Month: November 2025

China’s “sorpasso” is now a real possibility

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2025 has been a lost year for NASA. No rockets have exploded, no spacecraft have crashed, but political instability, lack of leadership and budget wars have decimated the morale and operational capacity of the US space agency. The most absurd thing of all? self-inflicted harm has had the opposite effect whom the United States government was looking for. Nobody at the wheel. It all began on January 20, 2025, when Biden-era administrator Bill Nelson resigned as head of NASA. Janet Petro, director of the Kennedy Space Center, took over as acting administrator. In his six-month term he dedicated himself to abide by Trump’s divisive policiesstarting with eliminating the space agency’s Diversity and Inclusion office. donald trump had nominated for the permanent position of administrator to the young billionaire Jared Isaacman, who flew into space twice with SpaceX. Isaacman, who was seen as a commercial sector accelerationistpassed his confirmation hearing in April 2025. Everything seemed done. However, on May 31, shortly before Trump will exchange insults with Elon Muskthe White House abruptly withdrew his nomination. The official reason, published by Trump himself in Truth Social, was Isaacman’s “prior associations,” particularly his donations to Democratic candidates. The Duffy era. NASA was left adrift. On July 9, Trump named his Secretary of Transportation, Sean Duffy, as acting administrator. Duffy, a former congressman with no aerospace experience, kept his Cabinet position while running NASA, and is said to have came to maneuver to integrate the historic space agency under the Department of Transportation. But Sean Duffy’s stellar moment occurred on October 20, when he set the goal of returning to the Moon while Donald Trump was president. In order to land astronauts on the lunar surface before China does so for the first time in 2030, Duffy reopened HLS contract that NASA had granted to SpaceX. Other companies such as Blue Origin and Lockheed Martin will compete with SpaceX’s Starship to transport astronauts from lunar orbit to the surface of the Moon in the first manned lunar landing since the Apollo era. Life takes a thousand turns. In a twist that well illustrates NASA’s lost year, and despite Duffy’s efforts to show off to his president, on November 4, Trump reappointed Jared Isaacman as administrator. The timing coincides with an improvement in Elon Musk’s relationship with Donald Trump, suggesting that donations to Democrats did not have as much to do with Isaacman’s truncated career as the Elon-Trump feud did. But even as NASA’s power vacuum nears its end, the agency faces even worse problems. The White House budgets for 2026 included a 24.3% cut to the space agency’s overall funding, including a 47% cut to the scientific budget. The lack of approval of budgets has also, ironically, had a catastrophic impact for the agency: 15,000 NASA employees (85% of the staff) were suspended without pay due to the government’s “shutdown.” The shutdown has delayed all kinds of developments, including the lunar program and the Mars sample recovery mission, in which NASA is in direct competition with China. Meanwhile, China. NASA’s comings and goings have allowed the Chinese space agency to close the gap. After becoming the first country in the world to bring back samples of the far side of the Moon with the Chang’e-6 missionChina is on track to become the first nation to bring samples from Mars with the Tianwen-3 mission. The great irony is that, with NASA’s lost year, it is also beginning to be very feasible that a Chinese astronaut will set foot on the Moon before the next American moon landing occurs, which the White House wanted to avoid with its scientific budget cuts and its improvised leadership changes. The “sorpasso” is no longer a distant prediction. US inaction in 2025 has helped put China on that trajectory. Image | Polaris, SpaceX In Xataka | Obsessed with beating China, NASA has just done the unthinkable with its Artemis II lunar mission: advance it

Brazil has been pursuing high-speed trains for 20 years. Now it will have the first in South America

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If we see the list of countries with the most high-speed train linesChina is the one cut the codwith Europe and Japan also on the crest of the wave. However, South America is a territory that neither punctures nor cuts. That’s about to change and, although there are several projects in different countries, the first high-speed train in South America will be in Brazil. And it promises to revolutionize transportation in one of the country’s key corridors. It is not (fast) train territory. Connecting South America by train is extremely complicated. Not only do they have a complex topography with mountains and jungles to overcome, but also an enormous geographical dispersion, political instability in some countries and priorities that have changed with different governments. Currently, the territory is experiencing a revolution. There are countries like Mexico either Chili who are waging war on their own with internal projects, but also a project known as ‘Bioceanic Railway Corridor‘ which will unite the Pacific and Atlantic and connect the port of Santos in Brazil with that of Bayóvar in Peru. Apart from that line, Brazil has its own plans. The Brazilian TAV. The Brazilian high-speed project is not without controversy. The TAV (or High Speed ​​Train) began to take shape in 2004. Named ‘Bandeirantes Express’, the idea was to connect São Paulo with Campinas. It came to nothing and in 2007 it was shelved, but with the arrival of Lula da Silva and the perspective of Soccer World Cup 2014HE relaunched. It would have been the perfect setting, but the dates were not met either and, from lost to the river: we took it back to 2016 for the Rio Olympics. Spoiler: it went wrong due to financing problems, doubts about profitability and, evidently, a lack of interest from the private sector that was not clear about how to recover the investment. Chronology. It would have been the first high-speed train in South America, but it seems that it had not said its last word, because in 2023, the private company TAV Brasil got by the National Land Transportation Agency the authorization to link the main cities of the country: Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo. The 99-year concession allows them to plan, build and operate the line that, if all goes well, will connect the two cities with intermediate stops between Sao José dos Campos and Volta Redonda. The investment is not clear and is estimated at about 60,000 million reais, which is about 11,000 million euros, and points to a ticket price of around 85 euros for a complete trip. TAV Brazil has announced the following calendar: End of 2026 for the conclusion of feasibility studies. 2027 as the start of construction. 2032 as commercial commissioning. The train. The intention is that the machine reaches speeds of 320 km/h, which would more than meet what is considered the high speed standard (250 km/h) and will allow travel the 400 kilometers between the two megacities in just one hour and forty-five minutes. This is a considerable reduction compared to a current road trip that takes about six hours. Interests. The big question is who will build the system… and the trains. This is a high-stakes project and, as in other parts of the world, geopolitics plays an important role. Historicallythe project has attracted the interest of companies such as the Spanish CAF or the French Alstom (in contention right now for the train in Belgian), but also from Siemens and other leading companies in the sector. TAV Brazil has not closed its doors and is talking with both Spanish companies and Arab funds and, of course, with China, which is becoming a global touchstone in the railway segment. They are revolutionizing Africa, they have a presence in the deployment of the line that will cross South America from Brazil to Peru and getting a piece of the Brazilian high-speed pie would mean another lucrative hit on the table. In any case, the one in Brazil and other projects seem to be beginning to shape the railway future of a Latin America that has had plans for decades, but for various reasons they have not come to fruition. Images | Limongi, Danilo.mac, Mohamed SY In Xataka | The US has been dreaming of its first high-speed train for decades: the California project is being a real nightmare

China has a plan to repeat with cars what it already did with cell phones. And that plan has already begun

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It is more than likely that, wherever you look, see chinese technology. Maybe it’s your cell phone, your tablet or your television. You may be surprised that your microwave with a Japanese or American name is actually made by a chinese company. Or your refrigerator, air conditioning, whatever. China has conquered the world of technology and that, at this point, does not surprise anyone. Nor will it be surprising that the Asian giant wants to get involved to the kitchen (literally) and, in the case at hand, even our garage. Because yes, China has been promoting a plan since 2015 to lead several key technological industries (which is what it means to be the largest producer of batteries in the world) and one of those industries is the car. And we are already starting to see it. From the mobile phone to the washing machine and the car China understood very quickly that the future of cars was not in combustion, a market largely led by a well-established European industry. but in electricity. China took a shortcut. The state subsidized every stage of the chain, from mines and loading docks to battery factories and start-ups. We have the clearest example in BYD, which went from manufacturing mobile batteries to being the spearhead of the Chinese electric car. The Chinese market, however, is very saturated. Despite its huge population, there are 150 car brands in the country, so competition is fierce. Thus, China began to look outwards. And it went very well. In 2023, China surpassed Japan as the world’s leading car exporter and the next logical stop was Europe. The Chinese proposal was simple: offer technology, design and autonomy at a much lower price than local and Western proposals. Spain was the gateway with companies such as BYD, OMODA, JAECOO, XPENG and MG filling dealerships, something that translates into a considerable drop in average prices of 12%. In just a few years, the market share of these brands has skyrocketed from 2% to 7%, a figure that rises to 14% if we take plug-in hybrids into account. You still have time to get your tickets for the gala Xataka NordVPN Awards 2025 on November 20 in Madrid! Join us and discover the best technological products of the year in a free event full of gadgets, humor and surprises. Advice offered by the brand And how is that possible? Because China has something that Europe does not have: total control of the production chain. They extract, produce, manufacture and assemble. They can also access affordable financing, free land and subsidiary energy. Companies compete under exceptional conditions with each other, encouraging price cutting and innovation. Not even tariffs can stop China’s advance. China, in fact, has not trembled when it comes to open factories on our continent to manufacture from within and, in the process, sow the seed of a more or less silent conquest. This is just a preview of a much longer report that you can see at the video on these lines. In Xataka | I have ridden a 100% autonomous XPeng Mona in a Chinese city. Tesla and Europe have a problem

That a teenager begins to ‘hate’ his parents is something that is in his brain, and science has already found the pattern

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If you’re a parent of a teenager, you know: their world revolves around their friends. If you were one of them, you surely remember: parents’ opinion took a backseat. And although it seems that it is a sign of the rebellion that we see normal at this age, the reality is that the guilt is literally found in the brain. The culprit. But when asked what causes this indolence among adolescents? The answer comes from the magnetic resonance imaging that has been applied to the brains of some adolescents. And research shows that, during adolescence, the brain not only changes its interest, but also reconfigures your reward circuits so that the voices of strangers are more gratifying than the voice of one’s own mother. And this is something that explains the fact that adolescents give much more importance to a friend than to their own closest family, and even go so far as to prioritize them above anything else. Although in the end he has a good excuse in his brain systems. The study. To find this out, the researchers didn’t have the teens listen to scolding. They used a more cunning methodology by gathering 46 children and adolescents between 7 and 16 years old who were exposed to listening to recordings of nonsense words such as teebudie-shawlt. The important thing about this investigation was that these meaningless words were spoken by two voices: that of their own mother and that of two women unknown to them. In this way, when the recording was played, the activity of their brains began to be analyzed through functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to see the parts of the brain that were lighting up with each of the voices that were playing. The results. In the youngest children between seven and twelve years old, their mother’s voice caused a party at the reward centers of the brain, specifically in the nucleus accumbens (NAc) and the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC). The interesting thing here is that this activity was much greater than what was felt when hearing the voices of the strangers and it is logical because the mother is the center of her social universe that causes her greater happiness. But things change completely in adolescents between 13 and 16 years old, where these same reward and social evaluation regions showed significantly greater activity for unfamiliar voices than for their own mother’s. In this way, the age that we can consider as a border between them paying attention to their mother and when they are going to completely ignore what they are told will be around 13.5 years. Because. In this case we are not talking about adolescents rejecting their parents, since in a behavioral test they were able to identify mothers’ voices in an almost perfect way. The change is precisely in the valuation of that voice. This neurobiological turn is considered an adaptive process essential for maturity. The teenage brain is being “refreshed” for a new mission: leaving the nest. To prepare for independence, the brain must begin to find new social connections more rewarding. You have to tune in with your companions, future allies and partners. The bibliography. This finding fits with previous models that were made to identify the differentiated stages in social and brain development, where the affective focus passes from the mother to friends and finally to romantic relationships. Recent reviews reaffirm that the reward system in adolescence is especially sensitive to novel social stimuli, and that the maturation of frontostriatal connections modulates these changes. A previous work by the same group had already shown that in childhood the maternal voice has a privileged response in the mesolimbic circuit and the current study extends and completes that model by showing how this pattern is reversed in adolescence. In this way, every time we see a teenager who literally tells his mother that he doesn’t even want to hear her, but spends all day talking to his friends, we already know why: his brain has changed so that he likes it more. Images | Sebastien Mouilleau Amir Hosseini In Xataka | If the question is where to find the time to play sports or learn languages, you have the answer on your mobile

Paris Hilton lost her dog, so she cloned it

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Paris Hilton lost her dog, so she cloned him not once, but twice. And he is not the only public figure who has done so. Barbra Streisand was one of the first to clone petsbut the cases of Javier Milei or the American football player Tom Brady are also known. That’s how it is the pet cloning market. A nail clone pulls out another nail The loss of a pet is a very painful experiencefor many people as hard as losing a family member. Science is already looking for ways to extend the life of dogsbut at the moment living as long as humans seems far away. Nor you can make your dog or cat live foreverbut if you have money you can resort to cloning. This is what Barbra Streisand did when her dog Samantha died in 2017. And if one clone was not enough, she asked for two to be made. Paris Hilton also resorted to cloning after her chihuahua Diamond was lost in 2022. Like Streisand, she also cloned her twice. If we look only at the number of clones, Javier Milei, current president of Argentina, has gone too far. In 2017 he cloned his English mastiff Conan not one, but five timesalthough one of the puppies died shortly after. The most recent case involved Patriots quarterback Tom Brady, who confessed in the magazine People Magazine that his current dog Junie is a clone of Lua, his previous dog who died in 2023. ELON MUSK VS JEFF BEZOS: STAR WARS Personality is not cloned There are several companies that are dedicated to cloning pets. The most famous is the American Travel Petswho was in charge of making clones for Paris Hilton, Barbra Streisand and Javier Milei. Tom Brady did it through the startup Colossal Biosciencesdedicated to “de-extinction.” And be careful, because In Marbella there is also a clinic that is dedicated to cloning dogs and cats. The cover of the Viagen website The process begins with the pet tissue collectionwhich should be done either while the pet is still alive or immediately after its death. Using these cells, they create embryos that are implanted in a surrogate mother. The resulting animals are genetically identical to the original, but that does not mean they will behave the same. Barbra Streisand admitted in an interview in Varietythat The clones had different personalities to that of his dog Samantha. On its website, Viagen says the result “shares your dog’s DNA and often the same intelligence, temperament and appearance.” Emphasis on that “often.” How much does this cost You’ve probably been wondering since you read the headline. Travel Cobra $50,000 to clone dogs or cats and $85,000 in the case of horses. These are high figures for most people, but a few years ago it cost twice as much. There are no figures, but in this report from The Atlantic They assured that companies like Viagen they have a waiting list and thousands of clones of pets, but also horses or cattle, have already been produced. A striking example is that of polo player Adolfo Cambiasowho has more than 100 clones of his best mare. Although feasible, animal cloning raises ethical questions, mainly about the well-being of the animals involved in the processboth the clones themselves and the mothers in whom they implant the embryos. It is well known that purebred females, both dogs and cats, are often exploited and subjected to continuous pregnancies and then sell the puppies. The difference here is that they create clones from implanted embryos. On the other hand, there is the question of purchasing animals, in this case clones, when the shelters are saturated with animals waiting for an adoption. Only in Spain it is estimated that 33 pets are abandoned per hour. Finally, a personal contribution, it will be a year soon since my kitten Piñón died. We had a very special bond and his loss was very traumatic because he was still very young. I miss it as if it were the first day, but it would never occur to me to put my grief above the well-being of other animals. Image | Paris Hilton, Instagram In Xataka | We have been thinking for years that cats are exquisite eaters. They actually have neophobia

This is how science has unraveled the mystery of Lake Tefé

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The historic drought and heat wave that hit the Amazon in 2023 caused extreme warming and unprecedented in its waters, with devastating consequences that we are seeing today. A new study published in Science details how water temperatures in key lakes reached lethal levels, causing high mortality in fish and especially river dolphins. Very high temperatures. A priori we may think that heat waves just as they come will go away without leaving any consequences. But the reality is very different, since in the Amazon, of the ten lakes that were monitored, five exceeded 37ºC during the day and there was one that reached 41ºC as if it were a spa pool. This extreme heat wasn’t just skin deep; It penetrated the entire water column, approximately 2 meters deep, eliminating any fresh refuge for aquatic life. It was literally left uninhabited. Epicenter of the tragedy. Lake Tefé, which is normally more than 7 km wide, became the focus of national and international attention after its surface area will be reduced by 75% between September and October 2023. It is literally a consumption never seen before that surprised the inhabitants of the area and also the animals. This drastic reduction in water coincided with a “massive and unprecedented mortality” of river dolphins. In a short interval, 209 dolphin carcasses were found (both from the Amazon River and Tucuxi). And precisely, the study points out that only on September 28, 2023, when temperatures reached 39.5 °C for the first timeseventy dolphin carcasses were found. The researchers also observed extreme daily temperature variation of up to 13.3°C, meaning the water went from hot tub-like heat during the day to drastically cooling at night. completely altering the conditions of the system. And living there becomes really complicated. What caused this extreme heat. The study used models to identify the culprits behind this warming. It was a “perfect storm” of factors that coincided such as high solar radiation due to completely clear skies that could not stop the sun. But the reduced depth of the water or the low wind speed also intervened, which generated less cooling due to evaporation. A long term problem. While the 2023 event was extreme, it is not an isolated incident. Study reveals worrying long-term warming trend in region, Based on satellite estimates, between 1990 and 2023, the lakes in the Amazon region have experienced a temperature increase of 0.6 degrees per decade. A great ecological crisis. The impact was not limited to the dolphins. The study also documents significant fish mortality. All because of the fact that they have a fairly narrow temperature tolerance range, meaning that the moment there is an increase, even a slight one, in temperature, they are finished off. For human populations, the consequences were equally serious. The drought and extreme heat managed to isolate thousands of people in riverside communities, leaving them without adequate access to food, drinking water and medicine because maritime transport is also severely affected. Images | Natalia Pedraza In Xataka | The Earth is headed for a new ice age, according to a Science study. And it is precisely because of global warming

Years ago we discovered that our ancestors’ dreams were not like ours. There are now thousands of people trying to introduce biphasic sleep into their lives.

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It’s two or three in the morning and something clicks in your eyes. You wake up. There are five seconds of disorientation. You try to go back to sleep, but many people can’t. In fact, those early morning awakenings they become a curse. Therefore, when they see on social networks that there are experts who recommend sleeping in two blocks (either in more); What’s more, when they read that biphasic sleep It is ‘normal’ biologically speakingthey think maybe they don’t have a problem. Maybe, just maybe, society has the problem. What is true in all this? How human beings sleep. A few years ago, historian Thomas Ekirch discovered recurring references to “first dreams.” It was not something isolated: he found them in documents that covered not only the Middle Ages but also the modern age. Many centuries of “first dreams” that contrasted with the fact that, in short, he did not know what they were talking about. He decided to investigate it in detail and, with this, he managed compile a series of tests historiographical evidence of the existence of a biphasic dream in these periods: according to their research, the first dream lasted from 9 to 11 at night. Then there would be a period of wakefulness (which is dedicated to the most diverse activities: chatting, praying, visiting neighbors…) and, subsequently, there would be another period of sleeping again until dawn. It’s not just something historical. Seduced by Ekirch’s ideas, psychiatrist Thomas Wehr performed an experiment with 15 subjects who were left without artificial light. He found that under certain restrictions (basically limiting their leisure activities), participants adopted a biphasic pattern. This has triggered the ‘two-phase evangelizers’. And, in fact, it is increasingly common to find people who defend it. The problem is that this ‘natural’ pattern is highly debatable. Yes, in the pre-industrial European era many slept in two phases: but that is not ‘natural’. As Wehr himself discovered, it is, in any case, the natural adaptation to short days (around 10 hours). If we go closer to the equator, where the days are more stable, the anthropological evidence does not find the same patterns. What does this mean? That there are no magical ways. If we review the research on naps, for example, we will see cases in which there is a lower cardiovascular risk and others in which cardiometabolic risk skyrockets. Here we are defenders of the napbut only when it makes sense. The bottom line here is that lack of sleep or poor quality sleep has been linked to immunological problems, metaboliccardiac, psychological and cognitive. Not only that, the scientific literature is full of studies showing an increase in coronary heart diseaseof the diabetes and of the obesity. To make matters worse, social problems they are also on the agenda. The important thing, therefore, is to find a way of sleeping that works for us. And for this we have some tricks. a lot of tricks: turn sleep into a routine (whatever it may be), exercise throughout the day, do not consume substances that affect it, relax and use our physiology to our advantage. However, the central trick is not to overwhelm ourselves. As we said years agothe idea behind all sleep experts is that, we can use certain techniques to help us sleep, but the only way to cultivate restful sleep is to reconcile ourselves to it. Image | Mussi Katz In Xataka | When “dying of sleep” is literal: This is how not sleeping can kill us

In China they are deploying metal firefighters. Maybe they are more useful than robo-waiters

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China is obsessed with robots to the point that has made its development a priority. That interest goes beyond humanoid robotsand if something is being tested in the Asian giant, it is that, perhaps, we should put more interest in the ‘robodogs‘that in the’robowaiters‘. It all comes from a video that went viral a few days ago in which we can see a quadruped robot in the style of Boston Dynamics Spot helping to extinguish a fire: The video spread across several networks with comments of the style of “we should apply this soon in the West” and, living in a country where every summer hectares are burned without controlI can only think about how the priorities in robotics should be more focused on these types of devices than on continuing to make demonstrations while someone controlling the robots with a controller. Let’s go with the robot in question. One of the many Chinese robotics companies is Unitreebut this one is not like the others: it is about the new Chinese technological gem. Its humanoid robots are taking giant steps, but the firefighter robot is the Unitree B2. It is a modular robot to which emergency and rescue teams can attach a water cannon, a backpack that receives the supply of liquid or foam and a series of nozzles to launch a pressurized jet or disperse the water, depending on the situation. Also modules to enter buildings and evaluate the level of gaseslocate floodlights or carry supplies in difficult terrain thanks to its load capacity and reinforced joints. But this goes beyond a specific model and, as we say, is part of China’s strategy in robot development. Steel firefighters and the difference in mentality compared to the US Whether they have more or less autonomy, these robots allow something key: do not expose firefighters in phases of the operation that may be dangerous. For example, in conditions where the wind can be another enemy, causing the fire to spread uncontrollably. Also, although the robot is seen in the open field in the video, this tool is most useful in fires in buildings that can collapse due to flames. Beyond the Unitree model, there is a company that has been developing this type of robots for years, such as CITIC (with a caterpillar model similar to that of other crews) or DEEP Robotics (with another quadruped robot, the X30). And they are devices that are not only designed to be deployed in emergency situations, but also to patrol in critical environments. One of those sectors is the petrochemical sector. Shandong Shenchi Chemical Group account with “inspector” robots that constantly patrol the hallways of the production workshops. They have sensors that allow you to anticipate a potential problem, such as leak sensors, as well as video, audio and temperature analysis systems. The data they collect is analyzed in real time to make decisions and, if something happens, they are the first to carry out containment efforts. Obviously, the ones that attract the most attention are the robot dogs. Firefighters in cities such as Qingdao, Changsha they already have these new companions in arms that do not replace humans, but rather complement them. They are weapons against fire, but thanks to cameras, sensors and antennas, they can transmit all kinds of information in real time to the operators so that they can decide what is the best way to proceed. And there are not only robots: there are also drones connected to water cannons and armed with missiles that disperse foam to appease the flames. While robodogs are the ones that climb stairs and do work ‘inside’ danger, drones can reach the upper floors of buildings more quickly. Apparently, this is a win-win for everyone. Firefighters have new tools that help them do their jobs more efficiently, exposing themselves less to some dangers. The companies that build them sell these robots and China continues to push the narrative that they are leading the development of these devices. and there is market: HE esteem that the segment of fire extinguishing robots in the country it was about 100 million dollars in 2024 and will double by 2030. Within the Government’s technological development programs, the priority development of robots and other high-performance equipment for immediate use is contemplated, incentivizing companies to carry out the relevant innovations. because here China has a very specific vision and very far from the Western one: robots have to get to work right now. We have already seen companies that are acting as last mile delivery drivers for businesses, ‘releasing’ their robots in the subwaysharing cars with humans until they reach their destination. Also guide robodogs to help blind people. Because yes, there are already military forces here with robot dogs, but just as before they had remote-controlled drones to defuse bombs, for example. And the approach is very similar to what we are seeing with the development of artificial intelligence: while the US continues to develop and developmaking AI a capital issue for the country in terms of technological supremacy, and being tremendously expensive, China encourages its companies to create a AI that can be marketed as soon as possible. My colleague Javier Pastor I was commenting on this a few weeks ago.: While the US seeks to achieve AGI – artificial general intelligence -, China wants AI to be used in everyday life. In the end, the Asian giant is not alone in this and Japan is also testing the use of robots to extinguish fires that would be of great help in many other corners of the world. Images | Unitree In Xataka | A new unstoppable police robot patrols in China: it identifies targets, launches nets, gas bombs and almost never rests

The ecosystem is what keeps me at Apple. OPPO has proposed to burst it

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If the mountain does not go to Muhammad, Muhammad goes to the mountain. One of the reasons why I am an Apple user, it is because of its ecosystem. Although I have a second Android phone, there are two elements that continue to tie me to the apple: the Apple Watch (which seems irreplaceable to me) and AirDrop. The twist is that Android is turning that upside down, and OPPO with O+Connect has given me a slap of reality. If Apple is jealous about something, it is its ecosystem. Their devices work great with each other, but with Android/Windows they cut features or don’t work at all. In recent months, Chinese brands have set out to break that barrier, with Xiaomi and OPPO being the leaders when creating Android devices with “native” support of Apple devices. From OPPO they have already shown the AirPods working perfectly on an Android mobile and they have plans for the same thing to happen with the Apple Watch, and Xiaomi with HyperOS 3 allows you to use your iPad and Mac as floating windows. The theory is fine, but now I have seen first-hand that it works perfectly. And O+Connect is a missile to Apple’s AirDrop… which works even better than AirDrop. OPPO busting AirDrop OPPO has been arguing for a few years that we should be able to interconnect devices regardless of their brand and operating system. In 2022 they launched Connect to allow you to easily control and send files with Windows, but a few months ago announced the evolution: O+ Connect. This app was presented from the beginning as the tool for an OPPO device to communicate not only with a PC, but with a Mac and, also, with iOS devices. Translation: a way to transfer files between the two that emulates the operation of AirDrop. Due to technical issues, it is something that has been implemented in OPPO, OnePlus and Realme phones little by little with the latest system versionsand it basically works like this: On the iPhone/iPad, we download O+ Connect from the App Store. On the OPPO, OnePlus or Realme device, we choose the “Share” option and click on the “iPhone or PC” icon. Literally, the icon is an iPhone with its Dynamic Island and everything. The Android creates a Wi-Fi hotspot and, from the O+ Connect app, the iPhone detects that connection point. We send the files and they are transferred over that local connection. When the transfer is finished, which is very fast, the hotspot is automatically deactivated. Recently, I have had two cell phones from the group in my hands. First, the Realme GT8 Pro with which I went to China to take photosand a few days ago the OPPO Find X9 Pro for analysis. With both I have used this function a lot – a lot – to transfer photos to both the iPhone (from where I upload them to Instagram) and the iMac (because it also works on macOS), and the experience has been fantastic. I share a lot with AirDrop and it usually works well, but there are many times where either the transfer fails or it doesn’t set up in the first place, having to turn AirDrop off, turn it back on, and repeat the process. It’s a bit tedious, but my experience with both the OPPO and the Realme has been spectacular. Not a single mistake, good transfer speeds (even scrolling through very heavy photos and videos) and, in general, a very good experience. I think it’s not as fast as the native AirDrop feature, but set to burst the ecosystemI consider AirDrop and full support for AirPods to be very good touchstones. As I said at the beginning, that ecosystem is the only thing that keeps me in the apple brand, and the moment I can use my Apple Watch Series 10 on a mobile phone with the photographic capabilities of a Xiaomi 17 Profrom a Vivo X300 Pro or the OPPO Find X9 Pro itself, it is more than likely that I will return to Android as my main system. Images and photos | Xataka In Xataka | Macbook Pro M5, analysis: sometimes, the advances that are not seen are the great success of an excellent product

The Star Destroyer is the terror of Star Wars. But as one fan has calculated, building it in real life wouldn’t be cheap.

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‘Star Wars’ is full of iconic ships. From the Millennium Falcon and its Kessel Corridor in just 12 parsecs to silhouettes identifiable at a glance such as the X-Wing or the TIE Fighter. We associate ‘Star Wars‘ with frenetic combats in space, but we also have iconic mastodons, authentic galactic monsters like the unmistakable Imperial Star Destroyer. Well: now we not only know how much it impresses us, but also how much it would cost us. What is a Star Destroyer. This 1.6 kilometer long, wedge-shaped beauty exhibits measurements and characteristics that make it a mini space station of considerable power. Let’s see: Approximate mass: 40 million metric tons Engines: Three KDY Destroyer-I ion engines and Cygnus Spaceworks Gemnon-4 units Maximum speed in atmosphere: 975 km/h Hyperlight Capability: Yes, with a class 2 impeller Heavy and medium turbolasers located in batteries throughout the ship Ion cannons to disable enemy systems 30 torpedo launchers or missile slots Ability to deploy 72 TIE fighters, as well as AT-AT and AT-ST ground vehicles Estimated total crew: between 37,000 and 60,000 people It functions as a small floating city, with areas for operations, daily life, maintenance and storage So the money what. Although less monumental than the Death Star, Star Destroyers require immense resources to construct. Estimates based on scientific analysis and data from the saga and collected on the website Gamestar They suggest that building, maintaining, and even disposing of when the time comes for a single Star Destroyer could cost a fortune. Used as a basis for comparison the price it costs to build a real aircraft carrier: between 13,000 and 17,000 million dollars each. And that’s just the beginning. We’re not just talking about construction itself. Resources and construction time skyrocket when considering mass production, as the Empire deploys dozens of destroyers to maintain its dominance. In addition, training and supplying personnel generate recurring costs. And maintenance, of course: refueling, repairing war damage, technological updates and replacing parts, which requires the construction of strategic space bases. We are going in parts, breaking down this authentic black hole of pasta. The initial transport. Transporting 40 million tons of construction material to space is logistically complex and expensive. With an extremely optimistic price of 10,000 euros per ton, the initial cost would be around 400 billion euros. In the long term, the cost could be reduced to about 200 euros per kilo, equivalent to about 8 billion euros. If we talk about current technologies (that is, no teleportation or similar), the realistic cost for this volume would be around 40 billion euros. What the material costs. The construction of the Star Destroyer would likely use high-strength, low-alloy steels, the cost of which is estimated at around €90 billion. More advanced systems such as propulsion, weapons and other high-performance components would require more expensive special alloys, adding at least an additional 110 billion euros. Altogether, conservative estimated costs for materials would be around €200 billion in total. To ride. The Star Destroyer is significantly more expensive to manufacture than mere materials, as labor and countless tests can cost five to fifteen times as much. The construction cost is estimated at around 2 billion euros. Furthermore, adding the costs of research, testing, infrastructure and development, especially in new energy and propulsion systems, could conservatively add another 5 billion euros to the total budget. The invoice. In short, these gentlemen will have to go and digest: the total expense to build and maintain the imperial Star Destroyer is estimated at around 15.2 billion euros, assuming transportation costs. Without including development expenses, the cost would be around 14 billion euros. But we can go up: if additional elements such as technical reserves, energy systems, lifetime maintenance and scrapping are considered, the joke can approach 40 billion euros. To put it in perspective, the USS Gerald R. Ford aircraft carrier cost around 12 billion euros, so a Star Destroyer would cost almost four thousand times that amount.​ In Xataka | Adam Driver launched a Star Wars movie project about Kylo Ren. Disney rejected it because they didn’t understand it.

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