party

the five million dollar birthday party of a millionaire who went down in history

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It was February 2007 and in a former military barracks on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, nearly 600 guests toasted with champagne while Rod Stewart sang at a private concert marking the 60th birthday of one of the most powerful men on Wall Street. That man was Stephen SchwarzmanCEO and founder of Blackstone. Nobody at the party knew that, months later, that same night would go down in history as the symbol of everything that was going to go wrong on Wall Street. A party that marked an era. That was not just any birthday party. Almost two decades later, there are still many who remember her as one of the most ostentatious. Schwarzman, founder of Blackstone, rented the Park Avenue Armory in Manhattan, filled it with orchids, palm trees, and a life-size portrait of himself. According to the book ‘Davos Man‘ by Peter S. Goodman, comedian Martin Short entertained the evening, singer Patti LaBelle sang happy birthday and even Rod Stewart gave a private concert. Among the almost 600 attendees were bankers, politicians and even a certain Donald Trump, then just another New York businessman. An unforgettable party. HE esteem that the party cost between three and five million dollars. Today that figure seems modest next to other waste the kind that millionaires boast about, but in those years it was a significant waste. Schwarzman later justified it as “a celebration with six hundred people we cared about.” Peccadillo for someone who had just pocketed $398.3 million in the 2006 fiscal year. The expensive thing was not the party. However, the party came just four days after a key announcement. Blackstone had just closed the biggest real estate purchase in history until that moment, for 39,000 million dollars. Months later, the company went public. Schwarzman he pocketed nearly 700 million in cash, and was awarded a stake valued at about 9,000 million. That cocktail of luxury and easy money caught the attention of the Senate. Legislators Max Baucus and Chuck Grassley presented what the press dubbed the “Blackstone Bill”. A regulations tailor-made for Schwarzman’s company that sought to raise taxes on private capital. With the subprime crisis already upon us, Schwarzman ended up admitting that that party was “a little exaggerated”. He assured that he never wanted to become the symbol of the opulence of an era. “I’m not rich,” he only had a net worth of 8 billion. With such a fortune, anyone would expect a certain comfort with the label of rich. But that wasn’t the case with Schwarzman. As and how I collected The Wall Street JournalEven after the millionaire’s ostentatious birthday party, when asked about his lifestyle, the Blackstone CEO responded without hesitation: “I don’t feel like a rich person. Others see me as such, but I don’t. I feel the same as when I was a fifth-year associate and aspired to be a partner at Lehman. I haven’t changed… I’m still trying.” The old excesses that no longer return the same. Perhaps displaying a certain nostalgia, ten years after that memorable party, Schwarzman celebrated his 70th. On this occasion, he did not skimp either. There were camels, trapeze artists and a private concert by singer Gwen Stefani in Palm Beach, near Mar-a-Lago. The party almost happened without noise from the front pages of the newspapers. It was the Trump era and luxury no longer shocked anyone like before. Their neighbors Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner were among the guests. The king of parties at 79. Today, with a fortune of 48 billion dollars, Schwarzman prepares a Halloween party at his English estate in Conholt Park. No camels or temples: just fireworks and two days of private meeting. Something quiet. chill. The excesses of yesteryear, those that made Congress tremble, they no longer scare so much today. The billionaires of this decade are more discreet with their forms, although their wealth has increased tenfold. Today’s billionaires they spend the same or more than Schwarzman in 2007, they just don’t do the same ostentation. The difference is in the noise, not the money. In Xataka | A Swedish millionaire lent money to European governments in exchange for matches. Nobody suspected that his finances were pure smoke Image | Unsplash (Ophélie Bonavita), Flickr (World Economic Forum)

First he tied up Samsung, now SK Hynix. At the RAM crisis party, Nvidia has secured the cake

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In any group of friends, there is one person who always tries to get along with everyone. In the technology world, that person is Nvidia. The American giant that until not so long ago was the one who dominated the conversation in the field of video game hardware, now it is synonymous with artificial intelligence. Nvidia is shaping the sector with billion-dollar investmentsbut also with its hardware. The H200 and the Blackwell B200 are the most coveted chips in the sectorwhich leads to everyone wants that platform and, therefore, Nvidia is one of the whales that is drinking the global stock of RAM. For Vera Rubin, their new platform, they need much more memory and, after reaching an agreement to ensure the best available that Samsung makesthey have achieved another with the other leg of the global RAM market: SK Hynix. And this is about data centersbut also eye-catching RTX Spark chiprobotics, accelerating development times and how consumers have years left to continue suffering with the supply of chips. Nvidia, SK Hynix and the deal to manufacture everything Jensen Huang, CEO of Nvidia, is traveling through Seoul. This time his objective was not to visit the new Samsung facilities (relations with Samsung They are already more than consolidated), but to secure the other South Korean (and world) memory chip giant: SK Hynix. During their visit, the two CEOs staged a multi-year agreement by which Nvidia will have priority access to the most refined memory coming out of the SK Hynix foundry. Because Nvidia already warned in January that this year it would need all the silicon possible, and seeing the roadmap it is something that is perfectly understood. As we say, they are immersed in the Vera Rubin AI platform for the training and inference of artificial intelligence models; have just presented the RTX Spark chips in response to Apple Silicon and Qualcomm chips for computers Windows ARM and then there’s another leg that we don’t talk about as much, but that they are pushing hard and that also requires a lot of memory chips: the Jetson Thor robotics platform. In it releasethe two state that this is an agreement to speed up development times on this hardware for AI. This is something that requires long development cycles, but also a lot of money to sustain the global demand for memory due to data centers for AI. This deal goes there. “AI factories are the drivers of the next industrial revolution, and advanced memory is essential to their performance” – Jensen Huang Because it is not so much about ensuring high bandwidth memory (something that Nvidia already had to be the great whale of the sector), but to improve the infrastructure so that the new generations arrive at the pace that the development of AI requires. In fact, Chey Tae-won, CEO of SK Group, highlights the same thing: “together we are co-developing the next generation of memory for AI factories, applying AI to semiconductor design and manufacturing.” That is to say, It is not a simple question of supply (which also, since 60-70% of SK Hynix’s HBM4 memory goes to Nvidia’s Vera Rubin), but to apply AI tools (which Nvidia has) for the design and manufacturing of semiconductors with the aforementioned objective of shortening times. This objective is something that is being pursued worldwide, and the company itself SK Hynix together with Samsung collaborate in a megacenter in the United States to streamline all these processes. As a result of this agreement, it is very possible that SK Hynix get its goal of setting up a fully autonomous semiconductor factory by 2030 (something that, again, share with Samsung). Now, what about the goal of those we want a RAM stick or one Steam Deck that doesn’t hit price increases of 300 euros at once? Well, unfortunately, we are going to continue eating this situation of debauchery when it comes to building AI platforms and gigantic data centers. During his visit, Huang himself commented that he expects the global shortage to last for years because the entire supply chain of this new industry depends on these chips and that demand is very high. In their wordsit is something that “will persist for several years”. They are not new statements either, since Huang gave about seven or eight years to the unbridled investment. And more important than all this, Nvidia, right now, has the four chip giants eating from his hand. SK Hynix and Samsung with memory and their factories for new generation memory. TSMC has turned Nvidia into your client A. And ASML that is what manufactures machines to make advanced chips It is the one that supplies those tools to the three mentioned. In Xataka | China already has a GPU that competes with Nvidia’s RTX 3060. The bad thing is that it arrives five years late and worse

There is a division of Xiaomi that no one pays attention to. It is exactly the one that is paying for the party of mobile phones, AI and cars

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Xiaomi is no longer just a smartphone company; It is a conglomerate of four large divisions that support and feed each other to compete in an increasingly aggressive market. The surprise is that financially the division that generates the least attention is the one that is paying for the other three. The results for the first quarter of 2026 They make it clear: boring business is pure profit. Four companies in oneto. Xiaomi’s current structure settles in four large pillars that are also notably different from each other. Smartphones with the brand that ended up becoming popular globally remain critical to preserving the user base. Then there are internet services (advertising, Mi Cloud), which complete the Apple-style mobile ecosystem. The electric car and AI make up another pillar that fascinates and demonstrates the firm’s ambition in these new areas. And finally there is the IoT division, which a priori seems the least notable, but is much more so than anyone would think. Services, services, services. As we said, mobile phones are Xiaomi’s hallmark, but its profitability comes hand in hand with internet services, which operate with an astonishing gross profit margin of 76.1%. As with Apple, here Xiaomi takes advantage of its almost 750 million active users with advertising, subscriptions and cloud services integrated into its HyperOS mobile operating system. It is a profitable vicious circle: IoT and mobile phones are Trojan horses that manage to put the user into a digital ecosystem in which they end up spending money. Blessed IoT. And despite the fact that it receives less media attention, the gross margin of the IoT division reached a spectacular 25.2% in the first quarter of 2026 according to the company’s financial results. This number is much higher than the 10.1% generated by smartphones, which have logically been punished by the memory crisis. In fact, the gross profit of the IoT division has been 6.2 billion RMB, much higher than the 4.5 billion of the mobile division. The latter bills much more, but it does not shine as much in those gross profits. Refrigerators triumph. The president of Xiaomi’s IoT division, Lu Weibing, explained that the role of this business is key in the Xiaomi group, because it is “a very important balancer” against the impact of the increase in memory costs in the rest of the divisions. Company officials expect this “cost supercycle” (or in other words, the memory crisis) to last until 2028, and that will continue to complicate the mobile division’s margins. Sell ​​less, but more expensive. The escalation of component costs has made Xiaomi make a drastic decision: sell less, but more expensive. The distributed smartphone units they fell 19.2%, but its average selling price reached a record figure of 1,310 RMB, 8% more than in the same quarter of 2025. Xiaomi has a 23.5% share of premium smartphones in mainland China, and makes it clear that the focus is now on super high-end mobile phones. “Premiumization” of the home. The strategy of selling more expensive is also being applied notably in the IoT division, which includes household appliancesand which has also adopted a “premiumization” strategy. Instead of just distributing third-party products, the company is developing its own high-end air conditioners, refrigerators and washing machines. This has allowed IoT gross margin to rise 5.1 percentage points in just one quarter. AI price war. The launch of its own AI model, MiMoit was already a surprise, but these days the firm has announced that cut the prices of its API by up to 99% (there are technical arguments) in order to compete with rivals like DeepSeek. This model is at the level of the best Chinese open models, but the company itself has not yet achieved the objectives they seek. As with other AI startups, the costs are massive, so this division of Xiaomi depends on the cash flow generated by the rest of the businesses. Cars impress, but they lose money. The division that brings together electric cars and AI did not have a good quarter and lost 3.1 billion RMB. The new Xiaomi Su 7 has been a success in number of reservations (80,000), but operating expenses for this part of the business have risen 45.8%, too much to be offset by the revenue growth of this division. Xiaomi is the new Samsung. Xiaomi He was born looking very similar (or aspiring to be very similar) to Apple, but currently its structure and strategy are much more similar to that of Samsung. Its advantage is that it currently has an ecosystem with more than 1.1 billion IoT devices that allow it to grow and invest in cars, AI or mobile phones. The problem is what happens if the cushion provided by the benefits of the IoT division deflates. In Xataka | Leica is teaching Xiaomi everything it knows: when the student no longer needs the teacher, the agreement will have fulfilled its function

Bad Bunny’s authentic party takes place in Sector T, the “stiffs” outside the Metropolitano

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600,000 tickets are a lot of tickets. They are the ones that Bad Bunny has sold out for twelve concerts in Spain. The cheapest ones are around 70 euros. The most expensive, 600. The venues are going to be full every night. And yet, hundreds of people stand on the street, spread blankets and take out refrigerators around Gate 20 of the Riyadh Air Metropolitano and listen to the concert with a clarity that rivals that inside the venue. They call themselves Sector T. The T is for “stiff.” Who are they? Bad Bunny’s second concert in Madrid On Sunday, June 1, it left in its wake, along with the inevitable celebrity counts at the Casita (which are invariably the most read news in the media that cover the concerts), an image that circulated on social networks: hundreds of people who did not get (or did not want) entry gathered spontaneously outside the stadium, specifically in the area of ​​gate 20. There the music comes with surprising clarity and you can even see part of the stands of the venue. The scene was summed up by a spectator with a phrase that accompanies many of the videos: “Sector T of stiff but happy being able to afford the 10 dates.” The expectation. Bad Bunny debuts in Madrid a residency format that he had only done before in Puerto Ricowith ten consecutive nights in the same stadium. The tour brings together more than half a million people in its ten dates at the Metropolitano, with tickets flying in a matter of hours after they went on sale. The demand was so brutal that thousands of fans were unable to attend, but the feeling has not diminished that the concert is the place in Madrid where you “have to be” right now (with permission of the Pope’s visit). That is why the T Sector phenomenon has occurred. Metropolitan FTW. The Atlético stadium was not always the first reference in terms of concert venues in Madrid. That role corresponded to the Bernabéu, whose expensive renovation was designed precisely to turn it into a continuous entertainment space, without depending on football. We already know the story: acoustic problems, complaints from neighbors, and now the developers have to take care of possible fines. Clearest consequence: the Metropolitan takes the biggest musical shows of the yearamong them Bad Bunny and his ten nights at the athletic stadium. The Metropolitano has established a contractual limitation that requires all shows to end no later than 10:59 p.m., as a measure aimed at protecting residents’ rest and bringing forward the departure of the public. The venue also states that it operates with one of the most advanced acoustic control systems in Spain, which includes real-time monitoring, limiters verified by the City Council, probes in homes in Canillejas and Las Rosas and state-of-the-art acoustic barriers. Neighborhood associations have complaintsYes, because of the chaos at the exit, with traffic jams, horns, screams and so on. Sector T, of course, is a free agent who is not subject to any of those restrictions. The future of the T Sector. Bad Bunny still has eight more dates confirmed at the Metropolitano: June 2, 3, 6, 7, 10, 11, 14 and 15. The makeshift sector of Gate 20 will have the opportunity to grow over the next two weeks: Sector T will grow larger as the tour progresses and images of the exterior circulate alongside those of the interior. What is not yet clear is whether the Metropolitan or the organization of the event will take any measure regarding the concentrations at the exterior entrances. For now, no one has told them to leave, so they will be there. And some will repeat. Image | NFL In Xataka | If the question is who can turn Amancio Ortega into his personal tailor, we already have an answer: Bad Bunny

We believed that hantavirus did not jump between humans. Until someone went to a birthday party in Argentina

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In recent weeks, the term ‘hantavirus‘ is on the lips of many people, and it is no wonder to the big outbreak that has emerged in the middle of the ocean on a luxury cruise ship. As time goes by, there is more and more data that we have on the table, since we have gone from having the idea of ​​being faced with a virus no possibility of transmission between humans to a scenario in which this is possible and has already occurred. What we knew. When we think about hantavirus, epidemiology usually leads us to a very specific scenario, such as rural areas with infected rodents and humans who become ill by inhaling particles of their excrement. The cycle usually ends there, in an evolutionary dead end that goes no further. However, there is an exception, which is the Andes variant of this hantavirus, which has a high lethality and circulates mainly in South America, being the only one that can be transmitted from person to person. It is not a new phenomenon, but its propagation mechanism, strongly linked to social events and the so-called “superspreaders“, makes it a pathogen of special surveillance, as has been demonstrated by the recent large outbreaks in Argentina and its impact now on an international cruise ship with people who are not currently under control due to its long incubation period. His past. To understand the magnitude of the problem, you have to travel back in time and more specifically to the mid-90s where the medical community believed that hantaviruses were strictly zoonotic pathogens, that is, they were transmitted from animals to humans. But in 1996, an outbreak in southern Argentina changed virology textbooks. Here the publications of the time They made it clear that the 1996 outbreak was happening directly between humans thanks to molecular analyzes that determined that the viruses that were infecting patients were quite similar. A birthday. In a simple meeting between several people in November 2018 in Epuyén, it was clearly confirmed that something was happening with this virus. Here are three symptomatic people who attended a birthdaya funeral and a doctor’s office caused the contagion of 34 people, of whom eleven ended up dying due to the clinic that presents this very aggressive virus. This case set a great precedent, being the clearest example we have to see that the Andes hantavirus can spread in social environments without there being close and continuous contact as was thought until relatively recently. But the most interesting thing is the possibility that there are ‘super-contagators’, who are people who can more easily infect those around them and which right now may be the most plausible theory that explains this contagion on the cruise. Similar. Abdirahman KHALIF Mohamud, spokesperson for the World Health Organization, was the one who shown the similarities that may exist between this birthday in Argentina in 2018 and the case of the cruise because in both cases there was a concentration of people in a closed space. The tranquility. In the cases that are documented right now, which are not many, it could be seen that at the moment in which the authorities isolated the confirmed cases, the transmissibility began to decrease. But in addition, it is also known that when a virus is transmitted three times, there is no more contagion from it, so its capacity to spread is lower, which is good news. The problem is that there is still a lot of information that is emerging in this regard, and although there are experts who point out that we are not going to be facing a major pandemic like Covid, fear is still quite present. In Xataka | The hantavirus was going to reach Europe sooner or later and, as always, it caught us offside

Five last-minute deals that you can still buy at Amazon’s Spring Sale Party

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After six days, the Amazon Spring Sale Party is coming to an end. If you have not yet gotten one of the technological devices that you had in mind, you still have time to do so, since until midnight This campaign is still valid. These are some of the best deals you can still buy. Anker Prime Docking Station 14 in 1 by 279.99 euros– with HDMI, Ethernet, USB-C and DisplayPort. Robot vacuum cleaner Lefant M210 Pro by 89.97 euros– Compatible with Google Assistant and Alexa. Vertical mouse Logitech Lift by 46.45 euros: with battery that lasts up to two years. Fire TV Stick 4K Plus by 37.99 euros– Supports Dolby Vision and HDR10+. Smart TV Xiaomi TV F 32 by 129 euros: with Fire TV as the operating system and compatible with Apple AirPlay. XIAOMI TV F 32, 32 Inch (81 cm) The price could vary. We earn commission from these links Anker Prime Docking Station 14 in 1 If you are one of those who usually connect many devices and want to do it in an organized way, this Anker Prime Docking Station 14 in 1 It is the accessory you need. Now on Amazon, available with 70 euros discount and you can buy it for 279.99 euros. This Anker docking station comes with a total of 14 connections: one Ethernet port, two HDMI with 4K support at 60 Hz, one DisplayPort with 8K support at 60 Hz, two USB-A ports (5 Gbps), one USB for peripherals, one USB-C (up to 100 W, 5 Gbps), one USB-C (up to 140 W), two others USB-C (up to 100 W, 10 Gbps), SD and microSD card reader and 3.5 mm audio input. Anker Prime Docking Station 14 in 1 The price could vary. We earn commission from these links Lefant M210 Pro Robot Vacuum Cleaner One of the star bargains, every time Amazon launches a powerful campaign like this Amazon Spring Offer Festival, is this Lefant M210 Pro. Its price is usually around 260 euros, but now you can get it with a 65% discountby 89.97 euros. This robot vacuum cleaner It has a suction power of 2,200 Pa, although it is not as super powerful as other models, it is not bad at all, especially if there are no pets in your home, since it is more than enough for daily cleaning. It has automatic recharging and is compatible with Alexa and Google Assistantalthough you can also control it through the Lefant app. LEFANT M210 Pro Robot Vacuum Cleaner 2200Pa The price could vary. We earn commission from these links Logitech Lift Vertical Mouse If you spend many hours working on the computer and want to avoid wrist pain, this vertical mouse Logitech Lift It is a good purchase option in this Amazon campaign. Its recommended price is 81.99 euros, although it now has a 43% discount, remaining available for 46.45 euros. You should know that this vertical mouse It is suitable for small and medium-sized hands and relieves pressure on the wrists, thanks to its 51-degree elevation. you can do it connect via Bluetooth and is compatible with Windows, macOS, iPadOS, Chrome OS or Linux. As for its battery, it has a range of up to two years. Logitech Lift Ergonomic Vertical Mouse The price could vary. We earn commission from these links Fire TV Stick 4K Plus He Fire TV Stick It is one of those Amazon devices that tend to be bestsellers throughout the year, even more so when they are on sale like now. He 4K Plus model has gone from costing 69.99 euros to 37.99 euros during Amazon’s Spring Sale Festival. This Fire TV Stick offers advanced streaming of 4K content. It is compatible with Wi-Fi 6in addition to image formats Dolby Vision and HDR10+while in audio it features compatibility with Dolby Atmos. Its remote comes with direct access buttons to the main streaming platforms and also voice control through Alexa. Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K Plus, compatible with Wi-Fi 6, Dolby Vision, Dolby Atmos and HDR10+ The price could vary. We earn commission from these links Smart TV Xiaomi TV F 32 And finally, if what you are looking for is a TV for the bedroom, the kitchen or even your second home, without spending a lot of money, this Xiaomi TV F32 It is a good option. Now, it has a 50 euro discount and you can take it for 129 euros at Amazon’s Spring Sale Party. Ride a 32 inch LED panel with HD resolution with sound in Dolby Audio quality. The operating system under which it works is Fire TV (the one that comes with Amazon’s Fire TV Stick), so it comes with Alexa as standard. Additionally, it is compatible with Apple AirPlay. XIAOMI TV F 32, 32 Inch (81 cm) The price could vary. We earn commission from these links

Amazon is discounting the Pixel 10 at the Spring Sale Party and also giving you something very useful: this wireless charger

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The Amazon Spring Sale Party has already started and if you are looking for a mobile phone, one of the ones that has been successful for a long time is the Google Pixel 10which you can now get for 599 euros and with a wireless charger Gift Pixelsnap. Additionally, we encourage you to take a look at our live from Xatakaso you can discover the new offers that Amazon is unlocking. Google Pixel 10 128GB with Pixelsnap charger The price could vary. We earn commission from these links A best-selling mobile now at an unbeatable price If you are wondering if It’s a good time to buy the Google Pixel 10this offer from Amazon comes to prove that yes, since it has now reached its historical minimum price. He Google Pixel 10 It is a high-end mobile phone that has been successful for some time for several reasons. One of them is your 6.3 inch screenwhich make it a smartphone that fits easily in your pocket and can be easily operated with one hand. The processor it mounts is the Google Tensor G5which offers good performance. Regarding its battery, it supports fast charging wired at 30W and wireless at 15W. And so you can make the most of the wireless, now in this Amazon campaign it comes with the Pixelsnap charger as a gift. Another section in which this mobile stands out is photography. Its triple rear camera is made up of one 48 MP main lensaccompanied by a 13 MP wide angle and a 10.8 MP 5x telephoto. Finally, another thing that should be highlighted about this Google mobile is that works under pure Android operating system and the brand guarantees updates to said operating system for seven years. ⚡ IN SUMMARY: Google pixel 10 offer today ✅ THE BEST Your photographic system: Few phones of the same price as this Pixel can fight against it in the photography section. An operating system that lasts for years: Having pure Android is one of the main hallmarks of Google phones and they guarantee updates for years (seven, specifically). ❌ THE WORST The screen can be improved… Although it is true that the Google Pixel 10 has a good screen, we miss that it is not LTPO. 💡 BUY IT IF… You want a cell phone to take good photos without having to spend the almost 1,000 euros that high-end terminals from other brands usually cost. ⛔ DON’T BUY IT IF… Obviously, the only significant drawback that this mobile has is that it works with Android, so if you don’t want a terminal with this operating system, you have no choice but to go for a iPhone. Some accessories that may interest you for this Google Pixel 10 Pixelsnap Case for Google Pixel 10 The price could vary. We earn commission from these links Google Pixel Buds 2a – Wireless Earbuds with Active Noise Cancellation The price could vary. We earn commission from these links Some of the links in this article are affiliated and may provide a benefit to Xataka. In case of non-availability, offers may vary. Images | Pepu Ricca (Xataka) and Google In Xataka | The best mobile phones, we have tested them and here are their analyzes In Xataka | The best quality-price mobiles. Their analyzes and videos are here

In 2009 Stephen Hawking hosted “the party of the century.” No one came precisely because Stephen Hawking organized it

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Bottles of the best French Champagne, tables full of canapés and cucumber sandwiches, balloons, banners and music. Stephen Hawkingthe famous theoretical physicist from the University of Cambridge, had everything ready to give the party of the century in June 2009. “I was waiting for a long time, but no one came,” explained a couple of years later. He wasn’t too surprised, especially since he only sent out the invitations after the party was already over. And not by mistake: Hawking’s party was the first major celebration dedicated specifically to time travelers. In 1992, Hawking had already proposed that time travel was impossible. So that afternoon party in the swamps of the River Cam was half an experiment to prove that the timetravelers They did not exist, half “trolling” all those theorists who thought that this type of trips could exist. In reality, it was a joke that is inserted into the historical controversy of time travel. For all we know, all the time travelers could be in the pub across the street laughing at poor Hawking and his old anti-travel ideas. It is not likely, there I agree with Hawking; but, today, we cannot rule out that working hypothesis. Everything (not) is on the internet I suppose that, therefore, that of the English physicist has not been the only attempt to search for time travelers. A few years later, in 2014, a team of physicists from the Michigan Institute of Technology used the internet and social networks to look for clues about possible trips. It was not about looking for people who defined themselves as “time travelers“, but to look for the trace of clairvoyance. That is, signs of people who knew things before they happened. The idea was to look for unequivocal messages, about things not previously known and significant enough to be recorded in the history books of the future. They chose two facts that met these three characteristics: Comet ISON and the name that Jorge Bergoglio would choose during his papacy, Francisco. The search, needless to say, was fruitless. Only in the case of Pope Francis did they find a prior reference to the choice of the name, but after analyzing it they discovered that it was a merely speculative text. Can you travel in time? The short answer is that we don’t know. The long answer is that, although it seems something banaldebates about the possibility of time travel continue to be a very controversial topic even today. And they remain so for a very simple reason: there is nothing in our scientific theories about the universe that prohibits per se this type of trips. Hence it is an exciting field full of theories, objections and counter-objections. Someday we will have to return to the topic and talk about the current controversies in time travel. But today, since it’s Sunday, I just wanted to remind you that if you ever pass through Cambridge on June 28, 2009, there is a party to which you are invited. Toast us. In Xataka | The most transformative event in modern cosmology is just around the corner, according to these physicists’ hypothesis In Xataka | Stephen Hawking made a prediction about black holes in 1971. A new signal has proven him overwhelmingly right

Meta has been bragging about LLaMa for years while missing the AI ​​party. And she’s already tired of being the Android of AI

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Close your eyes and think about AI. It’s easy for the names that come to mind to be ChatGPT either Geminiand it makes perfect sense: OpenAI and Google have focused on pushing solutions for real users. The one that may sound familiar to you, but you don’t even remember, is LLaMa. Meta has focused for years on AI for the sector, forgetting the consumer. And that’s about to change with Mango and Avocado. Because the “new” Meta no longer wants to be the Android of AI: it wants to embrace the Apple model. The ‘meh’ of LLaMa 4. Meta’s approach to artificial intelligence has been, and is being, curious. LLaMa 4 It was a frustrating release, one that hasn’t lived up to expectations. It competed with GPT-4 (let’s go for 5, whose launch also brought controversy), but while OpenAI and Google have struggled to position their AI models as options open to the user thanks to the chatbot, Meta has gone in other directions. They have their Meta AIbut LLaMa was the star product. They have ‘gone’ from the user and have focused on professional options. Meta opted for Open Source (in quotes) seeking to turn LLaMa into the foundation on which everything that has to do with AI is built. To make a simile, Meta wanted LLaMa to be the “Android of AI.” It hasn’t worked out, and now it wants to pivot to an Apple-style model: closed and consumer-oriented. 14.3 billion dollars. That’s the money that Zuckerberg, in full ‘founders mode’ like Florentino Pérez has been left in Scale AI. The startup has established itself in a very short time as the great promise of general AIone of the short-term objectives of the majors in the sector. And, now, it is owned by Meta. It is the Madrid of the galactics. Because even if Scale AI did not develop ChatGPT, Gemini or Claudehas built the infrastructure for proposals of this style. And with the purchase comes Alexandr Wang, who was CEO of Scale AI and now director of AI at Meta. It seems that the relationship is already bearing fruit. Mango and Avocado. As we read in WSJWang has mentioned two new AI models that will go live in early 2026. And the proposal is radical considering where the company came from: Avocado – This will be the brain and successor of Calls. It is scheduled for the first half of next year and is expected to be the one that begins the new era of privatization of the model: it would mark the transition to a closed system. Mango – If Avocado aims to be invisible to the user, Mango will be the complete opposite. It will be an image and video generation model to compete directly against sora, I see either Nano Banana from OpenAI and Google, respectively. Less papers, more chats. Thus, Zuckerberg and Wang will be able to have a model that people associate as synonymous with “artificial intelligence.” Google and OpenAI have come a long way, but if AI has taught us anything, it is that new tools can become popular in a heartbeat if they hit the right button. Midjourney was the grail of generative AIFor example… But of course, neither Google nor OpenAI are going to sit idly by. Both are burning money to continue developing their models and the problem is that, although what they get Meta works like magicthey will arrive years late consumer AI competition. They have dispersed their AI in WhatsApp, Instagram and professionals instead of having a single chatbot; have published studies on how capable your artificial intelligence is. In the middle of all that, they are late to the party. And, precisely, in that They look a lot like Apple. Images | Mark Zuckerberg, Dima Solomin In Xataka | “AI is unstoppable”: the CEO of Freepik talks to us about AI, entrepreneurship and the mistakes of an EU that only focuses on the dangers of AI

The US has joined the “party” of China, Russia and Japan in the Pacific: with its nuclear bombers

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As if it were an air parade of an air force planetarythe sky of the Asia-Pacific has become a scene of military exhibitions that have rarely been seen outside of a major war conflict. It happens that these fireworks can lead with a single spark into something very different. The improvised aerial party. As we said, the sky of Asia is a tour de force where every time it hides lessand where you patrol, joint exercises and strategic flights function as political messages in broad daylight. Russia and China have been setting the pace with bombers and fighters over disputed seas, Japan responds by raising the profile of its air defense and, now, the United States has decided to join visibly to this choreography of power, incorporating its strategic bombers into a dynamic that reflects the extent to which the region has become one of the epicenters of global rivalry. Bombers Made in USA. The joint flight of two American B-52s with Japanese fighters over the Sea of ​​Japan represents a qualitative leap in the signal sent from Washington, not so much because of its technical novelty as because of its symbolic load. The presence of bombers capable of carry nuclear weapons escorted by Japanese F-35s and F-15s, publicly reinforces the idea that the alliance between both countries is not rhetorical, but operational, and that the United States is willing to support Tokyo with strategic assets at a time of maximum friction with Beijing. The background. This show of force does not arise in a vacuum, but in the midst of an accelerated deterioration of relations between China and Japan that we have been telling, fed by the statements from Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi on a possible conflict scenario around Taiwan. Beijing considers these words a direct provocation and has responded combining diplomatic pressure, economic threats and a notable increase in military activity near Japanese airspace and disputed islands, raising the risk of unwanted incidents. Russia enters the scene. The previous presence of russian bombers Flying alongside Chinese aircraft near Japan and South Korea adds an additional layer of complexity to the scenario, projecting an image of strategic coordination against US allies in the region. For Tokyo, these joint patrols are not routine exercises, but a clear sign of directed pressure, which explains why the Japanese response has involved reinforcing its coordination with Washington and unambiguously accept the presence of high-profile American assets. Washington balances muscle. Although the White House has tried to reduce the drama of these flights, pointing out that they were planned in advance, the regional context gives them meaning. hard to ignore. The United States tries to maintain a delicate balance: show military commitment to Japan and deter China without completely breaking the channels of dialogue with Beijing, especially at a time when Washington continues to seek commercial stability and avoid an open escalation in the Pacific. An increasingly charged sky. With fighters blocking radarsstrategic bombers crossing disputed seas and joint exercises Happening at an almost routine pace, the airspace of East Asia has become a board where each flight counts as a political statement. The explicit input of the United States in this aerial “party” confirms that the fight between China and Japan is no longer just bilateral, but a broader reflection of the competition between great powers, one in which bombers and fighters seem to speak louder (and clearer) than diplomatic communications. Image | Japan’s Ministry of Defense In Xataka | That Chinese and Russian bombers patrol together is not surprising. That they do it against Japan and South Korea has had an immediate response In Xataka | If the question is how far the tension between China and Japan has escalated, the answer is disturbing: they are targeting each other.

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