time

Ouigo and Renfe unleash a price war like we have not seen in a long time

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Who was going to tell us 20 years ago that we would change the traditional races at the doors of El Corte Inglés on January 7 to burn the F5 on the Renfe website. Or, much more inconceivable, that of another French company that was going to compete with the public company to take us on high-speed trains through our country. However, this is how we are. January sales. Since yesterday, January 7, Ouigo has put it up for sale train tickets at reduced prices. So reduced that it is possible to find options for nine euros because 80% of the available tickets are discounted. The maximum price of these tickets is 33 euros. The offer will last until next January 14th… as long as there are tickets available. An almost carbon copy maneuver Renfe has undertaken. Since January 8, the Spanish company has opened juicy discounts on its train tickets. In this case, the offer extends until January 18 on AVE, Avlo, Alvia, Intercity, Euromed and AVE Internacional tickets, but it is not specified how many tickets are available with discounts that offer AVLO tickets at seven euros and AVE tickets at 15 euros. CNMC source: https://www.cnmc.es/sites/default/files/6291881.pdf New year, cheap trains. It has been a constant since competition entered the Spanish railways. Train prices in our country plummet every beginning of the year, as shown in the graph above referring to the Madrid-Barcelona corridor from the Railway Traveler Report presented by the CNMC every quarter. The image above refers to the most used broker in our country and, therefore, the least susceptible to price changes. Obviously, the image is repeated on trips to Andalusia or the Levant. Thus, all companies lower prices with juicy discounts at the beginning of the year. Then they rise due to Easter and the arrival of summer and suffer a small drop again in the third quarter before picking up again at the end of the year. It repeats. If we take a look at the report that collects data from just one year ago, we see how the number of passengers has been increasing in recent years but that prices had to drop to transport a passenger with fewer incentives to move in a quarter without major holidays and worse weather prospects. That made it so that in 2025, according to data from the CNMCin the first quarter of the year, AVE prices fell by 9.2%, Iryo prices by 11.2%, Ouigo prices by 16.1% and AVLO prices by 19.5% compared to the previous quarter in the Madrid-Barcelona corridor. And December is one of the most expensive months of the year to buy tickets and this is repeated in all corridors. With leaden feet. Although the offers are attractive, we must not lose sight of the fact that it is a specific ticket sale and that what sets the trend is the average price at which most tickets are sold. And the last few months tell us that ticket prices are going up. This quarter’s performance is something we will have to wait to find out but if we look at last year’s data from the same Madrid-Barcelona corridor, only Iryo lowered prices in a representative manner when compared to the previous year. It did so by 5.4%, followed by AVLO which lowered prices by 3.9%. However, the AVE only fell by 0.9% and Ouigo raised prices by 5.6%. On average, the price only fell by 0.9%. It is true that in the Andalusian corridors and in Madrid-Valencia, prices fell significantly last year, with drops in the average ticket price of between 10 and 17%. Of course, it must be taken into account that these are destinations where the seasonal influence is more pronounced than in Madrid-Barcelona, ​​a more stable corridor in passenger volume. Fewer offers and more profitability. We give this notice because in recent times we have seen how the prices of Spanish trains have been rising. According to the latest report from the CNMCwhich refers to the third quarter of 2025, the average interannual price of this period increased by more than 25% in Madrid-Barcelona and remained more or less stable in all corridors except Madrid-Málaga, which Until last year it did not have the Ouigo factor. However, from all companies they have paved the way so that we get the idea that the price is going to rise. So much Iryo as Ouigo They have announced that they are ending losing money to enter a new market. Both have made changes in management and from Renfe they have warned that If the competition raises prices they will follow. Photo | Xataka In Xataka | When Iryo and Ouigo began to compete with Renfe they did so by lowering prices. Those days are not coming back

how to use it to see which ones are activated in real time in Spain

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Let’s tell you how to use the V-16 beacon map with which you can see in real time all the ones that are activated in Spain. As of January 1, 2026, V-16 beacons They are mandatory in Spain, so that if we have an accident or breakdown we can activate them and so that the DGT signs on the roads notify the rest of the cars of our position. But you can also check the data sent by the beacons in real time with a map. It is not about DGT mapbut from a third party that uses public data from official sourcesalthough it does not seek to replace official traffic information warnings or assistants. It is also not a map linked to any specific brand of beacons, and shows all those that have been activated at any given time. It is, therefore, an information tool created by an individual. See activated beacons in real time To access the V-16 beacon map you have to enter the website Mapabalizasv16.es/#mapa. This will take you to a map of all of Spain, including the archipelagos, and you can navigate through it and zoom in to see specific areas of the country. On this map, you will be able to see currently active beacons and those that were recently activatedso that you can have a context of current problems and others that have been recent. Also, at the top you will have a button to update it at any time. When you click on one of the active beacon icons (the ones that are on) or the recent ones (their icon is off), it will open a window with event information. You will be able to see what time it was activated, the road, the direction and the province and municipality. Additionally, in the window that opens you will also have buttons to open the exact location in a map application, and you will have a share button to send the incident to someone. In Xataka Basics | V16 beacon without eSIM or connectivity: what the DGT says about them from 2026

2,000 years ago, Seneca said that “it is not that we have little time to live, but that we keep wasting it.” Science agrees

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20 centuries ago, a man from Cordoba who had been quaestor, praetor, senator and consul of Rome and tutor to Emperors sat down to write a small treatise on the brevity of life. That was where he wrote that “it is not that we have little time to live, but that we waste a lot.” That phrase has spanned decades and decades, sticking in the minds of thousands of people and illuminating their lives. Or, simply, filling out internet pages that we have learned to consume as if it were any other entertainment product. A very popular one, by the way. In recent months, the Internet has been filled with Seneca quotes. The head of this report is one of them, but not the only one (“If you want to find true happiness, do not look for it in the great or the new, but in the serenity that simplicity brings.“, “there is no favorable wind for those who do not know where they are going“, “It is not that we have little time to live, but that we waste a lot“, etc, etc. ). And it’s curious… Does it make sense to go back to types from 2,000 years ago to solve our modern-day problems? And surprisingly it may be so. That’s what Philosophy professor Christopher Gill asked himself a few years ago.What if all that philosophical gossip goes further? “To what extent can we moderns recognize in these essays a plausible response to mental illness?” he asked. His answer, after studying Stoics and Aristotelians, is that Seneca’s texts; but, in general, these “philosophical essays were designed to function as a psychological analogue of the ancient medical regime.” What we would call today “lifestyle management” or “preventive medicine.” And, therefore, beyond the ‘pop philosophy’ of recent years, it is possible to find something of value in all those classic texts. Some of value, but not everything. In 1965, when she entered the Chinese Academy of Traditional Medicine, chemist Tu Youyou entered into a very long race to analyze each and every one of the remedies that the ancient Chinese civilization had been selecting. Most of them were pure pseudoscience, of course. A mixture of superstition, credulity and placebo. However, hidden among the trickery, there were real gems. The best example is the artemisinina revolutionary treatment against malaria. A treatment that earned him the Nobel Prize in 2015. It was sold like a Nobel Prize for traditional medicine, yes; but in reality, it was a Nobel for the slow work of screening, testing and discarding by the Ningbo scientist. That is what should be done with the practical philosophy of the Greeks and Romans. And, in this case, it seems that Seneca was right. First of all, because we have systematic biases that they push us to postpone and waste time. Secondly, because much of the “lost time” is not even conscious: it is pure “cognitive friction” (interruptions, multitasking, attention waste, etc.). And finally, because, according to available evidencewhen we reduce the lack of time, well-being increases. That is to say, it is not so much that we lack time as that we do not have a “well-lived” life. How do we fit all this together? Well, very good. Because “all this”, moreover, fits into the general idea not only of Seneca’s pamphlet in which it appears; but in the general outline of Stoic philosophy. And it is worth remembering that under all the naturalistic scaffolding of the philosophy of the old Stoics there was, above all, an ethical question: an imperative to live in accordance with nature (a, by the way, very rationalist vision of nature). In this sense, the Stoics they used to pay attention to what the human being could or could not do: since you have limited control over the length of your life, you must focus on how you live it; They told us while they invited us to order our behavior through moral criteria by dint of attention and peace of mind. Image | Fabio Comperelli | Prado Museum In Xataka | What is Stoicism, the Greek philosophy from 2,000 years ago that has become fashionable again today

From January 1 you have to carry a V16 beacon in your car. All of these are approved and will arrive to you on time.

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It seemed not, but there are just a couple of days left before we fully enter 2026. This implies, among many other things, that We are going to have to carry a V16 beacon in the car. If we don’t, there is a possibility that they end up fining us. The good news is that We still have time to get one and have it arrive on time.: we have this help flash IoT+ on Amazon for 38.05 euros and with fast (and free) shipping if we are users of Amazon Prime. help flash IoT+, V16 Emergency Light with Geolocation and more than 290 candela power, Required from 2026, Connected with DGT 3.0, V-16 Signal for Cars, data plan included The price could vary. We earn commission from these links All these V16 beacons will arrive to you before January 1 It is possible to find V16 beacons in many stores or supermarkets, although if we want to buy online, few offer shipping as fast as Amazon. As we said a little above, if we are also Amazon Prime users, shipping will be free. And be careful: because we have a 30 day trial period to use the service without having to pay anything. The one we indicated above, the IoT+ help flash, is one of the most popular. It complies with everything required by law. and offers more than 290 candelas of light. In addition, it has a system called ‘Eye Protect’ that dims the flash when turned on to avoid glare. It is also compatible with the myIncidence app and comes with eSIM. Below we leave you a series of approved V16 beacons that have fast shipping and they will arrive before January 1: You may also be interested VZero – Pack 2 units, V16 Emergency Light with Geolocation, Approved Signal Connected with DGT 3.0, Suitable for 2026, Car Beacon with eSIM Included, High Power and Eye Protect System The price could vary. We earn commission from these links EXTRASTAR Emergency Light Beacon V16 Approved DGT with Geolocation, Connected Car Beacon DGT 3.0, Data Included until 12/2038, Pack of 2 Units The price could vary. We earn commission from these links Some of the links in this article are affiliated and may provide a benefit to Xataka. In case of non-availability, offers may vary. Images | Netun, help flash In Xataka | Don’t wait until January 1: if you have to buy your V16 beacon, Leroy Merlin has them for less than 40 euros In Xataka | Safety, organization and entertainment gadgets and accessories for cars on long trips

why this time there are reasons for optimism

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Until now, the scientific narrative about Alzheimer’s It has been, for the most part, one of resistance. Current treatments, and those on the way, focus primarily on slow the progression of the disease or try prevent it before the damage is massive. Cure right now seemed impossible, but a recent study has given a small hope of cure, although with a long-term view. They have reversed the disease. The news is fantastic. Science has managed to completely reverse Alzheimer’s and recover brain function in animal models. Something that has earned the Case Western Reserve University team a publication in the prestigious journal Cell Reportssince it opens a path of hope that is as revolutionary as it is cautious. A change of focus. In a simple way, Alzheimer’s disease is caused by a neuronal alteration that literally causes accumulate protein plaques that are not destroyed. We can say that They accumulate garbage inside and that is why its function begins to be altered. That is why science I was focused on cleaning these “plaques” from the brain or slow down the appearance of more. They have now changed this to focus on repairing the energy metabolism of neurons. The key in this case is a molecule called NAD+essential for any cell in the body generate power and initiate repair mechanisms. The results. In the case of Alzheimer’s, this energy molecule is in a minimum concentration, which leaves the cells without the ability to defend themselves. In this way, scientists have used an experimental drug called P7C3-A20 to be able to solve this problem with very positive results. The first thing that was seen was that the tau protein, one of the major germs of Alzheimer’s, began to activate less. Something that generated a minor damage to neurons. But in addition to this, the mice began to recover the memory they had lost with Alzheimer’s, including the ability to learn new things. Standardization. Along with cognitive recovery and damage reversal, the mice began to normalize the biomarker in your blood p-tau217, which is used today as a way to diagnose the disease in humans. In this way, Alzheimer’s was practically cured thanks to this treatment. From mouse to human. Although it seems like spectacular news, the reality is that there are several nuances, since “cure mice“It is not “curing humans.” Many promising drugs have died along the way after great results in rodents, since we are not at all the same and there are many changes between species. However, this study adds an extra layer of optimism: the researchers identified 46 specific proteins that are altered in Alzheimer’s mice and that return to normal with the drug. Proteins that are also altered in an identical way in a diseased human brain. This suggests that the mechanism found could be extrapolated because it is something we share between species. A long road. This is where we must apply precision surgery to our hopes. And although the study speaks of a “complete reversal”, there are several factors that force us to keep our feet on the ground. The first of them is that the study is in a preclinical phaseso it has not yet been tested in humans. Something that can take years or decades to occur, and always with the risk that the failure rate in neurology is always very high. Something that is logical, since the human brain is infinitely more complex than that of a laboratory mouse. This may mean that what in an animal is a full recovery, in humans, could be only a partial improvement or have side effects that have not been seen in animals. A change of era? Despite the caution, the importance of this finding is undeniable. It challenges the idea that Alzheimer’s is a one-way street to degradation. If it is confirmed that the brain has the ability to recover once its metabolic balance is restored, the approach to 21st century medicine will radically change. In this way, we are facing a hopeful study, although we must be patient to see if it really has great results when it enters the complexity of our organism. Images | Robina Weermeijer In Xataka | The relationship between sleep and Alzheimer’s, in a “simple” action: our brain also has to clean

Atomic clocks seemed untouchable. A blackout caused a difference in the official US time

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To think that the official time of a country could fail is, at first, almost impossible. We are not talking about a domestic clock or just any server, but about the system that sets the pace of networks, satellites and critical services. That is why it is surprising to discover what happened recently in the United States. A power outage in Colorado was enough to remind us that extreme precision is not isolated from the physical world that sustains it. According to CBS, Xcel Energy applied a preventive shutdown to reduce the risk of fires due to very strong gusts of wind, and the NIST complex in Boulder was affected on Wednesday of last week. The power outage was followed by a backup generator in the institute’s laboratory. In that sequence, and according to information confirmed by NIST, the country’s time reference was slightly off for a brief interval, until part of the supply could be restored. Put a tiny deviation into context. The figure that came out of the NIST systems was 4.8 microseconds, that is, just a few millionths of a second different from what was expected. To get an idea of ​​that magnitude, NIST itself explained that A human blink lasts around 350,000 microseconds, a very different scale from the recorded mismatch. The variation is so small that for the vast majority of everyday uses it is irrelevant, but it serves to illustrate the extent to which even a minor deviation is measured, recorded and taken seriously in temporal reference systems. To understand why this offset is considered relevant, it is worth clarifying what exactly the official time of the United States is. The country is not governed directly by UTC, the coordinated international standard to which multiple nations contribute, but by a national implementation known as NISTUTC. Since 2007, that reference is established under the supervision of the Secretary of Commerce and the US Navy, and is adjusted to stay aligned with global coordinated timing. NIST-F4 Cesium Source Atomic Clock NIST calculates the official time from a weighted average of sixteen clocks spread across its campus, including hydrogen masers and cesium beam clocks, each with different functions and strengths. This approach allows us to gain stability and resilience, since the final signal is not conditioned by the behavior of a single instrument. Therefore, even when one of the elements of the system is affected, the whole continues to offer an extremely precise reference. What broke was not the watch. During the blackout, the atomic clocks continued to run thanks to their battery systems, as explained by NIST. The problem occurred in the connection between some of those clocks and the measurement and distribution systems that consolidate the final signal. When that communication was lost for an interval and one of the planned backups failed, the resulting time reference slowed down slightly. Technical personnel who remained at the facilities later activated a reserve diesel generator, which allowed part of the operation to be recovered and the system to be stabilized. NIST page The institute stressed that this gap has no appreciable effects on daily life. The nuance appears when looking at certain technical sectors, where extreme synchronization is an operational requirement. Critical infrastructures, telecommunications networks, positioning systems or some scientific environments work with such tight margins that even a minimal deviation deserves to be recorded and reported. The next step was to return to operational normality. NIST indicated that the correction of the gap will be carried out when all systems are fully powered and can be recalibrated with guarantees. Xcel Energy announced yesterday Monday that it was completing the restoration of service after the storm and the preventive cuts applied due to fire risk. Meanwhile, the institute began an internal review to evaluate the impact of the blackout and verify that redundancies and protocols responded as planned. Images | NIST In Xataka | China says it has detected an NSA operation against its most sensitive infrastructure: the center that controls the time

There was a time when the Lottery Jackpot “took you away from work.” Today it barely takes away a part of the mortgage

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Someone who already has gray hair still remembers that, thirty years ago, May you get the Christmas Fat Man It was practically the key to financial freedom. With the full prize of one tenth (about 30 million pesetas in the 90s) you could buy several houses, pay mortgages and even ensure the well-being of your family with that stroke of luck. Today, with a prize of 400,000 euros (328,000 euros after taxes), that story sounds very different. One of the main conditions is that, in the mid-nineties, the real estate market in Spain I played in another league. Buy an apartment…or several In cities like Madrid, a home of about 90 square meters could be found for less than 14 or 15 million pesetas, according to official statistics. That meant that Fatty Christmas allowed to buy two apartments medium-sized in a big city, or buy one, pay off the mortgage and a good pinch to maintain a good margin of liquidity. In those years, the award was not just help: it was a complete break from financial worries. As was often heard at the doors of lottery administrations while the winners uncorked bottles of champagne, it was a prize that “kept you off work.” Thirty years later, the prize is still striking in terms of numbers, but its real purchasing power has changed. El Gordo has been frozen at 400,000 euros per tenth for more than a decade, while the price of housing has followed an almost constant upward trajectory. In Madrid, the average house price It ranges between 5,500 and 5,758 euros per square meter, which implies that with the 328,000 euros net of the prize, you can barely purchase 60 or 70 square meters at an average price. In practice, this means that Gordo no longer even guarantees a standard floor in many neighborhoods of the capital. Barcelona offers a similar image. With average prices located at 3,084 euros per square meter, the Gordo de Navidad allows buy a modest home or a medium-sized apartment in peripheral areas, but it is far from the purchasing capacity it had in the nineties. The comparison leaves no room for doubt: where before the prize opened the door to buying an apartment in the city and a house on the beachtoday it is barely enough for one, and not necessarily in the best conditions. The contrast is softened slightly if the market is viewed from more affordable cities. In capitals like Zamora or Lugo, where average prices are between 980 and 1,300 euros per square meter, El Gordo continues to allow you to buy spacious homes or even more than a small property. However, even in these more affordable markets, the premium no longer equivalent to that massive asset leap that it represented three decades ago. The difference is not so much in the amount of the prize as in the uneven evolution of prices. This purchasing capacity is also explained by the general price context. He housing cost It was much more aligned with the average income of the population and access to property was not subject to the housing and demand pressure that characterizes the current market. El Gordo, in that scenario, functioned as a real wealth multiplier. A Gordo with more salary, but less power make a salary comparison helps to better understand this change of scale. In the 90s, the average annual salary in Spain was around 2 million pesetas (about 12,000 euros). In that context, the Gordo of 30 million pesetas was equivalent to approximately 15 times the annual salary of a worker medium, which reinforced its perception as an immediate economic transformation: decades of income concentrated in a single stroke of chance. Today, according to the latest data from the National Statistics Institute, the median salary annually in Spain is around 23,300 euros. With this reference, the current Gordo’s 328,000 euros is equivalent to just over 14 times the median annual salary. The proportion, curiously, is not that different from that of the nineties. The big difference appears when that salary multiple faces the price of housing (and all goods in general), which has grown much faster than income. That’s the key to change. Although the premium maintains a similar relationship with salaries, your ability to buy a home has deteriorated drastically. The real estate market has become decoupled from wage growth, and El Gordo, by remaining fixed, has been trapped in the middle of that gap. What was previously enough to buy two apartments today barely covers one, and in many cases forces them to continue getting into debt, although to a lesser extent. The social meaning of Gordo has changed. In the nineties it was synonymous with total economic independence. In 2025, it is still an extraordinary stroke of luck, but its role has shifted, no longer guaranteeing financial freedom, but financial relief. In Xataka | There is something even more difficult than winning the Lottery Jackpot: not making mistakes with the Treasury when collecting it Image | Flickr (srgpicker)

Zara has found the formula to produce more photos in much less time. The answer was not where many thought

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Every time a big fashion brand mentions artificial intelligence, the reflex is almost automatic. We think about the possibility of models replaced by avatars, sessions that are reduced to a minimum and increasingly automated campaigns. It is a logical reaction, fueled by what we have already seen in the sector in recent months. But not all bets go that way. In the case of Zara, the question is not whether AI enters the creative process, but how it does so and what it decides to preserve intact. Not all AI in fashion is the same. In recent years, the sector has been trying very different paths under the same label. There are brands that have opted for generate complete campaigns with images created by generative systems, and others that have explored the creation of digital “doubles” of models to reuse their image in marketing. This context explains why Zara’s announcement triggers almost automatic suspicions. But it also forces us to refine the focus, because replacing a session is not the same as reusing a photograph, nor is it the same to displace people as to reorganize how visual content is produced. What exactly has Zara announced. Reuters reports thatZara has begun using AI to help create new images of real models in different outfits and accelerate visual production, in a movement that is part of a broader trend in the sector. As explained by an Inditex spokesperson, AI is being used to complement existing processes, not to replace them. The company presents it as a way to gain speed in the production of images without considering a total change of model in how its visual communication is built. How the “nuanced” approach works. From what has been published so far, the approach aims to take real photographs of human models and use AI to edit them and show those same models with other combinations of clothing, without repeating the session. The British newspaper CityAMfor its part, includes the anonymous testimony of a model according to which Zara asked for permission to edit its images with AI and thus show different items. This difference is important, because we are not talking about generating a campaign from scratch or creating a complete digital replica, but rather about expanding the number of final images based on previously photographed material. A precedent that marked the debate. Months before Zara’s move, H&M had contributed to tense the conversation with a much more visible proposal. In March 2025, the swedish company announced that would begin to create digital “twins” of 30 models to use in social networks and campaigns, always with prior permission. The initiative included compensation and control of rights by the models, but it also provoked criticism and once again put on the table the fear of a progressive reduction in work on traditional sets. The other end of the spectrum. The clearest contrast is offered by Mango. The company presented a campaign for its youth line generated entirely with AIa much more radical approach than Zara’s. In its case, AI is not limited to expanding combinations from a previous session, but is placed at the center of the creative process, although with subsequent intervention by human teams for selection and retouching. Mango frames this decision within its 2024-2026 strategic plan and presents it as a commitment to efficiency and innovation, thus marking a clear limit compared to hybrid approaches. Even so, the discomfort does not disappear. Some actors in the sector warn that the growing use of AI could reduce the number of assignments for photographers, models and production teams. It does not speak of a specific impact, but of a cumulative effect that can alter an entire ecosystem, from established professionals to those trying to make their way. The concern is not only focused on a specific brand, but on the sum of decisions that, little by little, change how many times a camera is turned on. Images | Zara | Highlight ID | M. Rennim In Xataka | All tech companies are putting AI in all their products. The problem is that nobody wants them

We joke about porn at ChatGPT, but it’s the most lucid financial move OpenAI has had in a long time

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There are people so hooked on AI who needs professional help to get out of there. Others they fall in love with one and even they cheat on their partners. In the midst of the debate about the effects of AI on mental healthOpenAI took a radical turn: would allow erotic content on ChatGPT. Porn on ChatGPT is on the decline, and it may be the push OpenAI needs to start monetizing its invention. adult mode. They count in The Verge A few days ago the head of OpenAI applications confirmed the approximate date for the arrival of this new mode. The adult mode was expected to be ready for this month of December, but apparently they do not have the age prediction system ready yet, so it will arrive sometime in the first quarter of 2026. Rudder turn. The measure represents a turn in Altman’s speech, which in August of this year He was “proud of not making a sexbot to squeeze profits”, in which many of us saw a swipe at Elon Musk and his competitor Grok. His change of position provoked criticism from many users, to which responded saying that Open AI was not “the world’s moral police” and that “as AI becomes more important in people’s lives, giving them the freedom to use it as they wish is an important part of our mission.” Subscriptions. Only one word is needed to understand the change in position: money. If there is something that OpenAI needs as May water, it is money, a lot of money. The subscriptions They were proposed as the most logical way to monetize AI chatbots, but the reality is that of the 1.8 billion users that ChatGPT has, only 3% pay any of the subscriptions. OpenAI’s plan is that by 2030 the number of subscribers will increase by at least 8.5% and adult mode is part of that plan. A sector that moves millions. Grok is one of the AI ​​chatbots that has fewer restrictions regarding erotic content, but there are more apps like Character.Ai or Replika that also allow sexual content. They count in The Economist that the adult content AI market will bill $2.5 billion in 2025 and is expected to increase 27% annually until at least 2028. It is too juicy a business to be left out, even if that means going against what he said just a few months ago. Something more will be needed. Sam Altman himself recently said that OpenAI’s spending projections over the next eight years amount to $1.4 trillion (European trillions, add twelve zeros). Although the adult mode was a success and they managed to double their subscribers, There is still a long way to go to achieve the desired profitability. OpenAI has other open fronts such as the creation of the highly anticipated “AI iPhone” or robotics, but they are businesses that require a huge investment. The advertising It is emerging as another path to follow and, together with porn, they seem to be the two most realistic and effective ideas of all those that OpenAI has on the table. Image | Unsplash In Xataka | OpenAI has lost $11.5 billion in a single quarter. Sam Altman doesn’t like to be reminded

In 1969, humans set foot on the Moon for the first time. He did it thanks to a computer less powerful than your cell phone

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The arrival to the Moon It was one of the scientific and technological milestones most notable of the 20th century and something that remained in those who lived and in those who did not thanks to the images and audios. Something that happened more than 40 years ago, when there were still many technological revolutions to come, such as personal computers or mobile phones. What technologies made it possible for humans to reach the Moon? Something that is already fascinating in itself, but it is even more so if you know the details of the computers, cameras and other devices that were used in the mission, taking into account their characteristics. What technology made it possible for three human beings they reached the moonWould they walk around and tell us in the meantime? We travel in time and space to review. like matryoshkas The Apollo 11 mission was the eleventh of a NASA program that had a total of 22 missions (19 of them being successful), in the 1960s until 1972. Until mission 7 the launches were unmanned and mission 8 was the first to orbit the Moon, but for all of them a Saturn rocket launcher was used. The one for Apollo 11 was the Saturn V, a rocket 110.64 meters high and weighing 2,700 tons with a tank full of fuel (the largest NASA has ever built). Depending on the stage (there were three, S-IC, S-II and S-IVB) the number of engines varied and so did the fuel, which were mixtures of oxygen, kerosene or liquid hydrogen. But the Saturn V was not the one that reached the Moon, but rather the one that went out into space and directed the modules towards it. These modules were the command and service (CM) and the lunar (LEM); The CM contained the engine of the propulsion system that was responsible for entering and leaving lunar orbit and had space for three astronauts, and the LEM was the first ship designed to be able to fly in a vacuum, without aerodynamic capacity. (POT) The LEM separated from the CM as it entered the orbit of the Moon and descended to its surface. It was designed to land only on the Moon since the legs were so weak that they would not support the weight of the LEM in Earth’s gravity (9.8 m/s² versus 1.6 m/s² on the Moon). There was room here for only two astronauts. The speeds that were reached (increasing upon entering the gravitational field of the Moon) were 3,700 kilometers per hour and up to 9,000 km/h due to lunar gravity. And here comes a question: how is it possible to brake at those speeds? To enter lunar orbit, hypergolic braking was used (using hydrazine, dimethylhydrazine and nitrogen tetroxide, hypergolic compounds – which explode without a heat source) and engine shutdown. The computers of the Apollo 11 mission To review the computing involved in the Apollo 11 mission, we must take into account the emission and reception, that is, what was on the ground and what the aircraft carried. And it is also worth remembering that at the time a computer was far from being something domestic or common, or from fitting on a desk. On Earth, in the Goddard Space Flight Center and the Manned Spacecraft Center in Houston, worked with the IBM System/360 75 mainfream, which (along with the 44, 91, 95 and 195) was implemented with hardwired logic instead of microcode like all other IBM S/360 models. For the curious techieshere a configuration diagram and explanation of the team. In the ships, however, the Apollo Guiding Computer (AGC), manufactured by Raytheon and designed by the MIT Instrumentation Laboratory. This team stood out for being one of the first to use integrated circuits. There was one in the LEM and another in the CM. The specifications of these teams are surprising not because the numbers are smaller compared to the current ones, but because even making the effort to place our minds in the 1960s, it is impressive to see that teams like this managed to carry out something as complex as a round trip to the Moon. The AGC had storage of 36,864 14-bit words and RAM of 2,048 words. (POT) Comparing it with later equipment, more or less between the two AGCs they have approximately the same memory as what a Commodore-64 (from 1982) had, but it was about eight times less powerful than an IBM XT (from 1981, which was 4.77 MHz compared to 0.043 MHz for the AGC). In fact, a computer with half a GB of RAM has 100,000 times more memory than AGC. But computers do not live on hardware alone, and software here has considerable weight. 300 people participated in its creation over seven years, at an approximate cost of 46 million dollars (at the time). Among them was Allan Klumpp, a mechanical engineer at MIT whose proposal for landing on the Moon reflects all calculations as well as diagrams and drawings of the situation on the dashboard. The program was called LUMINARY and was written in MAC programming language (MIT Algebraic Compiler), but no terminal or compilation programs, this was done with some punched cards which were prepared with a kind of typewriter (and if a hole was made wrong, a new one had to be made). On the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the famous achievement, it was transcribed the code of both modules (transcribing it), where we read that Klumpp said that this was never exempt from bugs. What is notable here is the multitaskgiven that the fact that the software allowed it was already an achievement and that it was not easy for him to carry it out. In fact, there was some alarm due to the high demand on the computers as at the time of the moon landing, which resulted in a slow response and not with all the calculations, so there was one minute of the eleven that lasted the … Read more

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