June 2026 - Page 23 of 107

China’s patience with both

June 24, 2026 by usatoday24

In 1860, China lost its direct access to the Sea of Japan after signing the Beijing Convention with the Russian Empire, ceding territories that today form part of Primorsky Krai. That signing left Beijing just a few kilometers from the sea… but without being able to touch it. More than 160 years later, that geographical wound continues to condition its strategy. A small river with enormous ambitions. He Tumen River It is one of those geographical features that seem minor until you look at a map with strategic eyes. Only a narrow strip of water separates China from direct access to the Sea of Japan, and that small barrier has been frustrating a Beijing’s historic aspiration: go out to the northeastern Pacific without depending on longer or patrolled routes. On paper it seems like a technical issue. In reality, it is a question of power. Because that little river lost between Russia and North Korea is testing something much bigger: how much Moscow and Pyongyang are willing to tolerate Chinese strategic expansion. The old Chinese obsession. Since the Qing dynasty ceded part of that region to the Russian Empire in 1860China carries a geographical thorn. That lost section left Beijing without a comfortable exit to the Sea of Japan. Regain access through of the Tumen It has been a silent aspiration for decades. It is not just a commercial issue. If China manages to navigate freely there, it wins a direct door towards a space where the Russian Pacific Fleet in Vladivostok and the forces of US allies such as Japan and South Korea operate. In other words: a minimum river with maximum impact. Russia and North Korea are playing something else. The problem for Beijing is that its two neighbors have your own calculations. Although officially Russia has shown some willingness to cooperate, on the ground the reality is more ambiguous. The agreement signed in 2024 between Kim Jong-un and Vladimir Putin to build a bridge over the river further complicates Chinese navigation. That bridge is more than just infrastructure: it is a political signal. Moscow and Pyongyang are strengthening their bilateral ties, but not necessarily opening more space for Chinese influence. Three allies, three agendas. The situation perfectly reflects the current logic between the three countries: they share interests, but not identical objectives. While China wants access and depth strategically, North Korea wants military and technological support Russian without becoming too absorbed by Beijing. For its part, Russia wants to use Pyongyang as a military partner and keep china closebut not so close as to feel surrounded in its Far East. This is what some analysts summarize with a simple idea: they are in the same bed, but dreaming different things. The sea that changes everything. There is no doubt, if China manages to fully open that corridor, the regional equation changes. Today they could be Chinese merchant ships crossing into the Sea of Japan. Tomorrow they could be warships. And there all the alarms go off. For North Korea it would mean living with a Chinese naval presence more intense right next door. For its part, for Russia it would mean accepting that its peaceful rearguard is increasingly exposed to the shadow of Beijing. And for Japan, South Korea and the United States it would be confirmation of a new military axis most active in one of the most tense areas of Asia. Beijing’s patience has limits. The silence after the last summit between Xi Jinping and Kim Jong Un on the Tumen says much more than it seems. China continues to push, but for now neither Russia nor North Korea seem willing to give it what it wants. And that can become a source of friction. Because for Beijing, the Tumen is not just a river: it is a question of prestige, access and projection of power. And the more Moscow and Pyongyang strengthen their cooperation without counting on China, the more the feeling will grow in Beijing that its two partners are taking advantage of its support… without giving it strategic space in return. Image | Baycrest, farmTowerCard In Xataka | Three times as powerful as the Three Gorges: this is the hydroelectric colossus with which China “is trying to tame nature” In Xataka | Taiwan has been inspired by Ukraine by giving its citizens a weapon against China: “It’s like acquiring a new skill”

the best deals on smartwatches that we have found on Prime Day

June 24, 2026 by usatoday24

If you have been postponing the purchase of a smart watch for months to measure your workouts or simply want to retire your old activity bracelet, the perfect time has arrived. In it Prime Day we have found deals on smartwatches that may interest you. Of course, these offers are only available for Prime users; If you are not yet, you can request the 30 day free trial to enjoy such offers and other benefits. Apple Watch Series 11 GPS with 42mm Aluminum Case and Sport Band The price could vary. We earn commission from these links Xiaomi Redmi Watch 5 Active by 29.49 euros: with two-inch LCD screen and 140 sports modes. Apple Watch Series 11 by 339 euros: with 64 GB of storage and IP6X certification. CMF by Nothing Watch 3 Pro by 58.90 euros– With built-in ChatGPT and 120 custom spheres. Garmin Vivoactive 5 by 156.24 euros: with up to 11 days of autonomy and Garmin Pay. Amazfit Active MAX by 132.60 euros: with 1.5-inch AMOLED screen and more than 170 sports modes. Xiaomi Redmi Watch 5 Active If you are looking for a cheap smartwatchthis one Xiaomi Redmi Watch 5 Active It is one of those deals that you cannot miss on Prime Day. Now you can get it for 29.49 eurosan unbeatable price for the type of device it is. This Xiaomi Redmi Watch 5 Activa mounts a two inch LCD screen and offers 140 sports modes. Its battery offers a range of up to 18 days and is compatible with Bluetooth calls and is water resistant to 5 ATM. Xiaomi Redmi Watch 5 Active The price could vary. We earn commission from these links Apple Watch Series 11 The Apple Watch has been, for years, the undisputed king of smart watches. Its latest version, the Apple Watch Series 11 It’s now a bargain on Amazon Prime Day. Its recommended RRP is 449 euros, but now you can get it for 339 eurosthus obtaining 110 euros discount. It is about the 42mm version And if there are features that this Apple Watch stands out for, it is for its always-on screen and for coming with a storage capacity of 64 GB. It is very thin and light and has a water resistance rating of 50 meters and has IP6X certification. Apple Watch Series 11 GPS with 42mm Aluminum Case and Sport Band The price could vary. We earn commission from these links CMF by Nothing Watch 3 Pro If you are looking for a good, pretty and cheap watch, this one Nothing Watch 3 Pro It is one of those that has a design that catches the eye. Its recommended price is 99 euros, but now it has a 41% discount applied, making it possible to buy it for 58.90 euros on this Prime Day. The Nothing Watch 3 Pro has a 1.43 inch AMOLED screen immersive and with a refresh rate of 60 fps. It comes with over 120 custom dials and has dual-band GPS. As for its battery, it offers a range of up to 13 days of normal use, according to brand data. Although if there is something for which it stands out, it is for integrating ChatGPT. CMF by Nothing Watch 3 Pro The price could vary. We earn commission from these links Garmin Vivoactive 5 If you were looking for an offer on a Garmin sports watch but you want a model that can also be used for everyday use, this Garmin Vivoactive 5 It is one of the ones I recommend. Now, on Amazon Prime Day, you can get it for 156.24 euros. This Garmin Vívoactive 5 has an AMOLED screen and autonomy of up to 11 days in smartwatch mode and up to 21 hours in GPS mode. You can pay with it through Garmin Pay and it monitors sports activities such as walking, running, cycling, strength training, HIIT and wheelchair activities, among others. Garmin Vívoactive 5, Smartwatch with GPS The price could vary. We earn commission from these links Amazfit Active MAX If you are looking for a off road watch and without having to spend a lot of money, this Amazfit Active MAX is a good purchase option during this Prime Day. Its recommended RRP is 169.90 euros, but now it has a 22% discount and you can buy it for 132.60 euros. It is a 48 mm smartwatch (ideal for large wrists) and with a 1.5 inch AMOLED screen. It has NFCmore than 170 sports modes and is compatible with Android and iPhone. Its battery is capable of lasting up to 25 days. Amazfit Active MAX Smart Watch 48mm 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. Image | Pedro Aznar (Applesfera), Xiaomi, Garmin, Apple, Amazfit and CMF by Nothing In Xataka | The best smartwatches: their analyzes and videos are here In Xataka | Best smartwatch in quality price. Which one to buy and 14 recommended smart watches

The most powerful supercomputer in the world is in China. The other part of the story is even more interesting

June 24, 2026 by usatoday24

The biannual TOP500 list with the most powerful supercomputers on the planet has given a striking surprise in its June 2026 edition. The Chinese LineShine system, installed at the Shenzhen National Supercomputing Center, has debuted directly at number one. It thus displaces the American supercomputer El Capitan, which had dominated the ranking for years. China has not managed to lead this classification since 2017, thus breaking a decade of North American hegemony. Unprecedented raw power. The performance tests used to configure this list leave no doubt: LimeShine has achieved 2,198 exaflops of performance in the benchmark HPLcompared to 1,809 exaflops for its American rival. The Chinese machine is therefore 20% more powerful than the flagship of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California. It is a whole new milestone in global supercomputing. Surprise: zero GPUs. The performance is extraordinary, but even more so is the way this supercomputer has been created. Most modern supercomputers rely heavily on GPUs, specialized graphics chips from Nvidia or AMD, for massive data processing. However, LineShine uses CPUs instead of focusing everything on GPUs, something that differentiates this supercomputer from its rivals and makes the feat even more striking. Heart ARM. The fundamental pillar of LineShine It is the LX2 CPU. The data they point because it has been designed by Huawei, and in each of those CPUs we have two dies HBM computing and memory. Each die It has 152 ARMv9 cores that have EVS and EMS supportwhich allows the system to process vectors and matrices in an exceptional way even without GPUs. In total LineShine has 304 of these processors with a total of 13,789,440 cores. Avoiding vetoes. One of the reasons that have undoubtedly contributed to this design decision is the US trade war with China. Tariffs and export bans on hardware and software have made things very complicated, especially when it comes to getting Nvidia GPUs for AI processing. Despite all this, China has once again demonstrated an astonishing ability to advance technologically. Another curiosity: the system has been built without public funds from the Chinese government. Source: TOP500.org AI clusters don’t compete here (but they would “win”). This prestigious list had always offered us that vision of the most powerful computing systems in the world, but today the panorama has changed. It has done so because the AI clusters created by big technology are probably more powerful than any of these systems. As explains Jimmy Goodrich of the University of California, “if hyperscalers competed with their systems, ‘fastest’ in the world wouldn’t even be in the top five.” That phrase, yes, has crumbs. But it’s comparing pears with apples. However, the supercomputers on the TOP500 list and the AI clusters that hyperscalers are building to meet global demand are very different. The root problem is in floating point precision. Classic supercomputers like El Capitan are designed for high-fidelity scientific simulations, where the slightest rounding error can be fatal. That is why they operate under the FP64 standard with which tens of decimals are calculated: it is a slow and expensive process in energy, but extraordinarily precise. AI rounds with joy. In contrast, AI models are very resistant to numerical “noise.” They don’t need perfect precision to recognize patterns or generate text. That allows AI chips to use reduced precision formats like FP16, FP8, or even FP4. By processing much shorter numbers, they multiply their speed and efficiency significantly. So when an AI cluster achieves tens of exaflops, it does so rounding up quite happily. These machines are exceptional for AI tasks, but they do not threaten the future of traditional supercomputers. Europe (and Italy) and supercomputing. If we look in detail at the list, we see great news for European supercomputing. The HPC7 system created by Eni has entered directly at number 6 on the list, while Jupiter Booster (Germany) is at number 5. Europe has four systems in the top 10 of the TOP500 list (two of them, from Italy), and eight in the top 20. Spain is still present on the list thanks to MareNostrum 5which yes, drops from 14th to 16th place. In Xataka | The EU wants to close the gap in the race for AI with 750 million euros. And it is good news for Barcelona

stopped cars that cannot leave their ports

June 24, 2026 by usatoday24

China has taken positions in Europe. The European automobile industry is witnessing a rampant arrival of Chinese manufacturers trying to sell as much as possible at the fastest possible pace. Chinese manufacturers looking for factorieswho reach new countries and try to build the necessary infrastructure to place their cars on our roads. A rampant landing that has its consequences in European ports. Overwhelmed. This is what the colleagues of Motorpassion. The large European ports have been filled with Chinese cars that no one can let out. Satellite images show that the large number of these cars is turning what was previously a transit area into authentic fields of Chinese cars. The large European ports are the ones that are most noticing this landing of Chinese cars. Antwerp-Zeebrugge in Belgium, Bremerhaven in Germany or Barcelona in Spain are those that have to deal with higher volumes of vehicles packaged in China and discovered in Europe. What does the data say? Exactly this. They rescue in GFM Review that the large ports mentioned above have found themselves with the problem of managing a huge stock of vehicles for which there is no outlet. So much so that there are vehicles, they say, that have not moved for 18 months. According to data collected by elDiario.esBarcelona is positioning itself as one of the great poles of attraction in Europe. Last year, cars arriving at the Catalan port increased by 5% but imports from China grew by more than 40%. In the month of January alone, the volume of cars received increased by 80% compared to the same month in 2025. In The Mercantile They report that the excess of vehicles in the port has forced unscheduled trains to be mobilized to distribute cars to Madrid, especially Chery’s Omoda and Jaecoo, which have their large operations center in Barcelona. But they point out elDiario.es that other Chinese manufacturers that have recently arrived in Europe, such as Changan or Great Wall Motors (GWM) do not stop adding cars to the Catalan port. Converted into fields. This massive arrival of cars has turned European ports into massive fields for Chinese manufacturers. So much so that Barcelona (which in 2025 it will receive 80% of Chinese cars purchased in Spain and 14% of those purchased in Europe) has underway a project to expand its capacity to assimilate cars, with the NYK shipping company willing to invest 75 million euros in a new terminal that could accommodate 180,000 cars a year. The problem is that these spaces are at their limit because, as we say, cars are not allowed out at the expected rate. It is a story that It has been repeating for two years. Back then, the companies did not have a sufficient distribution network to assimilate the cars that were brought to Europe, but now the problems are different. The problem now is that the manufacturers They are not finding enough truckers to move the cars to their destinations but, in addition, There are more Chinese brands fighting for ports Europeans and a country willing to get all the cars it can out of there. We send them to Europe. For a few months we have been saying that China is determined to send all the cars it can to our continent. Actually, Europe is not its only target market, but the growth in electric sales (in May almost the same electric cars were sold as gasoline cars) and the absence of tariffs on plug-in hybrids make the European market ideal. Chinese companies are encountering problems selling their cars in the local market but their factories continue to produce at full capacity. This has boosted exports to the point that they have taken almost 50% more electric vehicles out of the country than last year and 100% more plug-in hybrids. Brad Setseran export specialist, shows how domestic sales are falling but exports are increasing at a devilish rate and that car production continues to grow. China seems determined to flood the market with the expansion of its brands and the shipment of more and more models even though the ports themselves act as a funnel. It repeats. The situation experienced by European ports is similar to what is being experienced in other markets. As we counted a few weeks ago in XatakaMexico has wanted to impose tariffs on Chinese cars. Its problem is that when it wanted to collect the new taxes, the Chinese manufacturers had already landed thousands of cars there and had them available for distribution. This strategy is accompanied by the commitment that China is making to what is known as the Global South. There, the manufacturers They are dethroning Japan as their priority customerexporting more and more cars that are sold at a more attractive price below the equator line where They already ship more cars than Europe and the United States combined. Photo | Omoda and BYD In Xataka | Japan had dominated total car sales for more than 20 years, until China knocked on the door

stopped cars that cannot leave their ports

June 24, 2026 by usatoday24

We believed that pets were replacing children. One study suggests just the opposite

June 24, 2026 by usatoday24

The first time I saw a dog in a stroller It was in a shopping center. It passed me like any child’s stroller: wheels, hood, a small package inside. I looked twice because it seemed too small for a baby, and it wasn’t. Inside there was a dog. I remember well that he was a french bulldog and her name was Chanel. Over time, the scene stopped seeming exceptional to me. I started seeing dog strollers in downtown neighborhoods, parks or even on public transportation. An image that has become a symbol of something deeper: the feeling that, in aging societies, pets are occupying a place that children once had. But what if that reading was incomplete, or outright wrong? What if, far from replacing children, pets were playing another role in family life? An academic study questioned a widely held belief a few months ago. To begin with, the numbers help to understand why suspicion has established itself in the public debate. In Spain, according to the Spanish Network for the Identification of Pet Animals (REIAC)in 2023 there were more than ten million dogs registered compared to less than two million children between 0 and 4 years old. A difference so wide that it invites, almost automatically, to think about a change within homes. The scenes that come from outside reinforce that impression. South Korea has crossed a symbolic threshold: More strollers are sold for dogs than for babies. It is not an exaggeration, it is the statistical reflection of a country in demographic emergency. The trend has caught on so much that even faith has adapted. In Japanese temples such as Ichigaya Kamegaoka, the ancient ritual of Shichi-Go-San —previously exclusive for children— has filled with snouts and straps. In the absence of infants, sanctuaries bless pets to prevent their liturgies from being left without protagonists. Against this backdrop, political and moral interpretations have proliferated. In 2022, Pope Francis described as “selfish” to those who prefer to have animals rather than children. In South Korea, then Labor Minister Kim Moon-soo He even stated that young people They “love their dogs” instead of starting families. A resounding diagnosis that, until now, had relied more on cultural symbols and perceptions than on contrasted data. Disassembling the narratio But the idea that pets replace children received a serious corrective from academic research. The study Cats, Dogs, and Babiesled by researchers Kuan-Ming Chen and Ming-Jen Lin from National Taiwan University, analyzed for more than a decade the behavior of millions of homes. The research concluded that people who adopt a dog are up to 33% more likely to have a child later than those who do not. Far from displacing paternity, the animal seems to act as a preliminary step. This is what the authors call the “practice child effect”. As Chen and Lin explainmany couples use the experience of caring for a dog to evaluate their willingness to take on responsibilities: routines, expenses, and emotional bonds. If the experience is positive, it increases confidence to take the next step towards human parenthood. However, there is no change in sight. Neither the Taiwanese study nor the experts who analyze the demographic winter maintain that the increase in pets will translate, by itself, into a rebound in birth rates. The academic work itself warns that this is a country-specific analysis and that patterns may vary depending on the cultural, economic and social context. Furthermore, it is not yet a peer-reviewed article to verify the data either. The cart as a metaphor The study does not propose pets as response to demographic declinebut as a clue about how care decisions are postponed today in a context of economic and vital uncertainty. This reading fits with what sociologists and demographers point out in Spain. As reflected in the analysis of my colleague in Xatakathe drop in the birth rate responds to widely documented structural factors: job insecurity, rising housing costs, difficulties in conciliation, delay in emancipation and increasingly later motherhood. In this scenario, pets do not displace children; They occupy the space left by a postponed vital project. For this reason, the image of the dog in a stroller summarizes this ambiguity well. As Dr. Jerry Klein explainschief veterinarian of the American Kennel Club, these strollers can have a practical function in certain cases: “They offer elderly dogs, dogs with arthritis or mobility problems a way to enjoy the outdoors without straining themselves.” Veterinary platforms such as Dialvet either ToeGrips They agree that they can help protect paws from hot asphalt or help small dogs who cannot keep up with long walks. However, other experts urge caution. Carlos Carrasco, from DOS Training, warns in La Voz de Galicia that “a dog is not a child with hair” and that carrying a healthy animal in a stroller can be a “humiliation” that denaturalizes it. Along the same lines, ethologist Isabel Jiménez, director of La Manada de Iris, points out in IM Veterinaria that excessive humanization “nullifies the dog as a species and makes it emotionally ill.” a study published in Animals (MDPI) reinforces this idea, warning that anthropomorphism can generate anxiety and stress in the animal by not respecting its basic biological needs, such as smelling and walking. Finally, the rise of pets does not alone explain the demographic winter, but it does reveal how forms of affection and responsibility are reconfigured in societies where having children has become more complex. The Taiwanese study does not offer miracle solutionsbut there is a clear warning: facing pets and children as if they were exclusive options oversimplifies a much more nuanced reality. Perhaps, when we see a dog in a stroller, we are not looking at the symbol of renunciation, but rather at the reflection of a generation that postpones irreversible decisions while looking for possible forms of care. Before blaming the puppies, it might be worth looking at the system surrounding those who are hesitant to become parents. Image | Unsplash Xataka | As Japan runs out … Read more

the company has been chosen to modernize the Washington DC metro

June 24, 2026 by usatoday24

Among all the projects it is in charge of, the Spanish technology company has also won the contract to renew the ticket terminals in the 98 Washington DC metro stations, in an agreement that could reach 75 million dollars. Below these lines we tell you all the details. Contract. Just like account The company in its official press release, the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA), the body that manages the Washington DC metro, has selected Indra to replace all the ticket sales machines in its network. The starting amount is 38.9 million dollars (about 33 million euros), but the contract includes additional options that could raise it to 75 million dollars (about 65 million euros). At stake are 450 new terminals spread across the five lines and 98 stations of a network that moves more than 500,000 travelers every day. What’s included exactly the order. In addition to manufacturing and delivering the equipment, Indra will also have to be responsible for the design, installation and maintenance for the next 15 years. The new machines will replace the current Fare Vending Machines, the terminals that have been in service on the network for years. According to affirms company, the new devices will have high-resolution touch screens with an interface very similar to that of mobile phones, will support payments by card, mobile phone and digital wallets (EMV and ABT technology), and will be available in up to 15 languages. The design must also comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), including assisted audio and tactile elements for people with reduced mobility or vision. According to the company, part of the assembly will be carried out in the new plant that Indra has just inaugurated in Olathe, within the Kansas City metropolitan area. Indra puts its foot in North America. In recent months, Indra has been accumulating positions in the North American market. At the beginning of this year it was awarded a contract of nearly 300 million dollars to modernize FAA air traffic control, and more recently signed another agreement with Nav Canada to integrate drones and commercial aviation into Canadian airspace. It also has previous experience in railway ticketing in the US, since it was the company that installed the last two generations of self-sales machines in the St. Louis (Missouri) metro. Winning a contract in Washington DC is at another level in terms of visibility, since WMATA is one of the largest public transportation agencies in the country, and consolidates Indra as a reference in a highly contested market. What each part says. Raúl Ripio, general director of Mobility & Technology at Indra Group, assures that the company has been betting decisively on the United States for some time, where in addition to this project it develops traffic, connected vehicle and communications initiatives. For his part, Randy Clarke, CEO of Washington Metro, said in a statement that the investment “modernizes a critical part” of the system and that the new terminals incorporate payment technologies that users increasingly demand. International expansion. This move comes months after Indra won the contract to modernize access to public transport in Londonvalued at around 1,000 million euros, one of the largest in its recent history. The one in Washington is more modest in numbers, but strategically it is just as relevant, since the company is fully integrated into the mobility infrastructure of the US capital, a country that is increasingly taking center stage among its expansion plans. Cover image | Matthew Bornhorst In Xataka | Seville has had serious traffic problems on the SE-30 for decades: a 3.5 kilometer megabridge aims to solve them

Teams will be able to know if you are in the office via WiFi

June 24, 2026 by usatoday24

Presence at work long ago stopped depending only on sitting at a table. Now it also lives in shared calendars, statuses Teamsscheduled meetings and small signals that we use every day almost without thinking about it. Microsoft wants to add one more layer to that invisible map of hybrid work. We’re not just talking about knowing if someone is busy or available, but about bringing physical location closer to the tools we use to coordinate. And that’s where a seemingly practical feature starts to strike a much deeper chord. The concrete novelty. The idea is that this change of “today I work from the office” does not always depend on us marking it by hand. The function is called workplace check-in via WiFi and is designed for Teams and Microsoft Places. The scene is easy to imagine: you arrive at the office, open your laptop, connect to a corporate network set up by the company and the system can update your work location during the day. Microsoft proposes it as a way to keep that information up to date without forcing the employee to touch their status every time they change plans. How it works. Microsoft is not talking about following the employee’s cell phone around the city as if it were a GPS, but rather a signal generated within a specific work environment. The company must previously register its office networks in Microsoft Places, with its SSID and, to associate them with specific buildings, the BSSIDs of the WiFi access points. Microsoft’s documentation adds another important limit: this detection requires the Teams desktop app on Windows or macOS, not the web or mobile versions. If the device is not connected to a network configured as a work location, Microsoft notes that the person will appear as “Remote.” A coordination tool. It’s not just about putting an “office” label next to someone’s name, but about making that information serve to better coordinate the team, according to Microsoft. The company gives very everyday examples: knowing who is there to have a coffee, reserving a table near colleagues or converting a meeting planned as remote into a face-to-face meeting. You can also keep your work plan up to date and check-in an existing desk reservation. The nuance of control. Microsoft insists that this feature is not enabled by default for the entire workforce. Check-in is disabled initially for each tenant and must be enabled by administrators, who can configure the experience as opt-in or opt-out. The company says that each employee retains control over whether and how their device works, and that location permissions are required at the operating system level. It also points out that the user can modify their settings at any time, manually define their work location or overwrite it if necessary. And in practice? Microsoft says the employee retains decision-making power, but corporate work rarely occurs in a neutral environment. Many companies, especially on Windows, manage laptops, Teams policies, operating system permissions, and Microsoft 365 settings from administrative layers that the user does not fully control. This does not allow us to conclude that this function can be imposed ignoring the employee, because Microsoft itself insists otherwise. It does force us, however, to read the promise of control with obvious caution: it will depend on the actual deployment. Why it matters. Microsoft’s announcement is not accompanied by a public list of countries or a closed date for each organization. The company talks about an enterprise rollout with Microsoft Places later this year, while its technical documentation still describes wireless check-in as a feature in preview. To use it, each company will have to prepare its tenant, which in practice is the Microsoft 365 environment that each company manages, configure buildings and add approved corporate networks. The bottom line is in scale: Teams is not a minor tool within the corporate desktop, but a platform with more than 320 million monthly active users. Images | Xataka with Nano Banana In Xataka | Knowing how to use AI is not a simple advantage: it is the difference between being in a labor market that is growing or one that is stagnating.

Airbus is testing AI in one of the most delicate maneuvers of a flight: landing

June 24, 2026 by usatoday24

Landing a commercial plane seems, seen from the window, to be an almost routine sequence, but in reality, it is one of the most demanding phases of the flight, a maneuver in which pilots, navigation systems, weather conditions and airport infrastructure have to fit together with enormous precision. What Airbus is investigating now is whether the artificial intelligence can help with that fit. Their proposal involves cameras installed on the plane itself and artificial vision to analyze the runway references during landing in real time. What the company has put on the table is called Vision Landing Application. Airbus has presented it in the context of VivaTech 2026 as a technology still in the research phase, so we are not looking at something that will reach commercial aircraft tomorrow. However, the idea it leaves behind is quite simple to understand: saving all the distances with aviation, it is conceptually reminiscent of what we have already seen in autonomous terrestrial vehicles. Autoland is not new, but aims to evolve Here you have to separate two things that may seem the same, but are not. commercial airplanes They can now land automatically under certain conditions, but that does not mean that the system is always available, at any airport and regardless of the crew. They are needed certified aircraft, adequate infrastructure, authorized procedures and pilots trained to operate within that framework. As we can sense, the novelty that Airbus is exploring does not eliminate that reality: it tries to add another form of guidance, born within the plane itself, to an ecosystem where the pilot continues to be a central piece. Regarding the demonstration at VivaTech, it should be noted that we are not talking about a plane landing in the middle of the event or a commercial test carried out in front of the public. The exhibit was intended to explain how computer vision can improve automated landing procedures. It is less spectacular than imagining an A350 landing at a fair, but much more important to understand where the technology really is. Now, all this does not come from nothing. Airbus places it within an automation roadmap that began to take shape years ago with ATTOLa project launched in 2018 to explore autonomous taxiing, takeoff and landing using image recognition, without relying on conventional ground systems such as ILS or GBAS. Then other programs arrived: DragonFlyfocused on pilot assistance, automatic emergency operations and workload reduction during taxiing; and Auto’Matewith a different objective, in-flight refueling, but with very close technological bricks, such as cameras, LiDAR, high-precision positioning and AI algorithms. The next name in that chain is Optimizean Airbus UpNext demonstrator that the company describes as a kind of A350 cabin on wheels. It is not an airplane, but a test vehicle designed to bring sensors, systems and automation to the real environment of an airport without converting each test into a flight. This includes cameras, 4D radar, LiDAR, trajectory protection models, functions against runway incursions and even a virtual assistant to interpret air control authorizations. Vision Landing Application aims to be useful in at least two especially sensitive cases: remote airfields with little or no advanced infrastructure and environments where GNSS, the satellite navigation that many systems use as a reference, may be degraded, interfered with or directly unavailable. In these cases, the aircraft being able to visually interpret what is in front of it does not replace operational safety, but it does add a potential support network. The expression Airbus uses is “embedded AI”, but we can translate it more clearly as embedded AI. The difference matters: it is not an AI supported by external servers, but a capability integrated into the aircraft systems. In an airplane there is no excess energy, there is no excess calculation capacity and it is not enough for an algorithm to work well in a demonstration. To get closer to certification, the European manufacturer needs the behavior of the hardware and software to be controllable, traceable and compatible with the safety requirements of commercial aviation. This is one of the reasons why it is wise to avoid the easy jump to pilotless aircraft. What Airbus describes is much closer to a cabin with better aids than an empty cabin. Its systems seek to alleviate repetitive tasks, improve crew attention and add layers of information. If onboard AI ends up entering commercial aircraft, its first reasonable function will not be to replace the pilot, but rather to give it better tools. From there to the commercial plane there is still a long way. Airbus will have to demonstrate that this technology works reliably in very different scenarios, integrate it with the rest of the aircraft systems and go through a certification process designed precisely to prevent a promising innovation from reaching real operation prematurely. The Vision Landing Application does not change the way of landing tomorrow, but it does show a very specific direction of where at least part of the industry is heading. Images | Airbus In Xataka | Spain had a master plan for the European fighter. The problem is that Germany just got a girlfriend with a lot of “money”

NASA and video games use it more than a century after its discovery

June 24, 2026 by usatoday24

It had rained heavily that morning of October 16, 1943, so when it cleared Sir William Rowan Hamilton He finished his whiskey (no whiskey, that’s why it was Irish) and asked his fragile wife if they would go out for a walk around Dublin. He had been working on a mathematical problem involving complex numbers for years without success, and decided it was a good idea to get some air. That’s what he did. They walked, talked about their children’s future and as they crossed Broom Bridge Sir William’s light bulb suddenly went on. “Helen!” he exclaimed, “I don’t need to multiply triplets: I can use quadruples!” Helen didn’t know anything, of course, but at that moment quaternions were born, an extension of real numbers that more than a century or a half later are critical for NASA’s space missions and also for the video game industry. Good for Sir William. Worthy successor to Sir Isaac Newton Sir William Rowan Hamilton (Dublin, 1805-1865) stood out since childhood. At the age of thirteen he already spoke several European languages, but also Persian, Arabic, Sanskrit and Malay. When he was 8 years old, his fame was already notable, and the tour of the American calculus prodigy, Zerah Colburn, gave him the opportunity to prove his brilliance. That 9-year-old American boy crushed him on a mental arithmetic test, and that showed little Hamilton the way. He would continue studying languages, but what he wanted to do was dedicate himself to mathematics. In 1823 that young man achieved first place among 100 candidates in the Trinity College exams. The prestigious Irish university soon discovered the brilliance of Hamilton, who already in his student days wrote part of his treatise on optics, the well-known “Theory of Ray Systems“. That was key so that in 1827 he ended up occupying the position of Royal Astronomer of Ireland, a well-paid chair that was unheard of for it to end up in the hands of an undergraduate. Not only that: it gave Hamilton the opportunity to research freely, something he would not have been able to do in a hypothetical position as a professor at Trinity College. His work in the field of optics would end up mixing with that of dynamics and algebra in the 1830s. His work with several colleagues led him to pursue a very special objective: to try to generalize complex numbers in order to represent rotations and movements of vectors in space. three-dimensional. If he succeeded, he would have a very powerful tool to formulate the basic laws of physics and describe the movement of rigid bodies in space. In 1833 he presented a paper to the Royal Irish Academy in which he defined addition and maltiplication operations on pairs of real numbers. He was the first mathematician to treat complex numbers as ordered pairs (Gauss had done so before, but without publishing his discoveries) and his vision was closely related to physics. To try to advance in that field, Hamilton tried to study what he called the “Triplet Theory”, hypercomplex numbers referred to three-dimensional space in the same way that complex numbers referred to two-dimensional space. It was that that led him to the discovery of the quaternions. The triplets did not have the common properties of complex numbers when trying to multiply them and his obsession with the problem was such that even his children ended up asking him the same thing every morning: “Well dad, can you multiply triplets now?”, to which he replied: “no, for now I can only add and subtract them.” And then came that ride. Hamilton would describe that happy moment of sudden discovery in a letter to one of his sons fifteen years after it occurred: “Tomorrow will be the fifteenth birthday of the quaternions. They came into life, or into the light, fully grown, on October 16, 1843, when I was walking with Mrs. Hamilton towards Dublin, and we arrived at Broughman’s Bridge. That is, then and there, I closed the galvanic circuit of thought and the sparks that fell were the fundamental equations between i, j, k; exactly as I have used them ever since. I took out, at that moment, a pocket notebook, which still exists, and made a note, on which, at that very moment, I felt that it would possibly be valuable to extend my work for at least the ten (or it could be fifteen) years to come. It is fair to say that this happened because I felt, at that moment, that a problem had been solved, an intellectual desire relieved, a desire that had haunted me for at least the previous fifteen years. I could not resist the impulse to take my knife and engrave on a stone of Brougham Bridge the fundamental formula with the symbols i, j, k: i2=j2=k2=ijk=−1 which contained the solution to the Problem, which has since survived as an inscription. Hamilton called a quadruple with those multiplication rules a quaternion, and he dedicated the rest of his life to studying them, developing them, and teaching them to students and academics. Quaternions in space, quaternions in video games The study of quaternions has led to many other mathematical discoveries, but their application has been amazing more than a century and a half after that walk. In fact, quaternions are used in flight computers or in simulation studies in which large changes in angle are involved when monitoring the altitude of the spacecraft. The use of quaternions eliminate problems like Euler singularity and allows the use of only four parameters, in addition to being ideal for digital error control. In fact the so-called unitary quaternions allow counting with a mathematical notation to represent the orientations and rotations of objects in three dimensions, and therefore are widely used in robotics or navigation satellite orbital mechanics and are used in NASA missions for decades. That same ability to represent rotations in space is key for the development of 3D video games … Read more

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