facilitated its preservation. That archaeologists unearth a bone during a tasting (even a millennia old one) has little to offer. In this case, however, the fragment held several surprises. The first, its age: 2,250 years. The second (and this is where things get interesting) is its origin: the bone is neither more nor less than the carpal bone of an elephant, something like part of the ‘wrist’ of a proboscide that for some mysterious reason ended up in the Iberian Peninsula. “He has enormous interest.” The discovery was so exciting, opening up such promising scenarios, that in 2023 it already generated interest outside the academic circuit. In September of that year Rafael Martínez, professor of Prehistory at the University of Córdoba recognized to The Country the expectation around the bone. “It is of enormous interest given the practical absence of remains of elephants from a pre-Roman context in Europe, excluding ivory objects that were subject to trade and import,” he said enthusiastically. “In any case, this discreet bone can be interpreted as proof of the presence of these animals in the area of ​​current Córdoba between the 4th and 2nd centuries BC” By then the professor went one step further and ventured a fascinating hypothesis: “It could belong to the period of the Public Wars. It could be the first elephant discovered by Hannibal’s troops, but it cannot be certain.” There were still many questions on the table. For example, its chronology: it was estimated that the animal died between the end of the IV and I BC, a long period that left several possibilities open. Did the bone belong to a Punic elephant or was it more correct to frame it in times of Julius Caesar? Hunting for answers. The bone may be small, but scientists have not had an easy time analyzing it. To begin with, it has been difficult to specify its species. After a detailed examination they concluded that it must be a large specimen, larger than female Asian elephants. Specifically, they think of a Loxodonta pharaoensis (the Carthaginian elephant) an African subspecies extinct in Roman times. Maybe the name doesn’t tell you much, but they are animals. used by Hannibal for his passage through the Alps. The other great unknown. Once the species was clarified (more or less), another unknown remained: its antiquity. The bone was a challenge because it did not contain enough collagen and had not fossilized. That did not prevent a study from ending up revealing that the fragment dates from between end of the 4th and beginning of the 3rd BC Live Science It even goes further and precise that the extract in which the fragment was found (part of a fortified Iberian town known as oppida) can be dated approximately 2,250 years ago, at the beginning of the 3rd BC It is a key fact because it takes us back to a time before the founding of the Roman Cordoba and the turbulent times of Second Punic War (218-201 BC), when Carthage and Rome struggled to dominate the Mediterranean world. Click on the image to go to the tweet. Are there more clues? Yes. And they are just as interesting. Not only was the bone found at the site, protected by a demolished adobe wall. Archaeologists also discovered more than a dozen of bolaños, small projectiles that were used with catapults, and part of what appears to be a spear. They are clues that help complete the story and help to better understand the site, such as recognize researchers in Journal of Archaeological Science Reports. “The level of destruction fits well within an emerging pattern of events associated with the Second Punic War, some of which are attested in literary sources and some of which are not, spanning both siege warfare and open battlefield contexts,” they explain in statements to Phys. Why is it important? Because of the implications it has. In your article Martínez and the rest of his colleagues recall that the discovery seems “intimately linked to the events of the Second Punic War in Hispania” and slips a key idea: “This may represent the first known anatomical element of an elephant used by the Punic troops in this war in Europe.” If they are correct, we would be looking at a first-class find: the bone of one of the elephants of Hannibal’s troops in the Second Punic War. Is it so relevant? “It could be a historical milestone. There is no direct archaeological evidence of the use of these animals,” clarify Martinez to Live Science. The march led by Hannibal through Western Europe in his attack on Rome and the use of elephants as “war machines” during the Punic Wars it is a very popular episode, but direct and palpable evidence is not abundant. The episode of passage through the Alps We know it thanks to historians like Polybius or Titus Livy, but the strongest archaeological evidence today is traces. That … Read more

The special effects of 2025 are worse than those of 2010. And part of the blame lies with us viewers

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When James Cameron released ‘Avatar’ in 2009, the film industry contemplated what seemed the future of visual effects. The film set a technical standard that, paradoxically, today’s cinema not only has not surpassed, but often does not even reach. The problem is not technological: software tools have advanced exponentially since then. But the industry has evolved in a way that everything looks worse than before. The sooner, the better. It is not necessary to go to the undisputed peak of the digital image that represented Cameron’s movie. ‘Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest’ featured Davy Jones and his beard of tentacles, one of the best live-action CGI integrations ever seen. ‘Interstellar’ featured the participation of astrophysicist Kip Thorne for their spatial sequences. It is enough to compare the photorealistic texture of Na’vi or Jones with the plasticized finishes of Marvel or DC to see that something fundamental has changed in the way of producing special effects. The common denominator in all of them was time. In this analysis about the visual effects crisisit is explained that the productions of that decade had post-production calendars that ranged between 18 and 24 months. ‘Avatar’ He had two full years for the effects phase. Its consequences have started from comparable times. The spectacular images in ‘Inception’ of the city folding in on itself, another milestone of the era, took months of planning. Luxuries that are practically unthinkable today. Increasingly. The problem is the quantity. The latest studies indicate that while a commercial film from 2010 contained approximately 600 shots with visual effects, current productions usually exceed 3,000 shots. This 400% increase has not been accompanied by proportional budgets or calendars. Quite the opposite: hasty effects, poorly worked compositions and a digital homogenization that detracts from the personality of the images. Tremendous expectations In your situation analysisTreehouse Detective explains the case of the prequel to ‘The Thing’, which in 2011 remade John Carpenter’s 1982 classic. The special effects team Studio ADI, led by Alec Gillis and Tom Woodruff Jr., built physical creatures with animatronics and prosthetics over several months of pre-production. After test screenings, Universal Pictures made a decision that Gillis would rate how devastating: Almost all practical work was replaced by CGI in post-production. Audiences expected to see digital effects in a science fiction horror film and considered practical effects “old-fashioned.” Paradigm shift. This case illustrates a profound cultural shift in expectations. During the 2010s, CGI went from being an exceptional tool for what was thought unattainable with practical effects to becoming the standard. The irony is that the greatness of films like ‘Alien’ or ‘Jurassic Park’ (where CGI was mixed with practical effects) was built precisely on the tangibility of their creatures. But the industry, and with it the audience, developed a dependence on digital finishing that is associated with prestige and quality, regardless of whether the final result can be improved with traditional effects. The economy of effects. The proliferation of streaming platforms has radically reconfigured the economics of special effects. Films produced directly for Netflix, Amazon Prime or Disney+ operate with significantly lower budgets than productions destined for cinemas, while the public maintains their visual expectations. This impossible equation has put pressure on the entire FX production chain. The era of auctions. The contract awarding system has evolved towards an auction model that prioritizes cost and speed over quality. The studios put projects into competition between multiple effects companies. The one who offers to complete the job in less time and for less money gets the contract. This process creates a competitive spiral in which small studios accept unsustainable conditions in the hope of maintaining their position in the market. Studies that close. It is a system that sometimes has extreme consequences. ‘Sonic the Hedgehog’ case: after the public’s rejection of the character’s original design, Paramount ordered a complete redesign. Moving Picture Company, the studio responsible for the effects, had to redo hundreds of shots without a deadline extension or significant additional budget. The studio closed its Vancouver headquarters shortly after, with multiple sources indicating that the project had contributed significantly to their financial problems. It is not an isolated case: Rhythm & Hues, winner of the Oscar for the effects of ‘Life of Pi’ in 2013, declared bankruptcy weeks before the awards ceremony. The company had agreed to complete the job at a loss to maintain its reputation, a pattern that media outlets such as VFX Voice have documented. Visual effects artists and technicians frequently operate in crunch to meet deadlines that were unfeasible from the beginning. The lower union rate In the visual effects sector, unlike other technical departments in film, it leaves these professionals without protection against abusive working conditions. The causes. The deterioration in the quality of the special effects does not respond to a single cause, but to pressures from two opposite directions. Movie studios have optimized their production structures to maximize profit margins, outsourcing visual effects work to companies competing in a wild race. The public has developed inflexible expectations about the omnipresence of CGI, rejecting alternatives. As technology advances, the time and money available to apply it decreases. Just compare budgets: ‘Avatar’ operated on a total budget of $237 million, of which a substantial portion was allocated specifically to technological development and visual effects over several years. Meanwhile, an MCU production distributes a similar budget among multiple items (salaries, marketing) while compressing post-production calendars to just six or eight months to meet immovable release dates, established years in advance. In Xataka | Either CGI designers get their act together or our televisions will continue to put their movies on the ropes

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