Month: March 2026

You’ve probably never heard of urea. The missiles in Iran are destroying their production, and that will affect your food

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At the beginning of the 20th century, the world feared it would run out of food because crops were not growing enough to feed a growing population. The solution came from chemistry: an industrial process capable of manufacturing artificial nutrients for plants and multiplying crops across the planet. Today, this invisible system supports much of what reaches our plates, but it also depends on a global chain. surprisingly fragile. The invisible substance that feeds us. We already said it in the headline, you may not know urea. However, this chemical compound is one of the silent pillars of modern agriculture. It is nitrogen fertilizer most used in the world and indirectly responsible for approximately half of global food production. Its function is simple but crucial: providing nitrogen to crops so they can grow quickly and produce larger harvests. To give us an idea, approximately half of global food production depends on synthetic fertilizers. nitrogen basedand urea is the most widespread of all. Without it, agricultural yields would fall abruptly, which would directly affect products as basic as wheat, corn or rice. The Gulf and fertilizers. It happens that a large part of this global agricultural system depends on a very specific region of the planet: the Persian Gulf. The Middle East is home to some of the largest plants of fertilizer production in the world and is also a key source of raw materials necessary to manufacture them, such as ammonia or sulfur. Furthermore, the Strait of Hormuz has become an essential artery for this trade. between one quarter and a third of the world’s traffic of raw materials for fertilizers passes through this maritime passage, along with approximately 35% of global urea exports and 45% of sulfur trade. A war that hits the food chain. The military escalation in Iran and the attacks around the Strait of Hormuz are starting to interrupt that delicate system. Maritime traffic through the area has been drastically reduced and several ships have been attacked, while industrial facilities in the Gulf have suffered direct damage. In Qatar, one of the largest fertilizer facilities in the world had to stop your production after a drone attack, while Iran has paralyzed its own ammonia production. Every missile in the Iran war is not only destroying its production, it brings us a little closer to a dystopian future scenario. Urea sample in the form of granules The domino effect of urea. When the supply of fertilizers such as urea is interrupted, the impact soon spreads to the food system. If farmers cannot apply enough fertilizer, the ccrops produce less. Some experts estimate that the lack of fertilizers could reduce harvests by up to 50% in the first affected agricultural cycle. This decline would quickly translate in price increases in basic foods. Bread could become more expensive in a matter of weeks, while derived products such as eggs, chicken or pork would do so months later, as the increase in the cost of animal feed is passed on to the entire food chain. Gas, the hidden ingredient. The manufacture of nitrogen fertilizers also depends on another key factor: natural gas. Between 60% and 80% of the cost of producing fertilizers comes from the gas used in the chemical process that transforms atmospheric nitrogen into compounds usable by plants. With the war driving up energy prices and damaging industrial infrastructure, the cost of production skyrockets even before fertilizers reach the market. In a few days, the international price of urea has risen more than 25%reaching levels close to 625 dollars per ton. Risk of global food crisis. I remembered the financial times that the situation also comes at a particularly delicate moment in the agricultural calendar. In much of the northern hemisphere, farmers are starting the season spring planting, when they buy and apply the fertilizers that will determine the year’s crops. If the Strait of Hormuz disruption lasts more than a few weeks, the impact could extend far beyond energy or maritime trade. Thus, what today seems like a localized geopolitical crisis could transform into something much deeper: a global food shock reminiscent of (or even surpassing) the one that occurred after the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022. In that scenario, the war in Iran would not only be fought with missiles and drones, but also in the fields of crops half the planet. Image | liz west, nara, LHcheM, eutrophication&hypoxia In Xataka | Iran is directing its attacks where it knows it hurts the West: energy and data centers In Xataka | In 2022, the gas crisis skyrocketed the price of electricity in Spain. In 2026 we have a “green shield” but also a serious problem

Tencent has a significant stake in US military training tools. Trump is going to stand up to it

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The Trump administration is debating if it forces the Chinese giant Tencent to get rid of its stakes in the largest Western video game companies. At stake are Riot Games, Epic Games and Supercell (more than a billion players) and the Unreal Engine, used in military simulations. The ghost of TikTok returns, but this time the affected market is different. Why Tencent. Tencent is not only the largest video game company in the world. It is also the largest silent shareholder in the Western industry: it owns 100% of Riot Games, 28% of Epic Games and majority control of Supercell, the Finnish company behind ‘Clash of Clans’. To this we must add participations in Larian, Remedy, Ubisoft and Discord, among dozens of other studios. For years, that capital has flowed to the West: the studios needed investment, Tencent had liquidity, and no one was looking for trouble. The White House sniffs. Washington, however, he has had doubts for years. The Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) began to review these investments during Trump’s first termand the case became one of the longest in the history of the organization, going through two administrations without reaching a clear resolution. What worries the White House is that video game platforms collect financial information, personal data and chat logs from hundreds of millions of users, many of them Americans. These databases are candy for any intelligence agency. The Epic case. The Unreal Engine adds an extra issue in which the White House has a special interest. The engine not only gives life to video games like ‘Fortnite’; It is also used by defense contractors and the US military itself for military simulation and training. In fact, the country’s Armed Forces have worked directly with Epic for years on that development. That Tencent is a shareholder in the company that builds this technology is what turns this issue into a national security problem. So much so that in January 2025, the Pentagon formally classified Tencent as a company linked to the Chinese military. Tencent rejected that classification, but the Pentagon did not withdraw it. There are problems. During the Biden administration, the issue was entrenched by an internal disagreement that no one knew how to resolve: Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco defended forced disinvestment, but the Treasury Department preferred to keep investments under data segregation protocols. Without consensus, the case was frozen. The cabinet meeting scheduled for March 4 was postponed due to scheduling conflicts. That same day, Tencent shares fell 1.72%. Parallels with TikTok. There are similaritiesbut also differences. With ByteDance, the US forced the creation of a new entity with 80% in the hands of US investors, as a condition of operating there. But the problem with Tencent is that it does not operate on American soil, but rather is a shareholder in companies already established there. Getting rid of these stakes is not the same as closing an app, it is more a restructuring of private capital. The consequences in the case of Tencent would go beyond Riot and Epic: the Chinese company has been the main injector of capital into studios for a decade, and a forced disinvestment would change the financing conditions of the entire sector, favoring large publishers. When will there be a solution? The decision has an undeclared but known deadline: Trump travels to China in April to meet with Xi Jinping. Forcing Tencent to sell would send a message of maximum pressure before sitting down to negotiate. In any case, neither the US Treasury, nor Tencent, nor Epic nor Riot have made public statements. Silence, in this type of situation, is louder than if they were discussing it loudly. In Xataka – China has made a drastic decision: prioritize ‘its’ technology, even if it is worse

The Iran war has thrown a rug over Russia

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In almost every modern war there is an unexpected object that ends up symbolizing the conflict. In the First World War were the trenchesin the Second the tanksand in Ukraine many thought that this role would be filled the drones. However, another much less sophisticated tool has appeared on the front that has become just as essential: a construction machine capable of moving tons of earth in a few hours and completely changing the way of surviving on the battlefield. Also a sign of the emergency situation. The shield that supports Ukraine. Since the start of the full-scale Russian invasion in 2022, Ukraine’s military survival has largely depended on an outer shield: the constant flow of weapons, technology and financing from from the United States and Europe. Patriot anti-aircraft systems, interceptor missiles, advanced drones and Western munitions allowed kyiv to resist to a much larger enemy and regain territory in the early stages of the war. Over time, this cooperation even evolved into a new industrial model in which European companies began manufacturing weapons based on Ukrainian technology, creating a production network that combined battlefield innovation with the industrial capacity of Western allies. Iran threatens the shield. That support system is now beginning to show cracks for an unexpected reason: open war between the United States, Israel and Iran. The new front in the Middle East has forced Washington to concentrate resources military, missiles and strategic attention in another crisis, generating fear in Europe and kyiv that Ukraine will be left in the background. They remembered in the Wall Street Journal that the same interceptors, munitions and systems that Ukraine needs to defend itself against Russian bombing are now being used in operations against Iran, and if the conflict drags on, the United States could be forced to prioritize replacement of their own arsenals rather than continue supplying kyiv. Change of priorities. The risk is not only military, but political. With the White House focused on the Middle East, European diplomats they fear that the momentum to maintain pressure on Russia will be diluted in a conflict that has already entered its fifth year. In fact, Washington had long reducing your involvement directly and pressing to find a negotiated solution, but a prolonged conflict with Iran could absorb even more resourcesattention and industrial capacity. For Ukraine, that scenario would mean confronting Russia with fewer defensive missiles, fewer components for its military industry, and a flow of aid. increasingly uncertain. Ukrainian soldier operating an excavator near the front Objective: dig. On the battlefield, this potential shortage is translating into increasingly rudimentary decisions. Drones dominate modern combat, but their effectiveness depends on something much older: the excavated ground. Defensive positions have become underground networks of trenches, shelters and tunnels designed to survive constant surveillance by drones, artillery and guided bombs. In an open field where any movement can be detected within minutes, survival depends on staying hidden underground and operate from fortified positions that withstand constant attacks. Excavators in front. In this regard, they had in a Forbes report that the arrival of the bulldozers is also the most fearsome signal for Ukraine, because the war in Iran is destroying the shield that prevented the invasion to Russia. In a conflict dominated by advanced technology, the most urgent element in many brigades is not a new weapons system, but construction machinery Able to dig through defenses quickly. Each battalion tries to achieve at least one excavator to build deep trenches, covered shelters and obstacle networks that channel Russian attacks into controlled fire zones. These machines replace weeks of manual work and allow us to build defenses that can save dozens of lives. Modern warfare underground. If you will also, the evolution of combat has turned fortifications into a complex infrastructure that integrates technology, electrical cables, charging stations and shelters for drones and ground robots. However, it all starts with the same basic task: move earth before the next attack comes. On a front where Russia launches hundreds of drones and missiles in a single night and where gliding bombs seek to breach defensive lines, it turns out that the speed of digging can decide whether a position survives or disappears. and that reality sums up the moment that Ukraine is experiencing: a modern war sustained by drones and algorithms, but whose last line of defense depends on what happens in another conflict…and in a yellow machine digging mud in the middle of the front. Image | Tonya Levchuk In Xataka | Shahed drones are spreading terror in the Gulf. Ukraine has offered the solution and the price to pay has a name In Xataka | The Russian military is so desperate for Internet access that Ukraine has used it to spring a death trap.

So a MacBook with an iPhone chip can have macOS. But an iPad with an M4 chip, no

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Neo. It is the surname that gives life to the new cheap macbook. 699 euros for a Mac with a good panel, a promising speaker system, a design that makes you fall in love at first sight and that, for all those looking for a simple laptop for office purposes, is considered one of the best options on the market. The small detail is that, with its launch, Apple has admitted that running macOS It is not particularly demanding at the hardware level. So much so that we find ourselves faced with the paradox of having a processor of iPhone 16 Pro running macOS and iPads worth thousands of euros with M4 chip running… iPadOS (iOS with some modifications). A movement with meaning. My colleague Javier Lacort told it, the only option that Apple has found to make a cheap laptop has been to give it the heart of a mobile. It is thus manifested, indirectly, that a A18 Pro It is more than enough for the majority of potential consumers of this laptop. But there is a key that can hurt users of latest generation iPads: right now there is a laptop with an A18 Pro moving PC programs, while a iPad with an M4 chip moves completely layered apps. The point is not just macOS, the point is the apps. Apple has been implementing M chips in its iPads for years. We all agree that a Mac is a Mac and an iPad is an iPad but… selling a iPad with an M4 chip and phone applications is to sell a horse tied by the legs. It is an inexplicable paradox, one in which a MacBook with an A18 Pro can run desktop programs like Davinci Resolve, Adobe Premiere or Lightroom CC, while a much more powerful iPad has layered versions closer to those of a mobile phone. I don’t want a touch Macbook, I want an iPad according to its hardware. In my particular case, I am the perfect potential buyer of an iPad capable of running desktop apps. I work 90% of my day in front of the PC, but mobility is very important to me. And the iPad + keyboard format sweeps any Mac, no matter how small. But I have been forced to buy a MacBook Air M4 because, with an iPad, it is simply impossible to do my work. The apps are not up to par with the processor, and for professional uses it is of little use to have one of the best processors on the market if the operating system is nailed to that of my iPhone. It’s not going to happen. Dreaming of an iPad with macOS or, at least, capable of running some desktop applications, is still a dream. Apple is clear about its product categories and, although it sells the iPad M as productivity tools, they are still products limited to the use that Apple wants us to give them. Be that as it may, reality is inevitable: the iPad falls short of iPadOS. It is a platform that, in its day, made sense as a version of iOS for tablets. Today, the iPad is more powerful than most computers on the market and, at the very least, deserves software on its level. Image | Apple In Xataka | I’ve tried replacing my MacBook Pro with the new iPad Pro. iPadOS is still a stumbling block

the new Xataka Xtra newsletter where we will talk about the five most fascinating stories of the week

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As you know, Xataka launches this week Xataka Xtraour subscription plan where we offer you a lot of special content, direct contact with the editors, a Discord, an officeadvice and giveaways of all kinds (here the first, a 75″ television). Among the many new features, including several newsletters. The one we present to you today is perhaps the strangest of all of them: ‘Sides B‘. Our premise is simple: everyday life is full of urgent news, stressful events and seriousness, a lot of seriousness. ‘Caras B’ is a small antidote to all that, a weekly space where we take a break and pay attention to five strange, strange, curious stories; stories that will not open the news but that allow us to disconnect from current affairs. From a medieval manuscript written by Satan himself until the crazy occasion in which we prohibit sliced ​​bread, passing through the “invention” of modern chinese or the existence of several infinities within infinity. ‘Caras B’ will be weekly and concise. The objective is to discover the most fascinating corners of the world and history, to immerse yourself in them and to be able to savor them without wasting more than ten minutes of your time. It will arrive in your mailbox every saturday, signed by a server. I’ll wait for you! Other Xataka Xtra newsletters ‘Caras B’ does not arrive alone. The Xtra subscription plan includes two other exclusive newsletters: Chip War (weekly, every Monday): The semiconductor industry is the technological, economic and geopolitical battlefield of our time. Every week we analyze what is happening in the race for chips: from the tensions between the United States and China to the decisions of TSMC, Intel, SK Hynix or Samsung that will determine who leads the next decade. Next X (biweekly, every other Thursday): Biweekly analysis of the trends in technology and science that are changing the present and will define the future: AI, quantum computing, biotechnology, space exploration. Context and perspective on where we are going and why it matters. In Xataka | We launch Xataka Xtra: your experience at Xataka goes up a level with exclusive newsletters, raffles, El Consultorio and more Image | Xataka

The California peach industry has suffered an unprecedented collapse. But it will be repeated, it will be repeated a lot, it will be repeated all over the world

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Richard Lial He lived peacefully in his little house in Escalonnorthern California. He had acres and acres of productive almond trees that he had been exploiting for the last decade. But three years ago, just when costs began to become unsustainable, Del Monte (one of the largest fruit and vegetable companies in the world) made him an offer. A 20-year contract for Lial to exchange its almond trees for the peaches that the company’s large cannery in Modesto needed. Del Monte’s move put on the table some 550 million over the next few years and a business of tens of thousands of tons per season. The problem is that on July 1, 2025, Del Monte Food Corp declared bankruptcythe Modesto plant has closed and, with it, the entire Californian peach industry has collapsed. What exactly happened? Del Monte accumulated a debt of 1,245 million dollars on the day they filed the bankruptcy petition. And the reason is simple: in recent years, the company had been going into debt to make certain purchases in a sector that was in full decline. Today, the world consumes less canned goods and Del Monte executives believed that the only way to survive was to grow and ensure margins. The problem is that, with the rate increase in the months prior to the bankruptcy declaration, interest had doubled to the point of eating into the operating margin (a margin already quite affected by things like Trump’s tariffs that had made cans more expensive). The chaos has lasted for many months, but on February 6 the courts approved the sale of the company in parts. Peach growers breathed easy until they discovered that none of the buyers wanted the plant of Modesto. And why is that plant so important? Well, because Del Monte did not ask farmers to plant the peach they wanted. They were asked to plant the clingstone variety: a peach that simply has no fresh market. The pulp of the clingstone adheres to the bone and makes direct consumption uncomfortable. That is, it is a variety whose only destination is processors. In this case, the Modesto plant consumed 35% of the production of this stone fruit, about 50,000 tons in 2026. They are, to be honest, 50,000 tons that are now almost impossible to place anywhere. But the problem transcends 2026… Because the contracts that Del Monte I was signing Until a few months before the bankruptcy, they forced farmers to make investments of around $8,000 per acre in exchange for the peace of mind that comes with a 20-year contract. They went into debt for it. Many made the transition in 2023. So there are about 140 Californian farmers fgame era and some 1,200 jobs will be lost. But the impact is deeper. And it is not that talking about ‘sector cataclysm’ is not justified, it is that the central issue is the structural dependency that the dynamics of the primary sector are pushing the economy towards. …and that transcends even the peach. Because it doesn’t matter what product we look at: the consequences of financialization are there. It is enough to remember that in 2015 there were only 45 funds specialized in ‘agrobusiness’ in the world; Today they exceed 1,000 and move an enormous amount of money that is radically changed the way everything is managed. The rresult is as simple as it is tragic: Capital arrives, exploits the land as if there were no tomorrow, exhausts the territory’s resources, abuses the local socio-productive fabric and leaves. One day we will realize that there will be nothing left. Image | Ayla Meinberg In Xataka | Spain faces its greatest agricultural challenge of the century: converting 1,901,529 hectares of olive groves into irrigation before it is too late

NVIDIA was going to make the mother of all investments in OpenAI, but the era of favors between friends is over

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NVIDIA has emerged as the pillar of artificial intelligence. Your chips They are the ones who move the more powerful data centers of the world and is getting billion-dollar investments to keep the wheel turning. At the same time, it has become one of the largest strategic investors of the artificial intelligence ecosystem. OpenAI She seemed to be his best friend, but that’s over. AND Jensen HuangCEO of NVIDIA, makes it clear: the next investments will probably be the last. Also in its great rival. Of 100,000 million. That was the magic figure of which we talked a few months ago. Recreating the schemes of “vendor financing“of the dotcom bubble, NVIDIA was going to finance OpenAI with $100 billion. In exchange, OpenAI would buy NVIDIA chips for the same value. It was a “trap” operation because the company would become the financier of its own premium client. With such an investment, it was expected that OpenAI will build data centers that they would need between four and five million NVIDIA GPUs: Huang already commented at the time that this represented double the total GPUs they distributed the previous year. In short: an absolute animal. And those 100,000 million were a mega-operation, yes, but one more of the many rounds of financing that the company led by Sam Altman. To 30,000 million. But in early February of this year, something unexpected happened. In what seemed like a historic turnaroundJensen Huang, cornered by the media after a Casual dinner at a Taiwanese restaurantcommented that there was never a 100% commitment to make that mammoth investment. The CEO of NVIDIA pointed out that they would surely continue making “the largest investment” they have made in their history, but although he did not give a figure, it was clear that nothing more than 100,000 million. How much? Lessmuch less: 30,000 million dollars. Good luck, OpenAI. Love broke, a love that began when Jensen Huang gave a DGX-1 server to Elon Musk back in 2016. Because it is not only that Jensen has commented that the figure will be around 30,000 million, but because he has mentioned that “it could be the last time” that they inject money into OpenAI. And the reason is very clear: “the reason is because they are going public.” From there, OpenAI will have to change its model completely and will be under the designs of the market. Big bets. NVIDIA, with this operation, shows that it is taking another course, one in which it prefers not to marry anyone and not commit in a truly serious way to a single company. Of course, OpenAI is not the only big operation that NVIDIA is going to get into. Another $10 billion is in store for Anthropic, OpenAI’s great rival both professionally and personally (since Altman and Amodei they can’t stand each other). Worse Huang has also mentioned which, again, will probably also be the last. They are also expected to go public. Fewer giants, broader base. OpenAI will have 110 billion soon. Apart from NVIDIA’s 30,000, Amazon will inject 50,000 million and SoftBank has committed 30,000 million. Huang has hinted that these two large operations could mark the beginning of a change of course. Instead of operations that can be counted on the fingers of one hand in giants, more investment in smaller companies. NVIDIA has gone investing more modest sums at other AI companies over the years. Model and software companies, infrastructure, robotics and even autonomous driving. It has been converting its GPUs and platforms into the standard on which it is founded the entire artificial intelligence industryand perhaps this break with giant companies like OpenAI or Anthropic marks a new beginning in which the focus is on supporting a broader ecosystem of partners. In this way, you will be able to continue shaping your objective: a range of more or less large companies that scale on your platform. Image | Steve Juvetson, NVIDIA In Xataka | AI engineers are closer to football stars than ever: NVIDIA has paid 900 million for one

energy and data centers

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When talking about Iran’s weapons, missiles are often mentioned. However, a fundamental leg of the country’s war machine is that of kamikaze drones. He Shahed-136 introduced in 2020, known as “loitering ammunition“, has been Iran’s strategic spearhead in the Middle East for years. Also a weapon that Russia has used in the Ukrainian war. After the beginning of the war against the United States and IsraelIran has directed these drones against its enemies. Not against bases, but against the two pillars that can do the most damage to the West. Energy and data centers. The drones. Since the Ukrainian war began, drones have proven to be the most fearsome weapon. There are more homemade ones, there are more sophisticated ones, but they all have something in common: power to destroythey can be operated at a good distance, they are very cheap, it is difficult to intercept them and the most advanced ones can be launched in swarms without risks for the operators. But Shahed’s drones are not like a street DJI with explosives: they are drones with a range of up to 2,000 kilometers that are ideal for attacking very effectively. The key is in the price: they are thrown a lot and, even if many are intercepted, the cost of that interception is extremely favorable for the attacker. It is estimated that a drone costs about $20,000 while a interceptor missile The average is between 300,000 and 400,000 dollars. That relationship is making even the US is using them. Ras Tanura. And it is these drones, and their variants, that Iran is using to attack critical infrastructure. Because they don’t have to hit the targets directly: they just need to land nearby or with the simple threat that they can reach that key infrastructure. We have an example in Ras Tanura. It is one of the largest oil refineries in the world that had to close its doors last Monday. Aramco (the owner) made the decision after debris from intercepted drones fell near the facilities in Saudi Arabia. This caused a crisis in the crude oil market, with the barrel rising in price meteorically and with a lot of Overcrowded cargo ships in the Strait of Hormuz. Data centers. But if power is critical, in the age of AI, data centers have also become a vital infrastructure. That is why these facilities are also in the crosshairs of an Iran that attackeddirectly, two installations of Amazon Web Services, or AWS, on March 1 and 2. AWS presence These are two data centers in the United Arab Emirates, while another Amazon facility in Bahrain also suffered some damage from a third attack. And specifically, computing on EC2 and cloud storage on both S3 and DynamoDB began to experience high error rates. Amazon itself confirmed that “these attacks have caused structural damage, disrupted power to our infrastructure, and, in some cases, required fire suppression activities.” They point out that the water damaged part of the equipment and, as a consequence, their clients should migrate their workload to servers in other parts of the world because the recovery “will be prolonged.” Market with anxiety. This has impacted the market, of course. If in the energy and crude oil segment it is evident that stopping a plant that ‘produces’ 550,000 barrels a day and cutting off a transit area through which passes 20% of the world’s oil has its consequences, which data centers becoming a target has also shaken the market. Major companies related to AI, semiconductors and storage suffered the consequences this past Monday/Tuesday/Wednesday. NVIDIA, Micron, Western Digital, ASML, Applied Materials, SK Hynix and Samsung traded lower on the worst day in recent months. It is not known if components can continue to be transported at the high rate we had if two of the busiest container shipping corridors of the planet suffer an alteration in traffic. But don’t worry, they are already recovering so that the AI wheel keep turning in any way. Images | Goal, Tasnim News Agency In Xataka | Ukraine has shown that wars are no longer won with tanks. They are earned with something that Spain has in its hands: PAMOV

How to turn your cell phone into an mp3 player without notifications or distractions

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Let’s tell you how to turn your cell phone into an MP3 playerso you can dedicate it solely to playing music without any other distractions. You are going to do this so much with an old cell phone to which you want to give a new life as with a new one when you want to use it only to listen to music. Our mobile phone is the control center of our digital life, and at all times we receive notifications, notices, updates, and the eternal temptation to use it to write messages or browse social networks. But what happens when you want to isolate yourself from the world and have your phone only serve to listen to music and podcasts? In these cases, you may be tempted to simply buy a new device, a media player that is not so connected to everything and only serves that purpose. But before spending money, you should try doing this on your current mobile to see if it is enough. Let’s tell you two ways to limit your mobile to listen to music. One is going to be less aggressive, that of limiting all notifications and interruptions that could take you out of your musical bubble. And the second will be more aggressive, to directly limit your mobile. First decide where you will listen to the music The first choice you have is to decide where you are going to listen to your music. And here you will have many options, both music streaming services and other native alternatives to have greater control over the musical content you have. Here we leave you a list of alternatives which you can opt for: streaming service: Spotify and Apple Music are the most popular music streaming services, with other alternatives like Tidal quite close behind. If you don’t want algorithms, you can opt for Qobuz, which has better music quality, without music inserted as an advertisement, and a clean experience that is like entering a record store, without sacrificing the ability to have playlists. YouTube-based streaming: You also have available free alternatives to Spotifymany of which they use YouTube or other pages as a source. Come on, they create a streaming service with albums and everything, and use YouTube to extract the music from their videos. Create your own Spotify: You also have applications for create your own Spotify. They usually do this by having an application on the computer to turn it into a server, and then be able to play the music over the Internet on other devices. You will need to have your main computer on, although many will allow you to download music. The most popular option is set up your own Spotify with Plexbut there are other interesting alternatives. Have your music on your mobile and use a player: And then you have the more artisanal method. If you have digitized your music to convert your CDs into mp3, purchased digital music directly, or used any other method to build your own music library, you can simply put it in a folder in your phone’s memory and then use a music player. With alternatives like AIMP, Retro Music Player or Pulsar you can have everything: integration with lyrics, covers, tag editor, and everything you need. And finally, you must think If you will listen to the music having an internet connection or not. In the event that you are not going to have a connection, make sure that if you use a service that takes music from the Internet such as Spotify or the alternatives, you download the albums that you are going to want to listen to directly on your mobile. Set a focus mode The least aggressive way to limit your phone to focus on the music listening experience is set up a focus mode. With this, what we are going to do is prevent notifications from appearing or that no application or phone call can bother us while we have our mode active for when we listen to music. If you want to create a concentration mode on Android, you have to go to your mobile settings. Inside, click on the section Modes. Inside here, click on the option Create your own way to make a custom one. On iOS, the option is called Concentration modes. In both cases, you will have to give it a name and an icon. This is up to you, but I suggest it be something recognizable, such as a reference to listening to music and an icon like headphones. Each operating system has its options, but they are quite unified. The most important thing is that make two specific changes on Android or iOS when you are creating this mode: Don’t create a schedule: This is so that the mode is activated automatically at certain times. In this case, I recommend not setting a schedule and using it manually, activating it only when you are going to use it. Turn off notifications: Disable the option Allow all notificationsand don’t allow any app to send you notifications. Perhaps, you can set an exception such as very close family so that if they call you the call will ring, but what are notifications you can deactivate them all, so that you do not receive any notice, and thus you can escape and not look at what is happening. Make very few exceptions: On both Android and iOS you will be able to set an application as an exception so that its notifications appear. You may want to put something like emails, but always try to remove messaging and social media apps, and this way you will avoid the main distractions. There are apps that make your screens minimalist But of course, with all the changes we have made we have altered the behavior of the mobile, but we still have home screens full of app icons and distractions. Fortunately, There are applications to alter your home screen and make it have … Read more

While everyone looks at Iran, China is building a nuclear “Great Wall”

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Under the surface of the oceans one of the technological competitions is taking place quieter and more decisive of the planet. The nuclear submarines They can remain submerged for months, travel halfway around the world undetected and launch missiles from thousands of kilometers away. Therefore, each new advance under the sea usually anticipates much bigger changes in the global strategic balance. Washington’s alarm. While much of international attention is focused on the immediate conflicts in the Middle Eastanother much deeper strategic concern is beginning to take shape in Washington. Apparently, the US Navy commanders have warned before Congress that the military balance under the sea is changing rapidly and that China is accelerating a transformation process that could alter the global nuclear deterrent in the coming decades. The underwater race. we have been counting in recent months. China already owns one of the largest submarine fleets in the world and is expanding it at high speed thanks to massive investments in its military shipyards. Production has gone from less than one nuclear submarine a year to significantly higher rateswith forecasts that the fleet will reach around 70 units by the end of this decade and close to 80 by 2035. Although the United States still maintains a technological and operational advantage in submarine warfare, the rapid growth of Chinese industrial capacity is reducing that distance and forcing Washington to rethink the strategic balance in the Pacific. The transition to a nuclear fleet. One of the most important changes is structural. For decades, the Chinese submarine fleet has been based on diesel-electric vessels, which are cheaper, but have less autonomy and must surface frequently. Now Beijing is promoting a strategic shift towards more and more construction focused on nuclear submarinescapable of remaining submerged for long periods and operating at great distances from their bases. This change will allow the Chinese navy to project a presence beyond its immediate environment and complicate US naval operations. in the Pacific and other oceans. The new submarines. The technological leap will come with new generations of submarines that will begin to enter service between the end of this decade and the 1930s. Among them stand out the Type 095 models and, above all, the Type 096designed to transport nuclear ballistic missiles long range. We are talking about equipped boats with JL-4 missilessubmarines that will be able to attack large areas of US territory even operating from waters near China, much more protected by its naval and air defenses. Such a capability would significantly bolster the credibility of China’s nuclear deterrent and reduce the need to patrol more exposed areas of the Pacific. A network to protect the nuclear deterrent. Plus: the Chinese project is not limited to building more submarines. American commanders said that Beijing is developing an extensive sensor network on the seabed, surveillance cables, satellite-connected buoys and unmanned underwater vehicles capable of detecting movements in nearby oceans. This system, described by many analysts as an “underwater Great Wall,” would allow China monitor strategic routestrack foreign submarines, and protect its own nuclear fleet while patrolling in relatively safe waters. The strategic horizon of 2025 and 2040. The result of this transformation should be seen clearly in the next decade. As the number of nuclear submarines grows and this undersea sensor network is deployed, China could greatly expand its underwater presence. beyond the first chain of western Pacific islands. US forecasts suggest that, around 2040Chinese submarines could operate more frequently in the Indian Ocean, the Arctic and even the Atlantic. If this evolution is confirmed, the global naval balance could enter a new phase marked by a fearsome underwater competition between the two greatest powers on the planet. Image | Google Earth, SteKrueBe In Xataka | The US has always been the largest nuclear power on the planet. China has already surpassed it in something: submarines In Xataka | The new fear of Western fleets is not nuclear. They are conventional submarines armed with surprise and a flag: China

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