Sending

OnePlus is preparing to leave Europe and the United States. I had been sending signals for months that this was going to happen.

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OnePlus and Oppo are going to announce in the coming days a total withdrawal from two large markets such as the United States and Europe, according to the German media has advanced WinFuture. Neither of the two companies has confirmed it in public yet, but the evidence has been accumulating for months and this time they all fit. What has happened. WinFuture cites internal sources who speak of “fundamental changes in strategy” that will be communicated this week, a classic euphemism to say that OnePlus is going to stop selling new models in two of its historical markets. There have already been press conferences behind closed doors with specialized media in which neither OnePlus nor Oppo have wanted to explain the reason for the closure. There will be no new launches of mobile phones, tablets or wearables in Europe or the United States. He stocks What remains will be settled in the coming weeks. Devices already sold will maintain software support until the end of their life cycle. India and China are left out of the announcement, although the brand will lose its independence there and will become a cheap line within Oppo. The context. This doesn’t come out of nowhere. In January, a report –without clear sources– he was already talking about dismantling and OnePlus denied it. In March, 9to5Google public that the global withdrawal could come in April. In April, the brand itself admitted that it was “evaluating its roadmap” in Europe, while also cutting its workforce in the region, with layoffs focused on communication, marketing and sales. The team that explains, advertises and sells a brand to the public is not fired if that brand is going to continue to need to be explained, advertised and sold. Then came the rumor of a merger with Realme, the leak that OxygenOS would be integrated into ColorOS (Oppo’s software) and, finally, OnePlus’ own websites in Germany, Spain and France They began to redirect buyers towards Oppo products. Between the lines. The replacement plan has an obvious crack. Oppo wants to fill the gap left by OnePlus in Europe, but its phones do not cost exactly the same. OnePlus built its entire brand on the promise of delivering high-end specs at a mid-range price tag, the “flagship killer” with which it was born in 2014. Replacing that proposal with a more expensive catalog is not a change of logo but a change of a brand’s target audience. There is another fissure that is caused by those who are still their clients. In several EU countries Complaints about unfulfilled guarantees have multiplied: users whose OnePlus headphones damaged under warranty receive compensation a voucher of 199 euros for an online store that barely has stocksand which also does not allow the voucher to be applied to the few remaining discounted products. Some have already opened complaints with the European Consumer Center. When after-sales service begins to systematically fail months before an unconfirmed closure, it stops being a customer service problem and becomes an exit signal. We saw it in Spain with BQ. Yes, but. OnePlus already denied similar rumors in 2023 and did so again in January of this year. Neither of the two denials has aged very well. Neither OnePlus nor Oppo have confirmed anything yet an official confirmation. From Xataka We have contacted Oppo and their response has been to explain to us that they are in talks with the regional teams, waiting to get more information to share. They neither confirm nor deny it, something that says a lot after years of categorical denials every time this rumor arose. Meanwhile, the accumulation of coincidences (execution departures, website redirects, software merger, empty store, guarantees that They are paid with hardly usable vouchers…) leaves little room for the benefit of the doubt. Why is it important. OnePlus was born in 2014 selling the promise that you didn’t have to pay more to have the best, and that promise ended up costing it its own identity: the brand was absorbed by Oppo in 2021which pushed its co-founder Carl Pei to leave to found Nothing. Since then, OnePlus has been losing room for maneuver within the group until it has become, by all indications, more of a label than a company with its own criteria. Its disappearance in the West closes the cycle of an idea (that of the premium mobile without a premium) that the market itself has been eroding as the differences between ranges have become smaller and Chinese brands have preferred to compete by volume rather than by differentiation. And now what. He OnePlus 15 It remains as the brand’s probable last major launch in Western markets. In parallel, similar rumors are circulating about other second-rate Chinese brands, but this week we could have the official announcement of the OnePlus outcome. In Xataka | Nothing is the most fascinating mobile phone brand in years for a very simple reason: it doesn’t sell mobile phones Featured image | Xataka

NASA has managed to make a satellite “understand” what it sees, without sending a single photo to Earth

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The role of satellites is simple. They take data, send it to Earth and, once here, it is analyzed. So far, that is being viable. However, the process is getting complicated. There are more and more satellites (Hello, Elon Musk), which means more information flowing to Earth. There are not enough people, energy or time to analyze so much information. For this reason, NASA and the startup LoftOrbital have developed NAVI-Orbital, software for satellite observation that is capable of describing what it sees and even searching for what it is ordered to do. A model of vision and language. NAVI-Orbital works with Gemma 3a series of vision and language models belonging to Google DeepMind. As their name suggests, they are capable of processing both images and text, so that, with proper training, they can describe images and respond to simple text commands. Before, a multitude of complex computer commands had to be used for a satellite to follow orders and even then the results had to be analyzed by humans. Now, all you have to do is ask him to obey and analyze the results. Find what you ask for. A clear example of what NAVI-Orbital can do is search for objects, buildings or geographical features. If you know what a river is, you can search and display all the rivers in a given area. You can also locate all bridges or roads. But, in turn, it can identify anomalies in those places. For example, you may find rivers about to overflow or roads where there has been an accident. much faster. Most artificial intelligence algorithms send information to data centerswhere the result is processed and returned. In this case, however, what is known as edge AI is used. That is to say, the entire model runs directly on the same device that captures the data. The satellite in this case. Civil or military applications. In April, the first tests were carried out with the YAM-9 satellite, which already has the new software incorporated, with very good results. It was the first time that a satellite managed to describe what it “sees.” That’s why NASA and LoftOrbital are already excited about their applications. They consider that satellite constellations with NAVI-Orbital could be used to monitor the planet for civil or defense applications. They can search for oil spills, for example, but also study possible military attacks. The difference with what we have so far with any of these purposes is that nothing has to be analyzed. That is, you don’t put a satellite to take photos of the sea and then here on Earth a team of people or a computer algorithm analyzes them for oil spills. It is the satellite itself that saves sending thousands of photos without spills and directly analyzes what it sees. The result is much faster, cheaper and more efficient. It may even be the future of satellite observation, although it is still too early. We will have to see how these models that have already begun to undergo the first tests evolve. Image | LoftOrbital In Xataka | Ukraine’s military has a problem almost as important as Russia: Starlink belongs to Elon Musk

A cement company stopped sending its personnel to inspect dangerous areas. Your new inspector is a robot dog

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Even though the conversation revolves around humanoid robotics Lately, this sector has had much more traction in the industry for decades, driving a good part of the current processes and assembly lines. In this regard, a Swiss cement plant has wanted to take advantage of robotics in a somewhat peculiar way: it has been using a quadruped robot to monitor your facilities every night. Below these lines we tell you all the details. The problem that had to be solved. Vigier Ciment has been producing cement in the hills of the Swiss Jura, south of Biel, for a century and a half, generating approximately a fifth of all cement in the country. Its plant houses more than 1,000 machines spread across several buildings and floors, connected by metal stairs of up to 16 sections, areas with temperatures that reach 50 degrees, constant dust and the occasional presence of ammonia near the unloading docks. The maintenance of all this fell to operators who toured the facilities on foot filling out paper records. Over time, continued exposure to these conditions generates what the plant workers themselves call “operational blindness.” You stop seeing what is in front of you because you have already seen it too many times, according to collect Techeblog. The guard dog. Just like account The medium, in November 2024 the Swiss robotics company ANYbotics began talks with Vigier Ciment to deploy its ANYmal quadruped robot at the plant. The robot arrived on January 6, 2025 and before the end of the first month it was already carrying out night patrols completely autonomously. ANYmal is similar in size to a large dog and weighs more than 50 kilos. It does not need human supervision, and its managers say it climbs stairs, avoids obstacles, navigates narrow hallways and accesses areas that previously required considerable effort on the part of staff. What exactly does it do in every round. Every night, even on weekends, ANYmal goes through more than 450 inspection points predefined elements distributed in three mills and six levels. To do this, it has several detection systems, including a visual camera that identifies cracks, oil leaks or corrosion; a thermal camera that measures the temperature of critical components such as bearings, motors and gears; a gas sensor that monitors ammonia levels; and an acoustic camera capable of locating compressed air leaks or filter failures at distances of up to 50 meters. According to point In the middle, all that information is automatically dumped into a software platform called Data Navigator, which analyzes the data collected overnight, compares it to the facility’s history, and generates a daily report for the maintenance team. What he has found along the way. In sixteen months of operation, ANYmal has already completed more than 33,000 inspections without recording any technical failures. According to ANYbotics, the most relevant findings have had a direct impact on plant operations. The middle share In addition, the robot detected a crack in the base of a shredder the size of a large kitchen table. The oil had been leaking for some time and no one had reported it on the usual rounds. The repair was completed the next day. Had it collapsed, the plant would have lost more than a week of production, with estimated losses of more than $630,000, according to the company’s own figures. In another case, thermal monitoring detected a bearing reaching 140 degrees Celsius, allowing a $30,000 eight-hour repair to be scheduled rather than facing a much more costly emergency failure. The robot also detected levels of ammonia exposure at unloading docks that had not been measured until then, and located air leaks in filtration systems installed 50 meters high. Industrial maintenance. The plant’s traditional fixed sensors only covered about 200 elements, mainly on the clinker side (the main component of cement). The robot expands that coverage substantially and accesses areas that static sensors cannot reach. At the same time, it removes operators from the most dangerous environments without reducing the frequency or quality of inspections. Images | ANYbotics In Xataka | One of the big problems with AI is that it always proves you right: this is the most effective way to avoid it

Apple is two years behind its competitors. So he’s sending 200 engineers to an “AI camp.”

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When we talk about AI Big Tech, there is one name missing: Apple. There are many “the wolf is coming” in this matter of artificial intelligencewith companies that are creating ‘hype’ with models that they consider very dangerous and, above all, with artificial general intelligence. However, the “the wolf is coming” par excellence in AI is the new Siri and Apple Intelligence. Apple is tired of being the last and has made the most radical decision two months before WWDC. Sending almost all Siri engineers to early summer camp. Issues. Apple has two approaches with AI. On the one hand, a more transparent one for the user that interconnects applications of your systems or that allows us to have advanced information about photos from our gallery. On the other hand, the avalanche of promises they made two years ago about Apple Intelligence. For a start, they were already late to the advertise your system a year and a half after the arrival of ChatGPT. To continue, there were functions that did not reach the devices, others that were delayed and even had to delete promotional videos that showed something totally false. This translated into an Apple that allied itself with OpenAI to integrate ChatGPT into Siri and, in January of this year, they teamed up with Google to put a huge band-aid: Apple’s next basic models will basically be Gemini. The user will not notice it – it would be a blow to the pride of those from Cupertino – but Google accounts will. The camp. If two years ago they were late, now they are running out of reaction time. This year we are seeing AI advancing day after day with both American and European and, above all, Chinese models. Apple must get in tune and, as they point out in The Informationhave made the decision to send 200 of Siri and Apple Intelligence engineers to a several-week “camp” focused on programming tools for AI. It is something that reflects the uncomfortable reality that Apple is experiencing right now. On devices they are doing well (even with a MacBook), are establishing themselves as one of the technological pillars of the United States and They have returned to work in Chinabut in the most important race in recent years, they are still behind. Therefore, it is urgent that the Siri team, which is earning such a bad reputation, gets its act together ahead of what could be one of Apple’s most momentous launches in years. And it’s not just sending developers to camp: it’s reformulating the company. The departure of John Giannandrea – one of the leaders of Apple’s AI strategy team – left a gap that has been filled by Craig Federighi, the company’s director of software engineering. Mike Rockwell, team leader of the VisionPronow leads the new Siri team. They are two Apple heavyweights who are very much on top of the AI ​​team, which makes clear the importance that Apple is giving to this issue. 60 stay at home. Obviously, the Apple Intelligence ‘laboratories’ are not going to be deserted these weeks. As The Information points out, about 60 members of the Siri development team will remain in their positions to continue shaping the new assistant and another 60 will be in charge of evaluating performance, ensuring that it meets the standards that Apple wants to implement. Because we are no longer talking only about the quality or functionality of the assistant and Apple Intelligence, but about the ambitious privacy goal. At the presentation of the softwareApple commented that it had built a cloud infrastructure specifically for AI with end-to-end encrypted data sending and that, when that was not possible, the data would be encrypted to obscure the user’s identity. According to the company, none of them would be visible even to its own workers. The new Siri, now it is. It is evident that Apple seeks to close the gap between its assistant and what the competition has – Google integrated Gemini into Assistant months ago – but they must also close that space between their reality and the ambition they showed when presenting Apple Intelligence. Either way, this year is expected to be the year of the new Siri. According to rumors, we will see during the first half of this yearbut we have been there for four and a half months and there is no trace. Now, everything indicates that Siri will be the star of Apple’s keynote at WWDC, the great software – and hardware, sometimes – event that will be held from June 8 to 12. Meanwhile, the world of AI continues to spin, and the most curious thing about all of this is what we mentioned at the beginning: Apple has no say. We’ll see if that new Siri manages to get them into the conversation. In Xataka | Customers demand that a human solve their problem. The surprising thing is that if humans serve them they think they are an AI

We have been sending pregnant women to bed for decades as a precaution. Science has just proven that it is a big mistake

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In the face of a potentially risky pregnancy, the prescription that was administered was very clear: absolute bed rest to avoid any fall or inappropriate movement that could cause an abortion. But this is something that today is no longer the norm, since staying still during pregnancy not only does not prevent the premature birth of a baby, but it can be very harmful. You have to move. Here, institutions as important as the Mayo Clinic are quite blunt in their guidelines by noting that there is no evidence that bed rest is effective in treating preterm labor. To reach this conclusion, they logically resort to different clinical studies inside the Cochrane Library In this case, they point out, for example, that in singleton pregnancies, routine bed rest does not prevent premature births and, in fact, the adverse effects of being immobilized outweigh the supposed benefits. In the situation of being in a multiple pregnancy, hospitalization and strict rest do not reduce perinatal risks and, ironically, an increased risk of spontaneous birth has been observed. What dangers does it have? Lying in bed may be something that a priori is seen as completely harmless, but the reality is that science advises against it for different reasons. The first of them is that immobility increases the risk of venous thromboembolism if one is not properly anticoagulated. In addition, it causes bone demineralization, where an estimated loss of bone mass is 2% to 3% per month, muscle atrophy and weakness, orthostatic hypotension, and is also associated with low neonatal birth weight and a higher rate of cesarean sections. Beyond the physical. Having complete rest isolates the pregnant woman in a bed watching television all day, and this only causes increased emotional stress, anxiety, and can lead to depression. In studies, this is something that currently affects 20% of pregnant women subjected to this isolation in countries like the United States. What is recommended. The objective of the different international guidelines to treat these pregnant women has taken a great turn in recent years. The SEGO guide of Spain, for example, recommends these women with aerobic activity for 3-5 days a week, avoiding routine rest. If we cross the ocean, in the United States it is recommended 150 minutes of moderate exercise a week, also to reduce the rate of cesarean sections and gestational diabetes. There are exceptions. Generalizations are never good, and that is why you cannot ask all pregnant women for absolute rest, but neither for a lot of activity. Here the most current guidelines establish that there are very specific and documented cases, such as premature rupture of membranes, where this rest is necessary. But these cases are very few. What we must stay with here is that immobility during pregnancy is not the best, and we must stay active as much as possible with activities logically adapted to the pregnancy situation. Images | Anna Hecker In Xataka | There are couples who couldn’t have children. Now AI has managed to give them hope

sending personalized Ferraris to millionaires in the Middle East

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When the conflict between the United States, Israel and Iranthe Strait of Hormuz was closed to commercial traffic and the skies of the Persian Gulf They became a high-risk area. Freighters transporting luxury cars to Dubai, Riyadh or Doha encountered a Strait of Hormuz blocked and no alternative route plan. Any customer in that situation has little room for maneuver other than resigning themselves to waiting for their shipment like someone waiting for an Amazon courier, but a type of client who does not resign easily: he who has enough money to open your own delivery route. While hundreds of Lamborghinis, Bentleys and Ferraris were immobilized in intermediate ports due to the maritime blockade, their future owners found the most million-dollar solution possible: paying for “first class” flights so that their supercars They will arrive by plane. Cars blocked in the middle of the conflict. When the Strait of Hormuz was closed to commercial traffic, large cargo ships were unable to reach their destinations in Persian Gulf ports. One of the most striking cases was the one documented Reuters of a shipment with more than 500 cars that were blocked at sea. 50 of those cars They were luxury models of brands such as Rolls-Royce, Lamborghini and Ferrari and had to be provisionally unloaded at the port of Hambantota (Sri Lanka) pending resolution of their fate. The same problem affected Porsche and Audi, whose managers in the Volkswagen group they warned that the war would directly hit their sales in the region. OK to what was published by BloombergFerrari suspended shipments to the Persian Gulf for weeks. A wall between brands and millionaires. Faced with the blockade, each manufacturer adopted a different strategy, although they could not prevent some of the luxury cars that were already on the route from being trapped in nearby ports. Bentley chose to exhaust the inventory that dealers in the region already had to meet pre-conflict orders, avoiding shipments of new units. Ferrari, on the other hand, opted for a combination of longer and more complex alternative routes: more than 4,000 luxury vehicles bound for Dubai had to be diverted to Lamu Island port as an alternative entry point. Meanwhile, some millionaires impatient to drive the cars for which they have been waiting for no less than two years, did not want to wait a single minute longer and paid the extra cost of shipping with air transport to receive their cars as soon as possible. A decision that turned out to be more expensive than expected. The price of millionaire impatience. Air transport was already an import route that existed before the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, but it tripled the cost of shipping. With the war blocking the only access route, that difference shot up to five times more. The average cost of transporting a kilogram of air cargo from Europe to the Middle East has increased by two-thirds since the start of the conflict, reaching $2.96 per kilogram of cargo. as he collected he Financial Times. Some routes recorded increases of up to 100% in rates, with an additional fuel surcharge of between 0.3 and 0.4 euros per kilo transported. Ian Arroyo, director of strategy at Freightos, a logistics information service, pointed out that there were only two options for assuming this price increase: “It all depends on whether manufacturers are reducing their own profit margin due to their relationship with the customer, or if the customer has offered to pay for the transportation on their own.” What is clear is that the final bill for the car was going to rise considerably. Money was not going to be a problem in this case. Ferrari does not lose a single order. In statements to Gulf NewsGiorgio Turri, Ferrari’s general director for the Middle East, assured that the brand had managed to overcome logistics problems without canceling any orders in the area. “We are not experiencing cancellations. (A Ferrari) is not a need, it is a dream. You don’t make decisions based on the mood of the day. Dreams are never a short-term decision.” The data proves him right. Between 30 and 40% of the Italian brand’s new supercar deliveries in the region go to customers who have never owned a Ferrari before. The Middle East is not the largest market in the world in unit volume, but it is one of the most profitable for the “Il Cavallino” brand. Customization and accessories account for a fifth of Ferrari’s revenue, and the region’s wealthy customers don’t just buy the car: they turn it into a unique piece doubling the car bill with customizations . To understand the dimension of the business that was at stake, it is enough to know a fact that Turri pointed out, “our clients in the Middle East are between five and seven years old. younger than the world average.” That for Ferrari is not a simple anecdote, it is decades of guaranteed sales if customers are satisfied, whether there is war or not. In Xataka | In Dubai they don’t know what to do with so many abandoned luxury supercars: the less shiny side of getting rich Image | freepik

Europe has found a hole that has been sending sensitive material to Russia for years: a “Mercadona” from Germany

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More than 400 billion packages circulate around the world every year, and the international postal system is designed to move them as quickly as possible. To achieve this, many shipments cross borders with simplified controls and risk-based reviews, not full inspections. That logistical efficiency, designed to speed up commerce and everyday correspondence, sometimes generates unexpected cracks in much larger systems. An unexpected hole. Since the invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the European Union has lifted one of the sanctions regimes wider of its history with the aim of economically isolating Russia and hindering access to technology that can feed his military machine. Advanced electronics, sensitive components or certain industrial equipment are theoretically blocked to prevent them from reinforcing the Kremlin’s war economy. However, the practical application of these restrictions faces a constant problem: the more complex the sanctions system, the more ingenious They become the routes to avoid it. And in this case the weak point has appeared in a place so everyday that it is difficult to believe. A clandestine channel in the supermarket. The story was told in a report in Politico. Apparently, in several Russian chain supermarkets throughout Germany, among shelves of sweets or freezers, advertisements have appeared that promote a logistics service specialized in sending packages from Germany directly to Russia. What at first glance seems like a postal service for the Russian diaspora has become an unexpected crack within the European sanctions system. Customers may drop off boxes that supposedly contain clothing, books or small personal items. No one inspects the contents and, for a few euros per kilo, the package begins a journey that ends in Moscow or St. Petersburg. In this apparently innocent flow, even sensitive electronic components whose export is prohibited. The inherited logistics network. The middle counted that behind this circuit is LS Logistics Solution GmbH, a German company created by former employees by RusPostthe subsidiary that the Russian state postal service had established in Germany before sanctions forced it to close. After the invasion of Ukraine, that structure did not completely disappear. It was reorganized under a new namekept part of its staff and continued to operate from Germany with a similar system. The result is a kind of parallel postal network that collects packages throughout Europe and concentrates them in a warehouse near the Berlin airport, from where shipments to Russia are organized. The seal trick. The key to the system is an apparently bureaucratic detail. The packages do not have labels from the Russian Post, but from the state postal service of uzbekistan. Since that country is not subject to European sanctions, the shipment can take advantage of special rules that protect international postal traffic. In practice, this means that packets move with lighter controls than traditional commercial shipments. This administrative difference, designed to facilitate mail between citizens, becomes a back door for sensitive goods to cross borders without raising too many suspicions. A kilometer trip through Europe. The route of the packages illustrates chow it works the system. After being picked up from supermarkets or delivery points, they spend a day or two in Germany before moving to a large logistics warehouse near Berlin airport. From there they are loaded onto trucks that cross Poland on the A2 highway and continue to Belarus. Even though this country is also sanctioned for its support to Moscow, the packages continue to advance thanks to your status international postal mail. After traveling more than 2,000 km, they end up arriving at addresses in Moscow or Saint Petersburg. The problem of sanctions. Plus: the episode also reflects a challenge that those who design economic sanctions are well aware of. Officially blocking trade is relatively simple, but preventing alternative routes appear It is much more complicated, and that is already we have told it in the drone war in Ukraine. Each new restriction forces the creation of more complex control systems, while those who try to circumvent them constantly search new legal cracks or logistics. The result is an endless game of adaptation in which authorities try to close holes just as new ones begin to appear. Always one step behind. They finished the report explaining that European authorities are already reviewing the case and have strengthened the rules to pursue sanctions violations. Be that as it may, the discovery of the network itself demonstrates to what extent the system can make fun. As governments design increasingly strict legal frameworks, makeshift logistics networks continue to find ways to move sensitive goods across of unexpected routes. And in this case, the blind spot that allowed this channel to Russia to be kept open was not in an industrial port or a large cargo terminal, but in something as everyday as the check-in counter. a supermarket. Image | flowcomm, RawPixel In Xataka | In 2022, the war in Ukraine sent supermarket prices soaring. Iran threatens to make it child’s play In Xataka | The EU has a perfect plan to suffocate Russia. The problem is that now it needs its oil to survive

We are so hooked on smartphones that Gen Z has found its own “detox”: sending letters again

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I remember perfectly the first letter I wrote. My best friend had moved to a town in Ciudad Real and the distance, back then, was measured in the time our parents allowed us to use the telephone line. We couldn’t spend hours on the phone, so we decided to tell each other our lives by email. Every week, a letter. That exchange of envelopes lasted as long as it took us to have a computer tower and internet access. Then the great migration arrived: Messenger, Fotolog, Tuenti, Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp… Today we send photos to each other in real time and make video calls. If someone had told those two girls that technology would be the glue of their friendship, they wouldn’t have believed it. In the middle of 2025, history seems to be closing an unexpected circle. We live in the era of immediacy, where WhatsApp messages coexist with saturated emails that ask for mercy under the tagline ASAP (as soon as possible). The saturation is such that the phone’s storage warns every so often that there is no space, while the messages are interspersed with alerts, reminders and the white noise of a hyperconnected world. Faced with this “uncontrolled beat of the digital rush”, Generation Z has rescued the habit of being penpals or pen pals. Stamps.com Data reveal that almost 48% of this generation sends physical correspondence at least once a month, breaking the myth of the young person unable to tear themselves away from the screen. On Instagram, the hashtag #penpal already exceeds 1.3 million of posts, while TikTok becomes a catalog of calligraphy and sealing wax. It’s not about sending a text; It is a “slow ritual” where both the content and the container count. Neuropsychology explains this return with crystal clear clarity. According to psychologist Noelia Barroso, interviewed by El EspañolWhile digital notification triggers a rapid and volatile dopamine pulse, waiting for a letter activates multisensory processes that generate much more stable oxytocin peaks. The weight of the paper and its aroma link deep memories that the pixel simply ignores. This phenomenon is, in essence, a measure of mental health. The Tunheim report points out that 44% of young people have reduced their screen time out of sheer exhaustion, searching through the mail for a necessary “digital detox.” The expert Victoria López, in Hello magazinedefines it as a form of “constant presence”: a physical object that lives on a shelf and that, unlike a chat, has a mass and texture that make it indestructible against oblivion. A love of the tangible This “historical nostalgia” for times they did not live in is an emotional compass towards the authenticity that the algorithm has worn away. The impact is such that the market is transforming. Pinterest Predictions 2026 indicates that searches of “beautiful stamps” have risen 105% and that letter writing will be considered a “performative art.” However, the road is uneven. While in the United States 31% of young people trust the email for securityIn Europe we are experiencing radical contrasts. Denmark has stopped delivering letters after 400 years due to extreme digitalization, but even so, young Danes send three times more letters than the rest of the population through private companies, according to The Guardian. Even the connection with our own future has changed. Tools like FutureMe either Letter to Yourself They allow you to send messages to yourself ten years from now. It is an exercise in “realistic optimism” to connect with the present and relativize the current crises, a way of “leaving a mark.” In the end, Generation Z is not technophobic; They are simply the first to understand that technology is a means, not an end. According to sociologist Narciso Michavila in La Vanguardiathey look for the physical because hyperdigitization no longer surprises them; It is its natural state and, therefore, it lacks the value of the extraordinary. This need to touch the memory has crystallized into another practice that is sweeping networks: junk journaling. It’s not just collecting papers; is, as WeLife explainsthe art of turning recycling into a personal diary to reconnect with yourself. The New York Times collect how young enthusiasts They rescue everything from traffic tickets to museum tickets or bread wrappers for their aesthetic value. “It’s a challenge to find things you would normally throw away and use them in a fun way,” its practitioners explain. In a world consumed by screens, the junk journal forces hands to still and embrace the silence of cutting and pasting, creating physical time capsules that, unlike the cloud, do not depend on a server to exist. In a context where generative AI can write thousands of emails in seconds, human handwriting is positioned as the last bastion of the unrepeatable. The handwritten letter has ceased to be a formality and has become an object of resistance against the attention economy. Some things don’t go out of style, they just wait for us to need them again. Today, in 2025, it seems that Gen Z has found in a sealed envelope the calm that fiber optics failed to give them. Image | freepik Xataka | Harvard bought a cheap copy of the Magna Carta in 1946. They just discovered they had a treasure worth a fortune

Netflix decided to kill sending content to the TV. Apple has taken advantage of the gap to score a great goal

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Netflix decided to start the month of December by eliminating one of the most basic and useful functions of its mobile application: the ability to send content (cast) from our smartphone to any television with Android TV either Google TV. An essential tool to find content quickly on your mobile and send it to your TV. What we did not expect is that, in less than two weeks, Apple has responded indirectly by bringing its Apple TV for Android the feature that Netflix has decided to kill. Better late. Goodbye to Netflix Cast. It was easy to realize this. At home I have a Google Chromecast with Google TV and a Google Nest. Every time I wanted to send content from my mobile to my television… only the Google Nest appeared. That’s when I read the confirmation of the disaster: Netflix had loaded the Cast without any explanation. The exceptions. In the Netflix support page An exception is specified to continue using the Cast function: having a third-generation or earlier Chromecast device. In other words, versions without remote control. The second, have a plan without ads. If you don’t pay, you can’t send content to TV. Cast icon on Apple TV, make a wish. Given the gap in the squad, great goal. Since yesterday, a couple of weeks after Netflix’s move, the Apple TV application for Android is compatible with Google Cast, a function that was missing since the launch of the app at the beginning of the year on the rival platform. It is necessary to have the app updated to version 2.2 to be able to send our content to the television on any Chromecast. Apple being less Apple. Apple has had to respond to Netflix in the face of an undeniable reality: its service is a minority within the ecosystem of streaming platforms. Netflix is ​​the absolute king, followed by Prime Video and Disney+. And one of the reasons was one that we know quite well: using Apple is using a product tied to its ecosystem. Despite this, Apple TV+ is dangerously close to HBO Max, about to take fourth place in the ranking, according to data from JustWatch. In this context, the introduction of Cast goes beyond a minor function: It is a surrender (more) from Apple towards a more open ecosystem. And this works in your favor Allows Apple TV+ to sneak into homes with Android phones and tablets Reduces friction of use Reduce dependence on Apple’s hardware ecosystem What are you doing to win in Spain. Apple’s strategy to continue growing in Spain is clear: swim against the current with a strategy that does not introduce advertising in the app, a small catalog but with a large presence of proposals (expensive) and own and, now, simplifying the use of its app to reduce friction that had been artificially introduced. It won’t be enough. We told it a year ago and the numbers reaffirm it: there is hardly any war in streamingsince most of the content is converging on Netflix. The post-pandemic stage forced platforms to fight to distinguish themselves, while Netflix went public at the end of December 2024 at pre-pandemic levels. Be that as it may, given the growth of Apple TV in 2025, fight head to head against an HBO focused on quality It is great news for the company. Image | Xataka In Xataka | The best streaming platforms 2025 | Comparison of Disney+, Netflix, HBO Max, Prime Video, Movistar Plus+, Filmin, Apple TV, SkyShowtime and Rakuten TV: catalog, functions and prices

China is sending drones to an island 100 km from Taiwan. The problem is that Japan and the US are filling it with missiles

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The small Japanese island by Yonagunilocated just over 100 kilometers away from Taiwan, has gone in a matter of months from being a remote enclave with a modest self-defense detachment to becoming one of the most sensitive points of the strategic balance in Asia. The United States, China and Japan itself are carrying their disputes to the small enclave. An island as a front. The intensification of chinese drone flights over the island and the strait, intercepted on two consecutive occasions by Japanese fighters, has reinforced the perception in Tokyo that the first island chain is entering a phase of chronic instability. Japan, aware of the real possibility of a conflict around Taiwan, has decided to turn Yonaguni into a defensive node fully integrated: a place where operates a FARP American that extends the range of Marine Corps helicopters, where capabilities are consolidated electronic surveillance and where the installation of air defense missiles is progressing like the Type 03 Chu-SAM. Weapons and more weapons. This system, capable of tracking one hundred simultaneous targets and shooting down twelve of them with Mach 2.5 missilesimplies that Japan is beginning to give teeth to a position whose mere proximity to the democratic island makes it an advanced platform to detect, deter or even respond to a possible Chinese attack. For Tokyo, reinforcing Yonaguni is not a provocation but a life policy national: any attack on Taiwan, as as stated the new Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi, would constitute an existential threat to the archipelago. Yonaguni Beijing’s reaction. China, which interprets any Japanese defensive measure as one more step in a strategic siege promoted by the United States, has reacted with increasing hardness. From historical comparisons to veiled threats, including the summoning of the Japanese ambassador and the suspension of economic exchanges, Beijing frames the installation of missiles in Yonaguni as an “offensive act” that violates the spirit of the bilateral normalization of 1972. The rhetoric has gone in crescendo after Takaichi’s words about the possibility of Japan intervening militarily in the event of an attack on Taiwan, something that China considers a space invasion diplomat reserved for Washington. The climate has deteriorated to such a level that a Chinese diplomat even published (and removed) a direct threat against the prime minister, while the central government canceled meetings, stopped imports and called for boycott trips to Japansinking the influx of Chinese tourists who represented almost a third of foreign visitors. In parallel, China has intensified its military demonstrations, spreading videos YKJ-1000 hypersonic missile destroying Japanese targets, a message designed to emphasize that any expansion of the Japanese military footprint will be met with a response. The strategic dilemma. Far from backing down, Japan has adopted a tone unusually firm. Under the leadership of Takaichi, the political heir to Shinzo Abe’s strategic nationalism, Tokyo has made Yonaguni the tangible manifestation of a doctrinal turn: accept that Japanese stability requires preventing China from dominating the Taiwan Strait. from there the proliferation of radar installations, electronic warfare capabilities and additional plans that contemplate systems such as US Patriots, US Army Typhon, HIMARS and the NMESIS equipped with NSM missiles, capable of denying access to Chinese ships around the Taiwanese eastern coast. USA discreetly supports this redesign: approved sales of NASAMS and spare parts to the Taiwan Air Force, deployed CH-53E helicopters in Yonaguni (an unprecedented milestone) and coordinates with Japan a doctrine that assumes that, in the event of an outbreak of hostilities, the Marines must operate from the lethality zone itself of Chinese missiles. All of this positions Yonaguni not only as an advanced observatory, but as a critical point whose defense and survival would determine the first stages of any crisis in the strait. Yonaguni Taiwan’s hardening. While Japan reinforces the front line, Taiwan assumes that time to prepare is running out. President Lai Ching-te has announced a massive increase in military spending, raising it by $40 billion until 2033, with a roadmap that will place it at 3.3% of GDP in 2026 and with the declared ambition of reaching 5% before 2030. What Taipei is proposing is not a simple rearmament, but a comprehensive redesign: new missiles and drones, integrating AI into existing systems, protecting against infiltration operations, dramatically improving procurement (often delayed in the United States), and measures against transnational Chinese repression targeting Taiwanese abroad. For Lai, the most dangerous threat is not a Chinese landing but internal erosion: that Taiwan “gives up” due to psychological or economic pressure. It flatly rejects the “one country, two systems” model and affirms that the only way to maintain peace is to make an invasion too costly for Beijing. The United States, through its de facto representation, has described the decision as a crucial step to strengthen deterrence. A strategic powder keg. The juxtaposition of Japanese military movements, Chinese threats and unprecedented rearmament of Taiwan produces a “traffic” that raises the risk of calculation errors. The experts warn that a poorly calibrated comment, a overflight unreported or a maritime incident could accelerate a spiral that is difficult to contain, especially when Beijing tries to use its contacts with Washington to simultaneously pressure Tokyo and Taipei. In this context, Yonaguni becomes symbol and detonator: too close to Taiwan to be irrelevant, too exposed to be invulnerable, and too strategic for either side to relinquish control or influence. Plus: the island is both within immediate range of Chinese missiles and within the American concept of advanced distributed operationsmeaning it could be both a multiplier of Allied defense and a priority objective in the first minute of a war. A fragile balance. In short, China hardens his stanceJapan resignation definitely to ambiguity, Taiwan accelerate the shielding of its sovereignty and the United States consolidates its role as operational guarantor. In the midst of all this, Yonaguni emerges as a microcosm where the resistance of that regional order is tested. An enclave of barely 1,700 inhabitants that, due to its geographical positionhas become a thermometer, border and barrier. Its immediate … Read more

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