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Ben Affleck had been secretly setting up an AI company for filmmakers for four years. Netflix just got it

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Netflix has acquired InterPositivethe post-production AI tools company that Ben Affleck founded in 2022 and that was quietly developing tools. Its 16 employees go to work for the platform and the actor and director takes on advisory roles. The operation occurs just a week after Netflix will abandon the bid for Warner Bros. Discovery. What InterPositive is NOT. It is worth starting with what InterPositive does not do: it does not generate movies from a prompt of text. It’s not soraor anything similar. InterPositive starts from the already shot material of a series or movie (in any production, what is known as the dailiesthe raw footage that is recorded each day) and trains a specific AI model according to the characteristics of each production. This model then allows manipulate material during post-production: correct color, relight shots, add visual effects, reframe shots or redo shots that were not filmed. The company’s first model, for example, was trained to understand what Affleck calls “visual logic and editorial consistency”, respecting the real conditions of a shoot: the model solved common problems such as missing shots, details in the backgrounds that need to be corrected, incorrect lighting… All oriented towards filming techniques, not the actors’ performances. AI yes, but with nuances. At a conference in 2024, Affleck argued that AI “will eliminate the most laborious, least creative and most expensive aspects of filmmaking,” reducing barriers to entry. His stance is born from a specific concern for preserving what he calls “judgment”: the ability to make creative decisions that are only built with decades of experience. Affleck spoke to Netflix executives from InterPositive for the first time last fall, and acknowledged initially feeling “scared” at the idea of ​​computers playing a central role in production. Netflix, in favor. The acquisition fits into a strategy that Netflix has been defining with some consistency since 2024. At that time, the Argentine ‘El Eternauta’ included the first AI-generated scene in the final footagea sequence that was completed ten times faster than it would have been possible to do it with conventional effects. In ‘Happy Gilmore 2’ they used AI to digitally rejuvenate actors, and in ‘Pedro Páramo’ as well, with a total budget equivalent to what the visual effects of ‘The Irishman’ alone cost five years earlier. That timing Well. It’s very curiousand it is not clear if it means anything, that the purchase of InterPositive is announced just a week after Netflix withdrew from the bidding for the studios and streaming from Warner Bros. Discovery. Netflix saved, in the words of its financial director, “2.8 billion dollars.” The acquisition of InterPositive, although certainly of much smaller dimensions (although nothing is known about figures), indicates where it can direct part of those resources: basically, its own production. Disney, on the other side. Meanwhile, one of Netflix’s biggest competitors, Disney, has signed a three-year license agreement with OpenAI which allows Sora users to create short videos with more than 200 characters from Disney, Marvel, Pixar and Star Wars. One billion dollars of investment that goes in the opposite direction to what Netflix intends, which is to make its own productions cheaper. Regardless of the position of each player in this game, Hollywood experiments more and more openly with AI in all phases of production, from pre-production to visual effects. A new landscape is opening up for film production and Affleck’s company is just one of the first chapters. In Xataka | ‘Critterz’ will be much more than the first AI-animated film: welcome to the new era of machine-made cinema

Setting up guest Wi-Fi seemed like a good idea. Until the latest vulnerability has appeared: AirSnitch

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I’m the first one I have activated a guest Wi-Fi network to facilitate access to Wi-Fi connectivity for my friends and family, without compromising the security and privacy of the Wi-Fi network to which the rest of me is connected. devices in my home. The coffee shop I usually go to does it too. Separating the main network from the one used by visitors or clients seemed enough to prevent someone connected from snooping on other people’s computers, cell phones or printers. However, that model just took a major setback. A group of researchers has presented in the NDSS 2026 a attack called AirSnitch which shows that this separation can be broken even when the router has isolation between devices activated and uses modern encryption such as WPA2 or WPA3. The problem with AirSnitch is that it is not a brute force attack against these protection systems, but rather it has found an alternative path in which this protection simply does not arrive. AirSnitch is not an attack, it is an alternative AirSnitch is not an out-of-the-box malware, but rather a technique that exploits a vulnerability in the way many access points implement client isolation. This function, present in all home, business or public Wi-Fi networks, should prevent two devices connected to the same Wi-Fi from being able to communicate directly with each other. The problem, according to the study presented in it Network and Distributed System Security Symposiumis that this isolation is not part of a single standard and each manufacturer implements it in its own way. In their tests, the researchers analyzed 11 different devices, from home routers to professional equipment and alternative firmwares. They found vulnerabilities to AirSnitch techniques in all of them. In statements collected by Ars TechnicaXin’an Zhou, one of the authors of the work, stated that AirSnitch “breaks Wi-Fi encryption around the world and could have the potential to enable advanced cyberattacks. Our research physically taps the entire wire for these sophisticated attacks to work. It is truly a threat to the security of networks around the world.” How AirSnitch works The key is that, although the devices are “isolated” from each other thanks to the customer isolationshare certain internal mechanisms of the router that allow data traffic to be organized. AirSnitch takes advantage of that feature to trick the access point and make some of the information that should go to another device pass through the attacker first. In practice, this allows you to place yourself in the middle of the communication without the victim realizing it, generating what is known in cybersecurity as a Man-in-the-Middle (man in the middle), in which all the information on that device first passes through an intermediary. From there, the attacker can observe data and, in certain cases, modify it before it reaches its destination. That is, it is not about guessing the Wi-Fi password, but rather taking advantage of how the device itself router manages connections internal once someone is already connected. The researchers showed that this technique can facilitate additional attacks, such as redirecting the victim to fake pages or manipulating certain internal communications if they are not adequately protected. Isolation, which was supposed to prevent precisely this scenario, stops be an effective barrier. The main problem is that all devices connect to the same router that manages them. Why public networks are the most delicate scenario The risk is especially relevant in open or shared networksF for many people: cafes, airports, hotels or coworking spaces. In these environments, any user can legally connect through the password provided by the establishment and, if the access point is vulnerableattempt to exploit the flaw against other clients connected at that time. In one home network the impact is much more limitedbecause the attacker needs to know the password to enter first. That is, it has to be one of the guests to whom you have given the password, not someone external. Still, research shows that activating a guest network does not alone ensure that devices are completely isolated. Being a recent discovery, there is still no immediate universal solution for the end user. The fix depends largely on firmware updates by manufacturers or deeper changes in how they design their device isolation systems. Meanwhile, in enterprise environments it is recommended to segment networks more strictly, using configurations that truly separate devices into different internal environments and do not depend solely on a router function. For individuals, keeping equipment up-to-date, using strong passwords, and avoiding sensitive operations on public networks without additional protection are reasonable measures to reduce risk that continue to be in effect. Need a password to connect to a Wi-Fi network It is not a guarantee of security or privacy. In Xataka | VPN Buying Guide: Nine Services to Consider for Safer Browsing Image | Unsplash (Bernard Hermant)

Apple has been setting up a health system parallel to public health for years. The question is whether public health will do something about it.

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I haven’t worn a watch of any kind on my wrist for years. Partly for convenience, partly for not having another device to distract myself with. The paradox is that I find it more and more advisable to wear or give a smartwatch, precisely because of the leap they have made in monitoring our health in recent years. The other day, Dr. Miguel Ángel Cobos Gil, a prestigious Spanish cardiologist, told us at a press event that “the Apple Watch provides more parameters than anyone admitted to a coronary unit.” It made me think: we already have very reliable medical technology in our pockets, on our wrists and even in our ears. And now what? A parallel system to saturated healthcare Healthcare in Spain has just concluded a few days of strike in which they demand improvements in a system with problems: saturated primary care, insufficient personnel, underfinancing or territorial fragmentation are just a few. Spain is not the only one like this. Countries like the United Kingdom, Canada, Italy or Portugal are struggling with similar situations, and if we look at Latin America or Asia the photo even it gets more complicated. Doctor Miguel Ángel Cobos Gil at an Apple Health event in Madrid. It is no coincidence that Apple has spent years setting up a whole parallel health system through its best-selling devices. You can now take a medically approved EKG with Apple Watch In a few minutes, the iPhone notifies you if you have risk of falling when analyzing how you walkand AirPods are increasingly looking more like a smart sonotone. Apple is the one that is taking the most solid and visible steps, but it is not the only one. Samsung integrates teleconsultations, a game to detect Alzheimer’sbooking diagnostic tests and ordering medications at Samsung Health —starting with Indiawhich is no coincidence—; Huawei gives you ten health parameters in a single gesture with its Watch 5; Google bets on a medical coach with AI on top of Fitbit and Pixel Watch data. Almost the entire tech sector is looking at the same place. Useful technology to help us with our health is already here. The problem is how to make all that data that our devices give us use for something in a collapsed public system. Your doctor doesn’t have time to look at the data on your watch And now we have been in this house for ten years: We have a lot of information about preventing diseases and devices that can help us do so. However, there is still no effective system to address it. Cobos Gil summed it up bluntly: “urgent care works.” When something really goes wrong, the system responds. The problem is before, in that period of time where an asymptomatic disease could be detected and treated with a change in habits or a simple medication, but where the family doctor cannot dedicate fifteen minutes to you if he does not see something serious or actionable. Hypertension doesn’t hurt. Atrial fibrillation does not warn. Apple Watch possible hypertension alert system And this is exactly where technology comes in—or should come in—. A smartwatch does not sleep, has no waiting list and does not need you to go see it: it passively monitors whenever you wear it, accumulates months of data and notifies you when it detects an anomaly. Cobos Gil mentioned something that illustrates the difference well: a conventional cardiac holter monitor must be taken for about 24 or 48 hours, and many times it does not capture anything because the arrhythmia does not appear in that time window. With three months of data from the Apple Watch, he says he’s gotten diagnostic information he otherwise wouldn’t have had, and has even “had to anticoagulate patients who were cleared by a Holter monitor.” This gap is especially relevant for the older population, especially if they live alone. Spain is aging fast and a silent heart attack, a fall, or an arrhythmia that is accelerating are situations in which the time between the event and medical attention is everything, and in which not having a family member or caregiver nearby—the child in another city, the grandchildren in another country—creates a very vulnerable situation for these people. These are situations that happen. In Applesfera we have just told the case of a lady who suffered a fall due to an epileptic attack in Torremolinos and his Apple Watch helped everything end in a scare. The striking thing about this is that hospitals already do this type of monitoring in extreme cases. When a modern pacemaker or defibrillator is implanted, the hospital monitors the patient remotely and can intervene if something goes wrong. A watch like the Watch takes that logic from the hospital to home: it allows a son in Madrid to see in real time if his mother’s heart in a town in Teruel is beating strangely, or to receive an alert if she has fallen and hasn’t gotten up. It is not medicine of the future. It is medicine of the present waiting for the system to learn to incorporate it. The limit that no one has set Tim Cook at WWDC 24 What Apple, Samsung, Huawei or Google have built so far is the beginning. Apple has been working for years on non-invasive blood glucose monitoring —without being punctured, through optical spectroscopy—and the most solid rumors suggest that could come to the Apple Watch in 2027 or 2028. Before that, I’m pretty sure we’ll see an AI-powered medical assistant built into the Health app — known internally as Mulberry Project— trained with your real clinical data. Tim Cook has been repeating for years that the Apple’s greatest contribution to humanity will be in healthcare. What it doesn’t say is exactly how far. Because the question that these devices do not answer is one that seems very important to me: Where do they set the limit for themselves, and who sets it for them from the outside? Early detection of … Read more

Mercadona and the white label had been setting the course for supermarkets in Spain for years. Until the “ultra low cost” arrived

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When we Spaniards go out shopping we value above all two factors. The first, proximity. The second, the price. Even above the quality. It is not at all surprising if we take into account that we come from a inflationary crisis and there are items of common consumption (cocoa, coffee either eggs) who have experienced a real storm in recent months. The chains know how much they are risking with each euro and have acted accordingly. For example with a bet on the white label that has been especially good to Mercadona. There is, however, another strategy that has been gradually making its way into the world. retail Spanish, one also focused on prices, but that does not rely on white label or short assortment: supermarkets “ultra low cost“. “Ultra low cost“? Exact. It sounds somewhat far-fetched (almost, almost cacophonous) but that is the label that best defines certain supermarket chains that have focused their strategy basically on product discounts. double digit. After years of inflation and with costs becoming a decisive factor When families decide where to shop, most chains try (to a greater or lesser extent) to be competitive in prices. In fact in the rankings Cheaper stores usually include brands such as Alcampo, Family Cash or Aldi. In the case of super “ultra low cost“The price is, however, more than just a front on which to compete. It represents the great differentiating factor. And it is to such an extent that it conditions the approach, the offer and the way the chain operates. In a recent article, Five Days reviewed the billing data of two relatively young firms that fit this pattern: Sqrups and Primaprix. What differentiates them? That in a sector (that of supermarkets) in which it seemed that everything had been said, with Mercadona expanding your domain and the white label gaining market sharethe “ultra” chains low cost“have found an alternative path of growth. Their strategy involves offering items from recognized brands (nothing from Hacendado, Deliplus, Auchan or similar), but with surprisingly low prices. As an example, Sqrups boasts of offering its customers “significant discounts” that move between 30 and 80%. How do they work the miracle? With your business model. More like its supply model. Unlike most supermarket chains, they supply surpluses that are left ‘off the hook’ or have no place on the shelves of companies such as Carrefour, Eroski, Mercadona or Hipercor, among others. These are surplus stocks, items that do not quite work, merchandise that has been left out of the circuit due to a change in packaging or not meeting presentation standards… In short, items in good condition that manufacturers need to liquidate and cannot (or want) to distribute through ‘conventional’ chains. Their destination ends up being Sgrups or Primaprix, where they add to a catalog marked by rotation, speed and discounts. But… How do they do it? “Large international brands usually have surplus stocks in their warehouses, left over from promotions (Christmas, summer, events…), from new launches or simply products with a much lower price in one country than in another. At Primaprix we travel throughout Europe hunting for these opportunities,” details the companywho remembers that he opened his first store in Madrid in 2015 and in just ten years he has built a network of 260. Sgrups’ explanation is similar. “We recover products that, under normal conditions, distribution throws away,” clarifies its general directorRaúl Espinosa, who boasts that thanks to its discounts the chain sells products with prices much lower (50-80%) than those on the market. The company ensures that its assortment comes from three sources: “production surpluses, image changes and quality control.” It also incorporates “short-dated” products. “In the last year we have rescued more than 26 million products, preventing them from being destroyed and giving them a second chance for consumption,” the company specifiesborn ago just over a decade and that works with food, but also drugstores, stationery and hygiene items. The big question: why? Because this formula has allowed them to connect with a part of the market and expand in a sector, that of retail Spanish, in which a small number of brands have been expanding their dominance. “Companies like Sqrups or Primaprix break the differentiation with the rest of the operators thanks to this supply model,” explains to Five Days Javier Pérez de Leza, good knowledge of the sector. “Mercadona, Lidl or Aldi have dedicated themselves to a type of discount that leaves room below, because the price trend is upward. You can be much cheaper than all of them, although with risks.” What risks? One (fundamental) is the pressure that operators in the sector can exert to reduce the surpluses that these chains feed on, although it is not the only limit that the model of companies like Primaprix faces. Relying on stocks makes it very difficult to guarantee the continuity of an ever-changing assortment. Furthermore, the fact that customers encounter different products every so often may increase their interest in visiting stores but also complicates such basic issues as logistics. What do your accounts say? That neither of the two chains are doing badly at all. Primaprix data we know them also thanks to Five Dayswhich a few days ago revealed that during the 2024 financial year the company had a turnover of 347 million euros. Maybe it’s far from billions from Mercadona, but it represents a year-on-year growth of 24%. If we look further back, the company’s sales quadrupled between 2020 and 2024, a period during which it went from managing 110 stores to 245. Now it is on its way to 300 establishments. The key: your business modelwhich is nourished by the surpluses accumulated in the warehouses of large manufacturers. Your catalog is completed with purchases you make in other countries, looking at prices, discarded items despite being completely suitable for consumption, or products that will expire soon. A bet not very different from what fashion or furniture outlets have been making for years. They are merchandise (many … Read more

An Asturian is setting up a garage with dream supercars in Monaco: Fernando Alonso

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That a Formula 1 driver like Fernando Alonso buys a sports car is not something that should attract attention. However, when these purchases occur over time and refer to some of the most iconic classic cars or the most spectacular hypercars on the market, the result is one of the best collections of cars. Alonso has surprised everyone with his latest acquisition: a Lamborghini Sián FKP 37the Italian brand’s most extreme hybrid supercar, of which only 63 units have been manufactured in the world. This car, which costs more than 4 million euros in the current market, has the license plate number 14, a personal nod from the Asturian driver to the number he wears on his helmet. The Lamborghini supercar joins the two-time world champion’s spectacular car collection in Monaco, where he lives and can be seen behind the wheel of these jewels. Lamborghini Sian FKP 37: the newcomer Alonso has been seen on the streets of Monaco at the wheel of one of the most technological bulls that have come out of Sant’Agata Bolognese: the Lamborghini Sián FKP 37. Lamborghini’s limited edition hypercar combines a 6.5-liter, 785 HP naturally aspirated V12 engine with an electrical system based on supercapacitors that raises total power to 819 HP. It accelerates from 0 to 100 km/h in 2.8 seconds and exceeds 355 km/h maximum speed. There are only 63 coupes of this model, a number that is not coincidental since it pays tribute to the year 1963, when Lamborghini began manufacturing sports cars. This model began production in 2019 and its selling price was 3.3 million euros. However, its exclusivity and appeal to collectors have caused its price to skyrocket to well over 4 million euros. Tap on the image to go to the original message The Instagram account @monaco_luxurystyle captured the moment in which the Asturian pilot he got off of the exclusive Lamborghini with the 14 on its license plate on the streets of Monaco. Classic vintage Ferraris In recent months, Alonso has expanded his garage with classic cars such as the Ferrari 512 TR as the one Michael Jordan drove in the 90s, which represents his taste for the Italian classics of the firm Il Cavallino. The 512 TR was the evolution of the Ferrari Testarrosa powered by a V12 engine that delivered 428 HP of pure fun. Shortly after, was seen driving another legend through the streets of Monaco: a Ferrari F40 with its license plate F014, a beast from the 80s known for the brutality of its V8 biturbo engine that delivered 478 HP with just over 1100 kg of weight, and for being the last one that had the approval of Enzo Ferrari. There are not only Ferraris: also exclusive Mercedes-Benz and Fords The two-time champion’s garage is not only nourished by the Italian automobile industry. Among its latest additions we also find a Mercedes-Benz CLK GTRone of the most extreme and exclusive cars of the German firm, of which only 26 units exist. Again, the spotters were witnesses of Alonso’s rides behind the wheel of his supercars through Monaco. Mercedes manufactured these units with the sole objective of complying with the regulations for the FIA ​​GT Championship, which is the natural habitat of this hypercar from the late 90s. That is, contrary to what usually happens, the competition unit was first designed to participate in Le Mans, and was later adapted to circulate. The CLK GTR has a 6.9-liter naturally aspirated V12 engine that delivers 600 HP with a six-speed sequential gearbox. In their day, these limited units cost between 1.5 and 2 million euros. Currently, this gem is valued at about 10 million euros. Ford GT Holman Moody Edition He Ford GT Holman Moody Edition It was another of the Asturian pilot’s whims. This limited edition is a tribute to the 1966 Le Mans-winning Ford GT40 Mk II, a version that was developed from an exclusive prototype that was auctioned a few days ago. Aston Martin: playing at home In addition to the great racing classics and classic sports cars, Alonso does not neglect the interests of his team, and it is common to see him at the controls of an Aston Martin model. The most spectacular is the Valkyrie that sports the colors of Aston Martin Racing and its distinctive 014S license plate that identifies it as the property of the driver. The Valkyrie is a brutal hypercar for the track, but which is allowed to circulate on the road, not without drawbacks. Recently the brand gave him an imposing Aston Martin DBX S in black, a powerful SUV with more than 700 HP to get around in your daily life. However, the car with which Alonso feels more comfortable It is an Aston Martin Valiant, with a 745 HP biturbo V12 engine, manual transmission and configuration customized by Alonso among the 38 units that will be manufactured of this model. 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 | Aston Martin, Ferrari

Setting up a smart home is a nightmare. The solution is Huawei is to set it up for them

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The promise of the smart home where everything works automatically without a problem sounded great, but the reality is that it is still a real chaos of incompatibilities and most annoying bugs. Even if we have all the devices from the same brand, there is still the part of assembling them, hiding cables… Huawei has the solution, although it doesn’t exactly come cheap. The complete pack They count in Panda Daily that Huawei has launched an offer of smart-home solutions that come in various packages with different devices and at various prices. The packages are designed to be installed in new construction homes and also for installation in already built homes. With these options, Huawei seeks to offer a comprehensive solution under the umbrella of your HarmonyOS system. In total they offer six packs, three for new construction homes and three for existing homes. The cheapest is the ‘starter pack’ for already built houses and costs 1,200 euros in exchange and includes the control hub and some essential functions such as lighting, air conditioning and curtain control. The most expensive packages are those installed in newly built homes. The most basic costs more than 3,500 euros in exchange and has WiFi 7 connectivity throughout the house, control of lights, curtains, air conditioning, smoke sensor for the kitchen and smart lock. The premium package goes up to almost 12,000 euros and adds features such as AI cameras, ambient lighting strips, and speakers throughout the house. All packs include installation and Huawei is committed to completing it in just 24 hours in the case of existing homes. The announcement is only for China, where Huawei had already launched similar solutions in the past. The chaos of home automation In Spain there are solutions provided by installation companies, but We do not find similar proposals through brands with smart-home devices such as Samsung or Xiaomi. Typically, we are the users who buy the devices and install them at home ourselves. Mounting cameras and lights is quite simple, but if we want deeper automation, for example controlling blinds or blinds, things get complicated and many times we have to go to an installer. Then there is the issue of compatibility. In my house I have two cameras, several lights, a robot vacuum cleaner and an automatic cat feeder. It’s not much, the problem is that each thing works with a different app and, although I can bring everything together in Google Home, the reality is that there are devices that it does not recognize, others that are deconfigured if the WiFi goes down and in general it is quite cumbersome. The standards like matter They promised to unify this chaos, but to this day it still hasn’t taken off. This same year they analyzed the topic in XDA Developerswhere they criticized that there are still many devices that do not support it and those that do sometimes lose functions compared to native integrations, as happens with Philips Hue. Returning to Huawei’s proposal, I don’t think the solution should be to buy a package worth several thousand euros and tie ourselves to a brand forever. However, the fact that it sounds like a much more convenient option than its alternatives It says a lot about the state of the connected home landscape. Image | Huawei In Xataka | Home automation and leaving for a month: Ana Boria has put all her efforts to the test just before the expected trip

It costs 539 euros and is a 65-inch QLED TV ideal for setting up your home theater

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Now that the temperatures have dropped, the movie, sofa and blanket plan is ideal for many during the fall-winter season. If you are thinking of buying a new TV for your home, now at Powerplanet you have this one available at a discount Samsung Q7F QE65Q7FAAU 65 inches. You can buy it for 539 euros. Samsung Q7F QE65Q7FAAU 65″ QLED 4K Ultra HD Smart TV WiFi Black The price could vary. We earn commission from these links An ideal TV to set up your own home theater Belonging to the Q7F familythis TV from the Korean company mounts a 65-inch diagonal QLED panel with a Supreme UHD Dimming LED lighting system. Offers 4K Ultra HD resolution and is compatible with HDR10+ and incorporates Filmmaker Mode. As far as sound is concerned, its speakers offer an RMS power of 20 W, although you can boost the audio with a sound bar. Regarding the operating system under which it works, it is tizen And, in addition, this TV is compatible with the Google Assistant and Alexa voice assistants. Can be mounted on the wall by VESA mount 200×200 and incorporates a wide connectivity section. Specifically, it comes with WiFi 5, Bluetooth 5.3Ethernet port, one USB-A port and three HDMI ports. Some accessories that may interest you for this TV Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K, Streaming device compatible with Wi-Fi 6, Dolby Vision, Dolby Atmos and HDR10+ The price could vary. We earn commission from these links SAMSUNG Sound Bar HW-B400F/ZF The price could vary. We earn commission from these links Some of the links in this article are affiliated and may provide a benefit to Xataka. In case of non-availability, offers may vary. Images | Samsung In Xataka | To set up a home theater, I am clear about which projector I would choose: it is wireless and has good speakers In Xataka | How to choose the ideal TV size: what manufacturers say vs. what the experts say

setting a time in Spain will always leave losers

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The week started with Pedro Sánchez announcing that “the Government of Spain will propose to the EU to end the seasonal time change”. Immediately afterwards, the marmorena got involved. And not because the idea does not have popular support: when in 2018 the European Commission held his famous public consultation On the subject, 8 out of 10 people were in favor of ending it. The problem is another and much more thorny: what schedule do we stick with? The experts are clear about it. In fact, the consensus between specialists from the SES (Spanish Sleep Society) and many other international companies It’s surprising: science is with winter time. It is the time that (on paper) ensures better alignment with natural light, limits “social jet lag” and appears to consistently yield better health and safety results. “Winter time makes it easier to have more hours of sleep and a more natural awakening that coincides with dawn. If there were a permanent summer time, in the winter months there would be a lack of light in the morning and in the summer months an excess of light at night, a situation that imbalances the internal clock and can cause poor performance and vulnerability to certain diseases,” explained the SES in its public positioning. Martín Olalla, the great Spanish expert on these topics and a historical opponent of the elimination of change of seasonal time, often insists that the evidence makes it clear that the benefit is very limited. However, when choosing one of them, the winter one wins. And then everything becomes strange. Because, although no one says it explicitly, in the popular imagination “permanent schedule” is associated with an “eternal pseudo-summer” full of long afternoons to comfortably enjoy the little leisure that day-to-day life leaves us. But let’s face it, that’s not going to happen. Daylight saving time has problems. The main one is that enjoying “long afternoons” throughout the year condemns the west of the peninsula to sunrises around ten in the morning. For landing it in a specific way. In A Coruña, in the middle of the winter solstice, dawn at 10:03 in the morning and it would get dark at 17:01. Something that is, clearly, unfeasible. A zero sum game. In the end, the seasonal time change is a compromise solution that tries to adjust the civil time to the variability of the days. It is probably a bad solution, but it helps mitigate the problems that would arise when opting for either of the other two schedules in a stable manner. After all, with winter time Galicia, Asturias, Extremadura and western Andalusia would win; while they would lose the Mediterranean and the Balearic Islands. We would avoid very late sunrises in winter and we would improve sleep, health and the morning security. The problem is that you kill the afternoons, which is the only socially attractive thing about making a permanent schedule. And that “game” is not only regional. It is also economical. There are economic sectors such as tourism or hospitality, that prefer bright afternoons; but there are many others, such as school or industry, that prefer earlier sunrises. Sometimes, phrases like “the time zone or time that corresponds to us” give the impression that the schedule is something ‘natural’: that the clock is neutral and all we have to do is adapt to it. But not. Nothing is neutral: opting for daylight saving time, winter time or daylight saving time is deeply political. Something that, whether we like it or not, prioritizes some over others. It’s not a problem, what we have now does too. The problem is another. It is walking towards the abolition of the time change without being aware of it and, above all, without being prepared for it: thinking that abolishing the time change will end all our chronoproblems is ‘magical thinking’. It will create others and, for the first time in more than a hundred years, we will not be able to blame it on the seasonal time change. Image | Moncloa | Jon Tyson In Xataka | The war that ended at two different times: the time change has been giving Spaniards headaches for almost a century

It was inaugurated in 2014 as the largest solar thermal energy plant in the world. Will close after setting fire to birds

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The huge Ivanpah thermosolar energy plant, opened in 2014 in the Mojave desert, will close after just 11 years of operation. An accelerated end for its history of technical, economic and environmental problems. Context. The thermal concentration energy, once considered one of the most avant -garde technologies for clean electricity generation, is not going through its best moment. Especially in Nevada, where Crescent Dunes fiasco was already very popular. The concentration thermoso use thousands of mirrors, or “heliosteats”, which follow the trajectory of the sun to concentrate its light on central towers. In these towers, extreme heat is used to heat water and produce steam, which drives turbines connected to electric generators. The Ivanpah case. The Ivanpah plant was built with an investment of 1.6 billion dollars in loans from the United States Department of Energy and long -term contracts for important electrical companies. It was the world’s largest solar thermal energy Until the inauguration of Port Augusta In Australia. 11 years after its inauguration, the huge thermosolar has begun to close by not fulfilling its initial expectations. The lack of profitability condemned her. A succession of failures and complaints from environmental groups for their impact on wildlife accelerated their end. A complex technology. One of the main problems has been the difficulty of maintaining mirrors aligned precisely. Technology, which requires an exact monitoring of the sun, has proven unstable and unreliable in practice, says a CNN report. The maintenance of the complex mechanisms and the management of the turbines in turn generate high operating costs, which has made concentration thermosar loses competitiveness compared to other renewable technologies, especially photovoltaic solar, whose prices have collapsed. A Bird Incinerate Machine. Criticisms are not limited to technical aspects. The Ivanpah plant has been questioned for years for its environmental impact, especially in the wildlife of the desert. Environmental groups denounce the irreparable damage in the habitat of species such as desert turtle. But also The death of birds that are incinerated by intense rays concentrated by mirrors. A second Crescent dunes. The case of Crescent Dunes, also occurred in Nevada, reinforces this image of failure of the thermosolar energy. This project, which was intended to be one of the milestones in energy innovation and storage through molten salts, ended up becoming a multimillionaire waste. Developed By the Spanish group ACSpromised continuous production of electricity, even during the hours without light, thanks to the thermal storage in salts. In practice, Crescent Dunes never managed to deliver the amount of promised energy and ended up breaking due to engineering and management problems. In the shadow of the photovoltaic. In short, the rapid drop in photovoltaic technology and its lower impact on wildlife have obsolete concentration thermos. While solar panels have gained efficiency and reducing their installation and maintenance costs, thermosolar plants have lagged behind in terms of competitiveness, which has led to investors and electrical companies reconsidering their bets in this type of projects. In Xataka | The first solar plant of Central Torre to explode commercially is in Seville: a pioneer that has survived more ambitious

After setting upside down the AI ​​industry, Depseek launches its first model that understands and creates images: Janus Pro

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In full hangover for its model R1Deepseek has just launched Janus Pro 7ban AI model to generate images from text and understand other images that are introduced. And yes, it is also open source, although with An asterisk similar to the flame. Why is it important. Until now, multimodal models have had to juggle between understanding and generation of images, sacrificing efficiency or performance. Janus Pro 7B resolves this dilemma with a new proposal: unifies the understanding and generation of images in a single architecture. Innovation. The model introduces a “double track” system for visual processing: Separate the coding paths to understand and generate images. It maintains a single transformer to process all the information. Use Siglip-l as visual encoder for 384×384 pixels. Janus Pro comparative in the face of your predecessor for several applications. Image: Deepseek. This resolution is its main inconvenience, it seems much more oriented to already experience uses of little ambition than to the applications that we can assume other proposals such as Midjourney either Freepikwhich usually start from 1024×1024 pixels. However, Janus Pro is not a generator of images to use, but a multimodal model with several capacities. Of course, this resolution allows an optimal balance between quality and processing speed … for uses that are conducted with it. Between the lines. Janus Pro 7B’s architecture is especially relevant for its efficiency: Compact size of 7,000 million (“7b”) of parameters. Higher performance to larger specific models. Open source under MIT license for the repository, although the model itself requires accepting the Deepseek license. The MIT license It allows anyone to use, modify and distribute the code freely, even for commercial purposes, provided that the original copyright notice is maintained. It is one of the most permissive licenses that exist. The Deepseek licenseon the other hand, it is free and allows commercial uses, but includes specific ethical restrictions, such as the prohibition of military use or the generation of misinformation. In perspective. Janus Pro 7B is not only another multimodal model, but a new paradigm in the architecture of IAS that can see and create. Its unified but decentralized approach may well end up influencing future developments. The model is built on Deepseek-Llm-7b-Basethe base language model of the Chinese startup, announced in August 2024. of it inherits its language processing capabilities while adding advanced visual abilities. Its 16X subsample system for the generation of images allows you to maintain efficiency without compromising quality. Outstanding image | Deepseek, Xataka with Mockuuuups Studio In Xataka | We knew that US Big Tech had a problem with the costs of their AI. Deepseek has just shown to what extent

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