Month: December 2025

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

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

the questions you have sent us (and their answers) about this television

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Choosing a television is always complicated, but the TCL C8K It seeks to be the best choice for both movie buffs and gamers, and also has a sound adjustment with real-time adjustments. We have been testing it for several days, and now we bring you a video with all the answers to the questions that you have been sending us about it to our Instagram profile. TCL C8K Q&A We start the video by answering the question you asked us about your panel, explaining that it has the Fourth generation QD-MiniLED technology with CrystGlow WHVA panel. It offers a brightness of 4,500 nits, a high contrast of 7,000:1 and very vivid colors, making it a good option for movie buffs. We also talked about the colors, as well as the different modes it has and its customization capacity. You can adjust the image almost any way, and if this is too much for you, it has an AI with adaptive options to change the image depending on the environment. Then we go to a lightning round answering several questions, where we tell you that it is a “zero border” television that is almost borderless, that it can be viewed in split screen, and that it has WiFi, Bluetooth connections, and to send Chromecast and AirPlay content. In addition, we tell you the multiple HDR modes it has. The television is 75 inches, and has 4K resolution. Its dimensions are 1.65m wide and 95cm high. Yes indeed, The model has various sizes with different inches. In addition, we tell you that it has 4 HDMI, two of them 2.1 for computers and consoles. It also has USB, Ethernet port, optical audio output and the rest of the usual connections. In addition, we explain what its remote control is like, and we delve into its excellent Bang & Olufsen speakers and its functions to adapt the sound in real time, in addition to many other things and its functions for gaming. But the best thing is that you watch the full video to see all the answers we give to the questions you have sent us. This content is a collaboration and sponsorship between Xataka and the brand, but there is no agreement on the script or the selection of the topics. The editorial content is created entirely by Xataka.

Porsche owners in Russia woke up this morning without being able to start their car. And they have a suspicion

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They said in Autonotion in 2019 that Russia was a country of extremes. They weren’t talking about the economy (at least not directly), they were talking about car sales. And the Russian market has always been particular, with Lada being the best-selling car brand and, at the same time, having the ability to sneak Porsche ahead of Peugeot. And Porsche lived a decade of love with Russia with constant growth. The wealthiest did not hesitate to opt for the luxury brands Germans. In fact, that report identified Mercedes and BMW as the tenth and eleventh most purchased car companies. In fact, despite the restrictions, Russians continue to buy Western cars, they explained in Motor1.com recently. Those continued sales have thousands of Porsche cars moving through the streets of Russian cities. Or they had them. Because overnight, car owners in Stuttgart keep reporting a problem as simple as it is obvious: their cars don’t move. No, they don’t work. Either they don’t start or they stop after traveling a few meters. The reason for the problem is already known. The origin is more diffuse. My Porsche doesn’t run They pick up their colleagues Motorpassion that since the last days of November, Russian owners of German sports cars are experiencing serious problems starting their cars. The problem seems to lie in the Porsche VTS (Porsche Vehicle Tracking System), a system that the German company offers as a protection measure. With it activated, the vehicle maintains a constant satellite connection so if someone steals the car it is easy to find its location. In that case, a thief must block the satellite signal but in that case the brand understands that, in fact, the car is being stolen and the car automatically does not start or stops after a few meters. This is what has happened in Russia. With a nuance, the Porsche system has incorrectly understood that hundreds or thousands of cars sold since 2013 have been stolen and, therefore, their starting is prevented. The reason is that these cars have lost the satellite connection for a reason that is still unknown. This automatically activates the system and, as we see, leaves the car inoperable. Rolf, the largest dealer group selling Porsche cars in Russia, has confirmed the latter. And the company ceased operations in the country completely in 2022, in response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Since then its users have been left without technical service. It is now believed that the lack of maintenance of the servers may have caused a failure that has broken that satellite connection and the Porsches have become a gigantic paperweight. The event is so striking that those responsible for Rolf have assured Russian media that the widespread shutdown “may be deliberate.” However, there is no conclusive evidence for the latter. If so, it would be a hybrid warfare maneuver especially curious. For now, what is certain is that there are hundreds of post-2013 Porsches completely stranded… and with their customers looking for desperate solutions. The companions of Motorpassion They report that some of them claim to have solved the problem with hard reboots, such as turning off the battery for 10 hours. The car would have picked up the satellite signal again at that moment and could start moving again. Others have achieved it rebooting the VTS system or, directly, removing it completely, which involves disassembling the seats and a good part of the dashboard. Whether it was some kind of computer attack or simply due to a lack of server maintenance, the truth is that hundreds of Porsche cars have been stranded and that speaks volumes. how hopelessly connected our cars are nowadays. Almost always, arguing or defending greater driver safety. Our cars have become a connected data center… whether we want it or not. The Porsche case is an example of how an interesting and useful system to prevent car theft can leave us with a completely stopped car if the system architecture suffers irreparable damage. And in this case we are not talking about a failure in the vehicle, we are talking about a direct attack against servers or satellites that directly allow our cars to move. Right now, a new one keeps constant information about our driving in a small black box. We are connected to a network with geolocation to make an emergency call with eCall, mandatory since 2018. Some modern cars can receive notices in your browsers of various incidents, How does the DGT want to send when detect a car stopped on the road with the V-16 beacon active. But it has even been proposed to use the data collected to force us to circulate around the city. in fully electric mode if we have a plug-in hybrid car or harness its power if it is detected that the batteries have not been recharged for too long. Therefore, technically it is possible to turn off cars remotely. It would be very difficult to order a concrete attack against a single vehicle since connected information sent from a car is supposedly anonymous and end-to-end encrypted. As long as that car has not been reported stolen, which can allow the police to contact the manufacturer and him order a remote shutdown. However, vulnerabilities that could leave hundreds or thousands of cars completely stopped or at the mercy of a remote control are one of the industry’s biggest concerns. Especially in a geopolitical context in which hybrid warfare seems to be increasingly present. Photo | Josh Berquist and Vadim Artyukhin In Xataka | If you do not have the V16 beacon you will be fined, but the director of the DGT proposes a grace period: “the agents will be flexible”

This is very economical and gives you four extra months

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We are almost touching Christmas, a time when many of us start buying gifts, especially online. We can do it from our mobile phone, from a tablet or through a computer, but regardless of what device we use, The ideal is that we do it in the safest way possible. And for that, a VPN It can be a luxury for us. As you probably already know, there are free options available on the Internet. These work, although they are not as safe as they say they are. If you are looking for a quality one, Maybe ExpressVPN fits you: is one of the best VPNs out there and we can get it from 2.99 euros per month. The price could vary. We earn commission from these links Ideal for shopping online in a safer way We have talked countless times about VPNs. It is a tool that is great for many different scenarios, so it is one of those things that never needs to be installed on your PC, mobile phone or tablet. In fact, as we say, it can be great if we are going to buy on the Internet and we want to do it with the maximum security and privacy possible. With a VPN activated, we will pass all our Internet traffic through a secure tunnel which third parties such as cybercriminals will not be able to access. In this way, we will prevent anyone from knowing what we are doing and that no one can intercept, for example, our bank details when paying in an online store. Also, if we use a VPN while browsing the Internet we will be able to keep our IP address safe. This is quite important because it can prevent any site or store from storing more account information about us. It can also prevent, in the event of a data leak, that our address ends up in the wrong hands and could be used to impersonate our identity. To gain a little more security, betting on ExpressVPN is a good idea. It is one of the best VPNs out there, offering very good connection options, as well as connection speed and security. In addition, it has what they call ‘Advanced protection‘, a suite of tools that includes threat manager, ad blocker, and even parental controls. As we also indicated a little above, we can get ExpressVPN from 2.99 euros per month. This plan, the most economical that the company has, also offers us four extra months If we opt for its two-year modality, which is the one with this price (so we would pay a total of 83.72 euros for 28 months). With it, it should be noted that we have 10 simultaneous connections, so we can use the VPN on all our devices without paying more. You may also be interested in these other VPNs The price could vary. We earn commission from these links Private Internet Access VPN (monthly) The price could vary. We earn commission from these links Some of the links in this article are affiliated and may provide a benefit to Xataka. In case of non-availability, offers may vary. Images | ExpressVPN In Xataka | Best VPNs: guide with the 17 best services to protect your online privacy In Xataka | How to use a VPN on Android: what it is and how to configure it

We thought we “discovered” fire 50,000 years ago. We didn’t know how wrong we were.

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For decades paleontology has maintained a clear distinction in history: it is one thing to use fire and quite another to create it at will. Something that seems very silly, but is essential since until now the evidence we had on the table pointed to the ability to light a bonfire from scratch They dated back 50,000 years. But this has changed. A big change. A published study in Nature He told us that we were quite wrong about this. A team of researchers has pointed out that hominids already possessed technology to make fire voluntarily 415,000 years ago. That is, 375,000 years earlier than we thought. Although what is surprising is that it was not even our species, but the early Neanderthals. Something that has been known after studying a site found in Barnham in England that has given the necessary evidence to reach the end of the matter. How do we know? At the moment we do not have a time machine to travel to the past and see what happened in our history. That is why this discovery makes it surprising that they used reverse engineering to reach this conclusion. The elements that were available at the site were not just ashes, but the “ignition kit.” Researchers were able to identify fragments of pyrite and flint axes, which can be used to make fire. Although the key here is that the pyrite It is not native to that area, but hominids had to intentionally transport it to make fire voluntarily. The mechanism is, in essence, the prehistoric version of a modern lighter: striking the pyrite with the flint generates sparks capable of igniting dry tinder. Confirming it. With these indications, anyone could think that it could be a random fire, and that is why advanced techniques such as archeomagnetism, micromorphology and spectroscopy were used. In this case, the results indicated that the sediments had been heated to more than 700 ºC, which suggests that it was a concentrated and fed fire. This is also added to the fact that the flint axes presented specific cracks caused by cycles of heat and cooling, indicating that fires were made repeatedly. A big jump. The importance of this discovery is monumental since until now we assumed that complete control of fire was a late skill. This discovery sets the controlled ignition clock back by 375,000 years compared to previous evidence from French sites. This tells us that the minds of early Neanderthals, who were most likely found in that area, were more developed than thought. In this way, transporting pyrite implies long-term planning, which is not an instinctive reaction to the cold, evidencing a cognitive ability to think about the future. The domain of fire. Making fire at will is considered a great evolutionary advance since fire can lengthen the day for nighttime socialization or even cook food to obtain more energy with less digestive effort. This also represents a great geographical expansion for the species, since 400,000 years ago Europe was going through a very important glacial period, which made the heat of fire essential for the species to perpetuate itself. Images | Mladen Borisov In Xataka | Neither lions nor hyenas: at the top of the food chain 30 million years ago, there was a “pig” weighing more than a thousand kilos

China is not only eating the West in electric cars or televisions. It also threatens Starbucks

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New York is so damn big that it would be logical that the news of the opening of two coffee shops would pass unnoticed. After all, the city that never sleeps is full of places where one can taste (or pick up) a lattecappuccino, macchiato or any other coffee variation that comes to mind. The opening of the first two Luckin Coffee stores a few months ago in the Big Apple was however sneaked into media such as CNN either The New York Times and has inspired analysis of all kinds out of the country. Logical. After all, in just a few years Luckin Coffee has achieved bend your pulse to Starbucks in China. Now, for his landing in New York, he has chosen a place located barely 60 meters from one of their cafes. What is Luckin Coffee? If its name doesn’t sound familiar to you, don’t worry, it’s more than understandable: Luckin is a coffee shop chain founded in 2017 in China by Jenny Qian and Charles Lu and since then its expansion has focused mainly on the Asian giant. In 2023 he achieved a key milestone by surpassing Starbucks as the largest coffee brand in China and in recent years it has not stopped growing: from close to 16,200 stores that it had that year in China (more than double that of its American rival) has gone on to manage more than 20,000 in several countries. In July the company spoke of 24,097 points of sale spread across mainland China, Hong Kong, Singapore and Malaysia. During the first quarter of 2025 alone, it launched 1,757. After taking over the Chinese market, a few months ago the company announced his landing in America with two stores in Manhattan and Washington Square Park, an area popular with students. “This is just the beginning. New York, we are here,” warned Luckin in networks. Is it that important? The landing of Luckin Coffee in the US market has generated expectation inside and outside the country. Normal. Your surprise Starbucks in China in 2023 (both in sales and number of stores) had a symbolic value that goes far beyond the numbers. To begin with, because the Asian giant is one of the big markets of the American multinational. Starbucks has also been established in the country for some time: it opened its first establishment in Beijing in 1999, contributing greatly to establish coffee culture in a nation that has traditionally opted for tea. That’s why Luckin’s jump to the US has generated so much interest. How has it succeeded? With a bet well defined. At least until now, Luckin Coffee’s strategy has been based on three pillars. First, a dizzying expansion focused on gaining market share. Second, the user experience. Customers manage their orders directly through an app and in just a few minutes they can collect their orders at the counter, without any human interaction. The mobile application is not only dynamic; It allows the company to retain its customers by using discounts, bonuses and gamification. The third bet is a wide offer and, above all, affordable prices. During its landing in the US, the Chinese chain has decided to launch aggressive discounts that leave its coffees in less than two dollars, considerably below of what Starbucks charges for its drinks in the Big Apple. In fact there is who points that the American multinational’s strategy to stand up to its Chinese rival will be to move in the opposite direction: if Luckin focuses on app orders and low prices, Starbucks has proposed eliminate the premises of their network that only accept orders via app and for pickup due to their low “warmth”. The idea: return to the origin, to the traditional cafeteria experience. Does it only happen with Luckin? No. In fact Luckin is just one of many Chinese tea chains, hot potsdrinks… that are landing in the US to compensate for the changes in the Chinese market. How he slid TNWT in a recent analysis On the subject, there they find an excess of supply and an economy weighed down by the real estate crisis and weakened consumption, which leads them to look to the other side of the Pacific. One of the threats that its US competitors face is that this leap comes with aggressive tariffs. Gaining a foothold in the US market will not be easy. The Luckin case is a clear example. It has just opened its first stores in New York, but in front of it it has almost 17,000 establishments that Starbucks manages in the US. If the Chinese chain has demonstrated something, however, it is its resistance. In fact, it has managed to overcome the serious crisis it experienced in 2020, when an accounting scandal left it on the edge of the abyss. Since then it has not only managed to recover and grow. Now aspire to quote again in the USA. Images | Xataka In Xataka | China has just beaten the United States in the most unexpected fight: that of branded coffee shops

how effective it is to get vaccinated

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Spain is experiencing a flu epidemic which cannot be compared to that of recent years, since this season the increase in infections has multiplied considerably, especially in Madrid or Catalonia. The responsible for this is a new subvariant of the H3N2 influenza virus called ‘K’. And this has made us ask many questions, such as whether vaccines work or not. The figures. The flu epidemic is generally recorded throughout Spain, but not homogeneously. In the regions of Catalonia and Madrid, the curve is presented as a true vertical line that reminds us of the worst of covid. But the good news we have in this case is that hospital or ICU admissions are not increasing significantlyas pointed out by the Carlos III Health Institute. The weapons we have. That there are many cases of flu at this time is normal. That is why we have tools such as vaccination in the last months of the year to try to control infections or at least reduce symptoms in the case of contracting the disease. The problem is that viruses are very ‘damn’ and have the ability to easily outwit vaccines. making changes to its structure. In this way, we train our body to fight against a virus that subsequently has small modifications that mean it cannot fight it 100%. To try to alleviate this, flu vaccines count in their preparation with the most common strains of the flu virus (that is, its different types) so that we can fight them. Especially considering the variants that existed in the previous season. Graph of cases in the Community of Madrid in Primary Care The ‘k’ variant. It blew up all the prevention plans that were made in our country, causing the virus to have a small modification that makes our body unable to fight thanks to previous training. Something that could confirm the WHO and the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control which after testing in the laboratory They saw that the virus has an easier time bypassing the first defense barrier. But it works. This is where the vital nuance comes in to avoid falling into alarmism. And even if the virus manages to infect us, the vaccine continues to fulfill its main function: preventing us from ending up in the hospital or ICU. Something that matters (a lot) for older people or those who have an illness that reduces their defenses. Despite that “escape” in the laboratory, preliminary data from the real world, coming from the UK (UKHSA) and endorsed by the ECDC, provide reassuring figures on the effectiveness of the vaccine, since in children the effectiveness remains between 70-75%and in adults hospitalization is avoided 30-40% of the time. Why are there so many cases? As we say, the current situation means that the virus can be transmitted without problem, and we have a vaccine that, although it protects against ending up in the hospital, does not stop transmission. This causes many people to be sick, but without a significant increase in mortality or hospital admissions that strains our system as we live in Covid. You have to get vaccinated. With all this data, the conclusion we can draw is that it is advisable to get vaccinated. Something that we already see in the different communities that encourage us to do it with massive campaigns that monopolize to the entire population and not only those that present some risk like the older ones. This also adds to the obligatory that some autonomous communities have established to wear a mask in health spaces such as a hospital. At the national level, only the recommendation to do so prevails. What should be noted is that children are undoubtedly the most important group in this case. This is because they are very prone to becoming infected by being in contact with other children, but their system responds well and they do not present major symptoms or they take a long time to develop. The problem comes when you can spread it to your entire environment where you can find older people like your grandparents. This makes them perfect vectors for this virus. Images | National Cancer Institute Nikita Broutman In Xataka | Spain has spent years vaccinating only the elderly during flu seasons. Now he has decided to change it

Fortnite returns to the Android store

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‘Fortnite’ has had to wait a few months, but it is now available for Android users (at the moment in the United States, and in other countries, irregularly, if the game is installed with the Epic Games app) as a download from the Store. A true triumph for Epic that comes in handy to inaugurate season 7 of the game. What has happened? ‘Fortnite’ has returned to the Android Store American after Google has complied with the court order that forced it to open its ecosystem to competition. The return of popular battle royale by Epic Games culminates a legal battle against Google’s monopoly that has spanned more than four years and ended with a historic defeat for the technology giant. As confirmed by Epic Gamesinitial availability is limited to the United States while negotiations continue to obtain judicial approval of the final agreement that would allow its expansion to the rest of the world. It is the direct result compliance with a court order, which found Google guilty of illegal monopolistic practices. The verdict. On December 11, 2023, a jury in California unanimously ruled in favor of Epic Games on all eleven charges brought against Google. The decision established that the company had operated an illegal monopoly both in the distribution of Android applications and in the payment system within the apps. The judge imposed an injunction requiring the Play Store to distribute alternative app stores. During the trial, Epic exposed what Google internally called “Project Hug,” an initiative in which Google spent hundreds of millions of dollars in secret settlements with more than twenty core developers. According to became documentedbeneficiaries included Activision Blizzard, Nintendo, Riot Games, Square Enix, Tencent and Ubisoft, among others. Google offered to Epic a deal valued at $208 million to keep Fortnite on the Play Store, an offer that Epic rejected, unleashing what Google saw as a “risk of contagion.” Opposite verdicts. The curious thing is that Epic Games lost decisively against Apple in a practically identical case. a judge dismissed nine of the ten lawsuits Epic antitrust case against the iOS App Store in 2021. The fundamental difference was who decided each case. While Apple opted for a trial before a judge, Epic demanded jury to confront Google. Apple managed at the time to defend its “walled garden” model by arguing that full control over iOS guaranteed security and privacy. Epic’s own CEO, Tim Sweeney, admitted during trial to use iPhone personally for these reasons. Android, on the other hand, presents itself as an open platform that allows multiple stores, which made its restrictive practices more difficult to justify. The case against Apple, however, is still ongoing, and includes perjury allegations against Apple. The agreement. Epic and Google have presented a proposed agreement that, if approved, would end five years of legal confrontation. The agreement drastically reduces commissions that Google can charge: between 9% and 20% depending on the type of transaction and the date of installation of the app, figures well below the historical 30% that motivated the original conflict. The agreement maintains the restrictions of the original court order, permanently prohibiting Google from paying manufacturers, operators or developers for exclusivity agreements that favor the Play Store. The agreement between both companies would go beyond the application of the judicial decision: it would be global and would remain in force until June 2032, making it one of the most important antitrust pacts ever assumed by a platform. Significantly, the judge questioned that two “mortal enemies” who fought “ruthlessly” for years suddenly reached an agreement, suggesting that Google may be trying to water down remedies after losing all its appeals, and has scheduled an additional hearing for December or January to clarify whether the agreement genuinely addresses the Google Play monopoly. In Xataka | How ‘Fortnite’ is creating its particular “Fortniteverse” thanks to LEGO, with which it is reformulating its foundations

La Niña is going to be meteorologically “less intense” than we expected. And that actually hides a problem.

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There is a 55% chance that the world will cross the La Niña thresholds in the coming weeks. And although The World Meteorological Organization insists that it will probably be a weak and brief episode, that does not mean that it will not cause us problems. Many problems, in fact. First because it is going to catch us with a changed pace. When world meteorological agencies indicate that La Niña will be low in intensity, what they are also doing (often inadvertently) is telling authorities that it won’t be that bad. And that is technically true, but socially speaking it is a mistake. WMO A global event… Let us remember that, with the exception of the seasons, ENSO (of which La Niña is a phase) constitutes the most important source of annual climate variability from all over the planet. It is true that the cold phase usually has less impact than the warm one, but the teleconnections of The Girl They are still huge and so is their impact. …with an impact worthy of its size. In fact, under “normal conditions”, with a 55% chance of it arriving this quarter, many countries would be preparing for its consequences. Above all, because, under “normal conditions”, there are many: For example, in the southeast of the American continent temperatures become warmer than normal. Likewise, they get colder in the Northeast. Less rainfall than normal is expected in Ecuador and Peru, and torrential rains are expected in Northeast Brazil. In Mexico, it is common for La Niña to cause (or make more intense) drought in the north and center of the country, while increasing torrential rainfall in the Pacific, the southern Gulf of Mexico and the Yucatan Peninsula. In Spain, for its part, it is usually synonymous with less rain. In other words, bad news. But we are not in “normal conditions.” As I say, the WMO messages they are precise; but they act as confusing signals: the administrations are not preparing. And that, whether we want it or not, can turn even the most lukewarm of Las Niñas into thousands of problems on a regional scale. But we must also take into account the global scenario. Because, as the WMO also points outLa Niña may bring slight global cooling. However, this should not motivate a reduction in efforts against climate change: the accumulated warming is so great that temperatures will most likely remain above average. That is, climate change is still underway. And, unlike other years, not even La Niña can do anything to contain it. Image | Climate Reanalyzer In Xataka | 2023 was the year in which El Niño and climate change competed. In the Amazon we already know who won

Drones are disguising themselves as Russian soldiers, and it’s working

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More than three years after the start of the Russian invasion, the war in Ukraine has transformed into a conflict that seems have no end in sight, trapped in a logic slow wear and cumulative in which each meter gained costs weeks of combat and a constant flow of resources. In this scenario, the border between high military technology and elemental ingenuity to survive has been blurring: drones with AI coexist with improvised traps, robots armed with solutions born of scarcity, and the most advanced innovation It is mixed with the raw creativity of those who fight every day to stay alive. Thus, Ukraine has just found something: speakers. Against a higher power. The Ukrainian command assumes that the conflict has become a war of attrition in which Russia part with advantage structural by population, industry and replacement capacity, so the strategy involves maximizing enemy losses while minimizing one’s own. Oleksandr Syrskyi, Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, has described recently made this approach clear: Ukraine cannot win by volume, but it can do so by constantly raising the human and material cost that Moscow must pay to advance, and to do so it has turned unmanned systems into the central axis of its way of fighting, both on a tactical and psychological level. Drones that attack the mind. One of the most striking innovations is the use of drones equipped with speakersused not to directly destroy but to deceive and wear down the enemy. These drones reproduce military vehicle sounds that simulate imminent attacks, forcing Russian units to deploy reconnaissance drones and single-use loitering munitions that cannot be recovered, also revealing their positions. The exchange is radically asymmetric: Ukraine uses a cheap and reusable system to force the adversary to waste valuable and limited resources. The voice in Russian. The most disturbing variant of this tactic takes psychological warfare to a new level, with drones that emit Russian recordings of screams for help, moans or desperate, shocking calls for help. In essence, the drones are disguising themselves as Russian recruits. In a front saturated with tension, these voices explode basic human reflexes and they push Russian soldiers to leave safe positions to check the source of the sound, at which point they are exposed to artillery or attack drones already prepared. It’s not just about killing more, it’s about inducing errors, eroding trust, and turning compassion into tactical vulnerability. The climate in favor. It we have counted before. The thick fog, the freezing rain and the wind have reduced the effectiveness of Ukrainian FPV drones in key sectors, enabling recent Russian advances, but the response has been integrate aerial drones with ground robots hidden in approach routes. These systems detect the passage of vehicles enemies and transmit precise data to operators who position attack drones at low altitudeusing the fog itself as cover and waiting in ambush until the objective enters the impact zone, a solution that has proven to be effective in stopping armor without exposing infantry. Armed robots so as not to risk. The use of armed unmanned ground vehicles illustrates the extent to which Ukraine seeks to replace soldiers with machines in lethal missions, as demonstrated by the use Droid TW 12.7equipped with a heavy machine gun M2 Browning. counted this week Insider an example. It happened in a night ambush, when this system was able to destroy a transport Russian armored vehicle MT-LBpierce its armor, incapacitate the crew and eliminate the transported infantry, showing that these UGVs are no longer experiments, but combat tools designed to take risks that previously fell on people. Extreme ingenuity where there is no margin. Constant pressure and supply shortages have reinforced a culture of improvisation in which damaged drones are reused like explosive traps, buildings they become in improvised weapons and unexploded Russian ammunition launches again against enemy trenches. This ingenuity not only maximizes resources, but also fits with the general logic of attrition: each recovered object and each improvised trick reduces logistical dependence and maintains offensive capacity even in adverse conditions. Laboratory of the future. In the end, this entire set of tactics relies on a Ukrainian industry that has accelerated the development of drones with better navigation, computer vision, artificial intelligence-assisted control and swarming capabilities, sending them quickly to the front to be tested in real combat. The result is a continuous cycle of adaptation in which technology and doctrine they evolve togetherturning the front into a test bed (it has been for virtually three years) that is not only shaping the course of the current war, but also the way future conflicts will be fought. Image | RawPixel In Xataka | The new episode of terror in Ukraine does not involve missiles or drones: it involves leaving a city without cell phones In Xataka | Shahed drones were a piece of cake for Ukraine’s helicopters. Russia has just transformed them into its biggest nightmare

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