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We always believed that the Mediterranean was “closed” with an apocalyptic waterfall in Gibraltar. 50 years have qualified it

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If we travel to the past and stand in the Strait of Gibraltar 5.96 million years ago, we would see how it was closed and not open as is the case right now. This is something that left a Mediterranean isolated from the Atlantic, causing its water to begin to evaporate and leaving only a kilometer of salt on the bottom in an event known as the ‘Messinian salinity crisis‘. But now, the method by which it was ‘opened’ to give rise to the Mediterranean that we know today has undergone different nuances. What we knew. Until now it was thought that hundreds of thousands of years after this closure of the strait, a tectonic collapse occurred that reopened the passage, causing what is known as ‘Zanclian Megaflood‘. This was nothing more than a large waterfall in Gibraltar which supposedly filled the entire sea in a matter of months or a few years. In anyone’s mind this may be something great and like a real Hollywood movie, but the reality is that science is beginning to show many doubts that this exists. The origin of the myth. This mental image of the Strait of Gibraltar did not come out of nowhere, but in 2009 the magazine Nature public a study that modeled how the Atlantic would have breached the Gibraltar barrier, carving a deep canyon and pouring water at great speed. Without a doubt this was the perfect scenario to explain the erosive scars on the seabed. Although he was not alone, since later studies were added to this that, although they clarified how the salinity was stabilized after the event, they continued to find clear evidence in the geology that pointed to yes there were flooding episodes very abrupt and a violent flow of water that would make sense with this large waterfall. The problem is that this great phenomenon was oversimplified when complexity is its great characteristic. There are changes. Fifty years after the first hypotheses were raised, a large study published in 2025 pointed out that the connection between the Atlantic and the Mediterranean could have continued to exist for much of this period of time. But this is something that makes us raise another question: how is it possible then that kilometers of salt accumulated on the bottom if the sea did not dry completely? This is where the ‘‘paradox of the Mediterranean’ which suggests that changes in precipitation and the immense contribution of fresh water and sediment from European and African rivers allowed certain water levels to be maintained. That is why that scene of a completely dry Mediterranean is not so true, since only a little water was lost and it effectively made the water very salty. And more tests. Besides, studies on the Arch of Gibraltar demonstrate that the reduction in connectivity was due to a constant tectonic tug-of-war. That is why the pass never became a hermetic wall of solid rock that would break overnight, but rather a system of thresholds that allowed continuous leaks. The reality. After all, the question we must ask ourselves is whether there really was a flood or not, and here science suggests that the truth is somewhere in the middle. The latest evidence tells us that the total disconnection was real, but very brief in geological terms, since when the Atlantic finally regained definitive control over the Mediterranean basin, the filling was undoubtedly rapid and spectacularly rapid, although not necessarily through a single and apocalyptic cataract in Gibraltar. A scene that in the end can be much more boring for many. Images | wirestock In Xataka | 4.5 billion years at a glance: the amazing map of the moon that translates every impact and volcano into fascinating code

More than 2,000 years ago, people were already taking to the grave the greatest “bestseller” of all time: the ‘Iliad’

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No matter how many centuries pass or where they dig their shovels, the soil of Egypt remains a box of surprises for historians. Just checked it a team of archaeologists who have found a surprise when exploring an ancient necropolis from the Roman era of Al-Bahansalocated almost 200 km from Cairo. In addition to mummies, vessels with ashes and amulets, the researchers located one of the largest bestsellers of all time: the ‘Iliad’. The question is… What was he doing there? In a place in Minia… The news has taken care of advance it the Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities of Egypt, which gives an idea of ​​the relevance that the country gives to the discovery. An archaeological campaign led by doctors Maite Mascort and Esther Ponce has discovered mummies and funerary offerings in a necropolis from the Roman era of Al-Bahansa (Minia), the ancient Oxyrhynchus. The site is not exactly new. In fact, the Government speaks of two parts of the necropolis: number 65 and number 67, a Ptolemaic burial. located in 2024. The tombs were also not spared from grave robbers, who once damaged the coffins and probably took valuables with them. Still, the Spanish-Egyptian mission has made interesting discoveries. To the other world with Homer. Perhaps the most fascinating is the one found inside one of the mummies from the Roman period. When examining the body, the archaeologists extracted a papyrus with a fragment of the ‘Iliad’, the universal work attributed to Homer. To be more precise, they identified the passage ‘Catalogue of Ships’from the second book of the Greek epic and which describes part of the Achaean forces deployed in the Troy campaign. “This discovery adds a literary and historically significant dimension to the site,” they celebrate from the Egyptian Ministry of Tourism. Gold leaf and decorated linen. It was not the only surprise that archaeologists got when exploring the tomb no.65. The necropolis preserved several mummies from the Roman era carefully wrapped in linen decorated with geometric motifs. Even the polychrome wooden coffins and the fragments of gold leaf that were attached to some of the corpses are preserved. Tongues of gold and copper. It was not the only thing that the archaeologists found. When exploring the hypogeum, the researchers located three languages made with gold and a fourth made with copper next to the mummies that were still preserved in the funerary chamber. These were probably mortuary amulets that were placed in the mouths of the deceased to facilitate their journey to the Hereafter. Why is it important? Beyond how curious they may be, the findings are valuable for two main reasons. To begin with, as has been responsible for highlighting the head of Archeology and Tourism, Sharif Fathi, confirm the wealth and enormous diversity that accumulated in the Egyptian civilization over the centuries, including the Ptolemaic era and the domination of Rome. Furthermore, the mummies and other vestiges offer a valuable clue about the funerary practices used in Al-Bahansa in Greek and Roman times. Vessels with ashes. When exploring the east of tomb No. 67, from the Ptolemaic period, the archaeologists found a ditch with three limestone chambers in which they were still preserved. historical treasures. For example, in one of the rooms they located a stone slab and a vessel with charred remains that seem to belong to an adult, in addition to the bones of a baby and the head of a feline. All carefully wrapped in fabrics. In the second chamber there was also a container with the remains of cremated people and an animal of the same species. Statues representing the god were located in the surroundings. Harpocrates and even a figurine of the god Cupid. Images | Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities (Facebook) In Xataka | We just discovered that a semi-legendary Nile king really existed thanks to a 17th century document found in trash

With the new increase, the Netflix plan with ads already costs more than what it cost to watch the platform without advertising two years ago

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Netflix has just confirmed a new price increase in Spain. When the platform presented the plan with ads in 2022, it did so as the economic option for those who did not want to pay the full rate. Four years later, as Antonio Ortiz emphasized in Xthat plan with advertising costs more than the old basic plan cost without any type of advertising, which was eliminated in 2023. The new prices. The increase affects the three rates available in Spain. This is how they look: Standard Plan with ads: It goes from 6.99 to 8.99 euros per month, an increase of two euros or close to 29%. Standard Plan without ads: It goes up from 13.99 to 14.99 euros. Premium Plan: Access to four simultaneous screens, 4K resolution and without ads, scale from 19.99 to 21.99 euros, surpassing the barrier of 20 euros per month for the first time. This is the second price increase in less than two years, since in October 2024 the company increased its rates in Spain. The new prices are now active for new users and will apply to current users in the next billing cycle. Ten years reviewing upwards. Netflix arrived in Spain in October 2015. Since then, the evolution of its rates describes a trajectory without exceptions. In 2017 the Standard plan increased by one euro and the Premium plan by two. The same pattern was repeated in 2019 and 2021. In 2022 it introduced the plan with ads at 5.49 euros, and in 2023 it eliminated the basic plan of 7.99 euros to push towards that advertising option. Already in 2021 we were talking about how the Premium plan had risen 50% in four years. It has not stopped doing so: currently it costs 21.99 euros, in 2017 11.99. Almost double in nine years. The paradox of the cheap rate. As we say, when the plan with advertisements arrived in Spain it did so 5.49 euros per month. Subsequently It went to 6.99 euros and now stands at 8.99 euros, which represents a joint increase of around 64% since its launch. That is, Netflix’s cheapest option has gone above what the old Basic plan without ads cost, which remained at 7.99 euros until its final elimination. In other words: whoever today wants to pay as little as possible on Netflix accepts advertising and pays more than what those who had a completely ad-free subscription paid two years ago. Because. The company often justifies these revisions as necessary to sustain investment in content. Netflix plans to allocate about $20 billion to this aspect in 2026, 10% more than in 2025. But there is a very clear reason for these increases to arrive at a fixed and almost biannual cadence: Netflix has more than 325 million global subscribers and previous increases have not caused significant falls in its user base. Put into practice: the plan with ads accumulates more than 190 million monthly active users and represents 55% of new registrations in markets with enabled advertisingaccording to the company’s own data. It is the segment that has grown the most, and also the one that suffers the greatest percentage increase in this last round. The end of the climbs? At the beginning of this month, a court ruling in Italy It could mark a before and after in the relationship between the platform and the continent’s regulators. A court in Rome ruled that price increases applied by Netflix in Italy between 2017 and 2024 are illegal under the national consumer code, which requires specific and advance justification of any price change. Premium subscribers active since 2017 could receive refunds of up to 500 euros and those on the Standard plan, around 250. Netflix has 90 days to notify all those affected through its website and national media, under penalty of 700 euros per day for delay. The judges’ decision is a good blow for the finances of Netflix, which is going to appeal the ruling, and which could affect the platform’s more than 5.4 million subscribers in Italy. The potential bill for the platform could exceed 2 billion euros. The door to similar litigation in other European countries remains open, although the transposition of European Directive 93/13/EEC on which the Italian court’s decision is based varies between legislations. In Spain, for now, it can be applied but a comparable judicial resolution has not yet been reached, although FACUA has filed a complaint before the Ministry of Consumer Affairs, which could also end the platform in court. In Xataka | 29 years later, Netflix has become the television it promised to replace. That’s why Wall Street has punished her

the remains of a 17th century nobleman that have not decomposed over the years

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In the crypt of a small rural church in Kampehl, a town in Brandenburg, one of the most studied and controversial corpses on the entire continent has been lying for more than three centuries: that of Christian Friedrich von Kahlbutz, a feudal lord of the town who died in 1702. What is so special about a nobleman? German Prussian died more than 300 years ago? That at this point he should be decomposed and not only is he not, but his body is preserved in an exceptional way, that is, mummified naturally, without anyone embalming it. The discovery. It was the year 1794 when, while the Kampehl church was being renovated, workers opened the family crypt with the intention of moving the remains and demolishing the vault. Over there they found three coffins: two contained completely decomposed corpses and in the third was the body of Christian Friedrich von Kahlbutz, quite intact, dry and with an appearance reminiscent of leather. The nobleman was a mummy that preserved recognizable facial remains, remains of hair and part of the clothing they used to bury him (another thing is that with the passage of time and desecrations he remained naked, which earned him that nickname). Since the coffin had no name, the initials on the shroud served to identify him. The Kalebuz knight is extremely well preserved for his age. Via: Anagoria The character. If the state of preservation of Christian Friedrich von Kahlbutz is already striking, his life (and the legends that have emerged around it) are not far behind. The knight Kalebuz (that is the correct spelling according to the parish book of the Köritz church) was not actually a knight by military rank (he was a cornet) but by belonging to the nobility, he participated in the Battle of Fehrbellin and he won but not before injuring his left knee, as they say. Stay with this last piece of information. As a reward, they granted him the lordship of Kampehl. There he married and had numerous legitimate children and many others illegitimate. Among other things, because among its practices was the right of stay. In 1690, a servant named Maria Leppin accused him of the murder of her fiancé, Pastor Pickert, supposedly because the young woman had denied him the right to stay. One of the (many) good things about his status was that swearing that he had not been was enough for acquittal. And so he did in the court of Dreetz. The legend tells that in that oath he said something like: “If I am the murderer, may God ensure that my corpse never rots.” Since the original trial records no longer exist, there is no way to verify it. The hypotheses of its natural embalming. Leaving aside the explanation of the divine promise for obvious reasons, several explanations for the mummification of the Kalebuz knight have been proposed over the years: Mummification by healing (yes, like sausage) is the main one: the coffin used was of exceptional quality, made of double oak and raised on four legs, which allowed dry air currents to extract moisture from the body before bacterial decomposition. This was helped by a well-ventilated crypt, the sealing of the coffin to prevent access by ghoul insects, and the condition of the corpse itself. Apparently Kahlbutz probably suffered a serious lung disease (such as tuberculosis) and was already very deteriorated, with little nutritional substrate for microorganisms. This is what is deduced from comprehensive analysis report of the team Professor Andreas Winkelmannprofessor of anatomy at the Brandenburg Medical School Theodor Fontane. The effect of ingesting toxic substances. Another hypothesis that is more difficult to verify point to the chronic ingestion of toxic substances common in the pharmacy of the time (such as arsenic or mercury) that could have impregnated the tissues with compounds that inhibited decomposition, in addition to, of course, slowly poisoning him. After three centuries, these substances transform or volatilize and leave little analytical trace. Soil conditions. In addition, there is research that suggest that the sandy and dry composition of the crypt subsoil could have been a contributing factor in the extraction of moisture. Mummification by healing, the main hypothesis. Anagoria Yes, but. The passage of time, looters and legends do not make it easy to shed some light and science on the mystery of the good preservation of the Kalebuz knight. The fact that the trial records do not exist is in fact the least of the problems. The thorniest thing is identity: trusting everything to the initials of the shroud is a delicate matter. In 1983 a computed tomography made by Professor Meinhard Lüning at the Charité Hospital in Berlin found no trace of the knee injury. Neither does the 2024 investigation. Furthermore, Knight Kalebuz had two sons with the same initials, although it is not recorded that they died in Kampehl. In 2024 they also did a DNA analysis and there they could neither confirm nor deny that tuberculosis was the cause of death. In short: it is not known what ended the life of this nobleman. The most disconcerting thing is that the CT scan showed a pencil in the middle of the chest cavity. The only explanation is a subsequent manipulation: in 1895 the doctor Rudolf Virchow performed an extraction of tissue leaving a hole in the chest, which made it possible for someone to insert the object. The pencil was identified as Faber brand and dated between 1900 and 1920, which fits with the period in which the mummy was already on display to the public. In Xataka | A treasure hunter looted a shipwreck, did not reveal where he had kept the treasure and spent 10 years in prison. Now you are free to get it back In Xataka | We just discovered that a semi-legendary Nile king really existed thanks to a 17th century document found in trash Cover | Wikimedia and Mmoka

It took Shenzhen 20 years to have a subway. And 20 others have the best metro in the world

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The first time I traveled to Shenzhen, what was repeated to me most when I looked at its impressive skyscrapers was that until recently it was a small fishing village. And although it is true that this fact is a bit exaggerated and simplified because well, 330,000 inhabitants is not exactly a village and there was more activity than fishing, the reality is that its growth and transformation into the most technological city in the world it has been brilliant: today they live there more than 17 million people and has seen the birth of colossi such as Huawei, Tencent, DJI or BYD. And of course, the most technological city in the world has one meter at its height, which of course has grown at breakneck speed. Because the history of the transportation network goes hand in hand with the city. But what makes the shenzhen subway It is not so much its size or how quickly it has expanded, but the combination of the previous two with a third variable that rarely appears in the equation: design ambition. While in the West, with rare exceptions, we opt for functional projects that are contained in price and budget, Shenzhen presents entire lines in a few years with stations that seem taken from the cinema. From science fiction cinema. Shenzhen subway today. Shenzhen subway has 635 kilometers long, 441 stations and 17 operating lines, leading the country in network density (0.30 km/km²) and intensity of use (15,000 trips/km/day). And in this tangle, semi-automatic lines coexist with other fully automated and driverless lines. like Line 20 or very fast as Line 11which reaches 120 km/h. As a curiosity, the Shenzhen metro network It is operated by two different companies: Shenzhen Metro Group manages the majority of lines and MTR Corporation of Hong Kong operates Line 4 and the recent Line 13. This is something unusual that adds difficulty to the matter in terms of interoperability. Why is it important. The Shenzhen metro may be unique in its kind, but it is the best argument to demonstrate that speed of execution and quality of design are not incompatible. The third variable in the equation is cost and surprisingly, comparatively it is cheaper: China build for around $250 million per kilometer in purchasing power parity terms, between two and eight times less than Western equivalents like Paris or New York. On the other hand, the Shenzhen metro acts as an urban catalyst: the stations were planned following the TOD modelthat is, promoting urban development around transport stations. That is to say, they serve the city but also make the city. On a global scale, this network is a methodological reference: it is no longer just a matter of engineering, but also about experience, design and territorial strategy. The Eye of Shenzhen, the centerpiece of Gangxia North Station, one of its most iconic elements. Unsplash Context. First of all, a clarification: that fishing village reference usually emphasizes about 30,000 inhabitants in the late 70s, but that figure corresponds to Bao’an County and not the 30,000 of Shenzhen Town, which constituted the original urban core (today Luohu district). The growth is in any case exponential and shows a dispersed demographic base that required territorial reorganization and explains the aggressive growth of the metro network. But if we have mentioned that figure of 330,000 inhabitants that explains the China Global Television Network is because it was that entire area that was designated as Special Economic Zonea plan that provides advantageous conditions to promote economic development (usually economic laws for a free market economy). In short, the laboratory of Chinese capitalism. Wow it worked. Metro planning began in the 1980s, construction in 1998, and the first line opened in December 2004. The beginnings were not quick or easy. The subsoil where the Shenzhen metro is integrated did not help at all: weathered granite, high water table and proximity to the Pearl River Delta, which forced the intensive use of specialized tunnel boring machines, jet grouting and even freeze the ground. Neither is the climate: 35 °C with 90% humidity in summer and recurring typhoons that require oversized drainage systems and watertight gates. The idea of ​​the subway was born before the megacity it is today: in 1983, Mayor Liang Xiang visited Singapore and On his return he made it clear: around Shennan Avenue I would leave a green belt of 30 meters on each side and reserve 16 meters in the center to build it. In 1988 there was a formal light rail proposal. Shenzhen Metro Group was established in July 1998 and construction began that same year. Six years later, on December 28, 2004, he opened the Line 1 with 17.4 kilometers and 15 stations. It was a modest system: four-car trains, 15-minute frequencies and limited coverage to the central corridor on two lines. How have they done it. Building an average of 30 kilometers a year is simply an unthinkable pace in Europe. The secret is in a large scale prefabrication which allows them to be made in the factory and assembled on site like Lego XXL and meticulous planning from design to maintenance. The avant-garde design of the stations is not accidental but has every intention: for Shenzhen, its subway is its showcase of the identity it wants to project to the world. An example: the Shenzhen eyea spectacular skylight following the Fermat Spiral or the ceiling that simulates an origami of Universiade or maritime integration of the station Sea World between Lines 2 and 12. The business model is Rail + Property imported from Hong Kong and is equally interesting because it has allowed it to grow without depending on waiting for state/municipal budgets: the operator builds the subway and in exchange receives the right to develop the land around the stations: apartments, offices, shopping centers. Those real estate income are what pay for the railway investment. Tap to go to the post What’s to come. As if the Shenzhen metro itself were … Read more

We had always believed that evolution had been arrested for thousands of years. The redheads were telling us the opposite

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Evolution has been one of the great allies that has made us get to where we are right now, but there is also an idea that haunts the minds of some people when they point out that comforts, agriculture or the best technologies have made this natural selection stagnates in humans. But… Is this true? A myth. The answer is no. And to demonstrate it, a group of researchers has recently published a new article in the magazine Nature, breaking this myth, pointing out that evolution has not only stopped, but that the invention of agriculture made it step on the accelerator. Here the research team has achieved what until recently seemed impossible, namely tracing the footprint of natural selection over the millennia. How it has been done. It’s not easy to look back into such a long past, but here researchers have used a new method baptized as AGESwhere they have ‘only’ had to process 16,000 ancient genomes from Western Eurasia. In this way, the results have shown that there are 479 genetic variants that have experienced great selective pressure, which is why our biological adaptation has accelerated following the advances that have made humanity as it is now. Some examples. That there have been changes in our genetics is phenomenal, but sometimes we want clear examples of why this is the case. One of these points out that when the populations of Eurasia abandoned nomadism to settle, cultivate the land and domesticate animals, their diets, exposure to sunlight and social dynamics changed radically. This translated, for example, into an increase in genetic variants associated with light skin or red hair, the latter being something linked to mutations in the MC1R gene. And its meaning lies in the need to adapt the body to absorb enough vitamin D in climates with little sunlight, although it is also suggested that these genes could share different very relevant adaptation functions. And also aesthetic. Far from how functional it may be to have a greater absorption of vitamin D, the studies also provide curious data about our evolutionary aesthetics by pointing out that natural selection favored the reduction of baldness in these populations. Here the discussion is served, since it can be thought that it is related to sexual selection or even that it is the consequence of other changes in genetics that opened the door to fewer cases of baldness and also rheumatoid arthritis. Images | Johannes Plenio Gabriel Silverio In Xataka | We have just discovered that 20% of our DNA comes from an unknown hominid population: Population B

“It takes two years to learn to speak and sixty to learn to be silent”

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Whether or not you are part of their legion of userssomething must be recognized about X, the old Twitter: it has become a gigantic social laboratory. Also definitive proof that it is often less difficult for people to open their mouths (or type) than to think beforehand about what we are going to use them for. It doesn’t matter that it’s the last game of the League, the war in Iran, a video of kittens or issues as sensitive as euthanasia: There will always be someone willing to take out their phone and share their opinion, even if that opinion has just been formed. Hence in this world verbose Ernest Hemingway resonates strongly: “It takes two years to learn to speak and 60 to learn to be silent.” Speak and be silent. The history of Philosophy (thus, with capital letters) is full of good ideas… and suggestive phrases of uncertain origin and dubious attribution. We have told it more times. A quick Google search arrives to find alleged statements by Marcus Aurelius, Da Vinci or Marie Curie (among a very long list of thinkers) whose authorship is impossible to confirm. Something similar happens with the sentence that concerns us today. We have been putting the phrase “It takes two years to learn to speak and sixty to learn to be silent” on Hemingway’s lips for decades when in reality it is impossible to know if he ever uttered it. In 2019 Quote Researcher tried to confirm it and came to three conclusions. First, it dates back to at least 1909, when Hemingway was still a boy from Illinois. Second, that it has been associated (with variants) with other intellectuals, including Mark Twain either Lydia Allen DeVilbiss. Third, it is very difficult to go beyond the two previous conclusions. The value of each word. In view of all the above, we might ask ourselves why pay attention to a proverb of diffuse authorship. The answer is simple. Perhaps we cannot confirm if it came from Hemmingway’s lips (or pen), but it certainly connects with the style of a novelist who was characterized by concise sentences and maximum economy of language. In the works of Hemingway every word counts. And that is also a valuable lesson if we think about the fact that humanity (or at least a large part of it) has never had it so easy when it comes to expressing its opinions and participating in public debate. The torrent of public opinion is so powerful that it has even overflowed and has been carried forward the 140 characters of Twitter. In defense of silence. If Hemingway’s supposed phrase has been captivating us for more than a century, it is not only because of its ironic point. To a large extent it also connects with an idea that has permeated philosophy since the time of Pythagoras, to whom another similar phrase is attributed: “Listen, you will be wise”. People express themselves naturally. It is part of our elemental baggage, which we develop during the first years of life along with other skills such as walking. The complicated thing, in fact, is to do the opposite: embrace silence. In silence you think, reflect and listen, tasks that often require active effort. “It takes sixty years to learn to be silent,” reminds us Hemingway sarcastically, implying that silence is a complex virtue that we must work on and takes a lifetime to master. Is it that important? Yes. Educated in a world in which from a very young age we are instilled that ‘he who remains silent grants’ it is easy to forget it, but silence is sometimes an art. To begin with, it requires self-control. It is not always easy to remain silent. As they comment our colleagues TrendsIt also requires discipline, tolerance and a certain dose of humility and generosity. Against polarization. In exchange, silence offers us other things. It leaves us more room for reflection, to form more informed opinions and, above all, to measure our words and avoid regrets. In the age of networks, the debate held from anonymity and with society increasingly polarizedalso helps to ask certain questions: Can I contribute something to the conversation? Am I sure of what I’m going to say or will I just contribute to generating noise? What repercussions might what I say have on others? The virtues of silence and contemplation have been defended by many thinkers throughout history, from Pythagoras to the Stoics (including Epictetus either Marcus Aurelius) to the great humanists of the Renaissance. Even neuroscience has endorsed the advantages of giving yourself some time before opening your mouth. I already said it Aristotle himself in another equally ingenious phrase: “The Wise Man never says everything he thinks, but he always thinks everything he says.” Images | Wikipedia 1 and 2 Via | Trends In Xataka | “A place of joy with pain”: the phrase that summarizes the Aztec philosophy to be happier in this life

Cinema has been accusing Netflix and Amazon of suffocating it for years. Now it has new saviors: Netflix and Amazon

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In Las Vegas, before thousands of theater owners, the head of Amazon MGM Studios promised that at least 15 of its films a year would reach theaters. He did so days after Netflix, which has been avoiding cinemas for years, announced that it will respect traditional exhibition windows for Warner Bros. films, thus building new bridges of understanding with its former enemies, traditional cinemas. Coincidence or highly studied public relations move? 15 a year doesn’t hurt. Mike Hopkins, director of Prime Video and Amazon MGM Studios, He was very direct with the exhibitors: “While some competitors have entered and exited the theatrical waters, for us this is neither a test nor an experiment. Our commitment to release at least 15 films each year in your theaters is underway.” The theater owners responded with a standing ovation. Amazon backs this promise with figures: they have been announcing for some time an investment of $1 billion annually in movies for theaters. The ‘Hail Mary’ gift. Immediately afterwards, Ryan Gosling spoke. The actor and producer of ‘Salvation Project’the science fiction film that has been dominating the global box office for weeks, thanked the exhibitors for their decisive role in the film’s success. He later said that the production, which has accumulated more than $525 million at the global box office, was going to extend its exhibition window, delaying its arrival on digital platforms. A true gift of good will for a sector that appreciates any oxygen cylinder. In the other corner. On the other hand we have Netflix. In April 2025, his co-CEO Ted Sarandos described going to the movies as “an outdated concept”. Obviously, given the platform’s trend-setting power, the statement did not sit particularly well with exhibitors. Months later, when Netflix announced its intention to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery for around 80,000 million dollars, the alarm became something more concrete: the main studio committed to the exhibition passed into the hands of the platform most hostile to traditional cinema. Collect cable. Sarandos partially retreated in January 2026 in an interview: “When this deal closes, we will have a phenomenal theatrical distribution engine that generates billions of dollars of theatrical revenue that we do not want to put at risk. We will manage that business as it is today, with 45-day windows.” He clarified his comment about “outdated” cinema: he was referring to locations without access to theaters, not to the experience itself. Internally, suspicions did not subside: according to the CEO of the Cinemark chainNetflix intended to approach a window of only 17 days. Cinemas are improving. The point is that a slight improvement is detected in the situation of cinemas. According to Comscorethe US box office accumulated from the beginning of this year until April 12 reached $2.26 billion, 23% above the same period of the previous year and the best figure since 2019. Ticket sales grew by 16%, reaching 154 million viewers. This improvement has been echoed among production companies: Universal, which during the pandemic reduced its windows to 17 days, has already announced that will extend its guaranteed minimum to 45 days since January 2027. In this context, MGM’s congratulations and Netflix’s change in philosophy make sense. Reasons for suspicion. The rooms, however, have reasons to be reticent. David Zaslav, CEO of Warner, promised three years ago 20 films a year from Warner Bros. for rooms. He never kept his promise. But we may be seeing the winds of change blowing. The box office in slight but clear improvement, the expansion of windows and the regulatory pressure They are creating a panorama in which it is more profitable for platforms to be allies of cinemas than enemies. Although the rooms know that they have to make sure before burying the hatchet. In Xataka | Spotify killed the record and the industry pivoted to concerts. Netflix killed cinema and the industry was left with a “space crisis”

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

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

‘GTA Online’ has been making more revenue than many new games for 13 years

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A game released in 2013 for previous generation consoles is earning more than a million dollars a day in 2026. It is the online mode of ‘Grand Theft Auto V’, which has just a few months left before its own creators try to replace it with the most anticipated sequel in video game history, ‘GTA VI‘. The dilemma this poses for Rockstar is unprecedented (and the figures that show it came in a not exactly official way). The hacking. On April 11, the ShinyHunters group (responsible for previous security breaches in Ticketmaster or Santander bank, among others) accessed the Rockstar Games servers through an exploit in cloud management software. The company confirmed the attack, although it described it as having limited impact on its operations. What hackers posted after Rockstar refused to pay a ransom for the information it was not code from the long-awaited ‘GTA VI0, but business metrics extracted from the internal analytics platform Anodot. And what they leaked was not bad news, quite the opposite. To the point that Take-Two’s shares rose as soon as it went public. A million a day. According to leaked information (which Rockstar has neither confirmed nor denied), ‘GTA Online’ earned an average of $9.59 million per week between September 2025 and April 2026, with a weekly maximum of almost 28 million and a minimum of 4.7 million. The annual figure is around 500 million dollars. More than a million a day, not bad for a game that debuted in 2013. How they do it. The backbone of the model is Shark Cards, packs of virtual currency that players purchase to acquire cars, properties or weapons within the game. The Shark Cards generated more than 5 billion dollars between 2014 and 2024but the thing is that only 4% of the active player base has spent real money on the game. They are the so-called “whales”, users who concentrate practically all of the spending, and who generate these exorbitant incomes. ‘GTA Online’ is, in that sense, a business model like the most aggressive free-to-play games. The cherry on top of GTA+. Added to all this is GTA+, a paid monthly subscription that Rockstar launched in 2022 and which, according to the same leaked data, reached its peak of 1.3 million subscribers in December 2025, coinciding with the launch of the update.A Safehouse In The Hills‘. It added luxury mansions to the game and resumed the narrative of ‘GTA V’ with the reappearance of one of its protagonists, Michael. The death of ‘Red Dead Online’. These figures also explain why Rockstar stopped updating ‘Red Dead Online’ regularly. The online mode of ‘Red Dead Redemption 2’ generated an average of $507,000 per week between June 2024 and April 2026, compared to 9.59 million weekly for ‘GTA Online’. Take-Two was immediately clear where resources needed to be concentrated. Coexistence. Although Rockstar has not officially detailed what its online component will look like, leaked court documents They suggest that ‘GTA VI’ will include a multiplayer mode (something that, now that the colossal income of ‘GTA Online’ is known, no one doubts). But at the same time, that’s the problem: in a message to shareholders in FebruaryTake-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick said that “I have every reason to believe that we will continue to support ‘GTA Online’. There is a large community that enjoys it and remains engaged.” Does that imply two live-services simultaneous, with the consequent investment in resources, updates and player service? There is a precedent. When ‘GTA Online’ arrived on PS4 and Xbox One in 2014, Rockstar did not close the PS3 and Xbox 360 versions. Both generations coexisted for more than a year receiving the same content, and in 2015 the ‘Ill-Gotten Gains Part 2’ update was the last significant one for the old platforms. Even so, those servers were not permanently turned off until December 2021, six years later. The history problem. If they were two different services, the online mode of ‘GTA VI’ would arrive without twelve years of updates, without thousands of accumulated missions, without the ecosystem of properties, vehicles and businesses that ‘GTA Online’ players have built for more than a decade. The examples of sequels that failed to attract the players of the previous game are numerous, but ‘Payday 3’ stands out among them all (the number of players for ‘Payday 2’ is still five times higher). Big losses. Players who have spent years accumulating virtual money, garages, businesses and personalized clothing in ‘GTA Online’ will hardly dare to start from scratch. And at the moment no one has dared to talk about a transfer of assets between both games: the practical and design implications of such an exchange make it practically unfeasible. (And so not to mention FiveMthe community role-playing mod based on ‘GTA V’ that Rockstar bought in 2023 and is still an active source of income). Most likely. As Kotaku predictswe’ll most likely see a multi-year period of coexistence, with Rockstar gradually trying to move the user base from one game to another while keeping both running. Controlled closure of ‘GTA Online’, indefinite maintenance with minimal updates or something in between? It all depends on how fast ‘GTA VI Online’ grows into a game that, let’s not forget, will attract thousands of new players. At the moment, the bar he has to reach is very high. In Xataka | In a time when almost no one develops their own graphics engine, ‘GTA VI’ arrives to punch the table

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