replace

We have been looking to replace the key ingredient in cement for years. We have found the Holy Grail: basalt

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In the midst of the era of decarbonizationthe first thing that comes to mind when we think about ways to emit less CO₂ into the atmosphere is the transition to renewable energy or electric vehicles. However, we can often overlook something that sends as many CO₂ emissions into the atmosphere each year as all the cars in the world: the cement. This material is essential and, although We have been looking for a replacement for yearsa team from the University of California believes they have found the key to creating greener cement. A cement without limestone that relies on silicates. Portland cement. It is the basic material that ‘links’ our reality. This paste resulting from the mixture of water, sand and stones is very resistant and, as we say, although we have been looking for a substitute for some time, the truth is that we have not found the key. It is still a structural part of buildings, bridges, dams or tunnels and the problem is that the cement industry is estimated to represent around 4.4% of global greenhouse gas emissions. And one of the problems with this cement is limestone. It is a simple rock to refine, but it requires a lot of energy. It is not that limestone pollutes by itself, but because of the process that must be followed to process it and make it a good ingredient in cement. This limestone must be heated to more than 1,500 degrees Celsius to produce the calcium oxide necessary for the mixture and it is estimated that half of all CO₂ emissions linked to cement production are related solely to that process with limestone. Focus shift. With that in mind, Jeff Prancevic (a geologist at the University of California, Santa Barbara) and Cody Finke (of Brimstone Energy) set out to replace the elephant in the room. If Portland cement is the most used and the limestone refining process is what pollutes the most in the process, the rock had to be removed from the equation. The key? Find other rocks rich in calcium, but that are easier to refine. Basalt to the rescue. And in the study published in Nature They detail how basalt is that rock that meets what they are looking for. After carrying out different analyses, they came to the conclusion that, in theory, manufacturing cement from these calcium-rich silicates can require less than 60% of the energy needed by limestone, reducing CO₂ emissions by 80% in the process. In numbers. It is estimated that, in the refining of limestone, 600 kg per metric ton of cement of CO₂ are sent into the atmosphere, but if we use other silicates, the authors calculate that these emissions could be around 50 kg per ton. In the least conservative calculations, the proposed solution would still cut more than 25% CO₂ compared to the standard process with limestone. Another interesting point is that the processing of these other rocks has the potential to give us valuable byproducts with high iron and aluminum content that could benefit other industries. That is, the material would be used more while contaminating less. The pasta question. The problem is… the same as always. When we talk about a new lbrick from recycled plasticsof sugar bricks or of others in the shape of a ‘staple’ that do not need cement to join together, the bottom line is that the construction industry should make a radical change in its processes. It is a huge liner that cannot be swerved overnight, no matter how many benefits these new materials have. And the same thing happens here. Although it is not about creating an alternative to cement, but rather using other rocks to extract the calcium that the mixture needs, the money comes into play in two ways. The first for the basalt deposits. If the cement industry has been organized around enormous limestone deposits to optimize processes, switching to basalt would imply relocating plants or creating new supply chains that would increase both time and costs. If something works… On the other hand, the margins of the cement industry, which has been shown to be extremely conservative throughout history. There is a product that works and changing something in the chain would involve carrying out a reorganization that they may not want to undertake. There is also the fact that yes, basalt has iron and aluminum as a byproduct, but the plants would have to be conditioned to be able to treat it properly, which would mean a huge initial investment. The authors of the study themselves indicate that it is difficult for an industry that for a century has been organized around Portland cement changed its way of acting one bit, but they also point out that, precisely for this reason, they have focused on finding materials such as basalt that are abundant, with reserves to maintain the current pace of construction for thousands of years and that emit less into the atmosphere. It is obtaining calcium from a different rock and its authors call on the industry, and other researchers, to experiment with new technologies that help accelerate the decarbonization of cement. The problem is that, as we say, there are too many drawbacks that the industry itself probably does not want to take on. Image | Cemco In Xataka | Coal is back in fashion in many countries. The problem is that it is clouding the sky from the solar panels

Lead has its days numbered in hunting. The problem is that no one really knows how to replace it.

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The practice of hunting is a ‘hobby’ that has been much discussed among different sectors of society in recent years, but beyond its ethical aspects, the European Agency for Chemical Substances and Mixtures has decided to intervene by pose the ban on lead in hunting ammunition. And this has raised a great debate between the hunting sector and environmentalists and researchers that require immediate measures, although at the moment it is in pause. The siege of Europe. This lead fence is not new, but since 2023 the European Union prohibits its use in wetlands for hunting waterfowl, a historic measure to prevent lead poisoning in ducks and other species that ate the pellets at the bottom of the lagoons. But now they want to go one step further, since ECHA has recommended to the European Commission a total veto by prohibiting the marketing and use of cartridges and fishing tackle that contain more than 1% lead. And to soften the blow, the European drafts have proposed transition periods that range between 18 months for large hunting and up to 5 years for small hunting. The role of science. For the Spanish scientific community, these grace periods are a luxury that ecosystems cannot afford. Specifically, 130 researchers from different institutions have signed a manifesto urging the Government to support the European restriction without any type of concession. That is, the ban applies immediately overnight. The arguments they offer focus mainly on the great toxicity that lead generates when it is left abandoned in the countryside, and above all they argue that there is no safe exposure threshold. That is, the only security we can have is when there is zero lead in the environment. Its impact. On the one hand, we have the environmental impact, since tons of lead end up scattered in the countryside every year due to hunting practices, poisoning fauna, especially scavenger birds that consume prey with pellets. On the other hand, we have a public health problem. In this case, there are several reports that exist warning about the nutritional risks of consuming game meat shot with this type of ammunition, recommending that children and pregnant women avoid its consumption due to the neurological data associated with lead. The hunters. Faced with the scientific urgency, they ask to hit the brakes on the application of these measures. Entities such as the Royal Spanish Hunting Federation (RFEC) and the Andalusian Hunting Federation (FAC) they argue that a sudden ban would be a death sentence for the sector and, by extension, for the economy of many rural areas. The problem that arises is that the alternatives to lead are not completely convincing, since, although there are options such as steel or bismuth, the hunting sector denounces that they are not validated at a toxicological level, they are much more expensive and, above all, that there is no large-scale production to cover the demand. Furthermore, the use of steel shot requires in many cases to adapt or change older shotguns, since they can damage the barrels due to the hardness of the material. This is why they ask for at least 10 years to adapt. A political battle. Right now the Government supports aligning itself with the hard line that comes from Europe, but the opposition parties, such as the Popular Party, ask for a fight in Brussels over get those decades of margin and funds for safe, alternative ballistics research. And right now the ball is literally in the court of Brussels and the REACH committee in charge of regulating chemical substances in the EU. Right now the only thing left is to open a space for debate that is not easy at all. Images | freepik In Xataka | Hunting has been printed on the Spanish national ID card for centuries. Now you have a problem: there is no relief

OpenAI already knows which device will replace our smartphone in the age of AI. It will be another smartphone, according to Kuo

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He doesn’t always get it right, but Ming-Chi-Kuo just made a particularly striking statement. According to your dataOpenAI is preparing its first “mobile AI agent”, a smartphone that will be quite different from the current ones not so much in form as in substance. If its predictions come true, we could be facing a device that will shake the pillars of the current mobile segment. Hello, “OpenAI phone”. Kuo states that mass production of this smartphone designed by OpenAI will begin in the first half of 2027. He also tells us that the SoC that will govern this device will be a customized version of the future MediaTek Dimensity 9600 manufactured with TSMC’s N2P process and that will theoretically arrive in the second half of the year. The mobile that wants to see the world. This chip will have some special features, such as an ISP (Integrated Signal Processor) with an HDR system that allows optimizing the visual perception of the world. It is logical: the mobile wants to become an integral part of our interaction with the world, and that visual capacity is critical. Two NPUs better than one. It will also have a dual NPU architecture to increase its AI computing capacity. It will theoretically integrate LPDDR6 memory and will have UFS 5.0 to avoid memory bottlenecks. If all goes well, Kuo says, between 2027 and 2028 30 million units will be distributed. Not anything else, but the plan seems incredibly ambitious. Paradigm shift. This type of device, Kuo points outwill doom the UI as we know it. The concept of navigating a patchwork of icons to perform independent tasks will be obsolete. The concept proposed by OpenAI understands that the user does not want to use an “application stack”, but rather achieve objectives through a centralized agent. This implies a radical redesign of the smartphone in which the screen stops being a menu of options and becomes a kind of mirror of what the user wants, of their “intentions.” We went from a manual interaction to a proactive inference, because the AI ​​is responsible for detecting what needs to be done to complete the action that the user needs. Without touching the screen. Task resolution rules over navigation. OpenAI being Apple. To achieve this OpenAI needs to control everything on this device, so similar to what happens with Apple and its iPhone. For an AI agent to function seamlessly, it needs access to sensors and device status in real time, something that current operating systems restrict by design. OpenAI wants to control both the hardware and the software to capture all the relevant information at all times. The technical barrier is not the AI ​​model, but that total control that also requires perfect management of memory and energy consumption. Apple, by the way, is in that same battle, although in a different way. The energy challenge. It seems logical to think that this device bases a good part of its capacity on AI models in the cloud, but also that it will have the ability to execute some tasks thanks to small local models. Hence having two NPUs that allow at least certain tasks to be executed on the mobile itself. That will be crucial precisely regarding energy consumptionbecause this AI that automates tasks by chaining them consumes much more computing than the usual interaction with an app today. App Store in danger of extinction. There is a particularly striking idea here. The app store economics faces existential disruption. The current model relies on friction: you need to open a specific app for each task, which justifies the 30% “tax” and the walled garden. If an AI agent can book a flight or order food by directly accessing the background APIs, the icon on the home screen disappears. The “app” stops being a destination and becomes an invisible tool. This not only threatens Apple’s revenue, but redefines mobile development towards an “API-first” ecosystem, where the graphical interface is irrelevant and competition is decided by agent efficiency, not UI design. Goodbye, privacy? And in this context, privacy could once again become the price of that “it’s so convenient to use a device like this” of these future mobiles. For an AI agent to be useful and function truly autonomously, it needs to know everything or almost everything about us. Our location, health, messages and of course the screen content at all times, among other things. The opacity of proprietary models will mean that we will never know what data is leaked to the cloud to “improve the service”, turning privacy into a variable controlled (once again) by the manufacturer. In Xataka | Microsoft has insisted on making Windows “agent.” His users have reminded him that they had not asked for it

The CEO of Nvidia believes that we are in a new industrial revolution where AI will not replace us: it will micromanage us

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Artificial intelligence has been available to users and companies for a few years now and we are at a point where they converge several ideas about AI and the future of work. There are several open fronts such as if AI will replace usif it will only be a tool or if, instead of freeing ourselves from the workload we carry, will add more to us. But the CEO of Nvidia, a Jensen Huang who has no trouble spilling his tongue, has another opinion. AI is going to micromanage us. Micromanager. A few days ago, Huang attended a talk at Stanford Business School. At these events, company CEOs usually leave motivational messages and talksbut I don’t know if in this case it would motivate someone who is looking for a job. During his panel, the Nvidia boss commented that, right now, “we are doing things faster, on a larger scale and we can think to do things we never imagined.” That part of the speech is fine, but he went on to note that “AI agents will harass you, micromanage you, and you will be busier than ever.” Like a good 1st century Roman baptisterywho wouldn’t like having an AI agent egging you on? Will create more jobs. Lately, Huang has chosen to blurt out headlines and vaguely elaborate. At the event, he also commented that these agents we have help us explore new avenues of work, do that work better and make it more profitable. He also addressed the great controversy, that of the supposed great replacement. On this, his opinion is that there will be some jobs that will be redundant because AI will be able to do the same as a human, but he considers that, in general, there will be humans with new jobs to adapt to. “I think we are going to create more jobs. There will be more people working at the end of this industrial revolution than at the beginning of it,” he says. Insecurity. It is curious that you compare it with the industrial revolution at a time when there is concern, above all, about the instability of the labor market. Huang ha commented that computer engineers are busier than ever and it makes sense, the problem is what happens next and what is happening with all those who are not dedicated to tasks strictly related to AI. In an article by Fortune published a few weeks ago, the issue of layoffs directly related to artificial intelligence was addressed. An example is Jerome Powell, president of the United States Federal Reserve, who warned that AI is quietly impacting the labor market as job creation is practically at zero. Another is that of Dario Amodei, CEO of Anthropic, who believes that “entry-level” jobs will be reduced by half in the next 18 months. And then Microsoft’s AI chief, Mustafa Suleyman, predicting that AI will cause many white-collar jobs to collapse in that same time frame. AND Meta is going to do without 8,000 employees as it transforms into an AI company. All this while, on short video networks there is a lot of content of young people saying that they have a university degree and are rejected at Target or McDonalds. The AGI has already arrived. Well no. HE esteem that, during 2025, some 55,000 people in the US will lose their jobs directly due to AI. It is only 4.5% of all layoffs, but a significant number that, if forecasts are met, will multiply by several figures over the coming months. For now, so far in 2026, esteem that technology companies have laid off 92,000 people, not all of them must be related to AI, but a scary number if we take into account that, during 2025, the total was 120,000 people. Just 28,000 less in just four months. But, beyond that, the prediction that an AI agent will not take our jobs, but rather will be a tiresome second boss, is not the only thing that Huang has commented recently without going much further. A few weeks ago, on Lex Fridman’s podcast, he already commented on things like that workers must be clear about the purpose of their work and that the tasks and tools they use to do it are related, but they are not the same. Also He commented that we had already arrived at the AGI (artificial general intelligence) giving an example that it has nothing to do with an AGI that, for now, remains theory. A black hole of money. Byan Catanzaro is the vice president of deep learning at Nvidia and has commented that AI currently costs more than human employees. “For my team, the cost of computing far exceeds that of employees.” It must be taken into account in this that AI is not an abstract entity: it is a huge investment in hardware, data centers and energy. According to the calculations According to Keith Lee, professor of AI and finance at the Swiss Institute of Artificial Intelligence, AI expenditures will be $5.2 trillion by 2030 in a conservative estimate and $7.9 trillion in a more aggressive one. But more interesting is what he comments about the fact that fixed subscriptions are not making money for companies because they do not cover operating costs. And that, at a time when companies like OpenAI and Anthropic should not take long to go public, is something to take into account because they will stop receiving millions from other private companies to have to respond to investors with their product and benefits. In Xataka | There are programmers from Meta and Microsoft competing to be the one who uses the most AI and wasting millions of dollars along the way

The question is not whether the eSIM will replace physical SIM cards. The question is when

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We have been telling you for years how technology eSIM It is gaining ground little by little, so much so that today it is normal for smartphones to include these chips as a complement to physical SIM cards. It is a technology with its advantages and disadvantages, But it is increasingly clear that the idea is not that both technologies coexist, but that the eSIM ends up making physical cards disappear. At least that is the direction in which the industry seems to be heading if we look at the steps of recent years. This makes the question no longer whether it will happen, but when will it start to happen. There are no dates or calendars set for this technological change, but there are data and projections that seem to point to the next decade. The slow but sure adoption of the eSIM Evolution of SIM cards. Source: Thalesgroup Since their creation in 1991, SIM cards have become smaller and smaller. SIMs began to become MiniSIM, and then they became MicroSIM, and then the NanoSIM that the vast majority of mobile phones currently use. The next evolutionary step was eSIMan internal chip of the mobile phone where the data that has always been on the SIM cards can be downloaded and installed. This opens the door for you to have on your mobile not only the data of your operator, but also that of other third-party services specialized in cheap eSIM such as Saily of NordVPN and the like. Saily eSIM in +200 destinations, prepaid and with an extra level of security The price could vary. We earn commission from these links eSIM chips were created in the last decade, and over the years they have also been miniaturized to take up less and less space. But one thing is the existence of technology and another its implementation on commercial deviceswhich has been slow. First they began to arrive at smart watches like the Samsung Gear S2 Classic 3G of 2016, being a solution to give them connectivity without having to spend space in a physical card slot. And in 2017 the first compatible smartphones began to arrive, such as the Pixel 2 from Google (although it was only compatible with Google Fi) and since then they have been reaching more and more mobile phones. Until recently, the eSIM has been implemented as a complementary alternative to the SIM. Almost all users continue to use the SIM, but if you went abroad and needed a data card it was easier to contract an eSIM. There were also the most curious users starting to test this technology. Since then, the eSIM has begun to reach other devices such as home automation products, and even laptops. Some manufacturers like Apple have taken risks to promote the eSIM. First it was in 2022 with the iPhone 14which would be sold without a SIM card slot in the United States, and in 2025 launched the iPhone Aironly with eSIM in the United States, although in Spain it still has a physical slot. But currently this remains a rarity in Europe. The eSIM in Spain It already has the support of almost all operators. Besides, There is research that points Because in 2024, 70% of new mobile phones had support for this technology, and 10 to 15% did not have a physical SIM slot, numbers that will gradually grow. What are the benefits of the eSIM The main benefit of the eSIM is that you no longer have to request cards when contracting a service. And if you port, you won’t have to wait for a card to be sent to you either, although this will always depend on the method the operator uses to synchronize the eSIM, since sometimes you will need to receive documentation. Of course, you should know that activating an eSIM can take hours, or even a couple of days, until they send you the necessary keys. Furthermore, in all ports you will be asked for your identification by law, and depending on the operator you may even need to physically go to a store, something that is to avoid fraud. You won’t need to order duplicate SIMs either. if you want to use your data or phone number on multiple devices. In addition, there will be more facilities for using more than one data or calling rate on a single mobile phone, since there is support for storing the profiles of different operators and changing them as needed. There are also other advantages such as greater security. No one will be able to remove your SIM and steal it, because it is integrated and cannot be accessed. Besides, manufacturers save space physically inside their phones as they do not have this slot, something they can take advantage of, for example, to give their batteries more capacity. However, eSIMs also have some disadvantages. The main thing is to change your mobile phone can be somewhat more cumbersome, since it requires an extra process to migrate the data from the digital card. If you change to another mobile phone with the same operating system it is relatively easy, but changing from Android to iPhone or vice versa can be complicated. The eSIM will coexist quite a bit with the SIM No, the physical SIM is not going to disappear overnight. It’s going to be quite a long process. It will probably take more than a decade.although this is something that can always change depending on how manufacturers push in that direction. According to CCS Insight forecasts in 2025 collected by the BBCat the end of 2024 there were 1.3 billion smartphones with eSIM in use, and the figure is expected to reach 3.1 billion in 2030. Therefore, we are going to have sustained growth in mobile phones with eSIM. But this does not mean that traditional SIMs are going to stop being used at the same rate, but rather that most mobile phones will continue to use both technologies for … Read more

France wants to replace Windows with Linux. Extremadura and Munich tried it before, and both failed

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On April 8, 20226, the French Digital Interministerial Directorate (DINUM) advertisement that will migrate your jobs from Windows to Linux. He ordered all ministries to present a plan by the fall with the aim of eliminating dependencies on non-European software. The announcement in fact goes beyond changing Windows for Linux: it also affects collaborative tools, antivirus, AI, databases, virtualization or telecommunications. It is, on paper, the largest operation to replace proprietary software with free software that a Western State has ever attempted. And if the history of this type of projects teaches us anything, it is that many have ended in failure. French sovereignty. It is not that France is a lover of free software; What has happened is that the relationship with the United States has changed. Trump’s tariffs accelerated a debate that had been postponed for years: To what extent is it sustainable to depend on the US digital infrastructure? French companies like OVHCloud and Scaleway did not stop growing in 2025, but France has already taken some previous steps recently. In January 2026, announced the plan to replace Microsoft Teams and Zoom with its own video conferencing platform, called Visiowith the aim that its 2.5 million employees would use it. At the moment 40,000 of them are using it, and it remains to be seen if the deployment ends up being total. This was LinEx, the Linux distribution derived from Debian that was used in public organizations in Extremadura. Spain tried it in 2002. The Junta de Extremadura is one of the most famous cases of attempted replace Windows with Linux in public administration. In 2001 it launched LinEx, a Linux distribution based on Debian, and tried to implement it massively in the educational environment and in the health system of the autonomous community. That was imitated in other Spanish regions: Andalusia had Guadalinex, Valencia had LliureX, Madrid had MAX, Galicia had Galinux, Catalonia had Linkat and Castilla La Mancha had Molinux. All of these projects proposed an alternative to the absolute dominance of Windows on the desktops of public officials, and they all failed, but the biggest failure was the one that promised the most: that of LinEx. LinEx myths and realities. Although this distribution worked reasonably in the aforementioned education and health environments, it never fully penetrated the general public administration of the Autonomous Community. In 2011 the project was transferred to a state foundation due to budget cuts and by then only 1% of positions of the Extremaduran autonomous administration used free software. The final blow came when SAP, which managed the community’s medical records system, decided to stop supporting Linux. That made this body return to Windows, and in fact in 2024 the Board formally eliminated the obligation to use gnuLinEx. Rise and fall of Linux in Munich. another case even more famous At the European level it was Munich. In 2003, the city council of this German city announced that it would migrate 14,000 Windows computers to LiMux, its Debian-based Linux distribution. In 2013 the project seemed a success: there were 12,000 migrated computers and theoretically more than 11 million euros had been saved in licenses and other costs. However, in 2014, complaints about loss of productivity and debate began. ended sharply: At the end of 2017, the leaders of Munich decided to migrate 29,000 PCs of their employees to Windows 10 from LiMux. The initial migration was never complete, and in many cases there was a mix of Windows and Linux systems to complete the processes, something that seemed inefficient and never managed to eliminate the dependency on Windows and especially on legacy applications. But there are silent successes. LinEx and LiMux failed in Spain and Germany, but there is precedent to show that abandoning Windows in favor of Linux can work. It proves it GendBuntua version of Ubuntu that was implemented in the French National Gendarmerie. This organization was already a pioneer in the adoption of the OpenOffice.org office suite in 2005, and since 2008 the plan was to abandon Windows in favor of its own Linux distribution. In June 2024, GendBuntu runs on 103,164 jobswhich represents 97% of the IT park of this organization. This has also saved around two million euros per year on licenses, and has reduced the total cost of ownership (TCO) by 40%. Another promising example: Schleswig-Holstein. This German state began its migration from Windows and Office to Linux and LibreOffice in 2021. In early 2026 had already completed almost 80% of the transition in its 30,000 jobs and according to its data that allowed savings about 15 million euros in licenses only in 2026. A one-time investment of 9 million euros is planned to complete 20% of the process, which is still tied to certain specialized applications and will therefore take a little more time. This is the model that is closest to the French initiative: gradual migration and above all a political will that is maintained among the legislatures that are in power. What distinguishes success from failure. Cases that work share three characteristics. The first, gradual and phased migration, not sudden and massive. The second, real internal technical support that goes beyond political declarations. And the third (and probably the most important), a sustained will beyond an electroral cycle. Those who fail share three others: trying to migrate everything at once, underestimating the cost of legacy applications and depending on the project not changing government, which certainly contributed, for example, to the failure of LinEx. A colossal challenge. Installing Linux on a computer is trivial today and it is true that today the learning curve has been significantly reduced and its use is very similar to that of Windows or macOS. The real problem is in the applications that run on top of it. In public administration there is often critical software tailored for Windows, forms that only work in certain browsers (including the old Internet Explorer), management systems that do not have equivalents in Linux or vendors that simply do … Read more

Hollywood has been debating for years whether AI can replace real actors. With Val Kilmer the debate turns into practice

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A year after his death, Val Kilmer will appear in a fiction film without filming a single scene. ‘As Deep as the Grave’ uses generative AI to bring the actor to life with the explicit support of his family and respecting the rules of the actors’ union. It is the first documented case of a Hollywood star being digitally recreated on this scale and with this level of legitimacy. Perhaps in the future this film will be seen as the point at which there was no turning back. As deep as the grave. Val Kilmer died on April 1, 2025, at the age of 65, from pneumonia resulting from the throat cancer that he had been fighting since 2014. This week, almost a year later, the production company First Line Films has announced that the actor will return to the screens in a role that he was never able to film. The film, initially known as ‘Canyon of the Dead’, is a historical drama based on the true story of Ann and Earl Morris, early 20th century archaeologists who documented the culture of the Navajo people in Canyon de Chelly, Arizona. Kilmer was cast five years ago to play Father Fintan, a Native American Catholic priest and spiritualist. The role was designed around him: Kilmer identified with the character’s Native American heritage and with the story’s spiritual link to the American Southwest, where he made his home in New Mexico. “We were ready to film his part. Just, (Val Kilmer) was going through a very, very difficult medical time,” has counted director and screenwriter Coerte Voorhees. Go for AI. The production accumulated six years between filming and forced stops due to the pandemic. When the Voorhees brothers (Coerte directs, John produces) reviewed the material, they saw that Father Fintan’s scenes were essential to the story. Replacing the actor was a possible solution, but they did not have the budget to repeat the shoot. So they chose to generate it artificially. What makes this recreation technically unique is not only the use of images of the actor at different stages of his life, many contributed directly by his family, but the decision to use his real voice, deteriorated by the tracheotomy that Kilmer had to undergo during cancer treatment. Father Fintan suffers from tuberculosis in the fiction, which turns his altered voice into a character trait. The character generated by AI occupies, according to those responsible, a significant part of the final footage. Pioneer Kilmer. The curious thing is that Kilmer was one of the first actors to actively resort to AI to preserve his communication skills. In 2021, while working on the documentary ‘Val’, he collaborated with the startup Sonantic to reconstruct your voice from hours of archival recordings. The company had to develop new algorithms (the available material was ten times less than what they used in other projects) and generated more than 40 different models before selecting the most expressive. That work reached the general public in 2022, when Kilmer appeared in ‘Top Gun: Maverick’, in an appearance that was one of the most talked-about moments of the film. Seal of approval. What distinguishes ‘As Deep as the Grave’ is the consents that support it. The actor’s daughter, Mercedes Kilmer, states that “my father always looked at emerging technologies with optimism, as a tool to expand the possibilities of the story. This spirit is what we honor within this film.” The producers also assure that the film followed the SAG-AFTRA union guidelines and that the actor’s family receives financial compensation. The environment. This news comes amid constant updates on the topic of AI to generate prototypes of real actors or completely new virtual creatures. In recent months, the Xicoia company launched Tilly Norwooda character entirely generated by AI whom she presented as an actress, and which SAG-AFTRA unambiguously condemned, calling her a direct threat to the profession. Here, however, we have the posthumous realization of a job that the actor himself had accepted. But… what will happen when the technology is accessible to productions without family endorsement? How is compliance with SAG-AFTRA standards monitored in independent productions? Can a case like this normalize practices in less scrupulous hands? Header | Variety In Xataka | Seedance’s strategy was to copy first, go viral later and back away later. Until Hollywood said “enough”

In 1997 Blockbuster decided that DVD would never replace VHS. With that decision he began to dig his grave

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In 1997, Warner Bros. proposed blockbuster an exclusivity agreement to rent DVDs. The deal replicated the model that was already practiced with the VHS format, which gave 60% of income to the video store chain. Blockbuster declined because they were confident that magnetic tape would maintain its dominance for years. Warner responded by drastically cutting the wholesale prices of its records and Walmart was quick to take advantage of the opening: In less than a decade, it overtook Blockbuster as Hollywood’s biggest moneymaker. The DVD arrives. In 1997, this format arrived promising better imaging, more durability, and interactive features (we were so young). But it had a giant before it: in 1988, after defeating Sony’s Betamax format, VHS already controlled 95% of the home video market. And a decade later, in 1997, it was an empire: VHS rentals generated $10 billion annually for movie studios, with Blockbuster pocketing about half of that revenue. VHS had reasons not to be afraid: DVD players were very expensive, between $300 and $500, and VHS devices were very accessible. And they were not wrong: DVD sales would not surpass those of VHS until 2003, six years after its commercial release. Warner’s proposal. Warren Lieberfarb, head of Warner Bros.’s home video division and one of the key figures in the development of the DVD format proposed to Blockbuster a deal that replicated the VHS model: exclusive rights to rent the company’s new DVD releases before they hit stores for sale to the public. Warner would receive 40% of the rental income from those records. John Antioco, CEO of Blockbuster, had just arrived at the company after passing through Taco Bell, and his decision could be key to the company’s future. The rejection. Blockbuster decided to reject the proposal because it believed that VHS would maintain its dominance for years. As we said above, a not unreasonable assumption. Furthermore, creating an inventory of DVD movies was an unnecessary expense under the profitable and peaceful reign of VHS. Some later format releases, before the advent of DVD, possibly made Blockbuster think it had done well: JVC’s D-VHS digital tape, which allowed high-definition recording, was a flop. But Blockbuster didn’t have two things: Hollywood support for DVD and the inevitable drop in player prices. The answer. Warner Bros. responded with a strategy that would transform home cinema: it drastically reduced wholesale prices for its DVDs, in order to compete directly with the rental industry. This allowed businesses to sell records at prices that made purchasing more attractive than renting. The North American giant Walmart detected the opportunity very quickly and began to sell DVDs below the cost price, and in this way, for example, they sold their discs for 15 or 20 dollars when renting a VHS cost between 3 and 5 dollars per day. The power of Walmart. Walmart’s network of stores had power in distribution, covering the entire country, that Blockbuster could not match. In addition, it had privileged deals with suppliers and, in general, a fund and resources that allowed it to absorb the losses from the DVDs. In this way, Walmart replaced Blockbuster as the studios’ main source of income in less than a decade. This led to redefining the balance of power in the industry: the most valuable distribution channel was no longer the video store, but became large commercial stores, where consumers no longer only bought movies. Blockbuster, free fall. As is well known, It was not Blockbuster’s last catastrophic decision: in 2000, when Reed Hastings and Marc Randolph, co-founders of Netflix, approached John Antioco about selling their DVD-by-mail rental service for 50 million dollarsthe executive declined the offer. A decade later Blockbuster declared bankruptcy in 2010 while Netflix reached a valuation of billions. They are not the last. The case has parallels with recent technological transitions where dominant companies have underestimated the speed of the public’s adoption of new formats: the physical media industry believed that Blu-ray would maintain its relevance against streaming. And it is also easy to draw lines that link current technology companies with the adoption of AI: who will be the next giant to fall? Header | Stu pendousmat In Xataka | VCR Virus: the anti-copy system of the VHS era that looked like something out of a B horror movie

replace two veterans and harmonize the fleets

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Spain continues the process of renewal of your military transport with the progressive departure of two aircraft that have been in service for decades. He CN235 and the C212 They have been common pieces in training and support tasks, especially in the training of pilots and paratroopers. The Ministry of Defense has formalized the acquisition of 18 Airbus C295 aircraft. This is a contract that is divided into two different phases and establishes a delivery schedule spread over several years. The incorporation of these aircraft will be used to instruction and support functions within the Air and Space Army. All this within a program aimed at harmonizing fleets and achieving maximum “logistical and operational commonality” with the C295 that Spain already operates. Two veterans leave the scene and the C295 takes over with a calendar The agreement is structured into two groups of aircraft with different tasks. The first will be assigned to the Military Air Transport School, at the Matacán base, in Salamanca, where it will assume tasks of training and transporting passengers, paratroopers and cargo, functions that currently fall to CN235 aircraft. If we talk about the second group, this will be destined for the Military Parachuting School, at the Alcantarilla base, in Murcia, and will be used in manual and automatic launches of paratroopers and cargo, missions that today are carried out with C212. The schedule establishes a staggered deployment. According to Airbusthe aircraft of the first batch will begin to arrive in 2026 and will be completed in 2028, while the second group will be delivered later, between 2030 and 2032. This scheme spreads the baton over several years and sets the pace of incorporation of the new aircraft in the two schools involved. Airbus C295 In transport configuration, the C295 offers a profile adjusted to the tasks that these units will assume. Can carry up to 70 troops or 50 paratroopersoperate from unprepared runways and carry out cargo and personnel launches, as well as medical evacuation missions. Where do these capabilities fit? Precisely in continuous use in schools, where flexibility and availability outweigh extreme performance. The aircraft is designed for intensive flight cycles and to operate in diverse environments, a relevant factor in training tasks. Airbus C-212 Aviocar The agreement includes a training and support package designed to sustain the schools’ activity for years. Airbus will supply an advanced system of ground training which combines flight simulators, computer-assisted teaching and training management software, adapted to the needs of each center. Airbus explains that this set is designed to maximize the efficiency of training flights. The training will be deployed both at the Military Air Transport School in Salamanca and at the Parachuting School in Murcia. Airbus CN-235 The contract also contemplates a long-term support framework for the fleet destined for the Military Air Transport School. Airbus will take care of the aircraft maintenancethe management of the necessary material and the associated training center itself, with a horizon that extends until December 2032. With this acquisition, the Air and Space Army will operate a fleet of 46 C295s in different configurations. Spain, let us remember, was the model’s first customer: acquired nine aircraft in 1999 and received the first in 2000. The program also has a direct industrial dimension in Spain. The design and engineering work of the C295 is being developed at the Airbus facilities in Getafewhile the final assembly of the aircraft is carried out at the San Pablo Sur plant, in Seville. According to the manufacturer, this industrial chain supports both production, maintenance and training associated with the model. The fleet replacement thus supports a national aeronautical fabric, closing the circle between operation, support and industry. Images | Airbus | Air Force In Xataka | Spain already has its first A330 MRTT: this is the modern tanker plane that promises to change the rules of the game in the air

replace 50,000 workers with an army of Terminators

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For decades, movies like terminatorby James Cameron, we were accustomed to thinking about armies of robots since a dystopian perspectiveif you will, as an exaggeration typical of science fiction, a narrative resource to talk about fear of the future. The problem is that, little by littlethat future has stopped seeming so distant, and some of the ideas that previously only fit in the cinema are beginning to appear in the real world with a disturbing naturalness. From the worker robot to the soldier. Most of the humanoid robot startups that have emerged in recent years sell a reassuring promise– Machines designed to work in factories, warehouses, hospitals or even homes, alleviating labor shortages and increasing productivity. Foundationa young Silicon Valley company, shares that ambition, but takes it to much more uncomfortable terrain: his Phantom robot It is not only designed for industrial work, but also for armed combat, with the United States Army as an explicit client. Its founder, Sankaet Pathak, does not hide the intention nor the schedule: manufacture 50,000 humanoids before the end of 2027 and turn them into an operational tool for both the civilian economy and the battlefield. Impossible calendar. They counted in Forbes that Foundation boasts an unusual development speed even by industry standards. In just 18 months since its founding, Phantom was already making real production tasks in facilities of undisclosed industrial partners, a pace comparable to that of the most advanced players in the market. This acceleration is explained by two key acquisitions in artificial intelligence and new generation actuators, but also by a recruited team directly from companies like Tesla, Boston Dynamics, SpaceX or 1X. The scaling plan is as ambitious as it is risky: 40 robots this year, 10,000 next year and 40,000 in 2027. Pathak admits which is an extreme goal, but insists that there is a “non-zero probability” of achieving it, relying on a philosophy inherited from Tesla: do not try to automate everything too quickly. Foundation The economic model. The commercial bet by Foundation It is not about selling robots, but for renting them. The company isn’t looking for dozens of small customers, but rather a few gigantic contracts capable of generating hundreds of millions in recurring revenue. If the plan is fulfilled, 50,000 rented robots between 2026 and 2027 could translate into about 5 billion dollars annuallywith an approximate price of $100,000 per robot per year. At first glance it seems expensive compared to an average human salary, but the argument is purely industrial: A humanoid can work almost 24/7 and replace between three and five people. Even discounting maintenance, human supervision and downtime, the potential savings per unit could be around $90,000 annually. All of this, of course, under a crucial condition that no one has yet demonstrated: that the robot is really as fast, reliable and versatile as a human worker. Technology that does not exist. Phantom boasts of advanced “muscles”, efficient and reversible actuators that allow it to operate for several shifts without overheating and coexist with people with a reasonable level of safety. Still, there is an uncomfortable reality in the sector: no manufacturer has yet achieved a humanoid that is fully equivalent to human performance in complex environments. Therefore, the money intelligent It discounts delays, reduces expectations, and assumes that it will take additional years for hardware and software to reach true maturity. The recent history of robotics is full of promises ahead of their time. An armed robot. It is in the military sphere where Foundation definitively breaks with the comfortable narrative. Pathak defend that an armed humanoid can be “the first body in” in high-risk situations, because a docile robot does not force the enemy to reveal itself. PhantomAccording to his vision, it must be lethal. The range of uses it’s wide: carry ammunition, perform dangerous tasks, explore buildings, cross ridges or enter caves where no officer would want to send a soldier. In fact, it is not pure science fiction: terrestrial robots have already been seen with similar functions in the Ukrainian war, although not humanoid in shape. More precise (or easier) warfare. Foundation argues that these robots could make war more precise, not more brutal. Instead of bombing or heavy weapons, a terrestrial humanoid could evaluate situations directly. The operating model would resemble that of current drones: the robot would move and navigate autonomously, but the lethal decision would remain in human hands, remote and safe. If that scheme works, armed humanoids could alter the logic of deterrence, substituting human deployments for robotic force demonstrations scalable. Pathak even arrives to affirm that an army with tens of thousands of visible robots could prevent wars before they start. The ethical dilemma. There is no doubt, the other side of the argument is just as disturbing. If sending robots reduces the political and human cost of war, it can also make it more likely. History shows that when the threshold for sacrifice is lowered, resort to force becomes more tempting. The ethics of armed humanoid robots become like this more complex than everespecially in a world where China, Russia and the United States are already developing lethal autonomous systems, even if they do not take human form. In reality, automated warfare is not new: Nazi V-2 missiles They already incorporated a primitive form of autonomy during the Second World War. What changes now is the degree of sophisticationthe distributed decision-making capacity and the physical proximity of the robot to the human combatant. Image | Foundation In Xataka | We had seen everything in Ukraine, but this is new: drones are disguising themselves as Russian soldiers, and it is working In Xataka | When we thought we had seen all kinds of rehearsals for an invasion, China makes science fiction: robots taking over an island

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