people

a 2.8 million m2 palace for four people

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In Vadodara, an Indian city of just over two million inhabitants, stands Lakshmi Vilas Palace: the largest mansion in the world, surpassing even Istana Nurul Iman of the Sultan of Bruneiwith an area of ​​2.8 million square meters distributed in more than 170 rooms. To put it in perspective, Lakshmi Vilas Palace is four times larger than Buckingham Palace including its gardens (242,000 m2) and almost five times the area occupied by the Royal Palace of Madrid (595,000 m2 with gardens). The most curious thing of all is that only four people live in this impressive palace. A building to live like a maharajah Built between 1878 and 1890 as a symbol of power of the maharaja Sayajirao Gaekwad III, Lakshmi Vilas Palace occupies 2.8 million m2 spread over more than 170 rooms on several floors. Their stays are below the 3,418 rooms of the Royal Palace in Madrid or the 775 rooms that the Buckingham Palace in London has, but the difference is their size since all the rooms in the lower part were designed as large rooms for diplomatic and social events of the royal family that built it, while the private rooms were relegated to the upper floors to better preserve the privacy of their guests. In its construction, Indo-Saracenic styles were experimented with, fused with Gothic, Moorish and Indian stone and marble, with large stained glass windows imported from Belgium and wood carvings by local craftsmen. In summary, a bet that groups together in the same space the colonial history of Indiawith an exterior aesthetic very much in line with the Indian taste of the time, and interior decorations closer to a European country house. Photo of the Lakshmi Vilas Palace after its construction in 1890 The cost of its construction amounted to more than £6.3 million, which was a real fortune at the end of the 19th century. Details such as marble floors and carved wood work by local artisans define its opulence. The palace had the most modern amenities for its time, including several elevators that connected the floors. Only four inhabitants in a private kingdom Samarjitsinh Ranjitsinh Gaekwad, current Maharaja of Baroda since 2012, his wife Radhikaraje Gaekwad and their daughters Padmaja Raje and Narayani Raje are the only tenants of the enormous palace, so, given its enormous scale, each member of the family could enjoy about 700,000 m2 for their exclusive use. According to detailed the medium specialized in architecture Architectural igestthe Gaekwad family comes from a prominent Maratha dynasty that reigned in these lands (now known as Vadodara) from the early 18th century until 1947. This sumptuous palace has witnessed the coronation of four monarchs of this family saga. “The scale of the palace is enormous. I have lived here for 23 years and right now I am discovering things for the first time,” declared Radhikaraje, the maharajah’s wife, in an interview with the specialized media. One of the halls of the Lakshmi Vilas Palace Although it has fewer rooms than iconic European palaces, its rooms are enormous. Radhikaraje Gaekwad explained to Architectural Digest: “It’s easy to be captivated by grandeur. But this is our home.” In addition to having Venetian mosaics or crystal chandeliers in its interiors, the palace is surrounded by enormous gardens, a golf course, a small private train that runs through the gardens and even an old zoo with a pond in which several crocodiles lived. Lakshmi Vilas Palace Library after its completion in 1890 He Hathi Hallwith lavish ornaments in blue and gold, was the point from where the Maharaja mounted his elephant for royal processions, with decorative carvings of elephants on arches and pillars. The Lakshmi Vilas Library It consisted of about 20,000 volumes, which Maharaja Sayajirao Gaekwar III donated in 1910 to form the core of the Central Library of Baroda. Currently, part of those enormous halls that occupy the ground floor are intended for cultural use as a museum with historical weapons, paintings and mosaics, while other wings of the palace, such as Laxmi Vilas Banquets, host events and ceremonies. Thus, luxury is democratized without losing its stately essence, and contributes to its maintenance. As a curious note, one of these rooms it was stage of the meeting between the Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi and Pedro Sánchez during his state visit in October 2024. In Xataka | Jeff Bezos is building a mansion in Billionaires Bunker: the problem is that they don’t know what to do with their excrement Image | Flickr (sandeepachetan), Wikimedia Commons (Notnarayan)

In the last three years, Spain has gained 1.2 million singles. In exchange it has added… 105,000 married people

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Spain is (increasingly) a country of singles. Although there are still more married than divorced, separated, widowed or people without an ‘official’ partner, the latest statistics from the INE reveal that the sum of these last categories already exceeds that of those who have said ‘yes I want’. Logical if you take into account that in the last three years the number of married people has grown by 0.5% while the number of single people shot up by 9.2% and the number of divorced people by another 8.8%. These are data that must be handled with some caution, but they show that something is changing. New times, new ways of living. A country of singles. That singleness is gaining strength as a vital plan is nothing new. We have been talking about the ‘great recession’ of romantic love, spin entry of traditional courtship or even how (despite the rise in prices and the difficulty of accessing credit) more and more people You choose to buy your home alone, without sharing expenses with a partner. Despite all of the above, it is still interesting to take a look at the INE statistics on the marital status of the population, especially when (how it just happened) show a newly updated photo. Year Singles Married Widowers Separated 2024 14,532,528 19,058,788 2,909,384 3,228,054 2023 14,357,158 19,017,938 2,911,402 3,141,053 2022 14,058,103 18,877,848 2,912,811 3,049,715 2021 13,304,355 18,953,251 2,899,639 2,966,450 One figure: 14,357,158. The definitive records of the INE show that last year there were 19.06 million married people residing in Spain, 14.53 million single people, 2.91 million widowers and 3.23 million divorced and separated people. If the ‘adult’ population of the country, over 16 years of age, is taken into account, the conclusion is clear: people who have said ‘I do’ continue to represent the largest group. They assume 45.8%compared to 34.9% of singles, 7.8% of divorced people and 7% of widowers. Does the marriage last? Yes. And no. It is true that it is still the largest group if we talk about marital statuses and it is also true that there are more married people in Spain today than in 2021, but the tables from the INE leave another, much less flattering reading: the married population has grown less than the single or divorced population. In 2024 there were in Spain 105,537 marrieds more than three years earlier, representing a growth of 0.55%. If we talk about singles, their number has grown by 1.23 million people during the same period, which translates into a rebound of 9.23%. The group of divorced or separated people has gained 261,604 people in three years, with a growth that is close to 8%. Year Average age of first marriage (men) Women 2023 37 34.9 2018 35.6 33.5 2013 34.4 32.2 Beyond the INE. The INE is not the only indicator that something is changing in Spanish society. Another (also of a statistical nature) is Eurostat, which has been documenting for a long time how we get married later and later. According to your dataIn 2023, on average, Spaniards said ‘I do’ for the first time at the age of 37 and Spanish women at 34.9. It is interesting for several reasons. To begin with, because these data place Spain as the European country in which we later made relations official. If we talk about men (37 years) we are tied with Sweden, but if we focus in women (34.9 years) we are above the Nordic nation, where the average is 34.8. We not only delay our passage through the altar. He has also done it motherhood. In fact, pregnancies among women over 40 years of age have skyrocketed in recent decades to represent close to 10% of the total. The way we face our life horizon has changed so much that there is more and more leisure on offer focused on singles or it is easier, for example, to meet people who decides to buy a home without having a partner. Less ‘I do’. The trend is also reflected in the last yearbook of the Spanish Episcopal Confederation, although in their case the figures reflect religious links. In 2024 the Church registered 31,462 Catholic weddings, below the 33,500 a year before and far from the more than 110,000 in 2007. They are values ​​in line with the latest statistics from the INE, although when handling them it is advisable to keep certain keys in mind: their record only tells us about “civil statuses”, so, remember in 20Minutes Pau Miret, CED researcher, does not include those singles who have decided to change marriage for “non-marital cohabitation.” That is, settled couples who share a home and function in practice as a marriage, but choose not to make it official. Image | Ismail Hamzah (Unsplash) In Xataka | The slow but inexorable “Japanization” of Spain: births have fallen by 50% since the time of the baby boom

AI already generates photos indistinguishable from reality, so people are using it to collect fake returns

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The photo on the left was taken by me on my bathroom counter, the second is the result of asking Nano Banana to simulate that it had been hit during transport. If it weren’t for the Gemini logo in the lower right corner (which can be removed very easily), it would pass perfectly for a real photo. Online stores have a problem. what’s happening. There is an increasingly common trend in the world of online sales. Some customers are taking advantage of imaging models like Nano Banana to request product returns. Is what this person did: He ordered a carton of eggs from a fast home delivery service. One of the 24 eggs was broken. He took a photo and asked Gemini to add more broken eggs. He sent it to customer service and voilà: return completed. Why is it important. The images are no longer proof of anything, we saw it with the first images generated with Nano Banana Pro that went viral, and we are going to have to learn to live with it. Not only will we doubt absolutely every image we see, it also means that anything that could be verified with images may now be false. There are many more scenarios: cheat on your boss telling you that you had an accident on the way to work, exaggerating the damages to your insurance company, lying to your partner… China has the advantage. They count in South China Morning Post that the trend of deceiving online sales companies with AI is a trend that is spreading like wildfire. During the pass 11.11 celebrationseveral stores received images of customers asking for a refund using AI-generated images, such as a rusty electric toothbrush, a frayed item of clothing, or a broken ceramic mug. There is a case that has been echoed Wiredin which a customer who bought live crabs demanded a refund because many had arrived dead. To prove it, he sent images and even videos, but the sellers noticed that the video was not real because there were crabs with more legs. The problem with these detected cases is that the images were not credible, but that makes us think of all the more subtle images that will be considered good. There are more cases. China has the largest online trading systemso it makes sense that more cases have been detected, but it is not a trend exclusive to one country. The egg case that we mentioned above occurred in India and cases have also been detected in the United States. According to the fraud detection firm Forterthe use of AI images for this type of deception has increased by 15% by 2025, coinciding with the arrival of more capable imaging models. With Nano Banana Pro it looks like the trend is going to give a significant boost. Returns without return. Obviously, this technique cannot be used with just any product. There are cases in which stores refund our money without it being necessary for us to return the product. It can be applied in the case of perishable, fragile products and, in general, low-value products. If the images are no longer proof, they will have to change the strategy. Sending us a broken bottle of shampoo, I don’t know if it would be the best option, but they could force that the photos sent can only be taken from the app itself and not upload the ones we have in the camera roll. Image | Amparo Babiloni, Xataka In Xataka | FACUA believes that a lot of V16 beacons “approved by the DGT” are not legal. And there’s a way to sum it up: fraud.

In 1844 there were already people playing chess online, although not in the way you are thinking

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On November 18, 1844, the Washington Chess Club challenged their Baltimore counterparts to a game. Nothing out of the ordinary, except for one detail: the Baltimore players were still in Baltimore, and the Washington players remained in their city, separated by a distance of about 60 kilometers. The feat was achieved thanks to the Internet of the time: the electric telegraph. And just six months after Samuel Morse inaugurated the first telegraph line in the United States with the message “What has God wrought?” The origin of an idea. Just like relates IEEE Spectrum, it all started days before with a game of checkers. On November 15, Alfred Vail, Morse’s associate in Washington, proposed to Henry Rogers in Baltimore to play by telegraph. Rogers devised a system of numbered squares to communicate positions, and the idea soon evolved into chess, at which time both clubs challenged each other from their respective cities. An ingenious system for transmitting plays. Vail and Rogers assigned a unique number to each of the 64 squares on the board. In this way, each shift was summarized in transmitting two numbers by telegraph. In this sense, chess was ideal for a test with said device, since it requires little information per move and does not need a complex communication channel. During the games, 686 moves were transmitted with almost no errors, as Vail recorded in his magnetic telegraph journal, which is now It is preserved in the Smithsonian. More than just entertainment. Although it began simply as a test leading to a little private pleasure between two enthusiasts, telegraphic chess soon attracted public and political attention. Orrin S. Wood, a telegraph operator, wrote to his brother-in-law on December 5, 1844, about the “considerable excitement” generated by these items, adding that many congressmen seemed interested. Morse took advantage of the moment, for in his letter to the Secretary of the Treasury to obtain financing and expand the network to New York, he argued that the telegraph could transmit news from Congress or the whereabouts of wanted criminals, but he also noted that several games of chess had been played “with the same ease as if the players were sitting at the same table.” Encrypted information system. The organizers of these games considered that they had devised a pure information system that fit perfectly with the possibilities of the media that were beginning to emerge at the time. And if we think about it, each play was a precise and brief data packet that traveled through copper cables. However, the initiative generated controversy, since on December 5, Rogers warned Vail that they were causing “an unfavorable impression on the religious part of the community”, although it is currently unknown what the complaints were. What is known is that on December 17, 1844, chess was no longer played along those lines. A tradition that lasted. Just like account In the middle, in 1845 a game was played between London and Gosport with the participation of the inventor Charles Wheatstone and the teacher Howard Staunton. Decades later, between 1890 and 1920, confrontations between clubs by telegraph became common. As time went by and new technologies developed, playing chess from two different places became increasingly easier. In 1965, grandmaster Bobby Fischer played from New York against opponents in Havana by teletype, since the State Department prevented him from traveling to Cuba. And if we go even further, in 1999, world champion Garry Kasparov He faced a team that represented “the world” through a Microsoft forum. Chess as proof of inventions. Today, millions of daily games are played online around the world through platforms such as Chess.com. The truth is that chess has become a kind of natural companion for each new means of communication that has emerged throughout history. Despite how difficult it is to master all the legs of this game, the information needed for the games to flow is extremely simple. And perhaps that is why, 181 years after that first game via telegraph, chess continues to endure in the digital age. Cover image | Denis Volkov In Xataka | In 1938 Spain was divided in two. So two “Gordos” were delivered from the Christmas Lottery

China wants Chinese people to have more children. So he’s going to put a special tax on condoms

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China wants more babies. Many more. Enough to increase their birth rate and stop the population loss which has allowed India ahead as the most populous nation on the planet. After repealing his ‘one child’ policy and display a wide range of measurements pro-natalism at a political, social and economic level, Xi Jinping’s Government has made a radical decision: make condoms more expensive and other contraceptive items. By first time in 30 yearswhoever wants to buy them will no longer enjoy a VAT exemption. In summary: sex becomes more expensive…at least the insurance. Sex with a condom? Pay more. have sex you will be more expensive in China from now on. At least if you want to do it with contraceptives. In the context of a broader tax reform that basically affects the value added tax (our VAT), Xi Jinping’s Government has decided remove exemption tax that condoms enjoyed until now. The decision is not exactly new. The law on which it is based was approved at the end of 2024, but it is now generating noise on social networks and the media for a very simple reason: its effects will begin to be felt shortly, from the January 1, 2026which is when Chinese couples will encounter rising prices on contraceptives. One figure: 13%. The change is important because this type of contraceptive items enjoyed a VAT exemption since 1993when China implemented the rate nationwide. From now on the scenario will be different and those who want to buy condoms will find themselves with a VAT of 13%. Today, precise Guardiana package of standard prophylactics costs between 40 and 60 yuan ($5.7-8.5). The contraceptive pill, available in the country without a prescription, ranges between 50 and 130 yuan, from 7.1 to 18.5 dollars. The price increase will not be exorbitant, but it has generated criticism on networks such as Weibo. “I was very angry when I saw that condoms were going to have taxes and increase in price,” he complained recently a user on RedNote. “Is it so easy to profit from us workers? I got so angry that I placed an order at night for the condoms that I like… I accidentally bought too many.” Why now? The million dollar question. The Chinese government has not simply imposed taxes on condoms. The measure is framed in a broader initiative that seeks to modernize the tax system and check the list of products and services exempt from VAT. At the end of the day, the consumption tax represents a crucial part of the tax revenues that feed the Chinese coffers. All in all, it is striking that Beijing decides to make contraceptives more expensive precisely at a time when the country loses population and look for ways to encourage their birth rate, which has led the State to act as a matchmaker, help to couples with babies or even go household by household to encourage women to have children. It has also not gone unnoticed that the same tax reform contemplates a tax reduction for childcare services. There is more at stake than Chinese demographics: there is the country’s economy, supported by its enormous domestic market, and the challenge of what to do with million pensioners. “Unlikely”. The other question is… Does the Government really expect that applying a 13% tax on condoms will result in more babies? An IndexBox report shows that in 2020, close to 5.4 billion condoms. There is who thinkslike Quian Cai, from the University of Virginia, that a price increase may “reduce access” to contraceptives, especially among the poorest population, but warns of the consequences. “It could lead to more abortions and increased health care costs,” prevents Cai. The risk? That in an attempt to increase the birth rate, China finds itself with more terminations of pregnancies and a resurgence of diseases sexually transmitted. Others are simply skeptical that making condoms more expensive is going to influence the number of pregnancies, especially if one takes into account that one of the brakes on birth rates is the high cost of parenting. “The tax itself is unlikely to have a noticeable effect on birth rates,” explains to TIME Yuan Mei, professor at the School of Economics, Singapore Management University. “Decisions about having children in China are mainly influenced by economic and lifestyle factors, such as the cost of raising a child and long working hours. These factors outweigh small changes in the price of condoms.” So what for? There is who considers that the rate has a symbolic nature and really seeks to delve into a message. “Now that China’s birth policy has shifted toward promoting birth and no longer promotes contraception, it is reasonable to tax condoms again,” reflect He Yafu, Guangdong demographer. Nor does it seem that the initiative will have a notable economic impact. Not at least if you put it in context. Lee Ding of Dezan Shira & Associated explains to Guardian that taxing condoms will add around 5 billion extra yuan a year to state coffers (about $710 million). It is a considerable figure, but very small when compared to the billions that the country collects in general. “We don’t believe that income generation is the main motivation.” Images | Fenghua (Unsplash) 1 and 2 and CDC (Unsplash) In Xataka | While the birth rate in China plummets, a region does not stop having children. Their secret: being a large family has a reward

Some people believe that sleeping on your side or stomach creates “sleep wrinkles” on your face. It’s exactly the opposite

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The Internet is full of golden rules for have ‘eternal youth’this being the holy grail that many would like to have in their hands right now. Among these pieces of advice, there are several that can be quite annoying, such as that you should not sleep leaning on the side that is wrinkled. But… how true is this? The benefits of sleeping well. The sleeping position is essential to have a good rest. Because sleeping on your stomach is not the same as sleeping on your left side. In the first case, the cervical spine can suffer a lot and in the second the hated gastric reflux. can be seen reduced. But now it comes into play that sleeping on one side or the other can cause more wrinkles on the face due to the hated gravity that generates a mechanical effect that causes the face to fall and wrinkles to appear. But science disagrees on this one and puts the blame more on biology with cortisol and collagen. The myth of ‘Sleep Wrinkles’. The theory seems logical: if you spend 8 hours squishing your face into a pillow, that mechanical compression should leave a mark. There is often talk of “sleep wrinkles” (sleep wrinkles), which, unlike expression lines, caused by smiling or frowning, would be caused by having your face against the pillow. It is something that some experts defend like those of The Aesthetic Society, which suggest that sleeping on your stomach or side favors the appearance of vertical lines due to this chronic pressure. Other opinions. The clinical evidence It is quite limited in this casesince many of the statements that defend this myth come from the field of cosmetic surgery and with very limited groups of people. There are even articles that suggest that there is no clear relationship between sleeping in a certain way and having more wrinkles. The consensus right now is that sleeping on your back could theoretically reduce the formation of compression lines. But obsessing over this is not the best, since if having this position is uncomfortable and the quality of sleep decreases, then the biological weight it will entail will have a great impact on wrinkles. The real threat. This is where science stops being speculative and becomes blunt. If there is something that ages your skin, it is not the pillow, It’s sleep deprivation. When you get little sleep, the body enters a state of physiological stress, raising levels of the hated cortisol, the stress hormone. And elevated cortisol is the great enemy of our skin’s youth. This is because it can inhibit the cells that make collagen (the scaffolding of the skin), making the skin less elastic and increases metalloproteinases. This word, so long, is nothing more than an enzyme that breaks down that fundamental collagen that we have in our skin and that keeps it firm. If we do not produce it or destroy it, the wrinkles will appear there. With data. A key clinical study presented in ScienceDaily showed strong results: People with chronic poor sleep quality showed clinical signs of accelerated aging with fine wrinkles, uneven pigmentation, and sagging. But the most important thing is that if UV radiation from sunlight was also added to all these factors, the skin’s recovery would get worse. And this is where the need to have sun protection when going outside came in. Images | Katelyn G Isabella Fischer In Xataka | There is a ‘good’ fat that hides a secret to aging better and being in shape. All that remains is to get the pill

There are people investigating whether AIs are better hackers than human hackers. And we don’t have very nice news

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The technology companies do not stop talking about AGIalthough there are many doubts that it is so close how they want to sell us. General artificial intelligence is one that will be capable of surpassing humans in all facets of knowledge. We don’t know if it will be able to surpass us in everything, but there is already a niche in which it is overtaking us: hacking. The experiment. It was carried out by Stanford University researchers and we have known him through a Wall Street Journal report. What they did was develop a hacking bot called Artemis whose objective is to scan the network in search of possible bugs or vulnerabilities through which it can sneak in. They released Artemis into the university’s own engineering network and confronted her with ten pentestersprofessional hackers who are dedicated to simulating attacks to find bugs and then correct them. The bot had a ‘kill switch’ so it could be turned off at any time if things got complicated and the human hackers had instructions to force and test, but without actually penetrating the network. The results. To the surprise of its creators, Artemis achieved excellent results, outperforming nine of the ten human hackers. The bot managed to find bugs much faster than its competitors and, above all, at a much lower price. It is estimated that a pentester charges between $2,000 and $2,500 per day, while Artemis only “charges” $60 per hour. Another “look”. Artemis didn’t do everything right. At least 18% of his bug reports were false positives and he also ignored a very obvious bug on a website that human hackers saw the first time. Instead, he detected a bug that no human had detected. The reason is that the failure was on a website that did not work in Chrome or Firefox, the browsers used by hackers. Artemis is not a person and does not use browsers, but instead used a program and was able to read the website, finding the bug. AI and hacking. The Cybercriminals have been using AI for some time to make malware more effective. Recently Anthropic discovered that a Chinese hacking group was using Claude Code for a large-scale espionage campaign. What is striking is that Claude functioned as an agent who was in charge of the entire attack cycle, not just a part of the process. AI to do good. AI is lowering the barrier to entry for developing attacks, but it can also be used for protection. Research such as that from Stanford shows that AI can also be used to test insecure systems, find bugs and thus be able to patch them. The problem that arises is where the role of professionals such as pentesters will be if AI ends up doing its job for much less money. Image | Sora Shimazaki, Pexels In Xataka | Agents are the great promise of AI. They also aim to become the new favorite weapon of cybercriminals

People are so, so fed up with AI in Windows 11 that a developer has created an app to eliminate it

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A GitHub user named zoicware ended up so fed up with the presence of AI tools in Windows 11 that he ended up making a decision: eradicate them from the operating system. And since doing it by hand was hell, he came up with something that made his life easier and that can also make it easier for those who are in that situation: create an app called RemoveWindowsAI to remove all those functions. Enough with AI, Microsoft. The Redmond company wants Windows 11 to be full of AI, and for some time it has been adding more and more functions that allow you to take advantage of this technology natively both in the operating system and in some applications. We begin to see it with the controversial Windows Recallbut later that obsession was transferred to the native Copilot app, to Copilot integrated into Edge or to the Creator option of the legendary Paint application. Nobody asked for this. Pavan Davuluri, current president of the Windows division, published in X a message in which he explained that “Windows is evolving towards an agentic operating system.” Microsoft’s intention is clear, but the reception of the message was just the opposite of what the company would have expected: people simply You don’t want those AI options because you didn’t ask for them.. An app to leave Windows 11 without AI. A few months ago a GitHub user named zoicware published a unique project there called RemoveWindowsAI. In the tooltip this developer explains how “The current 25H2 build of Windows 11 and future builds will include more and more AI features and components. This script is aimed at removing ALL of those features to improve the user experience, as well as privacy and security.” What RemoveWindowsAI does. The script, which can be downloaded and then run as administrator from a PowerShell console, is responsible for removing the following components and functions: Disable Copilot Disable Recall Disable Input Insights and typed data collection Disable Copilot in Edge Disable Image Creator in Paint Remove AI Fabric Service Disable AI Actions Disable AI in Paint Disable Voice Access Disable AI Voice Effects Disable AI in Settings Search But there is still more. In addition to those actions, the script disables the reinstallation of packages related to AI features so that they are not offered again, hides those components in Windows 11 Settings, and also disables other features such as the new AI rewrite option in notepad. There are some AI features that cannot be removed with the script, but its creator also indicates how to get rid of them manually. Even a video of use. This developer also wanted to facilitate access to this tool adding documentation written and posting an 11 minute video in which he reviews the objective of the project and explains how to use it. bad signal. The criticism of Microsoft’s intention to turn Windows 11 into an operating system full of AI is clear, and this script is the latest demonstration of this. It does not seem that the company is going to reverse this trend. Mustafa Suleyman, head of the AI ​​division at Microsoft, explained in X I was amazed that people weren’t impressed by being able to talk to their PC calmly thanks to AI. “I grew up playing Snake on a Nokia phone!” he explained. Curiously, Elon Musk replied indicating that his argument seemed good to him. In Xataka | There’s a reason AI PCs aren’t hurting Apple: Nobody asked for AI PCs

There are a lot of people going to libraries to look for books that don’t exist: an AI invented them

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Junk content made with AI is sneaking into every corner of the internet: it is ruining the authenticity of Etsythe Wikipediait confuses us search for an apartment in Idealista and of course plague social networks. He ‘slop’ of AI is reaching the real world, specifically libraries. What is happening. They tell it inScientific American. There are people going to libraries and archives in search of books or scientific articles that do not appear anywhere for one reason: they do not exist. International Red Cross has alerted to the situation and blames AI tools such as Gemini, ChatGPT or Copilot. They assure that “These systems do not conduct research, verify sources or collate information. They generate new content based on statistical patterns and, therefore, may produce invented results.” In Xataka He "AI slop" turned into art. A Chinese creator is copying the absurd aesthetics of generative AI, and it’s hilarious Fed up librarians. The research director of the Virginia library estimates that at least 15% of the queries they receive through mail are about documents and works generated by ChatGPT and similar tools. “For our staff, it is much more difficult to prove that there is no single record,” he says. A Bluesky user recounts a similar experience when a student asked him to find a series of references. After searching for a while without success, he asked the student where he got the list from and he confessed that it came from Google’s AI summaries. Made-up dating isn’t something that started happening the day before yesterday,In 2023 there were already discussions about it. Seattle University found that it is often very difficult to verify these invented quotes. The reason is that AI usually gives titles of magazines or books that exist, but what does not exist is the chapter or issue where the information is found. What it does is mix information to make it seem convincing, when in reality it is a dead end. AI and books. Invented references are not the only problem, there are librarians who also They criticize books created entirely with AI for being “incredibly bad” and we have recently learned of the case of South Korea and the resounding failure of its AI school book program. On the other hand we have the copyright problem. As with works of art, books too have been used to train AI without compensating their authors. A group of authors sued Anthropicfor this reason, but The judge ruled in favor of the company. {“videoId”:”x8jpy2b”,”autoplay”:false,”title”:”What’s BEHIND AIs like CHATGPT, DALL-E or MIDJOURNEY? | ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE”, “tag”:”Webedia-prod”, “duration”:”1173″} Papers on AI, made with AI. In an article by Futurism They said that a consequence of the AI ​​slop is that the papers that investigate AI themselves are made with AI. It is estimated that the number of papers on AI has doubled in recent years and journals such as NeurIPS have had to ask doctoral students to help them review them. There is a specific case of a researcher named Kevin Zhu who has participated in more than 100 papers in one year, an exorbitant figure for experts. To no one’s surprise, many of these papers are a real disaster full of made up quotes, blatant errors and sometimes hidden text to manipulate the review systems themselves. hallucinations. That AI invents things is quite common, they are the In AI jargon it is known as hallucinations and one of the weak points of language models; The advances are enormous, but the reality is that We still can’t trust AI and it is necessary to verify the information. Hallucinations are often the reason why those who use AI in their jobs are caught, such as the consulting firm Deloitte, which delivered a report to the Australian government that contained references to completely fabricated reports. Image | Cottonbro studio, Pexels In Xataka | The birth of an anti-reading movement: more and more people admit to using AI to summarize books (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 There are a lot of people going to libraries to look for books that don’t exist: an AI invented them was originally published in Xataka by Amparo Babiloni .

the paradox that has trapped 69% of young people

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We usually imagine the loneliness as total isolation: an empty room and a phone that doesn’t ring. Seeing a person who is surrounded by people and with an active social life seems like they cannot feel loneliness, but the reality is very different in Spain, where studies suggest that we have never been so connected and at the same time so alone. And young people are the ones who bear the brunt. The problem in Spain. A recent study published in PLOS One has just named a phenomenon that defines generation Z already the millennials younger: social ambivalence. And it is not that the youngest in our society lack friends or plans to make on a daily basis, but it shows that the amount of social interactions does not guarantee optimal emotional well-being. Having dozens of ‘likes’ for a publication on Instagram does not mean being accompanied. Something that the data of the report made by SoledadES in Spain has confirmed, since its conclusions indicate that we are experiencing a silent epidemic where 69% of young people admit to having felt alone. And all this regardless of the number of followers on social networks or friends they have by their side on a daily basis. Change of concept. For decades, sociology assumed that loneliness was simply the lack of social contact seen in people who did not go out and interact with anyone. In this way, the equation seemed quite simple: the more friends you have, the less loneliness you have. But this is no longer the case as it has been seen in adults ranging from 18 to 29 years old. Here it has been seen that people who have a high social connection are accompanied by a simultaneous feeling of loneliness. The most affected. The studytitled “Lonely and Connected in Emerging Adulthood”points out that this social ambivalence It occurs especially in moments of life transition. Young adults go through a period of instability, such as changing residence to go to study, entering the labor market or ending their studies. This only breaks support networks, for example losing contact with the friends they make at university or the need to have to meet new people at work. That is why the conclusion is quite clear: having a full social agenda does not protect against feelings of isolation if the interactions lack depth or if the young person feels that they do not fit into the environment that has changed. Radiography in Spain. He “Study on youth and unwanted loneliness in Spain”promoted by the State Observatory of Unwanted Loneliness (SoledadES) of the ONCE Foundation, gives us information that sets off our alarms. In this case they point out that 25.5% of young Spaniards between 16 and 29 years old claims to feel alone at present. But if you broaden the focus, almost 7 in 10 young people feel alone now or have felt that way at some point recently. Its duration. In this report, the quantity may not be the most important, but rather the duration, since this feeling is becoming chronic in the young people of our country. According to the data, three out of every four young people who suffer from this loneliness have been in this situation for more than a year. But almost half still feel like this for more than three years. Something that completely passes the critical phase of adolescence. Because. Among the reasons that try to justify this feeling, the one that gains the most weight is instability. This is something that can be seen in those changes of environment due to studies or work that force us to make new relationships, breaking the original ties where there was greater trust. In Spain, this is aggravated by socioeconomic factors. The difficulty of emancipation, job insecurity and uncertainty about the future make it difficult to create quality ties, which are what truly combat loneliness, unlike the mere “quantity” of social interactions. And here it stands out that it is not important to have a large number of friends, but that even if they are few, they are of quality. And this is the quality that is sometimes missing to be able to be 100% transparent with other people that does not make us feel so alone for not being able to express our concerns and keep them to ourselves. Images | Mert Uner Şahin Sezer Dinçer In Xataka | Loneliness is now a public health issue. We have more and more evidence that animals help us appease it

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