talking

We have been talking about “day 996” in Chinese companies for years. The reality is more complex: “day 323”

by

In China there are more than 1.4 billion people and nearly a quarter of its active population works in the public sector, a work universe so enormous that any generalization usually falls short. Thus, between global topics and everyday realities, the distance may be greater than it seems. The myth exported from 996. It we have counted on more than one occasion, but just because something is repeated many times does not mean that it is the norm. We have been hearing for so long that China applies infamous day 996 (working from 9:00 am to 9:00 pm, six days a week), that the concept itself has ended up becoming a symbol of a supposed superhuman work ethic, although in its origin it was a criticism to an abusive model within the technology sector and never a general rule. On paper, Chinese law sets weeks five days and 40 hoursalthough its application is irregular and the official unions lack real power, and although there are sectors such as migrant work or the platform economy where the hours are hard and the scarce rights. In any case, they said in a Foreign Policy report that 996 has prospered in the West because fits the fear It calls for China to “work harder” and surpass its rivals, but that narrative simplifies to the point of dehumanizing those 1.4 billion people. Furthermore, it hides a much more diverse reality. The inheritance of work as ideology. The truth is that Chinese work culture was not born with the technologies of Shenzhen, but with a tradition marked by Maoism and heritage. of Soviet Stakhanovismone where productive sacrifice was glorified and consolidated the social weight of the danwei or work unit. In that sense, he remembered the analyst James Palmer that was not until 1995 when the two-day weekend was formalized, and for decades employment was not only a source of income, but also the core of identity, housing and social network. that past explains the coexistence of intense practices with other deeply bureaucratic ones, where political obedience and compliance with quotas weigh as much as real efficiency. The silent reality of 323. As we said at the beginning, beyond from the myth of 996a significant part of Chinese employment (around 23% of the active population) is concentrated in the public sector, where an informal pattern predominates summarize as 323: three hours of work in the morning, a break of two or even three hours to eat and napand another three hours in the afternoon. That long interruption is, in fact, almost sacred and has withstood reform attemptswith offices that dim lights or enable spaces to rest, in a routine that surprises those who expect constant hyperproductivity. The pace can be lax in quiet times and frenetic at the end of the year to meet administrative objectives, often accompanied by creative accounting adjustments. Bureaucracy, patronage and ghost jobs. They recalled in FP that 323 coexists with less visible practices such as fictitious jobs granted by patronage, from positions where hardly any work is done to positions “without presence” that serve to reward loyalty or avoid formal requirements. In that environment, flexibility and frustration coexist: an office may close during a long break, but also show leniency in the face of formal delays. And when the political leadership hardens the toneas happened with the anti-corruption campaign started in 2013 or with extraordinary demands such as imposed on teachers to register vaccinations in 2022, the intensity increases and many of the amenities temporarily disappear. Mandatory socialization and discipline. Furthermore, it must be taken into account that official work life includes banquets, toast and collective meetings that reinforce hierarchies and informal networks, rituals that can become a burden rather than a privilege and that were briefly contents by disciplinary campaigns before eventually returning. That sway between everyday laxity and political pressure explains why 323 makes sense within the system: it does not respond to an ethic of leisure, but to an administration that alternates phases of low demand with bursts of mobilization. Put clearly: in front of the story simplistic 996reality is more contradictory and less hyperbolic, a fragmented work culture where the working day depends as much on the sector and the political climate as on individual will. Image | International Labor Organization ILO In Xataka | China promised them very happy with day 996. Until they realized that it was a shot in the foot In Xataka | China became famous for its eternal work hours. The solution has been to throw the employees out on time.

Michel Foucault was convinced that “visibility is a trap.” And without knowing it I was talking about our lives with AI

by

I never thought I’d write this, but I’ve been thinking about it for days. Michel Foucault more than I would like. And a back pain is to blame. It was a couple of weeks ago, it was one in the morning and the house had been quiet for a while. That’s where the puncture came. I could have woken up my wife who was 30 centimeters away and, well, she is a doctor; I could have searched on Google; I could have even asked on an Internet forum. And yet, I opened ChatGPT, asked what was bothering me, and shortly after turned off my phone to go to sleep. And I fell asleep right away. But a few days ago, this analysis by Javier Lacort about ChatGPT Health It left me thinking. Not because AI was fully entering the world of health and “medical advice” (something that, on the other hand, I knew firsthand); but because of something that was commented on in it: that “we prefer to ask a chatbot have to wait three weeks for an appointment or have to bother a friend at eleven at night. It hurt a little. There was something interesting there. Eleven at night; one in the morning “The ChatGPT Competition”, Lacort continued“it’s not so much with the doctors as with the emotional support network that we used to have. We asked our mother, our partner, the friend who studied nursing.” But for some time now, “upsetting someone has become emotionally costly.” That last phrase is devastating because it contains the key to something that goes far beyond chatbots with medical uses. Something that goes through Millennials’ problems with calls, with the fishmongers, with sex or with any interaction that is not mediated by a screen: the deep cultural aversion that the modern world has generated to ‘social friction’. And it is curious because, although only in recent years do we see the most striking consequencessociology and cultural analysis have been pointing out what was happening for decades. We have Norbert Elias, for example, who I was convinced that (as part of the prolongation of the civilizing process) the thresholds of shame and discomfort are shifting. What fifty years ago was perfectly normal—calling without warning, asking a favor from an acquaintance, interrupting someone with a question—today borders on the intrusive. What’s more, today we have internalized it. Sennet spoke of the decline of the public sphere (we know how to handle ourselves in privacy and in public transactions, but not in the middle ground); the sociology of emotionstalks about the success of therapeutic lexicon and how that has changed the way we relate; Hartmut Rosa cblame social accelerationprecariousness and lack of time, the loss of effectiveness of reciprocity networks. That is to say, we have many theorists thinking about the same thing: that we are a new type of subject. A subject who has internalized the rules, who manages himself, who evaluates his relationships in terms of emotional cost-benefit and who, above all, experiences direct reciprocity as something frictional, uncomfortable and potentially invasive. And, just then, chatbots appear. I’m not talking about the technology behind it, nor its ultimate nature: I’m talking about the same historical process that has created subjects like this, has created something that “listens to them”, that “is empathetic”, that does not judge them and that helps them as and when it can. Honestly, it would be strange not to throw ourselves into his arms. Can Foucault help us understand all this? Google DeepMind That’s where, I’m afraid, Foucault becomes interesting. In his courses at the Collège de France from the late 70sthe French philosopher explored a whole series of different dimensions of power that, although not obvious, were inseparable from the Modern State. In the past, the State was mainly about controlling borders and collecting some money. But not anymore: now the State manages populations (what it called ‘biopolitics‘ and includes things such as vaccination programs or birth policies) and, at the same time, deals with each subject in its particularity (the so-called ‘pastoral power‘ who through family doctors, social workers, school counselors or psychologists listen to us, advise us and “lead us”). He called the combination ‘governmentality‘: a power that (excuse the ‘expletives’) is at the same time totalizing and individualizing. And those, totalizing and individualizing, are features that seem half-made of technological solutions such as ChatGPT Health. A chatbot that, on the one hand, advises users about their problems, listens without judging, guides us in micro-decisions and knows us (or ‘pretends to know us’) in our particularity; and, on the other, it performs triage, implements protocols, normalizes thresholds, generates aggregate data and, in a short time, will integrate with insurers and health systems. Pastoral and biopolitical, at the same time. And with an incredible infiltration capacity. The difference, and this Foucault could not foresee, is that now this power does not depend on the State, but on a corporation. What was previously a community or ecclesiastical function, then partially state, is now outsourced to private, for-profit infrastructures. It is a privatization of power. The tentacles of the State In the previous section I said that “Foucault could not foresee it”, but I think that is not accurate. It is true that when this thinker theorized about “pastoral power” or “biopolitics,” he was thinking about public officials operating in state institutions. But the wickers were there. After all, Foucault himself, in his last courses (especially in ‘Birth of biopolitics‘, dedicated to analyze ‘neoliberalism’ as arts of government), described a decisive mutation of our time: the State no longer thinks of itself as a provider of services but as a guarantor of the conditions for the market to function. The functions that were previously assumed directly (educate, heal, advise, care) can be outsourced to private agents. In this sense, chatbots are neither an accident nor a distortion; are the logical culmination of the historical process of the development of modern power. From a very specific formulation of … Read more

We thought talking to ChatGPT and other AIs was private. We didn’t have these extensions stealing our conversations

by

There are matters that we would not publish on social networks or comment out loud. However, there they go, flowing in a waterfall of messages towards an artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot, as if it were our best friend. There are no glances, no judgment, no awkward silences. There are answers that, many times, are limited to proving us right or convincing us. But beyond that, an uncomfortable question appears: what if everything we have told could end up in the hands of a third party? What if there is someone else reading those conversations? Opt out in training models or maximizing the security of our account may not be enough. There is another threat that is reaching millions of users these days, and they may not even be aware of it: browser extensions that spy on and steal what is said to chatbots. At the top of the list is Urban VPN Proxy. A Chrome extension with more than 6 million users, rated 4.7 stars and that, until the publication of the cybersecurity report that we will talk about today, showed a “Featured” badge on Google, something that we can still verify in a version archived at the Internet Archive. The discovery. What has set off the alarms is a report published by Koia company specialized in cybersecurity. It is not a generic warning or a hypothesis, but the result of analyzing what these tools do in the background while we browse. When looking at popular extensions, the kind that are installed to gain privacy or security, their researchers detected a worrying pattern: some were capable of reading and sending conversations held with artificial intelligence chatbots outside the browser. A much larger attack surface. The investigation indicates that Urban VPN Proxy did not target a single AI provider, but rather a broad set of popular platforms. ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini either Microsoft Copilot appear among monitored services, greatly expanding the volume and diversity of data potentially captured. These conversations are not trivial: they often include intimate questions, financial information, or details of ongoing projects. Therefore, access to this type of exchange involves a very delicate level of exposure. How conversations are captured. According to the research firm, the mechanism does not depend on vulnerabilities in the chatbots themselves, but on the privileged place that the extensions occupy within the browser. Urban VPN Proxy monitors active tabs and, when the user accesses an AI platform, injects code directly into the page. This code intercepts the requests and responses exchanged with the server before the browser displays them on the screen, allowing access to the full content of the conversation in real time. What Urban VPN Proxy extracted were not jumbled fragments, but entire conversations with their associated context. Koi documents the systematic capture of user messages, AI responses, identifiers for each chat, and temporal data that allows them to be sorted and related to each other. This type of information, crossed over weeks or months, allows us to draw very precise usage patterns. From work habits to personal concerns, the value of the whole lies precisely in its continuity and not in a specific message. The content script that forwards the data It does not depend on activating the VPN. One of the most important nuances of the report is that conversation capture is not tied to the use of the VPN service itself. The mechanism, they explain, works independently, even when the VPN is disabled. It is enough to have the extension installed so that the code responsible for intercepting conversations continues operating in the background. There is no user-accessible switch that allows you to disable this collection without completely removing the browser extension. Conversation collection was not present from the beginning. According to the analysis, Urban VPN Proxy did not include this behavior in previous versions of the extension. The turning point comes on July 9, 2025, when an update is released that activates the capture of conversations with AI platforms by default. From there, any user with the extension installed and automatic updates activated began to execute that new code without an explicit notice comparable to the change in behavior or having to expressly accept that modification. What does “AI protection” promise? In the extension’s tab and in its messages to the user, Urban VPN Proxy presents this feature as an additional layer of security. According to its description, it serves to alert when personal data is entered into a chatbot or when a response includes potentially dangerous links. The problem is that this layer of notifications is not directly related to the collection of conversations. Activating or deactivating warnings does not prevent messages from continuing to be intercepted and sent to the company’s servers. The investigation did not stop at Urban VPN Proxy. By tracing the origin of the code and its behavior, Koi found that the same conversation capture logic appeared in other extensions published by the same publisher. Some present themselves as VPNs, others as ad blockers or browser security tools. Together, there are more than 8 million users between Chrome and Edge, which expands the scope of the problem and explains why researchers talk about an ecosystem and not a specific anomaly. Identified extensions for Chrome: Urban VPN Proxy 1ClickVPN Prox Urban Browser Guard Urban Ad Blocker Identified extensions for Microsoft Chrome: Urban VPN Proxy 1ClickVPN Proxy Urban Browser Guard Urban Ad Blocker Who is behind. Urban VPN Proxy is operated by Urban Cyber ​​Security Inc., a company linked to BiSciencea data intermediation firm, a data broker, as described by Koi. Koi recalls that BiScience had already been the subject of previous investigations by other cybersecurity experts for the collection and commercialization of browsing data. The report frames this case as an evolution of these practices, going from collecting browsing habits to capturing complete conversations held with artificial intelligence systems. The finding also puts the focus on how the user is informed. The extension generically mentions the processing of data related to AI services … Read more

We have been talking theoretically about data centers in space for months. A company already has a plan to set it up in 2027

by

The Californian startup Aetherflux has announced which will launch its first data center satellite in the first quarter of 2027. It is the initial node of a constellation that the company has named “Galactic Brain”, designed to offer in-orbit computing capacity powered by continuous solar energy. The underlying promise. Aetherflux presents an alternative to the years of construction that terrestrial data centers require. According to Baiju Bhatt, company founder and co-founder of the financial firm Robinhood, “the race toward artificial general intelligence is fundamentally a race for computing power and, by extension, energy.” The company is committed to placing sunlight next to silicon and completely bypassing the electrical grid. How the project works. The Galactic Brain satellites will operate in low Earth orbit, taking advantage of solar radiation 24 hours a day, something impossible on land. Advanced thermal systems would eliminate the limitations faced by terrestrial data centers, which require large amounts of water and electricity for cooling. In addition, the constellation fits within Aetherflux’s initial plans: transmitting energy from space to Earth using infrared lasers. The competition is already underway. Aetherflux is not alone in this bet. Google presented in November your Suncatcher projecta plan to launch AI chips into space on solar-powered satellites. Jeff Bezos too expressed his optimism on large data centers operating in space in the next decade or two, a goal that Blue Origin has been working on for more than a year. SpaceX also works in use Starlink satellites for computing loads of AI. Musk himself wrote in The real obstacles. Although launch costs have decreased considerably, they remain prohibitive. According to recent estimateslaunching a kilogram with SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy costs around $1,400. Google calculate that if these costs drop to about $200 per kilogram by 2030, as projected, the expense of establishing and operating space data centers would be comparable to that of terrestrial facilities. In addition, the chips will have to withstand more intense radiation and avoid collisions in an increasingly congested orbit. The urgency. Big tech is colliding with physical limits on Earth. From 2023, dozens of data center projects have been blocked or delayed in the United States due to local opposition over electricity consumption, water use and associated pollution. According to the consulting firm CBRElimitations in electricity generation have become the main inhibitor of data center growth around the world. The Aetherflux Calendar. The company, founded in 2024 and which has raised $60 million in financing, plans to first demonstrate the feasibility of transmitting space energy through a satellite that will launch in 2026. If all goes according to plan, the first Galactic Brain node will arrive in 2027. The company anticipates launching about 30 satellites at a time on a SpaceX Falcon 9 or equivalent, although if Starship becomes an option, they could orbit more than 100 data center satellites in a single launch. The long term strategy. Aetherflux hasn’t revealed pricing yet, but promise Multi-gigabit bandwidth with near-constant uptime. Their approach is to continually release new hardware and quickly integrate the latest architectures. Older systems would run lower priority tasks until the life of the high-end GPUs were exhausted, which under high utilization and radiation might not last more than a few years. Cover image | İsmail Enes Ayhan and NASA In Xataka | OpenAI launches GPT-5.2 weeks after GPT-5.1: a maneuver that aims to cut ground on Google’s Gemini 3

We have been talking about railguns for years without seeing their real damage. Japan just showed an image that says it all

by

Japan is going through one of the most crucial transformations in recent decades: that of its rearmament. It is its most aggressive defense policy since Second World Warand the Ministry of Defense justifies because we are in the “most severe and complex phase of the last 80 years.” And there is nothing that better exemplifies Japanese rearmament than a cannon that, until not long agoit was science fiction material. The electromagnetic cannon. Reconfiguration. Starting in the 1990s, Japan stopped investing significantly in its Self-Defense Forces. He economic bubble burstthe “lost decade” and demographic difficulties implied that the military spending of 1% of GDP that they adopted after the Constitution of 1947 would be maintained. In 2023, things changed. As a result of geopolitical complexity, they decided that they would invest 2% of their GDP in rearmament. In figures, we are talking about about 271,000 million euros until 2027, but recently The target has been brought forward to March 2026. This reconfiguration will manifest itself in four dimensions: the aforementioned increase in military spending, the restructuring of the Self-Defense Forces, a relaxation of restrictions on the export of weapons and the expansion of long-range offensive capabilities. That’s where the railgun comes into play. Electromagnetic cannon. Like gunpowder, it fires a projectile that gains speed as it passes through a barrel. However, it uses electricity instead of gunpowder. Two metal rails form a circuit that, when closed by the projectile, generates an intense magnetic field. This produces a beastly force that propels the projectile at high speed, allowing hypersonic, precise and long-range shots. This speed would allow that would travel without detour even in the most unfavorable weather conditions. Japan has been investing in this field since mid of the 2010s, and a few weeks ago, the Japan Acquisition, Technology and Logistics Agency (ATLA) performed the first proof documented firing of a naval electromagnetic cannon at a real ship. Mounted in it JS Asuka test shipthe prototype is a cannon of 40 millimeters in caliber and six meters in length. It requires four huge energy containers to power the weapon and the projectiles used were small missiles of about 320 grams, stabilized by fins and without an explosive head. There is no need for an explosion: upon reaching those 2,300 meters per second, the kinetic energy is comparable to that of a 1,000 kilo car crashing into something at 140 km/h. Success. During them, the system achieved a record by firing projectiles at a speed of 2,300 meters per second. It is a speed of Mach 6-7, but in addition, they also pushed the useful life of the barrel to the limit. The estimate was about 120 shots, since it was established in previous phases of the investigation, but they got perform more than 200 shots without the system failing. ATLA had conducted open sea tests before, but never against a real target. And although they had already commented that the tests were a success, now they have shared photographs in which you can see the holes left by these projectiles. The target ship was in motion, but due to the enormous speed and stability of the projectiles thanks to the enormous power of the system, the entry holes allow an almost perfect view of the “cross” left by the projectile passing through the hull. Challenges. Now, understanding how a railgun works is easy, but executing it is extremely complex. It is a brutal technical challenge due to several factors: The stability of the barrel: the system generates tremendous heat, so dissipation systems must be effective enough not to compromise the integrity of the barrel. Wear and tear not only affects the speed and accuracy of the projectile, but can cause accidents on the boat itself. The energy: since it requires so much electricity to operate, it must have storage systems large enough to allow it to operate with the necessary power and during intense fire sessions. Miniaturization of the system: these cannons are extremely large and, although ATLA has managed to contain it quite a bit, mounting them on ships is not easy due to both the length of the cannon itself and the set of batteries required. Integrating a railgun into a ship is not easy. Perspectives. Currently, ATLA is working on evolving a system which might not be as far from the action as was thought a few months ago, and this miniaturization would allow it to be mounted on other types of vehicles, in addition to ground defense lines. But apart from as a weapon, the agency has mentioned that the concept of electromagnetic acceleration could be applied to other areas. For example, to the “mass throwers” ​​that would allow launching materials electromagnetically in space transportation. The problem is that other challenges are added, such as the imperative need to calculate the trajectory millimetrically or develop recovery methods for these goods. USA and China. And, although it may seem like another test of weapons, what Japan has achieved is a milestone. After fifteen years of research and some 500 million dollars invested in the technology, The United States left in 2021 the development of electromagnetic railguns (although they are now with larger versions). Japan has persevered and its testing demonstrates that the system can be viable in a real-world context. And another that has continued to develop this technology is China. They are keeping it more secret, but we have already seen images of Chinese ships with an electromagnetic cannon and power containers on the front. And that, precisely, it was these two countries that They are taking steps forward when developing this technology It’s not a coincidence. They are both engrossed in technological warbut also in a escalation of military tension that has been going on for months and that is leading both countries to accuse each other of invading their respective territory. Images | ATLA, Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force In Xataka | Taiwan has had an idea if Beijing invades it: surprise China underground

What is the Richter scale, how it works and why you should stop using it when talking about earthquakes

by

We still often hear about “an earthquake measuring so many degrees on the Richter scale” in the news or when reading about an earthquake. This is incorrect for one or more reasons.. To understand why, we must delve into what the Richter scale is, when it is used and, above all, when it is not. What is the Richter scale The Richter scale is a scale used to measure the magnitude of an earthquake. According to defines the National Geological Institute (IGN), the magnitude of the earthquake is “a measure of the energy released by an earthquake and is determined from the signal recorded in a seismogram.” There are several magnitude scales for earthquakes, since earthquake waves can vary in their characteristics. Among them, the best known to the public is that of local Richter magnitudeor simply ML for “local magnitude.” Local, in this answer, refers to the fact that this scale is used to measure earthquakes that have been captured from close range. Specifically, it is used for those captured at less than 600 kilometers, according to the IGN. Who was Charles Francis Richter The name “Richter scale” refers to the American seismologist Charles Francis Richter. Born in 1900 in the state of Ohio, this American physicist and seismologist would leave as a legacy the first scale of its kind, a systematic way of measuring the strength of an earthquake. The seismographs They had been used for decades as a way to measure earthquakes, but it was in 1935 when Richter brought up the idea to establish a magnitude with which to measure these events. Starting from this idea, Richter would have the help of the German-American seismologist Beno Gutenberg to put it into practice. Charles F. Richter died in 1985 in the US state of California. The scale And how are the magnitudes calculated? The scale It is based on the logarithm of the amplitude of seismic waves. That is, the magnitude of an earthquake is proportional (logarithmically) to the height reached by the waves drawn by seismographs. The calculation must be “corrected” to, among other things, adjust it to a “type seismograph”. What we measure with the Richter scale, and what we don’t We pointed out before that the Richter scale, or ML, is used locally. And for seismologists, “local” refers to earthquakes originating no more than 600 kilometers of the seismograph that must measure it. But not all earthquakes that occur in “local” contexts are the same, so they are not all measured using this scale. The use of the ML scale is also limited with respect to the magnitude earthquake: it is only used to measure earthquakes of small or moderate magnitude (magnitudes between 2 and 6.5). The objective of measure the magnitude of an earthquake It is to get an idea of ​​its strength. To do this, scales such as the Richter scale use the waves generated by the earthquake, as captured by seismographs. The problem, as the experts realized, is that waves in large earthquakes do not always allow extrapolation of the magnitude using the Richter scale: sometimes the magnitude thus calculated overestimates the strength of the earthquake and sometimes the opposite occurs. Come on, although there are two earthquakes less than 600 kilometers from where they have been recorded with a seismograph, this scale is not always accurate for both. Sometimes this scale is fine, but other times the actual strength of the earthquake is higher or lower than what it measures. To compensate for the shortcomings of ML, geologists created different scalessuch as body wave magnitude (Mb) or surface wave magnitude (Ms). Each of these scales works in its own context, but the problem arises because none are universally applicable. To solve this, we then had to create the Mw scale, which we will talk about below. Magnitude and intensity To avoid confusion, we have to have clear concepts such as earthquake intensity. The intensity of an earthquake has its own scalebut it does not measure the strength of the earthquake but its impacts. The European Macroseismic Scale graduates in a scale from I to XII earthquakes based on the damage caused. The ML scale and the Mw scale As explained by the United States Geological Survey (USGS), the limitations of the existing scales implied the need to create a new scale that would serve to cover these limitations. This is how the seismographic moment magnitude scale, or Mw, would have been born. This scale, although it is adjusted to “coincid” with the local magnitude scale where the latter is applicable, is based on a very different principle. Where the Richter scale converts recorded seismic waves into a magnitude, the Mw scale uses geological properties of tectonic movement. To do this, we start from the measurement of seismic momentthe product of the area traveled by the fault that has moved, the distance traveled in this displacement, and a measure of the stiffness of the rock that makes up the fault. This measurement is transformed through a logarithmic formula to obtain the magnitude of the moment (Mw) of the earthquake. Here, we can say that this scale is the closest thing to a universalsince it was created to be used in all earthquakes, even those with a magnitude greater than that supported by the Richter. Thus, it is currently the most used today to measure earthquakes, although in the news we will continue to hear about Richter’s. By saying degrees when they are magnitudes Other common mistake When talking about earthquakes and their scale, we talk about degrees, for example if we said “an earthquake measuring 5.5 on the Richter scale.” The origin of this common error is not clear, but some attribute it to the fact that there are scales (such as the one used to study the intensity of earthquakes) in which degrees are used. In Xataka | 0.2 magnitude points and 70 years of disaster preparedness: what differentiates the deadly tsunami of 1952 from the one that occurred … Read more

We have been talking about microplastics for years without being very clear about how they affect us. Science is close to solving it

by

Plastic no longer only wraps our food or makes up the clothes we wear, but it has silently colonized our body. And microplastics have been found almost everywhere in the body: placenta, blood, lungs, testiclesbreast milk, brain human… But when faced with the big question of What effect does it have on the body?we are already having answers. The measurements. Studies already suggest that we could hold up to five grams of this material in our own brain. The image is shocking: the equivalent of a plastic teaspoon lodged in the deepest part of our being. Microplastics are particles, in this case they are very tiny, that come off from packaging, synthetic clothing, tires, cosmetics and countless everyday objects such as lettuce. But some are so small that they are able to cross the barriers of our lungs and intestines, travel through the bloodstream and deposit in our internal organs. What happens once there is the great unknown that scientists strive to clear up. The studies. Dr. Christian Pacher-Deutsch, from the University of Graz (Austria), recently presented a study in which he exposed human intestinal bacteria to five types of common microplastics. The result was quite clear: bacterial populations were altered, producing chemical changes, in some cases reflecting patterns observed in patients with depression and colorectal cancer. Although the researcher himself was cautious in pointing out that “although it is early to make definitive statements, reducing exposure to microplastics is a sensible precaution.” But the effects don’t stop in the intestine. Dr. Jaime Ross, a neuroscientist at the University of Rhode Island, conducted a revealing experiment: gave a group of mice water contaminated with microplastics to drink. Soon, the mice began behaving strangely, anxiously venturing into open spaces, an atypical behavior that is associated with aging and neurological diseases. Analyzing their brains, Ross found plastic in all organs and a reduction in GFAP, a key protein for brain health. This same pattern of exhaustion is seen in humans with depression and dementia. Caution. In this case, microplastics have been detected in arterial plaques, and an analysis concluded that people whose plaques were loaded with plastic were almost five times more likely to suffer a heart attack, stroke or die within three years. The practice. Faced with this avalanche of data, The Guardian wanted to move from theory to practice. The British journalist herself decided to undergo a test from the company Plastictox which, for £144, promises to reveal the amount of microplastics circulating in the blood. The test result indicated a concentration of forty microplastics per milliliters of blood. And although this figure placed her in the 25% of people with the least exposure, the laboratory gave her the total result: about 200,000 plastic particles in the bloodstream. However, other experts urge caution. Professor Stephanie Wright, a researcher at Imperial College London, calls this evidence “very premature.” He points out that although an analysis shows that there are 40 particles per ml, it is unknown if this is good or bad or if it will depend on the type of plastic it is or its origin. We live in real uncertainty. The advice. Although it is impossible to avoid exposure completely, there are a number of tips to avoid consuming this type of microplastics. For example, you can choose not to use plastic kitchen utensils or drink hot liquids from plastic cups. Even with the tap water either bottled we can have the same problem. Outside of food, the material composition of bedding or pajamas should also be reviewed, as they can release these types of particles, making cotton the best. Images | FlyD Chad Montano In Xataka | When Tap Water Tastes Like Hell: The Invisible Chemistry of Drinking Water That Explains Why It Tastes How It Tastes (And Why It’s One of the World’s Greatest Inventions)

The digital detox has been fashionable for years. It’s time to start talking like what is: a myth

by

Social networks have helped us in many aspects of our life, allowing us for example to strengthen some social relationships, or taking a way to express our creativity. But all this has come with a price to pay. A cost that has noticed our mental health, which has led many to try with a time to “digital detoxification.” The problem is that it may not be too useful strategy. Not so effective. Withdraw a time from social networks It is not an effective “disconnection strategy”according to a meta -analysis carried out by a Belgian team of researchers from the universities of Antwerp and Gante, at least if we are looking to improve Our well -being. The good news: at least we do not have indications that disconnection does us badly. “The findings (…) suggest that temporarily separating ourselves from social networks may not be the approximation (…) optimal to improve individual well -being,” Write the teamwhich also points out in his study the need to continue research on alternative disconnection strategies. Ten studies. The new work is a meta -analysis, that is, a “quantitative study of studies.” The team conducted a systematic search for scientific literature that addressed the relationship between social media abstinence and one or more than three variables: positive and negative affections, and vital satisfaction. They found 10 quantitative works with a total sample of 4,674 participants. The analysis showed no significant effects of refraining from social networks in any of the three variables studied. The team also did not find indications that the duration of the period of “Digital detoxification“It will be relevant. The details of the study were published In an article In the magazine Scientific Reports. Need to investigate more. The team emphasizes the need to advance in research on this issue. According to the team itself, the study presents one of the usual problems in the meta -analysis, and is the diversity in the methodologies followed by the works included in it. A radical change. Social networks have remarkably changed how we interact with technology, for better and for worse. The problems that this poses have appeared so suddenly that our ability to adapt, to look for solutions with which to repair the possible damage has exceeded in many contexts. In Xataka | How to recover the concentration that social networks and multitars have taken us Image | Xataka with Gemini

The AI ​​is obsessed with which we are talking to her. He has a golden opportunity in an unsuspected place: our lounge

by

Microsoft has sneaked into Samsung’s teles. This has been announced by both companies, which have reached an agreement so that Copilot is part both of the future Smart TVS and the company’s monitors. It is an interesting announcement not so much for what it means for these two companies, but for the tendency to which it points. Why is it important. Here Microsoft achieves a small triumph for its artificial intelligence solutions, and does so by the hand of a giant like Samsung. But here what attracts attention is that First great integration of AI in products that until now did not want to know much about it. Talk without stopping with TV. Our televisions are perfect candidates for adapted systems specifically to them, and this is a striking step in that direction. The command continues and will continue to be better in many cases (button to rise volume instead of “rises the volume a bit”, for example), no doubt. However, The Chromecast or the Fire TV Stick They already showed us that saying “reproduces the trailer of ‘Superman’” or “reproduces ‘Stranger Things’ in Netflix” is also a very powerful option. An AI to go further. Those functions of the traditional voice attendees of the teles are interesting, but having a model of AI as a co -pilot will allow that experience beyond and Interact with TV in a more versatile way. You can ask for time and visual information will appear accompanying audio information, for example, or by a movie and a card with its IMDB or Rotten Tomatoes qualification will also appear. Where did I stay with this series yesterday? And of course, we can ask us to recommend a movie – “What mystery film must be fun?” – Or that gives us related information about it – “What more movies has made the director of this film? We can talk with Copilot Normally on any subject, because after all, it is a generative AI and are designed for that purpose. The speakers, the next border. There is another hardware element that awaits the arrival of AI as a May water: smart speakers. That intelligent have never had much: Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft, already said years ago that these devices “They were more silly than a stone“. The option of being able to talk to these products when they are enhanced by a generative model such as Chatgpt or its rivals is very promising, and the curious thing is that at this point we should already have a great protagonist in this field. What vadis, Alexa+? Amazon is undoubtedly the great absentee of the AI ​​segment, and for months now Alexa+ presentedits new platform with generative AI models that in theory Ibn to flood your family of Amazon Echo devices. The deployment, however, is being infuriatingand the project still has a very limited reach, we assume that because they prefer to go on safe. The privacy dilemma. It is inevitable to think that one of the possible risks that will involve the use of these devices with this technology will be the invasion of our privacy. We already know How do TVS manufacturers spend them With its users in this section, and the traditional smart speakers have already built many suspicions about it In the past. In addition, where is the limit between a useful and an annoying or invasive presence in the living room? The battle to conquer your lounge started has. It seems inevitable that AI ends up being an integral part of our televisions as it begins to be in our computers or mobiles. Smart speakers are specially prepared so that in the future we talk more than ever with them, but will there be other hardware solutions that go further? Domestic robots, maybe? There is in this segment a huge challenge in many sections – non -invasive experience and, as far as possible, private – but also an extraordinary opportunity. And Microsoft, for the moment, has seen it. Image | Jens Kreuter In Xataka | There is a new fever among ultra -ups: fed up with technology, they want houses as “dumb” as possible

We have been talking for months that there is an AI bubble. The worrying thing is that even Sam Altman agrees

by

One thing is that AI pessimists tell us that there is a bubble. Another very different is that Sam Altman suggested, CEO of Openai. But it is what has happened, and that is a worrying indication of the situation in which this segment is located. Every time More expert voices They warn of danger of a bubble from AIbut there are not only voices: there are data that raise a potential crisis. One that could be even more harmful than that of the Puntocom. What has Altman said. The head of OpenAI, the company that develops ChatgPT, invited a group of journalists to comment on the launch of GPT-5. During that meeting, they indicate in The Vergesaid the following: “When bubbles occur, intelligent people are excessively excited about (which is actually so alone) a pinch of truth. Are we in a phase in which investors in general are too excited about AI? My opinion is that yes. Is AI the most important thing that has happened in a long time? My opinion is also that “ Remembering the story. Altman compared the current dynamics with which he experienced During the bubble of the Puntocom In the late 2000s. Between March 2000 and October 2002, NASDAQ lost about 80% of its value: many of the companies that signed up for Internet fever and the web failed La Hora to generate income or benefits. The value of the 10 most important companies of the S&P 500 index is today much greater than the one in the 90s, and that points to a potential (and huge) bubble. Source: Apollo Global Management / Tornsten Slok. Worse than the bubble of the Puntocom. Economic analysts and experts have long offered arguments that point in the direction of a potential bubble of AI. The chief economist of the investment firm Apollo Global Management, Torsten Sløk, indicated in a report That this bubble could be worse than that of the Puntocom: the 10 most important companies of the S&P 500 index have a value well above the 10 that occupied those positions in the late 90s. Too much speculation. Ray Wang, director of the Futurum Group semiconductor firm, showed two faces of the same currency. As he said In CNBC, “From the perspective of a broader investment in AI and semiconductors … I do not see it as a bubble. The foundations of the entire supply chain remain solid, and the long -term trajectory of the trend of AI supports the continuous investment” But at the same time, he stressed that there is a problem with this segment: there is too much speculative investment in companies that have less solid bases and in which there is only one perception of its potential without real foundations – Hello, Safe Superintelligencehello Thinking Machines-. It’s hard, but bubbles have their good side. As Alberto Romero points out In your Newsletter“In a way, bubbles are an inevitable and welcome phase between short -term selfishness and long -term progress.” In his opinion and That of other experts Like Mills Baker, manager at substock: “He Hype It is acceptable under the premise that only an optimistic character, prone to exaggeration and hyperbole, can build the new world for which a bubble is only the starting point, his big bang. The cynical and pessimistic character is a useful counterweight to excessive optimism (…). While optimism is an active creation force, pessimism is a reactive modulation force. “ Source: Paul Kedrosky. When the trains were the AI. Or what is the same: for the world to advance, bubbles are (or can be) necessary. We saw it with the Puntocom: it is true that the crisis existed, but that uncounted optimism in the future of the Internet ended up making sense. Of course, only a few companies (the great current empires) ended up benefiting. But it is that something very similar happened with the railroads at the end of the 19th century. At that time the investment and the capex in these infrastructure was colossal –five times greater that the one who lives now in AI – and although many companies broke, but from that bubble we left with an absolute revolution both at the level of transport and economic and social. But this bubble can be very, very large. As points Romero, the difference here between optimistic and pessimistic (or realistic) speeches is growing, and that is worrying. The expectations that the companies of AI and their CEOs are creating (with Altman in front, The man-hype) They are increasing. They constantly tell us about How are we close to reach the AGIbut the reality is that there are no real indications that this is so and in fact there is a Founder of AI. Faced with the promises of the revolution that theoretically should have begun to generate AI, the reality is that the advances do not seem extraordinary. In fact, a study of the MIT discovered that after asking 150 entrepreneurs and 350 employees of companies that have integrated AI in their processes, 95% had not seen any benefit in doing so. Better Wait for GPT-6. GPT-5 has demonstrated, a model for which we expected A historical jump And that in the end raises an improvement that for now it is discreet and that he introduced changes They were Very criticized. The launch of this model has been a small disaster that He has forced To the company to give reverse In several of your decisions. As He pointed out Walter Bloomberg, Altman himself admitted that GPT-5 had been a failure, and now bets on GPT-6. Source: Michael A. Arouet. The data worries. Seemingly excessive spending In data centers either In talent It is not the only concern. There is also that absolute concentration of companies that concentrate the value. An analyst named Michael A. Aouet published these days A graph in which he showed two income growth trends. On the one hand, that of the 490 companies of the S&P 500 excluding … Read more

Log In

Forgot password?

Forgot password?

Enter your account data and we will send you a link to reset your password.

Your password reset link appears to be invalid or expired.

Log in

Privacy Policy

Add to Collection

No Collections

Here you'll find all collections you've created before.