Month: February 2026

Magnetic maps had been marking something strange under Antarctica for centuries. So we’ve started drilling to find it

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For years, magnetic maps of East Antarctica have shown something strange about the region from Princess Elizabeth Land: a large amplitude linear magnetic anomaly under kilometers of ice that runs along the coast parallel to the margin of the continent. It was something that satellites and planes could detect, but no one knew exactly what rock was producing it until now. Discovering it. If the problem is that this anomaly was under a large amount of ice, a team of researchers within the framework of a Russian-Chinese cooperation He has done the most logical thing to find what was happening: start drilling. What they have found after putting a large drill to work is not only a magnetic rock that gave that peculiar pattern, but it is the geological “scar” of an ancient island arc that collided with the continent almost 1,000 years ago, when the supercontinent was forming. Rodinia. A challenge. The study that includes this discovery focuses mainly on the Rayner tectonic province, an area that is geologically critical because it is considered a “mobile belt.” That is, it is a collision zone where ancient blocks of crust were crushed against each other. The problem with Antarctic geology is that almost everything they are interested in is buried, and in this case the team had to cross 541 meters of ice to be able to reach the rock that interested them. What did they find? What they took from the bottom of Antarctica was not common granite as can occur in other areas, but rather the core recovered is a mafic granulite. Something that is very important, since granulites are metamorphic rocks that have suffered infernal temperatures and pressures. After power analyze this rock So interesting, it was seen that this was what was causing the linear anomalies seen from space. And as we say, it is not a very normal stone, since it is rich in ferromagnetic minerals, capable of altering the magnetic field locally. Investigating Rodinia. Once with the sample in hand, the team applied geochemistry techniques and dating to be able to counterbalance these data with everything that was known in previous research. What was seen is that there was a great violent history behind it, since it was known that the rock was originally born as magma about 970 million years ago. From its birth, that rock was pushed into the depths and “cooked.” The data indicate that it was subjected to temperatures between 650 and 790 ºC and pressures equivalent to depths of 15 to 18 kilometers. In this way, the researchers’ conclusion is that this rock was part of a volcanic arc of islands like those of Japan. But the most interesting thing is that this arc was not originally in Antarctica, but was forcibly “stuck” against the ancient continent during a massive collision that gave rise to the formation of Rodinia. The Indian connection. To understand the magnitude of the find, you have to look beyond Antarctica, as geologists have long suspected that the Rayner Province in Antarctica and the Eastern Ghats Province in India They are twins separated at birth. And the new data reinforces this theory, since the conditions of “high temperature” metamorphism found in this drilling are almost identical to those documented in India. This leads us to conclude that 900 million years ago, the east coast of India and this part of Antarctica were joined, forming a huge mountain range created by the collision of tectonic plates. Images | 66 north In Xataka | In the United States there is an incredible river that does what seems impossible: defy the laws of gravity

Countries are desperate to raise their birth rates. They have a very simple weapon to apply: teleworking

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He aging population is one of the most pressing problems for large economies around the world. The birth rate is a pillar in a country’s economy, since the economy, the labor market, education and health, among many other policies, depend on it. When governments talk about “birth crisis“, they almost always resort to the same repertoire of solutions: baby checks, tax deductions or daycare aid. The problem is that, after years of applying them, fertility in most rich countries continues on the ground. However, a new study raises a new perspective: what if the solution to the birth rate problem was in the way we work? In that scenario, teleworking appears as a surprisingly powerful lever. Telework to have more children. a study carried out by researchers at Stanford University has discovered that offering work flexibility and teleworking improves the fertility rate in couples in which one of the members teleworks. The researchers did not measure the number of births (natality), but rather the fertility indicator. That is, the number of children that participants say they plan to have. The result is difficult to ignore because someone who does not have free time or who considers that they could not take on the upbringing of a child, nor do they consider having one. That is to say, there is no such predisposition, which does not help the birth rate grows. According to the study, going from having no teleworking option to teleworking five days a week is associated with an approximate increase of 0.13 children per woman in terms of expected fertility. This is equivalent to an increase of between 7% and 8% over the average of the group analyzed. Birth and fertility are not the same. It should be noted that talking about birth and fertility represents different scenarios, and this confusion can distort the debate. The birth rate It is the number of births that occur in a country during a specific period. It is the most common data when talking about birth rate since it determines, in real terms, the number of annual births, and allows it to be compared with the number of deaths to establish the demographic balance. Fertility, on the other hand, is a background indicator. It represents the number of children a woman has (or is expected to have) throughout her life. It is usually expressed as Global Fertility Rate (TGF). The difference between both concepts is important. While the birth rate can vary from year to year (for example, advancing decisions or in response to certain policies) without changing the structural trend, the fertility rate is a long-term metric: it indicates whether a woman plans to have only one child (no matter the year) or more. Motivated to have children. Examples like South Korea or Japan They show how complicated, and how expensive, it is to change a downward birth rate trend. That is why the increase in the intention to have children, without making any investment or applying additional fiscal policies, is very striking. The results of the study suggest that, perhaps, the way forward is not to subsidize the birth of more children, but rather to make the organization of parents’ work compatible with their upbringing. It’s not for money: it’s for time. For years, the political response has been fairly predictable. Having children is expensiveso you have to put money on the table to lighten that burden. The problem is that, although in most homes they need two salaries To survive, the truly scarce resource is time to take care of the children. Teleworking and flexible hours have reduced this daily friction since it implies less time traveling, greater control over schedules and, above all, greater ability to react to unforeseen events. for child care. The report ‘Women in the Workplace’ prepared by McKinsey showed that the lack of flexible hours forces many women to reduce their hours or stagnate their professional career. On this point, the conclusions of the Stanford researchers fit with the data that Pew Research got In a previous survey: Even with the difficulties of reconciling family and work, the majority of respondents considered it necessary to continue working and did not want to sacrifice their professional careers. What they needed was a job that does not make work life and childcare incompatible. It needs investment, but it is cheap. The study concludes that to match the fertility rate achieved by teleworking, it would be necessary to apply fiscal policies and incentives at a much higher cost. Subsidized childcare can improve the situation, but none of these measures make it easier. child care on a day-to-day basis, nor does it encourage families to have more children that complicate logistics even more. The time availability and flexibility of teleworking does. This does not mean that the implementation of teleworking is free. Has organizational costs for companiesyou cannot telework in all sectors and it can generate inequalities between employees whose positions do allow teleworking and those who do not. In Xataka | We have been teleworking for four years and a study has reached a conclusion: working from home makes us happier Image | Pexels (Anastasia Shuraeva)

Peru gave the keys to a giant door to China that the US now wants to blow up

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For years, Chancay was a secondary port on the central coast of Peru, one linked to regional exports and with a limited weight in international trade. Everything changed when, at the beginning of the 2010s, the project began to transform into a megaconstruction designed to receive the largest ships in the world, a leap that culminated with the entry of Chinese capital and the inauguration of a work called to redefine the country’s role in Pacific trade. A giant door to the Pacific. Peru has now become the central stage of the rivalry between China and the United States for a very specific reason: the Chancay megaport, a deep-water infrastructure north of Lima that acts as a direct gateway between South America and Asia and that has elevated the Andean country from a trading partner to a strategic piece. As we said, with the capacity to receive the largest cargo ships in the world and accelerate the flow of raw materials to China, the port symbolizes how a logistics project can alter regional balances and place a country in the middle of a dispute between powers. The direct notice. From the Washington Department of State, the Donald Trump administration rated case as an example of how “cheap Chinese money” can erode national control over critical infrastructure, an unusually harsh warning in pointing out that Peru could be losing sovereignty over one of its critical infrastructures, after a court ruling which limits the ability of the national regulator to supervise Chancay. For the United States, the message is clear: Chinese money, presented as cheap and fast, has a long-term political cost. A case that has become an example of the US strategy to stop the expansion of Chinese influence in the Western Hemisphere and regain ground in a region that it considers vital for its security and global leadership. China and the Silk Road in Latin America. It we count some time ago. For Beijing, Chancay is a key piece of its Belt and Road Initiativethe great project with which it has financed ports, roads and airports around the world through credits and state guarantees. China has been for more than a decade the main partner Peru’s commercial sector and has invested massively in strategic sectors such as mining, electricity and transportation, consolidating a deep economic relationship that goes far beyond a single port and that reinforces its presence in the Latin American Pacific. The court ruling. The spark of the conflict has been court ruling Peruvian law that orders the authorities to refrain from regulating, supervising or sanctioning the activity of the port of Chancay, considering it a private facility. The regulator Ositran, which controls the rest of the country’s large ports, has denounced that this exception leaves users unprotected and creates a dangerous precedent, by making the operating company the only one that provides a public service without direct supervision of the State. The organization has already announced that it will appeal the decision. Cosco, sovereignty and red lines. The Chinese company Cosco Shipping, majority shareholder and operator of the port, has rejected any insinuation of loss of sovereignty and maintains that Chancay remains fully under Peruvian jurisdiction and subject to its laws, with the presence of police, customs and environmental authorities. For China, the US accusations are a political maneuver and a discredit campaign, while for Washington the problem is not only legal, but strategic: who controls, de facto, South America’s great gateway to transpacific trade. Peru trapped between two powers. The country is thus in an uncomfortable positionwith China as its main trading partner and the United States as a strategic ally and military partner, even designated as a main non-NATO ally. While Washington negotiates the construction of a naval base a few kilometers from Chancay, Beijing consolidates its influence economy around the same enclave. The result is a nation located in the middle of a major geopolitical battle, one where a port infrastructure has become the symbol of a difficult choice: take advantage of an economic opportunity without this giant door to the Pacific ending up conditioning its sovereignty and its international room for maneuver. Image | cosco In Xataka | China has been building a megaport in Peru for eight years. It has just been released to revolutionize South America In Xataka | €10 order, €30 tariffs: the EU has just approved the mother of tariffs for Aliexpress, Shein and Temu

The problem with Marcus Aurelius’ most famous phrase is that it is surely not his

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Initially this article was going to be about what the emperor Marcus Aurelius said, not about what Marcus Aurelius never said and we have made him say. Let me explain. With half a polarized country and thousands of families still recovering from the fights political-ideological-religious that accompany Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve after-dinner meals, a few days ago I decided to consult good old Marco Aurelio Antonio. What can the philosopher emperor teach us about tension? The answer came to me like a fall from the sky (via Google): “Everything we hear is opinion, not fact. Everything we see is perspective, not truth.” Sage. Accurate. Poetic. A plea in favor of tolerance, respect and the ability to relativize without falling into relativism resigned. One of the many (many) aphorisms of Marcus Aurelius that invite us to listen, not give in to impulses and, definitely, flee from gratuitous quarrels. The problem is that it is quite likely that that phrase, replicated infinite times in networks, anthologies and newspapershas never left Marco’s lips (or pen). Yes, it has been attributed to specialized accounts of X with more than 600,000 followers, yes, we have seen it in top level newspapers; but there are serious doubts that the philosopher emperor uttered it. Even that he sympathized with her. Emperor’s word (or not) To clear up doubts, the first and simplest thing is to turn to the great philosophical legacy of Marcus Aurelius: ‘Meditations’the work that collects his philosophical reflections. There, in point 15 of the second book, we find a more or less similar statement, although much shorter and related to another author. In fact, Marcus Aurelius recognizes its value, but with some important nuance. “‘That everything is opinion’”. Evident is what is said referring to the cynic Mónimo. The usefulness of what is said is also evident, if the substance of the saying is accepted, to the extent that it is appropriate.” The phrase refers to the philosopher Mononym of Syracuse (4th century BC), member of the Cynic school, and also connects with another great name of antiquity, the Greek comediographer Meander. Now… Why does Marcus Aurelius share it? Throughout the work the philosopher returns on several occasions about that idea, although with a form (and especially a background) that does not quite coincide with that phrase we found on Google. In book His interpretation is rather another: If you are distressed or sad, it may not be so much because of the external factors but because of the way you face them. No trace of the famous original phrase. Click on the image to go to the tweet. What we did find (again on Google) are contemporary authors who warn of two things: not only is there no evidence that Marcus Aurelius ever uttered that aphorism, but that he probably would not support it. In Medium the thinker Gregory Sadler remember the mention of Monimos in the ‘Meditations’ (“everything is what you suppose it to be”), but insists on the importance of context: “Marcus Aurelius is not really endorsing that statement as unconditionally correct. He claims that those words are clear and that they are useful if one accepts their usefulness to the extent that they are true“. “As you read these passages, and even more so as you read and understand the Meditations Taken together, it is quite clear that Marcus Aurelius not only does not endorse any kind of relativism. It would be strange if he did, since that would contradict many other things he claims,” ​​insists Sadler. He is not the only one who thinks this way. On the Modern Stoicism website is pointed out He cites it as the most obvious (and famous) example of a phrase “erroneously attributed” to the Roman emperor. It is not just about putting words into the philosopher’s mouth that he never really said. The problem, remember its authorThomas Colligan, is that in this case the aphorism lends itself to interpretations that directly collide with what Marcus Aurelius did think. “It seems to deny the existence of an objective reality and instead endorses a subjective view of the world where anything goes,” he warns: “Marcus Aurelius and the Stoics would certainly not have endorsed this view.” The emperor’s alleged phrase has also not passed PolitiFact analysis (a project of the Poynter Institute), that considers her discredited. After seeing how it went viral on networks, PolitiFact investigated whether or not the happy quote can be attributed to Marcus Aurelius, for which it even contacted an expert from the University of Tasmania, Dirk Baltzly. Your conclusion? It turns out “vaguely possible” that the quote is a free paraphrase of a passage from ‘Meditations’. What does the passage in question that Baltzly points out say, a quote that we find at the end of a long reflection of the third section from book IV? As follows: “All those things that you are seeing will soon be transformed and will not exist. Also constantly think about how many transformations you have already witnessed by chance. ‘The world, alteration; life, opinion.’” In other words, there is a certain echo, but no trace of what is probably one of Marcus Aurelius’s most shared phrases on networks. It could remain an anecdote (and a frustrated article on polarization), but how they reveal Sadler or Colligan, the problem is that this is not the only phrase falsely attributed to Marcus Aurelius, nor is Marcus Aurelius the only thinker to whom false phrases are attributed. Not even the emperors and greatest thinkers in history are safe from fake news. On the contrary, they seem more vulnerable the greater their fame. Images | Wikipedia In Xataka | “The greatest obstacle in life is the loss of today”: Seneca already went through your same existential crisis 2,000 years ago

If you’ve ever thought about “leaving everything and going to the mountains,” these thinkers have a lot to tell you

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In recent days it has gone viralMrinank Sharma’s departurehead of AI Safeguards at Anthropic (that is, the company’s team focused on security, misuse and model safeguards). In the letter that Sharma made publicafter explaining that “the world was in danger”confessed that he was going to the United Kingdom to study and write poetry. The idea of ​​”taking back control of your life” has been in the air for years and has an incredible capacity to mutate and adapt. Yes in 2021 lthose who left work spoke of low pay, lack of progress and feeling disrespected, now we talk about ethical issues and existential anxiety. What persists is that “leave everything and go to the mountains.” AND There are good philosophical arguments for this.. The philosophy of sending everything to hell Cristian Bortes – British Museum Or at least that is what many philosophers throughout history believed. Among the great practical philosophical traditions of Hellenic culture, Epicurism and its proposal to retire to live in peace is perhaps the best-known example. Although it has often been the product of stereotypes and misunderstandings, the school of Epicurus and company understood philosophy as a kind of philosophy of the soul: a kind of, following the ideas of Christopher Gill, a preventive psychological medicine. In this sense, withdrawing, stopping depending on the external, was not a way of being right, but rather of living without anxiety: of dedicating oneself to pleasure. At the end of the day, the epicurean garden that has been painted as an ode to hedonism is, in reality, a search for a friendly place that reduces stimuli, comparisons and needs. In the end, and translating it to our days without all the ontological scaffolding behind it, it is realizing that we are leaving our lives in a race whose goal we have not chosen. Is build a good place to live. However, it is not the only way to see it. independent people Rafael Sanzio Other Hellenic schools, such as the Stoics or the Cynics, were much more radical. Or, rather, hard. With their doctrinal differences, they sought internal independence, autarky. Imported to our days consists of going beyond building a shelter and going on the offensive. Modern life chains us in a thousand different ways (mortgage, career, reputation, schedules, etc…) and, for this reason, retiring goes far beyond a healing practice: it is a practical theory of freedom (liberation). This connects directly with another tradition: that of the hermits and ascetics that goes from Valerio del Bierzo to the eastern saints. There are many ways to justify it, but the idea is always the same: if to sustain your life you need to be liked, be productive and be available, you are not free; You are functional. And being functional to the material world, being functional to the system prevents you from aspiring to higher goals. think better With the birth of the modern world, we began to think about retirement in a different way: as a way of thinking well, of thinking better. The Montaigne tower or Rousseau’s walks have often been seen as a form of misanthropy. But, in reality, they were a way to get away to gain perspective, calm the soul and practice some mental hygiene. It has a lot to do with the idea of ​​disconnection retreats, although since the time of the French solitaries, society has spread its tentacles so much that it has become much more difficult: our minds are always foxes. Withdraw in protest The arrival of modernity also brought us political retreat. That is, leaving as a protest. When you can’t reform the world, sometimes the only lever is the way out. Or, what is the same: if in classical antiquity ostracism was the punishment par excellence, now it emerged as a tool. Refusing to cooperate with an unjust, corrupting or downright absurd order. It is true that much literature considers this type of flight as a sign of cowardice, but it is also true that (lucid or not), it is never neutral. Many reasons, the same gesture Be that as it may, we must not ignore that, in the background, there are always structural reasons: historically, the impulse to withdraw usually intensifies when certain collective sensations invade society: the feeling of the end of the era, acceleration, saturation, existential anxiety, problems of legitimacy. Just what we suffer today. And in the face of this, tranquility emerges as a rare commodity to seek and pursuea way to recover in the current mare magnun. For this reason, many people have begun to understand that ‘going to the mountains’ does not have to be a gesture of evasion, nor a way of disengaging from reality: it can perfectly be a “moral relocation”: a way to become better, to start again, to gain momentum. In Xataka | Seneca, philosopher: “It is not that we have little time to live, but that we do not stop wasting it”

A Moroccan sued a real estate agency for not showing him an apartment just because of his origin. Now they will have to pay 10,000 euros

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The story sounded so strange, so much like an ‘improvised excuse’, that Hamid Hmata decided to do an experiment. In January 2024after seeing how the umpteenth real estate company closed the door on him after finding out about his Moroccan origin, Hamid asked a co-worker to help him out. His friend (with a Spanish name) called the same agency asking about an apartment in Mataró that Hamid had been interested in shortly before. He had no problem. They confirmed that the home was available, gave him information and scheduled an appointment. Shortly before, Hamid had been told the opposite, that it was already rented. The story could have stopped there, but what the agency probably did not take into account is that Hamid has been battling discrimination in access to housing for some time. Now that episode of 2024 has led to a pioneering sentence by “real estate racism”. a dozen complaints. The statistics They suggest that Hamid is not (far from it) the only immigrant who encounters obstacles or outright racism when looking for housing. His case is different in something: this man of Moroccan origin, father of two minor children and with the necessary income to pay for a rental house, has been denouncing real estate racism for some time. And he has also done so in an active way, calling out against various agencies and presenting a dozen complaints before the Mataró City Council. “For being a migrant”. His case was revealed ago just a month and a half the DESCA Observatory, one of the entities that has accompanied Hamid in his peculiar real estate crusade. At that time, the platform explained that the man had been looking for an apartment for four years, a long period during which he had dealt with “great difficulties.” The reason? Everything indicates that its origin. “Different real estate agencies, allegedly, would have covertly avoided providing him with their services (showing him the apartment, evaluating his candidacy, managing a contract, etc.) due to the fact that he was a migrant,” details DOWNLOAD From office to office. Despite his efforts, most of Hamid’s claims were unsuccessful. Their complaints to the City Council ended up being filed and they undertook a “bureaucratic journey” by different organizations, such as the Housing Agency of Catalonia, the Consumer Agency and finally the Office of Equal Treatment and Non-Discrimination. Almost all of Hamid’s complaints ended up being dismissed, but last month DESCA recalled that there were still three live files: two “in the administrative procedure phase” and another “in the preliminary proceedings phase.” And the big surprise came. We have now known the next chapter in Hamid’s real estate odyssey. a few days ago DESCA revealed that the Office of Equal Treatment and Non-Discrimination (OITND) of the Generalitat of Catalonia has imposed a fine of 10,001 euros on a real estate agency in Mataró for, the association claims, “a case of real estate racism in access to rentals.” The reason would have been the episode with which we started this article. Same floor, different answers. In 2024 Hamid was interested in an apartment for rent, so he contacted the real estate agency that owned it to visit it in person. He couldn’t. A day and a half after requesting the interview they told him that it was already leased. The explanation did not convince Hamid, who asked a colleague (in this case with a Spanish name) to call the agency to inquire about the home in question. Same agency, same apartment… different answer. Him, ensures DESCAYes, they made an appointment for him. Click on the image to go to the tweet. “True, but it has nothing to do with it.” Determined not to let the matter go, Hamid attended the visit scheduled by his friend to ask the head of the agency for explanations. Specifically, I wanted to know if the problem was that the owners of the apartment did not want to rent it to a person of Moroccan origin. “The administration admitted it: ‘That, that’s also true, but it has nothing to do with that. It’s reserved,’” reveals DESCA. The phrase is reminiscent of the one he received recently as well. another moroccanin this case from Irún, who was looking for a home. Mosqueado recorded the explanations of the head of an agency that had slammed the door: “The owner doesn’t want anyone from outside.” A figure: 10,001 euros. Hamid’s experience demonstrates several things. To begin with, proving an episode of “real estate racism” is not easy (he has denounced a dozen agencies). The second is that when it is detected it is expensive. DESCA explains that, in this case, the OITND has fined the agency a fine of 10,001 euros, although that is only part of the punishment. For one year you will not be able to receive any public aid or subsidies, nor establish contracts with the Generalitat Administration. “The OITND resolution recognizes that the reported facts consist of a case of discrimination in access to housing for ethnic-racial reasons and/or origin, which according to Law 19/200 on equality and non-discriminatory treatment is a serious infraction,” argues the observatory. The standard to which the platform refers clearly states in its section 14.3 that real estate agencies and their clients “must respect” equality and not discriminate. Why is it important? For several reasons. The first, the pioneering nature of the sanction. At least in Catalonia, where according to the RAC1 chain There is only one similar precedent. In 2022, Barcelona City Council revealed that the court had ratified a fine of 90,001 euros which he had recently imposed on “a real estate agent” for “excluding a group of people from access to housing due to their origin.” On that occasion the trigger was an advertisement for an apartment that only accepted Spanish tenants. The fine that the OITND has just imposed is interesting for another reason. There are studies that suggest that real estate racism is far from being a one-time phenomenon. In … Read more

In the midst of the RAM crisis, Intel counterattacks with ZAM. It is the chip to break South Korean hegemony

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Few would have guessed not so many years ago the Intel transformation. The company that will dominate consumer processors and servers for generations has been through a real ordeal through the desert under the rule of AMD. However, they have returned for their rights and not only –rescue through– have positioned themselves to be the great American foundry, but are looking to take a bite out of the gigantic South Korean RAM memory industry thanks to its new memory: ZAM memory. And its weapon is three-dimensionality. Z for ‘zolution’. Do you remember when, in math class, you drew the first cube? The X axis is east-west. The Y axis is north-south. What the square needed to become a cube is the Z axis, the one up and down. That’s what engineers SAIMEMORYthe company resulting from the collaboration between the Japanese SoftBank and Intel, have applied traditional DRAM memory with a single objective: to assault the enormous market for high-bandwidth memory, or HBMwhich dominates data centers. Puff pastry. A few months ago we told you that the two companies They had embarked on a joint path to stand up to the dominance of Samsung, SK Hynix and Micron in the creation of high-performance memory. lHBM memory is preferred for data centers because it has a beastly bandwidth that allows a greater number of simultaneous operations. It’s like a huge highway. However, it has limitations: it is expensive to produce, requires a lot of energy, and gets hot enough to require expensive dissipation systems. Conventional DRAM memory was not an alternative, but Intel and SoftBank began to ‘play around’ with stacked DRAM memory. It is like a puff of RAM memory (simplifying things a lot), whose main limitation came when connecting each of those thin layers of memory so that the final product had the same capabilities as that highway that is HBM memory. ZAM. After a few months of research, a few days ago at the Intel Connection in Japan, SAIMEMORY and Intel presented the ZAM prototype. According to the companiesa ZAM module can have a capacity of up to 512 GB, it is easy to produce because it consists of designing vertically stacked chips and most importantly: it can reduce energy consumption by 40% to 50% compared to conventional HBMs. If HBMs are expensive and take time to produce, ZAMs are cheaper, can be the solution to alleviate restrictions in the supply chain and, in addition, would lower the energy consumption of data centers (which is one of the problems they have), and are also easier to cool. At the moment, the company’s research points to a theoretical limit of 20 layers, but current designs move around 16 layers, so performance may be better if this current limitation can be overcome. Real alternative. Intel’s ambition is total, since they point out that their DRAM module joining technology allows them to offer two to three times the capacity of HBM modules while being up to 60% cheaper to produce. It all seems like a plus and doesn’t seem like bad technology when established giants in HBM memory creation like Samsung are also researching how to overcome the limitations of connections in stacked DRAM memory. The prototype | Photo by PCWatch Ambition. And, almost as important as the presentation of the ZAM prototype, is the alliance itself. Intel has been away from the memory market for many years. He tried it in the 80s and, again, years later with his Optane technology -that died miserably without making the slightest gap in the market. On the other hand, SoftBank represents a Japan that had the lead in this sector in the 1980s, but was overshadowed by emerging South Korean companies. In fact, Intel’s memories were eaten by the Japanese… and the Japanese by the South Koreans. SAIMEMORY has behind it not only those sharks, but other Japanese companies such as Fujitsu, Shinko Electric Industries, PowerChip Semiconductor Manufacturing or the University of Tokyo. And if ZAM memory works on a commercial level, it will not only be good news to alleviate the memory production chains (perhaps this will also alleviate the domestic market totally destroyed for the data center needs), but will mark the birth of a new and ambitious player who seeks to break the hegemony of the trident he currently leads. We will see it, of course, in a few years, since SAIMEMORY plans complete prototypes in fiscal year 2027 and begin commercialization in 2029. Image | Samsung, Maxence Pira In Xataka | The CEO of Nothing is clear that we do not need a high-end mobile phone every year. A mix of RAM crisis and common sense

In 1968 a man had the idea to create the first tablet in history. The problem is that he was decades ahead of his time.

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If I tell you to think of the oldest tablet you remember, you may go back to the first iPad, which was released in 2010 (and, by the way, I turned seven last week). Or, if you’ve been following the world of technology since before the turn of the century, you might be familiar with the Microsoft Tablet PC from HP Compaq that was announced in 2001. In reality, there was someone who already tried to create one and it was much earlier, in 1968before the term “tablet” was even coined. At that time, Alan Kay was a young worker at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center who had been mulling over the concept of a personal computer for some time (in contrast to the military, business and professional use that reigned among manufacturers at the time). After speaking with other colleagues who were beginning their research on how the programming language Logo could help younger children advance in math, Kay came up with an idea: “This encounter finally made me see what the real destiny of personal computing was going to be. Not a personal dynamic ‘vehicle’, as Englebart’s metaphors had it as opposed to IBM’s ‘railway tracks’, but something much deeper: a dynamic personal ‘medium’. With a vehicle, one could wait until high school to take ‘driving lessons’. But if it was a medium, it had to extend into the world of childhood.” In 1968, Kay created the Dynabook conceptwhich he would spend several years profiling. in the book “Tracing the Dynabook: a study of technocultural transformations” They define it like this: “Kay called it the Dynabook, and the name suggests what it was going to be: a dynamic book. That is, a medium like a book, but one that was interactive and controlled by the reader. It would provide cognitive scaffolding in the same way that books and print media had done in recent centuries but, as Papert’s work with children and Logo had begun to demonstrate, it would take the advantages of the new computing medium and provide the means for new kinds of exploration and expression.” “A personal computer for children of all ages” With the idea of ​​its function clear, Kay then began to shape it into cardboard prototypes (as can be seen in the image at the top of the article). In 1972, the researcher presented his paper “A personal computer for children of all ages” in which he offered more details not only about his motivation and his vision of personal computing at the time, but about the own device that I had in mind. His idea was to get a kind of tablet-shaped personal computer aimed at education. This would have a reduced thickness, a liquid crystal touch screen and a keyboard. Like a regular notebook in size, with a graphical interface (a revolution for the time) that allowed the reproduction of graphics, music and text, and with internal storage for 500 pages. The keyboard would not be the only way to enter information: it could also be done via voice. In the image that Kay drew, the word “stylus” can also be seen, although he did not comment on it in his paper. Kay’s idea is that the Dynabook that could be connect to other systems to “copy” information to it (among them, the ARPA Network) and even predicted the existence of content “vending machines”, which could not be accessed until payment had been made. “The books can be installed instead of being bought or loaned,” he said. Regarding digital “ownership”, Kay said the following: “The ability to easily make copies and own the information yourself is not likely to weaken existing markets, as has happened with xerography, which has strengthened publishing; and just as tapes have not hurt the music industry but have provided a way to organize one’s own music. Most people are not interested in being a source or a smuggler, but rather like to trade and play with what they have.” According to Kay’s calculations, the components to manufacture it could cost $294, so it was not unreasonable to be able to sell it for $500, something expensive for the time. “The average annual amount spent per child on education is only $850,” he said, and that is why he even proposed a different financing model: “perhaps the device should be given away as if it were a notebook, and only sell the content (cassettes, files, etc.). “This would be quite similar to the way TV packages or music are now distributed.” “Let’s do it!” he said to finish his paper. Unfortunately for Kay, the Dynabook never materialized. Despite Kay’s enthusiasm, the Dynabook itself was never manufactured for lack of support at Xerox and due to the technological limitations of the time. Do you remember what computers were like then? Well, imagine what it would be like to build a tablet. Two Xerox PARC engineers, Chuck Thacker and Butler Lampson, asked for permission to try to replicate a similar machine on their own, and so it came to light. Highwhich was also known as “Interim Dynabook”. It was not a tablet, far from it, but it maintained some of the ideas that Kay had raised in her publication. He Xerox Alto was one of the first personal computers of history and Steve Jobs and Apple engineers they were inspired in some of its innovations and concepts, such as the use of a graphical interface for its own computers. Starting at Minute 2:27, the Xerox Alto graphical interface in action Kay is not only remembered for the Dynabook itself, but for the educational vision he gave to the project, for his peculiar vision of the personal computing paradigm and for how he came to anticipate some of the problems (and even technologies) that would come later. Not only that: in 2001, Microsoft presented its Microsoft Tablet PC, a project that Chuck Thacker and Butler Lampson had led. Yes, the same ones who once tried to implement … Read more

US sanctions are collapsing China’s factories. It’s bad news for the rest of the world

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The US has intensified in recent years its tariff policy against China. Under the shield of “national security reasons,” the Trump administration has attempted to isolate China from essential components to create cutting-edge technology. The play didn’t go too welland China is at its best moment of national production. So much so that the capacity of its factories is reaching the limit. There are those who warned. Lip-Bu Tan, CEO of Intel, warned at the beginning of February in his statements. He pointed out that the US blockade is only achieving the opposite effect, driving giants like Huawei to develop silently and accelerating the race for China to obtain the capacity to make three nanometer chips. SMIC confirmed it. He SMIC report corresponding to the fourth quarter of 2025 is a perfect summary of China’s efforts to one day end up leading the semiconductor race. China doesn’t just want to make chips for mobile phones: it wants to dominate the semiconductors that support AI, cars, telecommunications, industry, energy and defense: because whoever controls these chips controls technological power. The key data. That SMIC’s profits have grown by 39% in the last year is quite revealing, but that the capacity of its factories has risen to 93.5% is even more so. In other words, the Chinese company is practically at the limit of its production capacity, having to satisfy the demanding demands of both the government and local companies. How does this affect me?. Among the key sectors that China wants to lead is AI. And this one needs many, many chips. So much so that SMIC has warned that the demand for them is being so enormous that the rest of the consumer electronics orders are being compromised. This ends up translating into delays in supply, price increases and something that we have been warning about for months: basic components such as RAM, SSD memories and so on. They are going to be more expensive than ever. Without help from anyone. China, without access to ASML’s most advanced machines, is achieving alternative routes for your manufacturing processes. Although some of its manufacturers are still in collaboration with giants like TSMC (case of Xiaomi with “its” XRing 01 chip, manufactured by TSCM in 3nm), the plan is to be completely self-sufficient. Something that they will end up achieving, sooner or later. In Xataka |

the technical imbalance that is silently killing Spanish reservoirs

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In a window of just 72 hours, Spain’s water reserve has experienced unprecedented growth. The data has gone from 693 cubic hectometers in one day, shooting up to 2,349 hm³ in just three days. However, behind this photograph of abundance and a blue-tinted map of Spain, Greenpeace has warned that we are facing an optical illusion. What we see shining in the sun is water, yes, but what accumulates at the bottom, invisible and silent, is mud. And there are more and more. The denunciation of silent death. The environmental organization Greenpeace has issued an alert: The useful life of Spanish reservoirs is running out. This is not an imminent risk of the concrete walls collapsing – the dams are sound from a civil engineering point of view – but rather what they call a “dramatic loss of operational efficiency.” The underlying problem is the calendar. The bulk of our hydraulic infrastructure was built during the dictatorship (1950-1975). This means, according to the data managed by the organization, that “a large part of the dams is now crossing the threshold of their theoretical project useful life”, estimated between 50 and 75 years. The concrete holds, but the steel mechanisms, such as valves and drains, suffer the passage of time. The physics of “solid avenues.” To understand why reservoirs are losing capacity, we must look at the violence of recent rains. As explained by the organizationthe new explosive storms fall on highly eroded basins. The water carries tons of earth, stones and debris into the reservoir. Older infrastructures lack the agility to manage this mix. The technical data is alarming. According to reports from the Ministry for the Ecological Transition (MITECO) and the CEDEX (Center for Studies and Experimentation of Public Works), the Ebro River has radically changed his behavior. Before the dams, the river transported 5.16 million tons of sediment per year to the Delta. Today, trapped by concrete walls, it only allows 0.37 million tons to pass through. The rest remains trapped, reducing the useful space for water. Chronicle of an ignored obsolescence. This is not an unforeseen accident; It is the result of managing the climate of the 21st century with tools from the mid-20th century. Greenpeace insists the dams operate under “climatic pressure for which they were not designed.” In the province of León, iconic reservoirs such as Villameca (inaugurated in 1946) or Barrios de Luna (1956) were designed under stable climatic parameters that have little to do with with the current extreme variability. Experts have been warning for years: geologists from the University of Barcelona They already warned in 2018 that the uncertainty about the real amount of sediment is high, because monitoring the bottom of all the swamps is complex and expensive. When the mud becomes a threat. This accumulation of materials is not just a capacity issue; It is a physical security risk that is already showing its most dangerous side in the south. While we celebrate the rain, a silent battle is being waged in Huelva against toxic sludge. Just a few days ago, the Military Emergency Unit (UME) has had to be deployed in “anticipation” in the mining ponds of the province. There, torrential rains—which have tripled forecasts in some areas—have saturated the terrain to the limit. The risk is no longer just that the reservoir will lose site, but also the liquefaction of the sludge: that the pressure of the water converts the solid waste into an uncontrollable tide. It is the most graphic reminder that our infrastructures, whether water dams or waste ponds, are suffering stress for which they are hardly prepared. From the dredge to the forest. If the reservoirs are full of mud, logic would dictate removing it; but the economic reality makes it unviable. CEDEX technical notes cited in the context of the Greenpeace complaint show that the cost of extracting The sediment “far outweighs the cost of preventing it.” Cleaning a small reservoir of just 10 hm³ could cost between 50 and 150 million euros. If the sludge needs pretreatment before going to the landfill, the price skyrockets. For its part, the MITECO has started “pilot tests” to mobilize sediments in the Mequinenza-Ribarroja section, with a budget of 1.2 million euros, but they are surgical interventions in a systemic problem. For Greenpeace, the solution is not in concrete, but in the mountains. “The solution does not end at the dam or reservoir, it begins in its surroundings,” they say. The organization demands an urgent hydrological-forest restoration, where a healthy riverbed and a basin full of trees act as a “sponge.” The roots retain the soil and prevent the mountain from falling apart when it rains heavily and ending up at the bottom of the swamp. The risk of illusory guarantee. The EU Nature Restoration Regulation, approved in 2024, obliges Spain to present a National Plan by August 2026. It is the last opportunity to change the strategy. Julio Barea, head of water at Greenpeace, issues a final warning that should resonate beyond the current rain: “The technical obsolescence of our reservoirs will make us increasingly vulnerable to the next great water crisis.” If the bottom drains are not modernized (so that the mud can leave) and the headwaters of the rivers are not reforested (so that the mud does not reach), the “water guarantee” will be a statistical fantasy. Image | freepik Xataka | Far from Grazalema and the reservoirs, Andalusia has another serious problem: completely collapsed mining ponds

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