buying Globalstar’s “candy” for $9 billion

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SpaceX has been positioned as a the great giant of telecommunications satellites thanks to Starlink. However, other seemingly more modest companies have been able to occupy the space left free by their weak points. One of them is Globalstar. For this reason, Amazon has set itself the goal of acquiring it as soon as possible. The facts. According to CNA and ReutersAmazon is currently in negotiations to acquire Globalstar for 9 billion dollars. The final transaction could be announced this week, although at the moment nothing is finalized. It would be a big step forward for the e-commerce company when it comes to telecommunications, but to achieve it will also have to reach an agreement with Apple. Starlink vs Globalstar. Starlink currently has more than 10,000 satellites in orbit. SpaceX’s plan is to initially scale up to 12,000 satellites and, if possible, in the future to exceed 40,000. With this, it is intended that Internet access will be broader and faster, by directly connecting users with satellites located in geostationary orbit, without the need to use ground stations as intermediaries. Globalstar has a similar goalalthough it has many fewer satellites. Just a few dozen. However, Globalstar has something that Starlink craves: licensed spectrum. The VIP area of ​​telecommunications. A licensed band in the radio spectrum is a specific range of frequencies that has been assigned by the competent authorities to a specific operator. For the duration of the license, only that company can transmit in that range. This means that interference is reduced to a minimum. There are no other satellites competing to send their signals. Apple enters the scene. Globalstar’s licensed spectrum is a candy highly desired by any telecommunications company. One of them, without a doubt, was Apple. In 2024, the telephone giant invested $1.5 billion in Globalstar, acquiring 20% ​​of the company. Since then they have used it, for example, to send emergency messages or to use offline maps. Given this situation, Amazon will have to negotiate directly with Apple and reach an agreement. More satellites, but worse positioned. Actually, Amazon already has its own satellite project, called Leo. It currently has 200 satellites in low orbit and many more ready to launch when the necessary permits are obtained. However, many of these permits do not arriveso Amazon has been experiencing delays in its release schedules. This has led the company to make the decision to join forces with Globalstar, as it has a much smaller train of satellites, but clearly better positioned thanks to the licensed band. If they reach an agreement, they will be able to start working at full capacity much sooner. Starlink is not going down. Despite the virtues of Globalstar and the forces it could combine with Leo, Starlink is not positioned as a losing company. The power that having the largest train of telecommunications satellites gives it is still very great. However, the space is becoming saturated and there are more and more entities concerned about what the growth of this company could entail. If your maneuver based on the brute forceperhaps there could come a time when you find yourself at a disadvantage. We will have to wait to see it. Image | Charles Boyer and Christian Wiediger In Xataka | Ukraine’s military has a problem almost as important as Russia: Starlink belongs to Elon Musk

The blockages that we saw in LaLiga make the leap to other sports. Telefónica extends them to the Champions League, tennis and golf

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What began as a controversy associated with LaLiga matches has just taken a much bigger leap. The blockages that we have been seeing for months on football days no longer stop there: they also reach other live sports broadcasts and expand the radius of a measure that was already generating discomfort and complaints. The novelty. According to El Economistathe latter is based on a resolution of the Commercial Section of the Court of Instance of Barcelona in response to a lawsuit from Telefónica Audiovisual Digital. That resolution, dated March 23, authorizes Movistar Plus+ to request the rest of the Spanish telecommunications operators to collaborate in the dynamic blocking of websites that illicitly disseminate content over which Telefónica has rights. Always according to the information published, the measure will begin to be applied this Tuesday with The Champions League match between Atlético de Madrid and Barcelonaand will continue the next day with the meeting between Bayern Munich and Real Madrid. What changes in practice. From here on, the matter stops being just a judicial decision and becomes a concrete operation. As we have seen, and according to the aforementioned source, it will be the operators who must collaborate with Telefónica in the immediate blocking, during the broadcast of the content, of IP addresses, URLs and domain names used for illicit dissemination. The information also places Movistar and O2, as well as MasOrange, Vodafone and Digi operators, within this framework. The scope. The key is not only in who executes these blocks, but in the type of emissions that now come into focus. If before the public conversation tended to revolve around LaLiga, the new information paints a much broader scenario: the authorization refers to “every day of broadcasting of live sporting events” and covers not only the Champions League, but also tennis or golf competitions over which Telefónica has rights. This obviously widens the playing field. Damage to third parties. The controversy around these blockades arises not only from their harshness against illicit emissions, but from what we already saw months ago in services completely unrelated to that circuit. As we published in Aprilseveral companies described traffic and revenue drops in the context of IP blocks that also affected legitimate services. Among the cases that we collected was that of OnlyTenis.com, whose manager placed the monthly billing at a drop from around 70,000 euros to a range of between 40,000 and 50,000 euros. The expansion. In that context, what we have before us is a clear extension of a strategy that is not completely new. The difference is that now the focus is broadening and, with it, so is a discussion that has been open for some time in Spain. On the one hand, there is the will to stop the illicit dissemination of content with faster and more forceful measures. On the other hand, the same underlying question continues to linger: to what extent this tightening can once again affect users, services and companies that are not part of that circuit. Images | LaLiga In Xataka | LaLiga has been at war with Cloudflare for years over piracy. It has just joined forces with its main competitor

The truth behind the medical milestone that has returned activity to a frozen brain

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One of the wishes of many people is to live forever and they may have in mind ending up with their head stuck in a jar like in the Futurama series or becoming cryogenized for an eternity until the key to eternal life is found. But we are still quite far from that, although right now science has been able to recover the activity of a brain after ‘killing’ it. Far from the resurrection. In recent days we have been sold the idea that we are facing a new way of ‘resurrecting’ the dead or achieving the wish of eternal life, but the reality is that the latest thing science has done is recover short-term functional activity in mouse brain tissue after subjecting it to vitrification. What was done. Historically, the great enemy of cryopreservation of human tissue have been ice crystals. This is because when we freeze tissue, the water in the cells expands and crystallizes, perforating the cell membranes and destroying the structure from within, making it impossible for that tissue to come back to life. Something that generates a lot of damage and that goes against the famous cryogenization cabins that promise to wake us up in the future when science has advanced a lot. But now, instead of traditional freezing, the latest experiment used powerful cryoprotectants and took mouse brain tissue to -150ºC. This process transforms the liquids into a glass-like state, preventing the formation of these crystals, and when they wanted to ‘awaken’ the tissue again, ultra-rapid reheating was simply done to prevent crystallization from destroying the samples. What was achieved. The original article shows extraordinary results, since the amount of neuronal properties that survived were many by ensuring that the cells did not collapse and the tissue returned to consuming energy normally. In addition, the neurons maintained their ability to fire signals and also the possibility of creating new connection networks, which is essential for learning and memory. Why does it matter? As he warns Nature Newsthese results must be read with caution, since it is mouse tissue, not a complete human brain. And recovering electrical activity in a cut of the hippocampus is not equivalent to restoring the consciousness, identity or life of an entire animal, much less a person. But even if they do not manage to pause our definitive death, the reality is that this can be crucial in the field of research by facilitating the transport and storage of brain samples for study in other places. But it will also allow drugs to be tested on actual brain tissue that has been preserved, perhaps reducing the need to sacrifice so many experimental animals. Images | rawpixel.com on Freepik In Xataka | Alzheimer’s leaves its mark decades before showing its face: keeping vitamin D at bay is already a promising shield

If anyone thinks that gambling is a modern vice, we just found a game of chance that is more than 12,000 years old

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We are so used to locating the origins of gambling in the civilizations of the eastern Mediterranean (in the Babylonian temples, on the Roman gaming tables) that it is difficult to imagine another scenario. But a study published this month in the magazine ‘American Antiquity‘ changes everything: the oldest known dice do not come from the Old World, but from the western plains of North America, and are at least 12,000 years old. They date back to nothing less than the Pleistocene. Old dice. With his study, archaeologist Robert J. Madden has shown that Native Americans made and used dice at least 12,000 years ago, during the last centuries of the Ice Age. That makes them the oldest known games of chance, more than 6,000 years ahead of the earliest documented dice in Europe. What was believed? Mainstream history placed the origin of dice in the complex societies of the Near East and Eastern Europe, approximately 5,500 years ago. Madden’s findings they relocate that starting point to another continent and to another completely different type of society: groups of nomadic hunter-gatherers of the western Great Plains of North America. Neither palaces, nor cities, nor written culture: games of chance in Pleistocene camps. What are these dice like? Prehistoric Native American dice do not look like the cubes we know. They are known as binary lots: flat, two-sided pieces, made of bone or wood, designed to be thrown on a surface. The result depended on how many marked faces were left face up; Players counted points with small rods and whoever reached an agreed upon number first won. More like a coin toss than the six possible outcomes on a die, but just as useful for generating random outcomes. Why was there confusion? The problem was classification. When archaeologists found pieces of this type, they simply labeled them as “game pieces.” There was no systematic criterion to identify them as given. madden corrected that way of seeing it developing a morphological test based on a catalog that the ethnographer Stewart Culin published in 1907, ‘Games of the North American Indians’, where he documented 293 historical sets of indigenous dice from more than 130 towns. With that framework applied to the published archaeological record from across the continent, he identified more than 600 additional dice. Where were they? The oldest dice come from three sites in the Folsom culture: Agate Basin (Wyoming), Lindenmeier (Colorado) and Blackwater Draw (New Mexico). It is believed that these pieces They are between 12,800 and 12,200 years old. Lindenmeier, north of Fort Collins, has 14 different artifacts that meet the criteria, leading some archaeologists to speculate that it was a large seasonal congregation site for dispersed groups. The density of material found there points to something more than a temporary camp. What is most striking is the continuity. These objects appear in deposits from all major periods of North American prehistory, without detectable interruption from the late Pleistocene until after European contact. A 12,000-year-old tradition that still works: Madden himself found tutorials on YouTube where native groups explain how to play versions of the same games from two millennia ago. How to play. Possibly, these dice were used in games that we can connect with what we tell about the patollithe Mesoamerican board game of the Mayans and Aztecs: that was also a game of chance with a deep ritual dimension, found in the archaeological works of the Mayan Train. The social and religious function of the game seems to have been constant in very different pre-Columbian cultures. Madden describes these games as “social technologies of integration”: neutral spaces, governed by shared rules, where groups with little or no prior contact could interact, exchange goods and information, and build alliances. The religious dimension is equally documented. Numerous native oral traditions describe dice as a sacred activity: the gods themselves participate, and in some cosmologies the creation of human beings is the result of a cosmic game. Image | Robert J. Madden

There were four workers in a van and they ended up crashed

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The new Madrid Formula 1 circuit He has already had his first accident, and he has not even raced a single-seater on its asphalt yet. A van with four occupants he sneaked into the construction siteand at high speed ended up going off the track. Although they had a good scare, it seems that there have been no serious injuries. What happened. A person who was walking through the Valdebebas area, next to the IFEMA exhibition center where the MadRing is being built, heard a loud noise coming from inside the circuit. When he looked out he saw a van driving along the already paved part of the route at a very fast speed, especially for a construction site. He took out his cell phone, recorded, and He sent the video to the ‘MadriZonaNorte’ account in X. In the images you can see how the vehicle ends up overshooting a curve and crashing, triggering the airbag. The four occupants, according to El Motor, were workers working on the construction of the circuit, and they all left on their own. rolling. The MadRing is still far from finished. The asphalting process should be completed by May 31and that includes three layers: base, intermediate and tread. Right now there is only a first layer on a good part of the route. Filming at high speed inside such an enclosure, with the work underway, has been irresponsible that, in this case, ended without serious consequences due to pure luck. A project against the clock. To understand the magnitude of the nonsense, it is worth taking into account the pace at which the work progresses. The Director of Operations of IFEMA Madrid, Carlos Jiménez, counted to Motorsport media that the works are even going a week and a half or two weeks ahead of what was planned for the track. The construction companies ACCIONA and Eiffage Construction are working non-stop to meet a deadline that does not allow for delays, since after the delivery of the circuit, the FIA ​​homologations will come, with two official visits planned during the works, and all of this must be ready before September arrives. Taking into account that the bun oven is not there, any carelessness within the premises is an unnecessary risk that could further complicate a work that has already caused quite a few headaches. What’s to come. When completed, the MadRing will have 22 curves and 5.4 km in length, the estimated lap time is 1 minute and 32 seconds, and on the 589-meter finish line, drivers will be able to reach up to 340 km/h. The jewel in the crown is La Monumentala 550 meter long curve with an extreme bank of 24%, the highest on the calendar, in which the drivers will have to face an inclination of up to 10 meters high for six seconds. A particularity that does not exist in any other circuit in the world in the competition. The when. The Madrid Grand Prix is ​​scheduled for the weekend of September 11-13 this year. More than 80,000 tickets have already been soldwhich is equivalent to 72% of the total capacity. A few weeks ago, A Red Bull car traveled the tracks of the Madrid Metro as part of an advertising campaign for the event. Now the route has made headlines again, although for very different reasons. a test. Before the debut in F1, IFEMA is working on organizing an internal race, probably without an audience and in a lower category, to verify the state of the circuit. The real cars will arrive in September, so the fewer vans there are testing the Stranjis layout, the better. Cover image | MadriZonaNorte, MadRing In Xataka | It turns out that the “good, pretty and cheap” electric car does exist and is manufactured in China. So Citroën has stepped up

everything we know so far about the new version of Google’s operating system

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We are going to give you all the information about Android 17so you can learn about everything that Google’s next mobile operating system offers. For now, we are going to tell you everything we know at the moment, but between now and its launch we will update the article periodically to always keep it up to date. As usual, the basic version of Android 17 will be the one that reaches Google’s Pixel phones, while then the rest of the manufacturers will adapt it with their customization layers, which may have additional functions. But we are going to focus on the base version of Android and what we know about its next version. When do we expect Android 17 to be released Google launched the first beta for developers of Android 17 last February. These are very unstable versions and not recommended for conventional users, and where visual innovations are gradually being implemented. The objective is to have the software base so that app developers have time to adapt them. IF Google continues to maintain the accelerated pace launched in 2025, it is expected that the first public beta arrives in May 2026. It will be during Google I/O, the search engine company’s annual event, and these beta versions will already have the main visual novelties. They will launch successive versions where they implement the new features that are to come. And then, The final version will begin to arrive between June and July for Pixel phones, which are always the first to update. Then, the rest of the manufacturers will adapt Android 17 to their customization layers and launch it on their devices between the second half of 2026 and the first half of 2027. What news do we expect from Android 17 Let’s start by telling you what they are the confirmed news of Android 17. They will not be the only ones, nor will they be implemented at the same time in the betas. However, looking at the Canary versionswe know that Google prepare a before and after for the gamersin addition to the beginning of the end of Chrome OS to not have two operating systems, but one. Let’s talk to you about it. ‘Aluminum OS’ and the end of ChromeOS The most disruptive novelty of Android 17 could be at its foundations, although has not yet been confirmed. This is a project with code name ‘Aluminum OS’which seeks to unify both mobile phones, tablets and laptops in the same operating system. Google currently has two operating systems, Android for mobile phones, tablets, watches or cars, and Chrome OS for laptops and computers, although it focuses on the low ranges. Now what they want is have a single operating system that works for everythingand this would mean the disappearance of ChromeOS. The idea with Aluminum OS is that Android can be used on both mobile and desktop. And when you use it on the desktop, it will have the interface of a full operating system. With this, Android will no longer only focus on mobile phones and tablets, but also on laptops and computers of all ranges. Just like we have been learning in recent monthswith this Google wants to attack three different fronts: Unify resources having a single development: Google currently has two parallel developments, Android and Chrome OS. With this, all efforts are focused on a single development. Assault on the high ranges: Chromebooks with Chrome OS are mainly cheap entry-level laptops, and are used for browsing the Internet and not much else. But now, The leaks talk about premium devicesand that Google wants Android to be an option for high-end laptops. Gemini integrated into its core: We have also learned that Google wants to integrate Gemini into the bowels of its operating system, so that it can be used natively on laptops without further complications. Here, what should be clear is that It is not yet confirmed that it will arrive on Android 17. It has been leaked that it is an ongoing development, but we do not know if it will arrive in the next version of its operating system or if it will be fully integrated or it will be a progressive integration. We will be attentive to new information. This is the rest of the confirmed news Remapping of controls for gaming: Android 17 will bring very good news for gamers. The first is that there will be native support for button remapping, to be able to adapt the actions to the controllers and prevent the buttons from not doing what you want if you connect an Xbox or PlayStation controller. Virtual command function: It will allow you to translate touches on the screen into signals from a physical controller. With this, you will be able to use games that were designed only for touch screens with your favorite controller. Universal clipboard: Google prepares a system to copy and paste between mobile and PC, a universal clipboard. The great advantage of Apple is that what you copy on the Mac you can paste on the iPhone without doing anything, and vice versa. Google wants to have technology to do the same between Android and PC. This will allow for more fluidity between devices and put an end to one of the classic advantages of using Apple devices. AI built into the core with AppFunctions: AppFunctions a local framework which allows applications to expose their functions so that assistants like Gemini can execute them directly using natural language. This tool will allow AI to perform complex, multi-step tasks in the background within third-party apps. News in Material 3 Expressive: Google also adds new features to the design of Material 3 Expressive the Android interface. First, you will have a transparency effectsomething similar to Apple’s Liquid Glass. Thus, elements such as the volume bar will have a semi-transparency that allows the color underneath to pass through. It is also expected that all icons They must respect the accent color of the … Read more

Samsung faces a very serious problem to surpass TSMC with its 2nm chips: the 60% curse

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When semiconductor manufacturers produce a chip wafer, some of those cores do not function properly. It’s normal. When they start a new lithographic node your performance per wafer usually has a wide room for improvementbut little by little, as engineers refine their integration processes, this parameter improves. A mature lithography can deliver very high performance to IC manufacturers, but a nascent technology can move in the orbit of 50% performance. Importantly, chipmakers need the per-wafer yield to be at least 60% to ensure node profitability and attract more customers. However, this figure is the minimum admissible. And in reality it must be much higher to optimize the competitiveness of photolithography from a commercial point of view. Currently TSMC and Samsung are manufacturing 2nm chipsbut according to the leaks the performance per wafer of its nodes is very different. And the South Korean company needs its 2nm node to be a success. The 1 and 2 nm nodes are crucial in the itinerary that Samsung has planned This reflection that Han Jong-hee, co-CEO of Samsung, made in mid-2025 express clearly At what point were you then? the largest company in South Korea: “First of all, I sincerely apologize that our stock performance has not met your expectations. Over the past year, our company has not responded appropriately to the rapidly evolving AI semiconductor market.” These words were addressed to his investors. Samsung needs to make its current best chip manufacturing technology a success A very important idea emerges from Jong-hee’s words: the competitiveness of your subsidiary specialized in the manufacturing of integrated circuits is essential for Samsung. Even so, problems were arising from several fronts. “Our technological advantage has been compromised in all of our businesses. It is difficult to see that efforts are being made to drive great innovations or take on new challenges. There are only attempts to maintain the status quo instead of generating disruptive changes,” said an internal statement written by Jay Y. Lee, the company’s president. In this scenario, Samsung needs its current best chip manufacturing technology, 2nm lithography, to be a success. And it’s in it. Integrated circuit producers do not typically make the per-wafer yield of their cutting-edge lithographs public, especially if it is relatively low. However, according to DigiTimes Asia Currently the performance of its 2nm nodes oscillates around 55%, so it is below the 60% threshold that we talked about a few lines above. For this company, it is essential to increase the yield per wafer of its 2nm lithography because with a yield of 55% the percentage of usable chips after advanced packaging probably ranges around 40%. To curl the curl, again according to DigiTimes Asiathe per-wafer performance of TSMC’s 2nm nodes ranges between 60 and 70%which places this Taiwanese company, which is Samsung’s biggest competitor and the leader of the chip manufacturing industryin a very favorable position when it comes to attracting new clients. If Samsung manages to raise the performance of its 2nm nodes above 60% during the coming months, it will put up a fight against TSMC. Otherwise you will suffer. Image | Generated by Xataka with Gemini More information | DigiTimes Asia In Xataka | We already know what the chips that will arrive until 2039 will be like. The machine that will allow them to be manufactured is close

Amazon had been building its alternative to Starlink for some time. Now the company behind the iPhone SOS has been bought

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If we think about satellite internet, the first thing that comes to mind is usually Starlink. It is logical: SpaceX has managed to occupy a large part of the conversation in this area. But, while that was happening, what we have seen is that Amazon had been building its own bet on low orbit with Leoa project with which he wants to gain relevance in an increasingly disputed market. Now that plan has taken a much more serious step. The company founded by Jeff Bezos has announced an agreement to acquire globalstarthe company that until now supports several Apple satellite functions on compatible iPhones and on the Apple Watch Ultra 3among them Emergency OSS via satellite. At the same time, both companies have communicated an agreement to continue these services and collaborate on future satellite functions supported by Leo. In other words, not only does it buy a strategic piece of the sector, it also fully enters into an already established relationship with Apple. Here the value of Globalstar goes well beyond its name or its relationship with Apple. What Amazon is buying is a combination of satellite fleet, infrastructure, spectrum and operational knowledge accumulated over years in mobile satellite communications. There is also a particularly relevant point: the acquisition gives it immediate access to radio spectrum rights, a piece that can accelerate its plans to offer services on mobile phones and other devices in the future. Furthermore, this operation does not appear in a vacuum. Leo had been trying to gain traction with his own deployment for some time: he already has more than 200 satellites in orbit, although he is still far behind SpaceX. At the same time, the firm has been teaching the product and clients: A few days ago it presented its aviation antenna and already has agreements with JetBlue and Delta to offer inflight connectivity starting in 2027 and 2028, respectively. There is another detail that helps measure the magnitude of the movement without losing sight of caution. The information published by the Financial Times places the agreement in 11.6 billion dollars and places it among the largest purchases in the company’s history, below Whole Foods but above MGMalthough on paper there are still pending steps before considering it resolved. The announcement itself specifies that closure is planned for 2027, provided regulatory approvals arrive and certain technical commitments linked to Globalstar’s satellite program are met. Viewed as a whole, this step helps to better understand where Leo wants to go in the coming years. We are not just facing a large acquisition, but rather an attempt to gain time, capabilities and position in a race in which Starlink continues to set the benchmark. The operation, if it ends up closing as planned, can change the starting point of the American giant quite a bit. Images | Amazon | Apple | globalstar In Xataka | Samsung faces a very serious problem to surpass TSMC with its 2nm chips: the 60% curse

Ten years ago, Bnext was the great hope of fintech. They ended up crashing

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Founded in 2016 by Guillermo Vicandi, Bnext It was born as a fintech alternative to traditional banking. In fact, their visible heads assured that it was not a bank, despite offering an account and card. The growth was as fast as the fall. After the collapse of its cryptocurrency, The app announced its closure on April 13. What was Bnext. It was not a bank, that’s what its creators constantly said. It was an electronic money entity (EDE) alternative to traditional banking. In practice, it offered what a bank offers: account, card, loans, insurance, currency purchases, investment plans. The difference was the model: Bnext always acted as an intermediary, connecting the user with the best products on the market through a single app. No offices, no paper, no queues. The golden age. In 2019, Bnext was one of the most visible projects on the Spanish fintech scene. became the fintech that grew the most in Spainwith more than 156,000 registered users and more than 100,000 active clients holding a Bnext VISA. Your second round of financing It closed with 22 million eurosthe highest figure seen in Spain (in 2019) since the Valencian Hawkers raised 55 million euros. That same year, they partnered with giants like MyInvestor to offer financial products. The stumble. Bnext’s first setback comes a year later, in 2021, after its landing in Latin America. Its partner, Cacao Paycard, did not obtain authorization to operate from the National Banking and Securities Commission (CNBV), which translated into a fine of 2.6 million Mexican pesos (about 150,000 euros at the current exchange rate) to Bnext for misleading communication. There was no plan B. Bnext had to cease operations in Mexico, close all its accounts and lose more than 230,000 clients who had trusted the company prior to the sanctions. Meanwhile. In Spain, alternatives like Revolut were growing like wildfire, and Bnext was beginning to run out of oxygen. In 2021, they decided to ally with Algorand, a blockchain firm that became one of the company’s main shareholders. After the alliance they announced their own token: B3X. The play didn’t go well. On March 1, 2022, it was launched to the public with a starting price of two euro cents. Today it cannot even operate from the app, since the service has been dismantled. Its price before the debacle: 0.00006 US cents. What happens to Bnext users. Bnext accounts and cards have already been canceled and the product is no longer marketed. No payments, transfers or receipts can be uploaded. Payroll cannot be received The balance of the account may be requested during a repayment period of 20 years Cryptocurrency management is referred to Onyze… via email User data will be deleted in accordance with the GDPR You will no longer have access to the marketplace services Bnext was once the great hope of Spanish fintech. Now rest in peace. What will become of the company. The company gives the finishing touch to its app, but does not completely cease its operations. “The fintech business and market has changed considerably, and with this, we have had to pivot our value proposition. After several years offering products to the end consumer and in an increasingly competitive environment and with more complex regulation, we have decided to take a step towards the future, focusing on helping companies launch their own payment products.” Guillermo Vicandi, CEO of Bnext. Bnext closes as a neobank, but pivots towards financial infrastructure services. In Xataka | Europe had been asking for a big hit on the table for some time. Revolut just gave it a huge valuation

If you thought the crisis in Hormuz was enough, the war in Ukraine has triggered another maritime drama in Europe: the Gulf of Finland

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About five years ago, the container ship Ever Given became stuck in the Suez Canal for six daysblocking one of the most important commercial arteries in the world and leaving hundreds of ships trapped waiting. That incident, caused by a failed maneuver and adverse wind conditions, was enough to disrupt global supply chains in a matter of hours. A new seafront. As global attention focuses on the Strait of Hormuz, the war in Ukraine has opened another critical scenario much closer to Europe: the Gulf of Finlanda small but key space for Russian energy exports. There, far from spectacular drones or large fleets, the conflict manifests itself in a more silent way but just as revealingwith ships detained, routes blocked and growing tension between actors trying to avoid a direct escalation. This new focus demonstrates that the war is not only being fought on the land front, but also in the nerve centers of maritime trade. Ukraine attacks and a collapse. The situation has its origins in a clear kyiv strategy: to hit key russian ports to export oil, such as Ust-Luga and Primorsk, where it comes a fundamental part of the income that finances the war. The attacks have drastically reduced the operational capacity of these facilities, leaving dwhole days without activity and causing an immediate chain effect. The result: a unprecedented maritime traffic jamwith dozens of oil tankers (many of them linked to the so-called “floats in the shadows” Russian) accumulating waiting to be able to load. A system on the limit. They remembered this week in Political that this traffic jam in the Gulf of Finland is not just a striking image, but a symptom of something deeper: an energy and logistics system that begins to fracture under the pressure of war. Unlike conventional vessels, these tankers cannot be easily redirected to other ports due to the risk of being detained or sanctioned, which forced to remain anchored for days or weeks. As a result, there is an unusual concentration of aging and, in many cases, unsafe ships in European waters that were not prepared to absorb that volume. Europe trapped between control and escalation. Under this scenario, countries like Estonia and Finland They are in a particularly delicate position, since, despite being within the NATO framework, they have chosen not to intervene directly against these ships. The reason is clear: any attempt to stop or board an oil tanker could trigger a Russian military responseas already happened when a Russian fighter intervened to protect one of these ships. Since then, Moscow has reinforced its naval presence in the area, making it clear that it considers these strategic routes a red line. The Mirror of Hormuz. There is no doubt, what happens in the Gulf of Finland connects directly with the crisis in Hormuz: In both cases, the war moves towards maritime straits where traffic control becomes a strategic tool. The difference is that there is no formal block here, but an indirect disruption which generates similar effects, with stopped ships, tense routes and altered markets. In both scenarios, it is enough to interfere enough to collapse the system, and also without the need for a total shutdown. A war that spreads across the map. If you like, the result is a conflict that is no longer limited to Ukraine either to the Middle Eastbut it extends to the critical nodes of global trade, affecting Europe directly. The Gulf of Finland has thus become in another hot spot where energy, legal and military interests intersect, with an extremely fragile and volatile balance. And what seemed like a localized war is proving to have a much greater scope, generating new sources of tension that, like in Hormuz, can escalate quickly. without prior notice. Image | LAC, NormanEinstein In Xataka | If fog was deadly in Ukraine’s winter, spring is offering Russia a key advantage: greenery In Xataka | Ukraine is close to what no one has achieved in a war: shooting down missiles for less than a million dollars

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