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the story of how Ridley Scott blew our minds in the most terrifying scene in cinema

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One of the most disturbing inspirations of Alien He was not born in a Hollywood studio, but in a doctor’s office. For years, screenwriter Dan O’Bannon suffered from Crohn’s disease and he described some episodes as the sensation of having something alive trying to break through from inside him. That experience would end up becoming in the seed of one of the most disturbing images in the history of cinema. The scene that changed terror. In 1979, Ridley Scott took a unusual decision even by horror film standards: hiding from their own actors a good part of what was going to happen during one of the key sequences from Alien. The director was convinced that performed fear could never equal real fear. The script barely indicated that “something emerges”but the exact appearance of the creature, the amount of blood, the violence of the scene and the way everything was going to unfold remained deliberately hidden for most of the cast. That commitment to surprise would end up giving rise to one of the most shocking, imitated and studied scenes in the entire history of cinema. The origin of the nightmare. The famous chestburster sequence It was not born solely from the imagination of its creators. Dan O’Bannonscreenwriter of Alien, wore years fascinated by parasites and by some of the most brutal reproductive mechanisms in the insect world. Wasps that lay eggs inside other animals, larvae that grow by feeding on a living host, and organisms capable of controlling the behavior of their victims served as inspiration for the creature. To this added an experience much more personal: the severe intestinal pain derived from Crohn’s disease that O’Bannon himself suffered from. The feeling of having something growing and fighting By coming out of his interior he ended up becoming the central idea of ​​the monster that would end up terrifying the public. The battle for the perfect alien. Once the idea was conceived, O’Bannon knew exactly who should give it visual form. During his experience in the failed project of Dune by Alejandro Jodorowsky had discovered the work of the Swiss artist HR Gigerwhose biomechanical illustrations mixed sexuality, death, bones and machinery in a way never seen before. The problem was that the producers and the studio considered those images too disturbing and they resisted hiring him for months. Everything changed when Ridley Scott joined the project, saw Giger’s designs and was completely fascinated. Their support was decisive in incorporating the artist, a decision that would end up defining the visual identity of Alien and much of subsequent science fiction. A monster inspired by nature. The creature was also not conceived as a simple aggressive alien. O’Bannon wanted his life cycle to be as disturbing as it was plausible. The facehuggerin charge of implanting the embryo in the victim’s body, was born from the combination between the screenwriter’s ideas, Giger’s designs and the work of various artists and technicians. The goal was to create an organism that would use humans as involuntary guestsreproducing in a horror key some behaviors observed in real insects. The true horror of Alien came not only from the physical violence, but from the loss of control over one’s body and the feeling of becoming a vessel for something unknown. Preparing for the big shock. Ridley Scott was aware that the alien birth sequence would decide the success or failure of the film. If the public took it as a joke, the whole threat would disappear. That’s why he spent weeks perfecting the creature’s design and carefully planning the shoot. HE built an artificial torso for John Hurt, the actor who played Kane, and a complex hydraulic system was installed under the table. The fake breast was stuffed with real organs obtained in butcher shops and slaughterhouses, in addition to seafood and organ meats that provided a texture that was impossible to reproduce with the effects of the time. To give us an idea, the smell was so intense that the cast themselves I would remember decades later the mixture of formaldehyde, blood and decaying flesh that permeated the set. Giger airbrushing an alien hieroglyph showing the violent and parasitic life cycle of the Alien The best kept secret. The actors knew that something was going to come out from Kane’s chest, but they were practically unaware everything else. While technicians worked for hours preparing the special effect, the cast remained away from the set. When they were finally called to film, they found a stage covered with plasticscameras protected by transparent tarps, buckets scattered everywhere and team members wearing raincoats. Nobody explained to them the reason. That strange atmosphere generated a growing tension that Scott deliberately sought. I wanted the cameras to capture real uncertainty, not just interpretations. Giger’s first failed attempt to create a chest-busting alien, inspired by Francis Bacon Reality surpassed acting. The filming was not as simple as it is usually remembered. The first attempts failed because the creature could not properly pass through Kane’s shirt and some blood systems were blocked. However, these errors had an unexpected effect: They further increased the anxiety of the actors, who saw how something seemed to try to make its way from inside their partner’s body without understanding exactly what was happening. When the tiny bug finally managed to emerge and jets of blood began to shoot in all directions, the reactions were authentic. Veronica Cartwright received a direct hit in the face that she did not expect and ended up emotionally overwhelmed. Sigourney Weaver confessed that at that moment she was not even thinking about the film, but about John Hurt. Yaphet Kotto was so affected that, according to several testimoniesisolated himself for hours after filming. The scene that no one forgot. There is no doubt, Scott got exactly what he was looking for. The expressions of astonishment, horror and revulsion that appear on the screen belong largely to people that they were living something unexpected before your eyes. The director summarized years later … Read more

The incredible story of the tallest building on the planet that ended up becoming the largest swimming pool in the Soviet Union

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During the coldest winters of the Soviet Union, there was a place in Moscow where thousands of people they continued bathing outdoors while huge clouds of steam completely covered the landscape. In fact, from some points in the city the silhouettes of the swimmers could barely be distinguished among the artificial fog. For many foreign visitors, that scene seemed more like something out of a science fiction movie than in the center of a Soviet capital. I don’t remember spaces that have given so much, literally. The cathedral that Stalin erased from the map. Yes, for decades, one of the strangest places in Moscow was that huge smoking circle where thousands of people swam under the snow without thinking much about what had existed there before. The fascinating thing is that that place had first been the largest orthodox cathedral of Russia, then the land chosen to build the tallest building on the planet and finally the outdoor pool bigger. Today, on that same site, it rises again a gigantic cathedral golden Few stories explain so well how architecture can become an ideological battle permanent between empires, revolutions and erased memories. The monument that celebrated the defeat of Napoleon. The story began after Napoleon Bonaparte’s withdrawal from Russia in 1812, when Tsar Alexander I promised to raise a huge cathedral in honor of Christ the Savior as thanks for the survival of the Russian empire. The project went through decades of delays, design changes and ideological disputes until it became a gigantic cathedral orthodox partially inspired by Hagia Sophia of Constantinople. Its construction took more than forty years and the final result completely dominated Moscow skyline with huge golden domes visible from the Kremlin. The building represented the union between religion, monarchy and Russian imperial power at a time when the country was trying to project itself as a great European power. The ancient Cathedral of Christ the Savior Stalin wanted to erase the old Russia and build something greater. After the Revolution of 1917the Bolsheviks began a fierce campaign against religion because they considered that the new Soviet society couldn’t share space with symbols of the old imperial order. Churches were closed, confiscated or reused as warehouses, cinemas or homes, but the Cathedral of Christ the Savior It was too visible to survive. In 1931, by direct order of Joseph Stalin, the building was demolished with explosives to make way for to the most delirious project of Soviet architecture: Palace of Soviets. The plan was to build a 415 meter colossus crowned by a gigantic statue of Lenin about one hundred meters high, a building so enormous that it would have surpassed any existing skyscraper on the planet. The objective was not only architectural. Stalin wanted to physically demonstrate that Soviet communism had forever replaced the old, religious, tsarist Russia. This is how the Palace of the Soviets would have looked The tallest building on the planet never came into existence. The architect Boris Iofan He spent years obsessed with that monumental project, designing enormous auditoriums, stepped terraces and spaces designed to glorify the Soviet State and its leaders. It was excavated a gigantic crater next to the Moscova River, the foundation work and part of the metal structure began got upbut reality ended up destroying the Soviet propaganda dream. The terrain was difficult, water continually flooded the area and the German invasion of 1941 definitively paralyzed the works. Much of the steel accumulated for the building ended up reused in fortifications and bridges during the war. What should have been the greatest architectural symbol of world communism ended up becoming a huge muddy hole in the middle of Moscow. Then something even more surreal happened. Instead of resuming the project after the war, the Soviet regime made a completely unexpected decision: transform that immense circular foundation into a gigantic public swimming pool. This is how the Moskva swimming pool was born, inaugurated in 1960 under Nikita Khrushchev. The place became the outdoor pool bigger of the Soviet Union and possibly the world, with 130 meters in diameter and capacity for thousands of people. The water remained heated even in winter, creating huge clouds of steam over the center of Moscow as citizens swam surrounded by snow and sub-zero temperatures. For entire generations of Soviet people, that space stopped being a religious or political symbol and became simply an everyday place where they could learn to swim, meet with friends or escape the cold. The most famous swimming pool in Moscow and its legends. The gigantic circular pond acquired over time a almost mythological fame. The dense columns of vapor made visibility difficult in winter and began to circulate rumors about accidents, drownings and alleged “suicide cults” linked to the ancient sacred ground where the destroyed cathedral had stood. There were also stories about humidity and corrosion that the complex caused in nearby buildings and nearby museums. Still, millions of people used the pool for decades and for many Moscow residents that place ended up forming an inseparable part of their personal memories, even if they knew that they were literally swimming over the ruins of one of the most important temples of imperial Russia. The Cathedral of Christ the Savior restored on what was the largest pool The fall of the USSR changed everything again. With the Soviet collapse, Russia began to recover religious symbols and nationals who had been persecuted for decades. Maintaining the gigantic pool turned economically unsustainable due to the enormous cost of heating and electricity, while a movement grew that demanded the reconstruction of the original cathedral. In 1994 the pool was emptied and demolishedand soon after began an accelerated reconstruction financed by donations and institutional support. He new temple was built in just a few years and consecrated in 2000 as a almost exact replica of the building destroyed by Stalin. For many Russians, that reconstruction symbolized the return of religion and Russian historical identity after the Soviet period; For others, it … Read more

A young man has solved a mathematical problem that lasted 60 years in 80 minutes with ChatGPT. That’s the least interesting thing about the story.

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He is 23 years old, his name is Liam Price and he has no advanced mathematical training. Even so, a few days ago he opened the Erdös problem websitepicked one at random and pasted it into ChatGPT. I didn’t know the history of the problem or who had tried it before. What he received back seemed like a good solution, and after consulting with a friend who was studying mathematics, the two realized they might be on to something special. A few hours later Terence Tao, one of the most renowned mathematicians in the world, confirmed that problem #1196 of Erdös, a conjecture about primitive sets of integers that had not been solved since 1966, had a solution. I had found her GPT-5.4 Pro in just 80 minutes. Not like that. This problem analyzed a question about the behavior of a particular mathematical sum on primitive sets, that is, sets of integers where none divides the other, when those numbers become very large. Jared Lichtman, a Stanford mathematician, had spent years on the problem and had made partial progress, but he and those who had tried before were starting from the same starting point that seemed like the right path. A novel idea. GPT-5.4 used another starting point. He stayed in the airmetic terrain and used a special function called von Mangoldt functiona classic tool of number theory known for its connections to prime numbers and Riemann zeta function. No one had thought about that approach to the problem, and as Lichtman explained when talking about the OpenAI model solution, “The LLM took a completely different route.” The achievement is real, but with nuances. Litchman praised the proposed solution by GPT-5.4, but there is one detail that has been omitted in many comments on this event: the raw output of ChatGPT was, in the words of this mathematician, “pretty poor.” This solution made it necessary for several experts to interpret it, detail it and extract from it the underlying idea that allowed the conjecture to be solved. Price didn’t know he had the solution until his friend read it, and he wasn’t sure until Tao confirmed it. The official repository of AI contributions to Erdös problemsmaintained by Tao himself on GitHub, classify the result as a solution generated in human-AI collaboration, not as a solution developed solely by AI. The distinction is important. A previous scandal. A few weeks ago Sebastien Bubeck, a researcher at OpenAI, posted on X that GPT-5 had “solved” several Erdös problems. That publication exceeded 100,000 views, but the mathematical community and also that surrounding the AI ​​industry criticized that statement. Demis Hassabis, CEO of DeepMind, called that statement “shameful.” What had actually happened is that the model I had found solutions to already solved problems on the web. Bubeck finished deleting the original tweet and tried to back down, but all this raised doubts about the validity of the application of AI to solve mathematical problems. AI and the mathematical success rate. Terence Tao and Nat Sothanaphan maintain the aforementioned record of all AI contributions to Erdös problems on GitHub. Each of the entries in that list or table is classified with a traffic light: green for complete solution, yellow for partial progress, and red for failure. In the category of completely AI-generated solutions with no known prior literature there are three green, fourteen yellow, and eight red traffic lights. However, the repository itself adds a unique comment: those who try to use AI to solve these problems and fail do not usually report it, so it is likely that AI has been applied “silently” to a large number of these problems without success, and those attempts do not appear in any table. There is a clear bias here because only successes generate headlines. Trying to measure what matters. In February 2026, eleven mathematicians created the initiative “First Proof“. In it they included ten mathematical problems that arose naturally in their research projects. For each one they included encrypted answers uploaded to a verification site, and they gave the AI ​​systems a week to try to solve those problems that had never appeared in any training data set. Preliminary results indicate that today AI models cannot overcome that barrier autonomously, and what happens is that there are still limits to what AI can really contribute in mathematics. But then, is there a revolution or not? Terence Tao offered a clear explanation as to why GPT-5.4 had succeeded where others had failed for 60 years. What had happened was what he described as a collective blockage of the mathematical community, because everyone started from the same origin because it was “the natural one”, the one marked by tradition. The AI ​​didn’t know that was the “correct” way to start, and that ignorance turned out to be an advantage. It’s not that the AI ​​was smarter, it’s that it had no biases about how to approach the problem. Now it remains to be seen if this novel way of trying to solve problems in unorthodox ways works. This will confirm whether what happened with Erdös’s problem number 1196 was an isolated case or whether a 23-year-old boy has managed to change our vision of how to tackle mathematical problems. Image | Universal Pictures In Xataka | There is a mathematically perfect way to cut a ham and cheese sandwich and it has been discussed since 1938.

the forgotten story of the 11 deaf men of NASA

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In the late 1950s, NASA was very clear that it wanted to send astronauts into space and that that would be the beginning of a new era. Therefore, it was very important to thoroughly study how microgravity could affect the health of human beings. The first step would be to see how sick these travelers would get. And what better way to study it than with a group of people incapable of getting dizzy? Yes, although it may not seem like it, that makes sense. The Gallaudet 11. Gallaudet College, now known as Gallaudet University, was the first school in the world dedicated to the advanced education of the deaf and hard of hearing. That’s why it was there where NASA recruited 11 men between 25 and 48 years oldwhose deafness came mostly from damage to the vestibular system. 10 of them had lost hearing at an early age due to spinal meningitis that had deteriorated this system involved in balance. Having it affected they couldn’t get dizzy. Therefore, by studying their cases, NASA scientists hoped to better understand how seasickness occurs, in order to find the best methods to prevent it. A question of contradictions. motion sickness, also known as motion sicknessis a mechanism of the brain to react when faced with something it detects as contradictory. While the eyes detect that we are still, in a car, for example, the vestibular system, located in the ear, detects that we are moving. Faced with this contradiction, the brain tries to defend itself from danger, causing that feeling of dizziness that alerts us that something is supposedly going wrong. In the case of space travel, the vestibular system loses the reference influenced by gravity that it normally interprets as being in balance. Therefore, a similar effect is produced. But of course, if someone has damaged the vestibular system, it is impossible for them to perceive this type of dizziness. 11 men at the limit. The 11 volunteers recruited for this study They were divided into several groupswho underwent different experiments related to motion sickness and the absence of microgravity. For example, several of them spent 12 days in a slow-rotating room, which rotated 10 times per minute. Many others climbed into centrifugal capsules that they spin at high speed to simulate hypergravity. And possibly those who took it most to the extreme were those who went on microgravity simulation flights in which the aircraft flies upward quickly, stops and drops abruptly. One of these planes is known as the Vomit Comet for reasons that leave little room for the imagination. Unaffected by seasickness. Participants did not feel dizzy in any of these experiments. In fact, in the fourth exercise, in which they had to travel on a ferry in the rough seas of Nova Scotia, the researchers had to cancel the test due to the terrible dizziness they experienced. The 11 volunteers, on the other hand, were playing cards calmly. The benefits for the future. Thanks to these experiments, it was understood that space motion sickness is something temporary and manageable, linked to the vestibular system. Better training was also designed so that astronauts would be ready to avoid getting sick on their trips to space. For all this, although they never traveled to space, they were crucial for the well-being of all those astronauts who did. Their contributions were key in milestones as important as the one we just experienced with Artemis II. Image | POT In Xataka | We knew that Mars has gravity. Now we have just discovered the unexpected effect it has on the Earth’s climate

The NYT published the story of the AI ​​entrepreneur who has a turnover of 1.8 billion with two employees. Forgot to mention a few things

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On April 2, The New York Times public a profile of Matthew Gallagher, a 41-year-old entrepreneur from Los Angeles who with $20,000, the help of his brother and a dozen AI tools managed to create MEDVi. This telemedicine startup sells GLP-1 weight loss drugs and in 2025 had a turnover of $401 million and projects to reach $1.8 billion in 2026. The story went viral and seemed to show that the AI ​​revolution can make you rich if you set up your own sole proprietorship (or almost), but in reality the NYT article left without mentioning important details and disturbing aspects of this business success. 800 fake doctors. In creating MEDVi, Gallaguer created more than 800 Facebook pages that posed as the profiles of individual doctors. Dr. Daniel Foster, Dr. Jacob L. Chandler or Dr. Alistair Whitmore do not exist: they are profiles created by AI, with photos generated with AI, and which precisely serve as support for women between 35 and 55 years old on Facebook who want to lose weight to see these profiles. The NYT article itself commented that photos with models generated by AI appeared on the MEDVi website and that some advertisements They were “AI Slop”. The media talks about me or not really. The company’s official website also showed logos of Bloomberg or The Times as if they had published articles about it when in reality it had barely advertised in said media and then could show that it had appeared in said media. What the article does not mention is the scale of this Facebook profiling operation. The FDA warns. On February 20, 2026, the US Federal Drug Administration (FDA) sent a warning letter (#721455) which was in fact part of a set of similar letters sent to 30 telemedicine companies. This type of letter is not a formal accusation, but rather an “informal and advisory” communication. The reason for the letter to MEDVi were two specific problems on its website. First, the images of the products showed the label “MEDVi”, which in American regulations implies that the company is the manufacturer of these medications, when in reality it is just an intermediary that orders them from external pharmacies. Second, phrases such as “same active ingredient as Wegovy® and Ozempic®” led one to believe that MEDVi’s compounded products had received FDA approval or evaluation, when compounded medications do not go through that process. The NYT did not mention the FDA letter. Medications with uncertain (or no) effectiveness. Part of MEDVi business includes oral compound tirzepatidea product that does not exist in an FDA-approved form. This company falsely presented it as a safe and effective GLP-1 drug for weight loss, even though there is no regulatory-approved variant. The only approved oral GLP-1 requires an absorption enhancer and very controlled administration conditions: MEDVi was selling something that probably did nothing, and in fact laboratories like Lilly have warned of these types of products and have taken legal action to prohibit its sale. A group of people already sued several telemedicine companies for selling “snake oil” as if oral tirzepatide were magic when nothing has been proven. Again, there was no data on this in the NYT article. 1.6 million medical records leaked. MEDVi outsources its medical infrastructure to OpenLoop Health, which the NYT article mentions as “managing doctors, pharmacies, shipping and regulatory compliance.” In January 2026, a cybercriminal managed to access OpenLoop systems and claimed to have obtained the records of some 1.6 million patients including names, contact information, dates of birth and medical information. OpenLoop reported of the intrusion in March 2026 and confirmed that at least 68,000 were affected in the state of Texas alone. If you want clients, the key is spam. MEDVi too has been sued in California for violating this state’s anti-spam laws. According to that lawsuit, MEDVi used an affiliate marketing technique that sent spam using falsified information, spoofed domains, and shipping addresses designed to avoid spam filters. Gallagher noted in The New York Times that “a total of $20,000 was spent on the software and the first month of marketing,” and it is not clear how much of the initial growth was due to practices that are now part of that new legal process. A success story with a dangerous background. The story that NYT tells us is fascinating and seems to effectively point to that future in which a person will be able to set up a successful business with the help of AI. However, in this case the success achieved is overshadowed by the way in which AI was used and the way in which Gallaguer presented his business. The NYT seems to have verified that the company actually earned $401 million in 2025. The question that remains unanswered is what part of that income came from people who bought a drug that probably doesn’t work, promoted by doctors who don’t exist, through an infrastructure that ended up leaking their medical data. Image | MEDVi In Xataka | We believed that GLP-1 drugs were only going to change obesity. They just turned upside down how we treat addictions

To rescue the pilot lost in Iran, the US has told a story worthy of Spielberg. Some explosive images tell a very different story

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In military manuals, rescue missions in enemy territory are as rare as they are dangerous: In decades of modern conflicts, only a few have been successfully completed without becoming a complete disaster. Some have marked history for their failuresothers for their execution to the limit, but most share something in common: the margin of error It is practically non-existent. Two stories for the same mission. When explaining the rescue mission of an American pilot on Iranian territory, Washington has told a story that Spielberg himself would sign: a wounded airman, alone and hiding in a mountain crevice, resisting for almost two days while the enemy searches for him and an elite force that bursts in between explosions to get him out alive. Of course, there is another version that is not narrated by American communiqués, but by some explosive images launched from the Iranian side: destroyed aircraft, improvisation on the ground and an operation that, although successful in its end, seems much more chaotic than what was intended to be conveyed. Between the two, a story full of chiaroscuros is built where epic and uncertainty coexist. The demolition and the race against time. lThe story started several days ago with the downing of an F-15E in Iranian territory, an already exceptional fact as it was the first American fighter lost in combat in years. The two crew members eject, but only the pilot is quickly rescued, while the weapons systems officer is isolated in a hostile mountainous area. From there a race against time: The wounded airman climbs a ridge, hides in a crevice and emits intermittent signals so as not to give away their position, while Iranian forces, militias and even civilians motivated by rewards search the area. For hours, not even Washington is clear if he is still alive. The perfect official version. The American narrative presents the mission as an impeccable display of power and coordination, with special forces, bombers, drones and massive air cover executing one of the most complex rescue operations in its history. There is talk of surgical precision, absolute control of airspace and clean extraction no American casualtiesculminated with a triumphalist message that elevates the operation to a symbol of military superiority. The CIA involvement adds an almost cinematic component, with an apparent deception campaign that confuses the Iranian forces as they locate the pilot “like a needle in a haystack.” A US Army AH-6 Little Bird helicopter The “other” details. However, upon delving into all the data that has been appearing, important cracks appear in the story. The first rescue attempt fails under enemy fireseveral helicopters are damaged and at least one A-10 falls during the operation, which already calls into question the idea of ​​total control. It happens that the final extraction is not goes as planned. How much? Apparently, two special operations planes were trapped on the ground after their wheels sank on a makeshift runway, forcing emergency reinforcements to be sent and, attention, to destroy them later to prevent them from falling into Iranian hands. The images of the place They show charred remains of aircraft and helicopters, evidencing a much more eventful and risky operation than the official story suggests. The ambiguity of combat. Because another key point is the nature of the confrontation. While some versions speak of a “mass shooting”other more detailed sources indicate that there was no direct combat sustained on the ground, but rather air strikes against approaching Iranian forces. This difference is neither trivial nor minor, because it actually transforms a narrative of heroic confrontation in a very different where technological and aerial superiority was the truly decisive factor, reducing the drama of hand-to-hand combat, but increasing the feeling of distance between what was told and what happened. Propaganda, perception and war of stories. If you like, everything indicates that the rescue was not only a simple military operation, but a narrative battle in the middle of war. From the sidewalk in Washington, the story became a kind of “Easter miracle” useful for bolstering domestic support and projecting strength. However, from the sidewalk of Tehran, the simple fact of having shot down the plane It already served as proof that he could challenge the United States. In that context, every detail counts the same that every omissionbecause control of the story is almost as important as the tactical result. Success with many shadows. The pilot seems to have been finally rescued and that, in military terms, marks the success of the operation. However, the path to achieve it reveals something more complex: a mission on the edge, with failures, improvisation, extreme risks and decisions made on the fly that contradict the image of perfect execution. Perhaps for this reason, between the story that seems written for the cinema and the one revealed by the smoking remains on the ground, it remains a conclusion most uncomfortable: even the most successful operations can hide a reality much more fragile than one wants to admit. Image | US MARINE In Xataka | The US is going to end its war in the Middle East with a very uncomfortable reality: Iran had years of advantage underground In Xataka | If the question is “how close are we to an escalation in Iran,” the answer is US A-10s flying there

On paper they look very similar, but experience tells a different story

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In the midst of the rise of streaming platforms, there are still many reasons to buy an Amazon Fire TV Stick or a Xiaomi TV Box. You may want to convert an old TV into “Smart” or you simply want to try another way of consuming content on that screen. But deciding that you want to buy one of these devices is just the first step. The next, and perhaps the most important, is to choose which one best fits what you are looking for. As with any other category of technology products, the decision is not always easy. Several factors come into play that should be evaluated before investing our money. And this is where the Xataka team comes in: we like to try things so you don’t have to. Ana Boriawhich already has thoroughly analyzed devices like the Plaud Note Pro either various smart watcheshas decided this time to put his television to the test to clear up any doubts. Two ways to bring streaming to your television In this Versus, our partner compares the Amazon Fire Stick and the Xiaomi TV Box in key aspects such as image quality. “If we talk about image quality, both devices support content 4K at 60fps“, in addition to being compatible with HDR 10+ and Dolby Vision content,” he comments. And that’s where the interesting part begins. If the two share these specifications, the question almost arises by itself: are there really reasons to choose one over the other? Ana’s tests go further and also address an aspect that for many users can make a difference: the installation of applications. “Last year Amazon announced that it would begin blocking some unofficial applications and even the download of APKs,” he explains, pointing out a relevant difference between both proposals. Now, the situation may not be as clear-cut as it seems at first glance, and in the video you will find the keys to understanding what is happening. The analysis also focuses on other important sections such as the operating system, connectivity or gaming, a field that is increasingly gaining more weight in this type of devices. “With both devices I have been able to install the applicationsconnect the controls and play, but I have not had a perfect experience with both of them,” our colleague advances. If you want to discover which round each device won, which ended up winning in this Versus and what conclusions Ana drew after testing them thoroughly, we invite you to watch the video that we have just published on our YouTube channel. And, as always, we’d love to read from you in the comments: your feedback helps us continue fine-tuning our testing and also inspires future analysis. Images | Xataka In Xataka | Netflix spends 17 billion on producing content and YouTube does it for free. And that’s why YouTube is winning the game

Marlon Brando rejected an Oscar in 1973. His authentic story is worthy of the best thriller film

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On March 27, 1973, Marlon Brando rejected the Oscar for Best Actor for ‘The Godfather’ as a protest against the treatment of Native Americans. What no one knew then is that the statuette would not disappear, but would tour through some very famous hands in Hollywood, among others Roger Moore and Charlie Chaplin. This is the story of a prize that never existed and, even so, was doubled The rejection. On March 27, 1973, before an audience of 85 million viewers, Sacheen Littlefeather took the stage at the 45th Oscars ceremony and rejected the Best Actor award for ‘The Godfather’ on behalf of Marlon Brando. The gesture was historic: it was the first live political speech at the gala, although not the first time that someone rejected the statuette (Brando was preceded by screenwriter Dudley Nichols in 1936 – out of solidarity with the Writers Guild – and actor George C. Scott in 1971 – who called the ceremony “a two-hour meat parade” -). But what happened to the statuette after that night was a mystery that lasted decades. What no one saw. Sacheen Littlefeather never touched the statuette. Roger Moore (a few months away from debuting as James Bond, but already famous for his television role as The Saint) supported her throughout the speech. When Littlefeather left the stage, Moore followed her with the trophy in her hand and verified that no one had devised any protocol for collecting a rejected Oscar. So he took it with him. The 1616. As reconstructed by Bruce Davis, former executive director of the Academy, the statuette (serial number 1616, not 1601 as was believed for years, a failure whose explanation we will now see and which still contaminates multiple chronicles of the journey of this award) accompanied Moore to several parties after the gala. In this way, he presided over tables full of food and drink and received “almost Bondian attention from a good number of women” before stopping for two weeks at the mansion of producer Albert Broccoli. Eventually, Moore’s publicist, Jerry Pam, returned her to the Academy. Jump to 1995. The story seemed closed until, in 1995, the actor turned agent Marty Ingels called a press conference with an explosive statement: a client of his owned the Oscar rejected by Brando and was willing to auction it to benefit a charitable cause. The Academy responded bluntly: that Oscar did not exist. And technically, the Academy was right. Or not at all. Two 1601s. Ingels revealed the trophy’s serial number: 1601. Academy records indicated that number corresponded to a statuette on loan at an exhibition in New York, and a phone call confirmed that it was still there. But then Ingels sent a photograph of the trophy in his possession and indeed, it could be seen that the engraved number was 1601: there were two statuettes with the same number. Something that had never happened since the Academy began recording serials on the trophies in 1950. The explanation for the mess appeared in a record book prior to the computerization of the archives. Above the entry indicating the loan of the 1601 statuette was another line erased with white concealer. Viewed against the light, the page revealed the original text: “1601 — missing during the 45th Oscar ceremony.” The most likely hypothesis, according to Davis, is that the person responsible for the inventory of figurines that night had a duplicate made of the number 1601 and quietly returned it to the archives. But… why? What else happened in that ceremony that led to a duplicate being made? First robbery. The 1601 that Ingels had was not Brando’s Oscar. It was the duplicate of another trophy stolen that same night: video images of the ceremony show that one of the statuettes for the best documentary award, ‘Marjoe’, was left forgotten on the podium when the lights went out for an advertising break. It is, according to Academy records, the only theft of an Oscar directly from the stage in its entire history. Now, Chaplin. While the riddle of the 1601 was being solved, the fate of Brando’s authentic Oscar (the 1616 returned by Moore) took another turn. Charlie Chaplin had won his first Oscar that same year for the soundtrack of ‘Footlights’, a 1952 film that, due to a regulatory loophole already resolved the following year, was eligible twenty years after it was filmed. The Chaplin figurine was mailed to Europe and arrived damaged. Chaplin’s family returned it to the Academy asking for a replacement, and the Academy engraved Chaplin’s name on Brando’s Oscar and sent it to London. Fifty years later. In August 2022, Academy President David Rubin issued a formal apology to Littlefeather in which he called the treatment received for his statements on Brando’s behalf (boos and stamping from the Academy’s leading men) “disproportionate and unjustified” and acknowledged that the damage to his career was “irreparable.” Littlefeather replied wryly.: “It’s only been 50 years. We have to keep our sense of humor; it’s our survival method.” He died on October 2 of that same year, a few weeks after the tribute ceremony that the Academy held in his honor. The trophy marked 1601(A), the duplicate manufactured to cover the theft, never appeared in public again. In Xataka | The 30 best gangster movies: gangsters, triads, camorra and yakuza show the guts of organized crime

In 1997 Winamp forever changed the way we listen to music. This is his story 30 years later

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Perhaps the main topic of this article is a fond memory for you, perhaps you have not yet moved it to that section or perhaps you do not know what we are going to talk about, but if we think about keys in the history of the digitization of music and the mp3 format, we inevitably have to talk about Winamp’s own history. A software that came to your computer in one way or another to listen to your favorite mp3s and create your lists (eventually). Let’s forget the flat designhe material design and all the modern interfaces to remember this precedent of other players, which was not strictly the first either. Who created it and what motivations were there? Why was it losing prominence? If you know him, nostalgia will probably invade you for a little while; if you don’t know him, you may know some of the reasons for his decline. The original broth of Winamp and digital music The popularization of the Internet, the lowering of its rates and the digitization of music meant that the computer began to take on the role of source and player of our songs. Regarding this, it is impossible to ignore a chapter in this story in which piracy was the order of the day, with protagonists like KaZaA or eMule (perhaps more common and longer in time depending on the country). In any case, obtaining a significant number of songs in mp3 format made the players much more required and someone thought that what was offered so far (Windows Media Player, Real Player, etc.) did not satisfy the needs or did not give the option to do so, specifically Justin Frankel and Dmitry Boldyrev (former students of the University of Utah). They created the seed of the player, which was a very simple graphical interface to make the use of AMP more comfortable (Advanced Multimedia Productswhich is considered the first *.mp3 player) on Windows systems (a title bar and a menu bar with a few playback commands). In 1997, Frankel created Nullsoft, his company, and Winamp 1 was released. It was not the only alternative player created to listen to this music format, but it was the one that combined features such as creating playlists or random playback, all in an interface that used to be quite intuitive. It soon became popular, becoming among the most downloaded software in the last 10 years. What started out as free software ended with version 1.5, at which point the license freeware became sharewareso that users had a 14-day free trial after which they would be obliged to pay 10 dollars. The program became popular to the point that Frankel He earned $100,000 a month. And the success did not go unnoticed by what was a great company at the time, AOL, which bought the software from Nullsoft for $80 millionIn fact, the streaming service and the SHOUTcast protocol also remained. Versions 0.2 and 0.92 (right). Winamp version 2.0. Winamp version 3.0. The intention was to create a leading online radio platform like Pandora or Last.FM by unifying the catalogs of Winamp and Warner Music, but they did not achieve it (the existence of one and the absence of the other is the proof). This also coincided chronologically with the launch of the iPod and its song sales platform, iTunes, which although it was somewhat behind in the mp3 revolution, had its role in normalizing the purchase of mp3s to the detriment of piracy in the United States. AOL would eventually dismantle Nullsoft in December 2003, and Frankel left the new parent company in January 2004. In Rocknerd They quote Nullsoft’s Rob Lord regarding the AOL acquisition and what Winamp could have been if it hadn’t been managed by AOL the way it was. “There is no reason why Winamp is not where iTunes is now other than the mismanagement on AOL’s part that began immediately after the acquisition.” Rob Lord, Nullsoft A review of the versions Depending on how familiar Winamp is to you (whether you were a user from the beginning, a recent user or if you have never used it before), one interface or another will have remained in your retina, but the most popular ones may have been from 1.9 onwards, when many new functions and elements were added. on the blog Old Version (now disappeared) made their particular tribute to the app by showing some of the interfaces of these versions that allowed us to recover some images. As we mentioned before, the first version was 0.2 (April 1997), which already went beyond plain text to present an interface with the basic elements of a player (title, play buttons, bitrate, audio output mode, etc.). The dark gray background that would become a hallmark would come with 0.92, in addition to the top bar with yellow lines, and in 1.0 a graphic equalizer, the list editor, a frequency analyzer and the search bar would be added to this. Version 1.6 introduced another of the features that was best received: customization. In addition, they were expanding support for different formats, such as MIDI, *.wave and CDswhich arrived with version 1.91. This interface with the equalizer taking up much of it and the playlist screen may be quite familiar to you. With version 2.0 came the Advanced Visualization Studio (AVS) by default (until then it was a separate plug-in), which allowed you to create rhythm-dependent animations on demand. But it was** in 2002 when Winamp 3** arrived, after the purchase of AOL and completely rewritten at the code level, incorporating a multimedia library, a renewed interface and the only one adapted to Linux of all the existing ones (and video support since 2.9), although there was some rejection as it consumed too many system resources and was somewhat unstable. The interface of the latest version for Mac has nothing to do with those modules with gray backgrounds in versions starting from 2.0. With version 5 in December 2003, the … Read more

a story of love and hate

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To human beings we love to take sides and defend it. We love and hate football teams, foods, cars and clothes, but we also love and hate technology companies. If there are two companies that represent that history, they are Apple, traditionally loved by its users and with a very good image, and Microsoft, which despite its efforts has been massively hated. We do not enter here into value judgments about whether one or the other deserved that love or hate, but we simply expose that this feeling is clearly widespread. This story of love and hate has accompanied us for the last forty years, but now another similar story is beginning to take shape. Still incipient, but striking. It is, of course, how people are starting to hate OpenAI and love Anthropic. The similarities with Microsoft and Apple are striking, especially after the events of recent days and that triangle of loves and heartbreaks that the Pentagon, Anthropic and OpenAI have formed. Two very clear perceptions have ended up emerging from all this scandal. On the one hand, Anthropic has positioned itself as the company that defends ethics and morality. They have not given in to the demands of the Pentagon and they have stuck to their guns, which reputationally has been very positive for her. On the other hand, OpenAI has taken advantage of the moment to steal the government contract from its rival. The perception here is different, and OpenAI has come across as an opportunistic and unscrupulous company. So much so that the impact on popularity has been notable: last Saturday ChatGPT downloads plummeted while Claude’s managed to place her above her rival, who had always dominated that ranking. The effect has been clear: Anthropic has become the good one, the company to love. OpenAI, on the other hand, has become the focus of criticism. In fact, a ‘Cancel ChatGPT’ movement which encourages users to stop using OpenAI AI models. Betrayal, these users seem to say, is paid for. The narrative battle of the good guys and the bad guys Here we are witnessing a unique phenomenon of the evolution of the corporate identity of these companies. While Altman seems to have adopted Bill Gates’ style manual from the 90s —prioritizing aggressive growth, government alliances and market domination—, Dario Amodei positions himself as the “spiritual heir” of that Apple that boasted of “thinking differently”. Anthropic’s refusal to cross certain red lines has served to make the average user feel that by using Claude they are supporting a technology “with a conscience”, so to speak. The curious thing about this story and this rivalry is that Anthropic was precisely born from a split from OpenAI due to ethical differences. There is a certain narrative of purity versus business pragmatism here that again reminds us of the confrontation between Apple and Microsoft since the 80s. OpenAI seems to be the Windows of AI. Meanwhile, Anthropic appears to be the MacBook. These user tantrums usually have an expiration date because human beings we have a very bad memorybut OpenAI still faces clear risks. For example, that this perception of the company complicates talent retention or that Anthropic actually ends up assuming the role of “company that develops ethical AI.” For the latter that is also a risk, because any slip in that immaculate philosophy can be very expensive. In fact, it is already being talked about on networks how Amodei actually he is no saint and your company showed up in January to a competition for a project for swarms of autonomous drones controlled by voice and AI. Thus, we are reviving the assignment of ideological values ​​to technology. Each company wants to position itself differently, but for users everything is once again a matter of good and bad. Users loved Apple computers and hated (or supported) Microsoft computers. Now that debate seems to have moved to AI: we love Anthropic’s because it seems to be ethical, and we hate (or support) OpenAI’s because it is opportunistic. But be careful: this has only just begun. In Xataka | Microsoft had a Discord channel dedicated to AI. They closed it because everyone now calls them “Microslop” Image | Xataka with Freepik

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