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In the middle of the war, Israel’s underground parking lots have begun to fill with something: tents

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On the fourth floor of the underground parking lot of the Dizengoff Centerone of the most popular shopping centers in Tel Aviv, the difficult thing these days is seeing cars. There are also not many motorcycles, vans or any other type of vehicle. What has occupied the squares painted on the ground for weeks are dozens of tents, the ‘home’ improvised by Israelis looking for a place to protect themselves from the attacks with which Iran has responded to ‘Operation Epic Fury’ that on February 28 ended the life of its leader, Ali Khamenei. While on the surface the sirens sound warning of the arrival of missiles, there, on the -4 floor, life goes on among removable tents. “Look where I am”. With that phrase I started a few days ago tiktoker Andrea Bisso (@Latinaenisrael96) a video in which it shows the parking lot of a shopping center in Israel. The curious thing is that as you walk through its corridors you don’t see cars or people with shopping carts, but rather tents, an improvised table on pallets where food is distributed, handwritten posters hanging from the columns, clothes hanging from cables… The landscape that marks the daily life of the dozens of families who take refuge there. “People are living here now, in times of war. This is where they have moved. It’s incredible how people started to live in a parking lot. These are people who have small children, can’t run to a shelter, don’t have one nearby or are elderly who can’t go down the stairs… They prefer to live here,” relates Andrea as she walks through the parking lot. “Alternate reality”. The tiktoker is not the only one that has shown how the war has transformed some unexpected places in Israel. A few days ago Zeb Stub also did it on an extensive report for The Times of Israel in which it affects the same idea. In fact, he talks about the “alternative reality” that has been created on the -4th floor of the Dizengoff Center parking lot, where “a city” basically made up of dozens of tents has been deployed. Curiously, life activates beneath the surface while it decays in commercial areas. Stub explains for example that in the Azrieli Centeralso in Tel Aviv, some businesses estimate that activity has fallen by 20% or even 50% in recent weeks. “Many people come simply to get out of the house,” they say from a shoe store. “The normal thing before Passover is that people come to buy new clothes, but this year they are not thinking about that.” Life goes on underground. Gal, a teacher who teaches remotely, explained to the Israeli newspaper that she decided to move to the Dixengoff shelter last week among other reasons because she had to constantly interrupt her work in her apartment. “I teach online classes and having to stop every time the siren sounds is making my work more complicated,” recognize the woman In the shelter you don’t just see people eating, sleeping, working or simply hanging out. a chronicle from the Associated Press (AP) talks about much more casual scenes, such as a bride posing with her family for a wedding photo session or young people dressed up for celebrate the holiday Purim Jewish… There are also spaces for attend to medical emergencieslike the improvised one in a parking lot under the Sheba Medical Center, in Ramant Gan. Are there no conventional shelters? Yes. Israel has public shelters. It is also not unusual to find private spaces designed precisely so that people can take shelter during emergencies. When the alarms sound, people barricade themselves in them, usually for fifteen minutes, half an hour… however long the alert lasts from when the sirens sound. However, there are those who, for one reason or another, choose to put their belongings in a suitcase and temporarily settle in spaces where they feel safer than in their homes, such as parking lots. The Dizengoff Center is an example, but there is more. Under the Tel Aviv bus station there are dozens of families, especially immigrants, who have settled in tents. Crossover attacks. Noah Efron, from the Tel Aviv-Jaffa municipal council, claimed these days that the underground shelters in Tel Aviv are designed to house families at times like the current one, when the Middle East is convulsed by the offensive launched by Israel itself and the US on Iran. Over the last few weeks, cities like Tel Aviv have received attacks of the Islamist regime, damaging buildings and causing injuries and even fatalities. Israel is not the only one living under the threat of missiles. His army has also been hitting Iran and Lebanon for weeks. In fact, in cities like Tehran or Kfar Rumman there are a significant balance of wounded and dead. Images | TikTok and Wikipedia In Xataka | Iran has just crossed the great energy red line: Türkiye is the first victim of a blackout that is already looking to Europe

sending personalized Ferraris to millionaires in the Middle East

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When the conflict between the United States, Israel and Iranthe Strait of Hormuz was closed to commercial traffic and the skies of the Persian Gulf They became a high-risk area. Freighters transporting luxury cars to Dubai, Riyadh or Doha encountered a Strait of Hormuz blocked and no alternative route plan. Any customer in that situation has little room for maneuver other than resigning themselves to waiting for their shipment like someone waiting for an Amazon courier, but a type of client who does not resign easily: he who has enough money to open your own delivery route. While hundreds of Lamborghinis, Bentleys and Ferraris were immobilized in intermediate ports due to the maritime blockade, their future owners found the most million-dollar solution possible: paying for “first class” flights so that their supercars They will arrive by plane. Cars blocked in the middle of the conflict. When the Strait of Hormuz was closed to commercial traffic, large cargo ships were unable to reach their destinations in Persian Gulf ports. One of the most striking cases was the one documented Reuters of a shipment with more than 500 cars that were blocked at sea. 50 of those cars They were luxury models of brands such as Rolls-Royce, Lamborghini and Ferrari and had to be provisionally unloaded at the port of Hambantota (Sri Lanka) pending resolution of their fate. The same problem affected Porsche and Audi, whose managers in the Volkswagen group they warned that the war would directly hit their sales in the region. OK to what was published by BloombergFerrari suspended shipments to the Persian Gulf for weeks. A wall between brands and millionaires. Faced with the blockade, each manufacturer adopted a different strategy, although they could not prevent some of the luxury cars that were already on the route from being trapped in nearby ports. Bentley chose to exhaust the inventory that dealers in the region already had to meet pre-conflict orders, avoiding shipments of new units. Ferrari, on the other hand, opted for a combination of longer and more complex alternative routes: more than 4,000 luxury vehicles bound for Dubai had to be diverted to Lamu Island port as an alternative entry point. Meanwhile, some millionaires impatient to drive the cars for which they have been waiting for no less than two years, did not want to wait a single minute longer and paid the extra cost of shipping with air transport to receive their cars as soon as possible. A decision that turned out to be more expensive than expected. The price of millionaire impatience. Air transport was already an import route that existed before the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, but it tripled the cost of shipping. With the war blocking the only access route, that difference shot up to five times more. The average cost of transporting a kilogram of air cargo from Europe to the Middle East has increased by two-thirds since the start of the conflict, reaching $2.96 per kilogram of cargo. as he collected he Financial Times. Some routes recorded increases of up to 100% in rates, with an additional fuel surcharge of between 0.3 and 0.4 euros per kilo transported. Ian Arroyo, director of strategy at Freightos, a logistics information service, pointed out that there were only two options for assuming this price increase: “It all depends on whether manufacturers are reducing their own profit margin due to their relationship with the customer, or if the customer has offered to pay for the transportation on their own.” What is clear is that the final bill for the car was going to rise considerably. Money was not going to be a problem in this case. Ferrari does not lose a single order. In statements to Gulf NewsGiorgio Turri, Ferrari’s general director for the Middle East, assured that the brand had managed to overcome logistics problems without canceling any orders in the area. “We are not experiencing cancellations. (A Ferrari) is not a need, it is a dream. You don’t make decisions based on the mood of the day. Dreams are never a short-term decision.” The data proves him right. Between 30 and 40% of the Italian brand’s new supercar deliveries in the region go to customers who have never owned a Ferrari before. The Middle East is not the largest market in the world in unit volume, but it is one of the most profitable for the “Il Cavallino” brand. Customization and accessories account for a fifth of Ferrari’s revenue, and the region’s wealthy customers don’t just buy the car: they turn it into a unique piece doubling the car bill with customizations . To understand the dimension of the business that was at stake, it is enough to know a fact that Turri pointed out, “our clients in the Middle East are between five and seven years old. younger than the world average.” That for Ferrari is not a simple anecdote, it is decades of guaranteed sales if customers are satisfied, whether there is war or not. In Xataka | In Dubai they don’t know what to do with so many abandoned luxury supercars: the less shiny side of getting rich Image | freepik

The IOC has a new method to exclude trans athletes from the Olympic Games. The problem is that biology doesn’t work like that.

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At the end of March, the International Olympic Committee announced undoubtedly one of the most controversial decisions in its recent history: starting with the 2028 Los Angeles Olympic Games, no transgender athlete will be able to compete in the women’s category. But beyond the social and political debate that can be generated, we must also focus on the method chosen to determine this exclusion: a simple genetic analysis where a single gene is searched. And this is something highly discussed among science. His discoverer. The gene in question, which will be analyzed in athletes who want to participate in the female category, will be SRYwhich is nothing more than the “Sex Determining Region Y”. A gene that was discovered in 1990 by molecular biologist Andrew Sinclair and who pointed out that its presence is a determining factor in male sexual development. It is, literally, the scientific father of the test that the IOC has chosen to integrate into its Olympic requirements. But the thing is that he himself is against using it for this. Your disagreement. This decision is not a big news, since if we look back, the body that governs world athletics, World Athletics, adopted this same test in September 2025 to participate in their competitions. Here is Sinclair himself He did not hesitate to publish an opinion article where he made it clear that the result is not definitive, since the only thing the analysis can say is whether the gene is present or not. Because. In this way, it must be detailed that being positive in SRY does not give us information about whether it is working to form a testicle, if it stimulates the production of testosterone or even if it expresses the necessary receptors so that testosterone can be used. Put another way: knowing that an athlete has the SRY gene does not tell you anything conclusive about her physiology, her hormonal levels or, by extension, about her supposed competitive advantages from having testosterone. The biology of sexual development is infinitely more complex than the presence or absence of a genetic marker, which will now mark the ‘everything’ before the IOC. There is more evidence. This researcher is not the only one who opposes this decision, since at the beginning of March it was published an article signed by 34 academics to respond to the decision of World Athletics. Here they pointed to the same thing: we are facing a test that reduces everything to a single gene when biology is much more complex. And biological sex is the result of a very complex interaction of human genetics, hormones, receptors, tissues… Furthermore, the IOC’s argument suggests that this test protects against competitive equity, but for academics, they point out that there is no solid scientific evidence to demonstrate that the presence of the SRY gene is directly related to having a greater sporting advantage. It’s not something new. Although we now see a big scandal in the sports world over this decision, the reality is that if we look at the newspaper archive, something similar was already being done in the 90s. 30 years ago The IOC decided to require women to verify their sex through chromosomal testing and also by determining the SRY gene. But finally the tests were withdrawn due to technical limitations, the absence of medical evidence and also because of the legal problems it could have. A Spanish case. Due to these tests, the Spanish athlete María José Martínez Patiño was disqualified in 1985 after testing positive in the chromosome test despite not having any physiological advantage over her peers. In this way, her career was practically doomed, but she was able to recover it thanks to the help of a geneticist who was able to document her case with scientific evidence that showed that it was not giving her an advantage over the rest of her competitors. The debate. If the basis for requiring genetic testing is to protect competitive fairness, we must ask what science says about the real advantages of transgender athletes. And at this point much less is known than the general population believes. One of the most important studies It was made in 2015 by a transgender researcher who analyzed the running times of eight athletes before and after their transition. In this case, the brands slowed down and their relative performance compared to runners of the same sex remained quite stable. An IOC study. Published in 2024 and partially financed by the committee itself, produced results that do not fit with the discourse we keep hearing: transgender women showed worse results than cisgender women in lower body strength and lung function. But logically it does not mean that there cannot be residual advantages in certain sports, which is something that to this day remains a question that needs an answer. And now what? We are undoubtedly facing a dispute about which tools are valid to solve a genuinely complex problem. Right now, science suggests that the SRY gene test is not the best tool, but because it does not give us a complete answer, since the SRY gene may be present and the body may not respond to testosterone. But this is something that today must continue to be investigated to obtain evidence that can guarantee this equity, but always with a scientific basis behind it. Images | Umanoid Erik van Leeuwen In Xataka | We have accepted that sport is “medicine” for the body. Now science is discovering its side effects

What it is, what courses with official certification it offers and what free materials you can access

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Let’s tell you what it is and what it offers OpenAI Academya web portal for the creators of ChatGPT with many free resources to help you learn how to use the artificial intelligence. It has practical tools and resources for users of all profiles, so you can learn how to use AI effectively and responsibly. Just as Anthropic has a series of free courses for ClaudeOpenAI opts for a different format. They are not courses in themselves, but rather a content and community platform including videos, articles, guides and live events. Although if you are looking for courses, we will also tell you about the two created by OpenAI. What is OpenAI Academy OpenAI Academy is a digital platform created by OpenAI, the company that created ChatGPT and one of those leading the artificial intelligence revolution for consumers. In it they centralize training resourcesto improve AI knowledge. The intention of this platform is to try help all types of users with various types of profiles. In it you will find content from people without any knowledge who want to take their first steps in AI to other types of professionals who want help to optimize their work in a specific sector using AI. Therefore, it is used to learn but also to specialize with the use of AI in certain areas. They do all this with a combination of online events, workshops, and other digital content. The idea is to be able to go from the fundamentals of AI literacy to its advanced integration when you are a developer. The platform is completely freealthough it will require you to register to access some of its content. Unlike other platforms such as Anthropic’s training platform, it is not a place for courses, but instead combines online resources thematic communities and all kinds of training tools. What OpenAI Academy offers The OpenAI platform offers various types of content. First of all, you have online or in-person training eventswhich are talks scheduled for a specific day or time. These talks are given by specialist educators, and anyone who wants can sign up to attend. And then we have a contents section, where you will find videos, resources, blog posts and external content. These are all resources aimed at helping users learn and better understand how to use artificial intelligence in different areas. All of these contents are served for different types of people. You’ll be able to find things for basic users like educators, OT workers, government or non-profit organizations, small businesses, students, healthcare workers, administrators and more. You will also find publications designed to teach you or suggest you Custom GPTs, prompt packs, advanced features and more. In short, all the resources to master ChatGPT to the fullest, categorized by tags and their type of content. And finally, you will also find an open communities section aimed at different types of users. These communities are like specific forums where you will also find content aimed at them and you can interact with other users. The only drawback you are going to encounter is that all contents are only in English. Therefore, if you are a Spanish-speaking user who does not master this language, you will not be able to enjoy them too much. They plan to expand the academy to other languages, but at the moment there are no specific dates. Courses with official certification Lastly, OpenAI also has two own courses with official certification. The only problem is that the courses are not within this platform. Instead, one of them is taught by ChatGPT for some users and the other is on a third-party platform. AI Foundations: A certification course for workers in any sector or industry. Not yet available to all usersbut only for certain people, but when it is, it will be taught directly within ChatGPT with the chatbot itself acting as the teacher. ChatGPT Foundations for Teachers: Course aimed at primary and secondary education teachers, to teach them the fundamentals of ChatGPT and to be able to customize it and use it in their work. It’s on Courseraand will soon be integrated into ChatGPT for Teachers. In Xataka Basics | The best applications to have local artificial intelligence on your mobile or PC, without needing a connection and with greater privacy

Satellite images have revealed the location of Russia’s largest warship, and that means Ukraine can see it too

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During the Second World War there was a announcement to sailors of future conflicts: some of the largest ships ever built were destroyed without having barely entered combat, becoming symbols of how vulnerable even the most advanced weaponry can be. Decades later, with the advent of commercial satellites and precision weapons, that exposure is even greater. Few doubts from space. The latest images satellites show a reality that is difficult to ignore: Russia is about to complete his largest warship in the Black Sea. The superstructure is practically complete, the flight deck is now fully identifiable and the work is advancing towards its final phase with key elements almost ready. However, this same monitoring from space also reveals the another side of the projectsince the ship remains motionless in a shipyard located within the reach of the ukrainian attack systemsmaking each advancement a race against time where finishing it is only half the challenge. Global ambition. He Ivan Rogov represents much more than a new ship for the Russian fleet, since it is conceived as a projection platform of force capable of operating far from its coasts and sustaining complex operations. With the capacity to transport hundreds of marines, military vehicles and an air wing of attack and transport helicopters, the ship fits into the category of large amphibious ships used by Western powers. Its size, greater than 200 meters, would make it in the greatest asset of the Russian fleet in the Black Sea, which reinforces its not only military, but also symbolic value within Moscow’s strategy. Born from failure. The existence by Ivan Rogov is directly linked to an earlier strategic setback, when Russia attempted to acquire Mistral-class amphibious ships from France and the deal was canceled after the annexation of Crimea in 2014. From then on, Moscow was forced to develop your own designgiving rise to project 23900which combines its own technology with knowledge partially acquired during that failed contract. This context explains why the ship has a special weight within Russian military planning, since it symbolizes both the need for industrial autonomy and the ability to move forward despite sanctions and technological limitations. Protected, but not untouchable. The ship is being built in the Zaliv shipyardin Crimea, a facility that Russia has reinforced with multiple layers of protection to reduce the risk of attacks. Physical barriers, networks against naval drones and security measures have been deployed at the access to the dam, in addition to indirectly benefiting from the air defense that protects nearby strategic infrastructures such as the Kerch bridge. However, these measures do not guarantee invulnerability, since Ukraine has shown repeatedly its ability to attack targets in depth and degrade defensive systems, keeping the shipyard within a risk zone constant. Investment under threat. Russia has maintained the project despite economic difficulties, sanctions and pressure derived from the war, which implies a huge investment of around of 1,200 million of dollars and a sustained commitment of industrial resources. This effort reflects the strategic importance that Moscow attributes to the ship, but also increases the associated risk, since the loss of the Ivan Rogov would mean not only a military setback, but also a economic and reputational blow significant. In other words, the project has become a high-risk bet for Russia where success or failure will have an impact that goes beyond the ship itself. The real change. Beyond of the specific destination of the warship, what the case reveals is a deeper change in the nature of modern warfare, one where the military industry ceases to be a safe space in the rear and becomes on a direct target. In that sense, Ukraine does not need to confront an entire fleet to weaken Russia, but can instead focus at critical points such as shipyards, energy infrastructure or supply chains, affecting production capacity before systems even enter combat. In short, the displacement of the conflict towards the industrial base alters traditional rules and demonstrates that, in the current context, a weapon can be destroyed long before it has the opportunity to be used. Image | x In Xataka | With the arrival of good weather in Ukraine, Russia thought it was a good idea to bring out its hidden tanks. It wasn’t at all In Xataka | An exoskeleton worthy of ‘Alien’ or ‘Death Stranding’: the war in Ukraine is bringing the future sooner than expected

A user has been powering his house with 1,000 laptop batteries and solar panels for 10 years. Others are already trying to copy the idea

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Second Life Storage is one of those places that seems to belong to another era. In the era of Reddit and Discord, this is a forum, one dedicated to a single topic: batteries. One of its users is Glubux, and it has been sharing progress on a most curious DIY project for years: a house powered by more than 1,000 batteries. The key is that they are recycled laptop batteries. And he has created a school. Glubux Powerwall. On November 9, 2019, Glubux opened a forum entry in which he shared some photos and detailed his project: he had started collecting laptop batteries years ago, he had collected about 650 and was doing tests to check stability, performance and possibilities. Little by little he was sharing news such as the packs – cells – that he was creating with dozens of interconnected batteries with a great objective: to power the house with standard lithium batteries. These cells are not created by chance: after dissecting each laptop battery, it classifies the units by capacity and rebuilds them into stable modules. This is how it started in 2017 | Photo: Glubux The idea was to create a large system that would work together like a conventional battery, but using those recycled ‘batteries’. He tried it and ended up connecting several packs to the home power. Less than a month later, Glubux commented that it had even successfully connected a vacuum cleaner for a total of 1,200 W of power and that there were no symptoms of heating. It was time to move on. This is how it was in 2024 | Photo: Glubux The shed. But of course, if batteries have taught us anything, it is that handling them is complicated and dangerous if something goes wrong. No matter how much care we take, something so homemade is likely to fail at some point, which could start a major fire. Having something like this inside the house is crazy, so Glubux created a very small shed on his plot, but enough to house the growing collection of more than 1,000 batteries. Last year we already commented that the latest of their reports was that none had shown signs of deterioration (such as swelling) and, after eight years, they had not had to change any cells. Now, his house was running on solar panels that sent power to homemade recycled battery cells. Photo: Glubux Feeding… everything. After expanding the solar installation (24 panels with 440 W), the storage capacity increased to 56 kWh and the system, which operates at 24 volts to feed A 3 kVA converter can power the house with its lights and appliances without problem. But it is not the only thing, since it also charges both a Tesla and an electric Nissan. Creating school. Glubux hasn’t participated in his thread for a while, but that doesn’t mean he’s dead. Other users have been sharing their adventures when creating similar systems. Some were even more veteran and had more batteries, and the most interesting thing is that they have created a space in which advice is given about the cells, the capacity of each of the cells or how to join batteries so that the systems are stable. Other similar projects | Photo: Daniel88 Not so homemade. These projects are almost as exciting as finding yourself in 2026 a furo so rudimentary that it still has an active community, but it must be said that powering the house with a wall of conventional batteries is not so exotic. In fact, Panasonic recently said it was reaching the limit of its capacity to produce battery cells for data centers. These are cells very similar to those of the Glubux project although, obviously, initially created to power systems such as data center racks. They are still systems made up of packs made up of hundreds of ‘batteries’. And now I can only wonder if Glubux’s silence is because it is building its own data center next to the shed. Images | Glubux, Daniel88

Netflix has slowly raised prices and already costs more than much pay TV

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Netflix price rises again. For now, only in the United States, although movements like this tend to be the canary in the mine of increases: very possibly, we will soon experience a similar one in Europe. It is the second increase in less than two years for a platform with more than 325 million subscribers in the world, in a sector where escalating prices has become the norm. The new prices. The standard plan with ads, the cheapest, goes from $7.99 to $8.99 per month. The ad-free standard goes up two dollars, from 17.99 to 19.99. The premium (four simultaneous screens, 4K, no ads) scales from $24.99 to $26.99 per month. The cost of adding an extra member also increases: one dollar more in all cases, that is, it remains at $6.99 for the plan with ads and 9.99 for the variants without advertising. The average increase is around 11% and the new prices will be applied in the next billing cycle, after notifying subscribers by email. To understand the proportion of the accumulation, it is worth looking back. The standard plan without ads was $15.49 before January 2025 and $11.99 until October 2023. In less than three years, that same plan has gone from just over twelve dollars to twenty. 22,000 million profit. Netflix does not raise prices because it needs to. In 2025 it generated $45.2 billion in revenue and a gross profit of almost 22,000 million, with an operating margin of 29.5%, the highest in its history. Net profit for the year was 11,000 million, and free cash flow reached 9,500 million, compared to 6,900 million in 2024. For 2026, it projects an operating margin of 31.5%. Netflix is ​​not a struggling company looking to plug holes. The increase does not respond to financial pressure but to just the opposite: the company has detected that it can charge more because it knows that the majority of its subscribers are not going to leave. The analyst firm TD Cowen calls him pricing power (pricing power), which is the technical way of saying that the customer is trapped enough to take the hit. According to their estimates, the average revenue per subscriber in the US and Canada will grow 6% in 2026 due to this adjustment alone. Shared accounts no. Added to all this is the ban on account sharing, applied globally since May 2023. Far from causing the flight of subscribers that many anticipated, the measure worked: since then Netflix has added tens of millions of new subscribers. What seemed like a risk was actually a monetization lever. Each household that previously took advantage of a third-party account had to choose: pay or do without the service. And the majority paid. Ads go up. The rise in the cheapest tier (from $7.99 to $8.99) is perhaps the most revealing move. This plan has existed since 2022, designed as a safety net for those who could not or did not want to pay more. It has worked: it accumulates more than 190 million monthly active users and represents 55% of new registrations in markets with advertising enabled, according to Netflix itself. That is, it is the plan that captures the most price-sensitive users, but the truth is that there is no longer a comfortable position within the Netflix ecosystem that is protected from increases. Especially this plan: The platform’s advertising revenue exceeded $1.5 billion in 2025, multiplying by 2.5 compared to the previous year. The goal for 2026 is to double that figure to nearly 3 billion. In this context, charging an extra dollar to 190 million people means optimizing to the maximum a source of income that already works perfectly. And in Spain? The increase currently affects only the US. In Spain, current prices They are the result of the last revision applied in October 2025: 6.99 euros for the plan with ads, 13.99 for the standard without advertising and 19.99 for the premium. In January 2025, when Netflix went up in the US, Canada and Portugal, Spain was left out. But it will end up arriving: Netflix has been in Spain for eleven years and in each cycle of between twelve and eighteen months it has revised upwards some of its plans, usually with increases of one or two euros. As I said: everything according to plan. In Xataka | You’ve rewatched an episode of your favorite series and you feel like it’s missing scenes. You’re not paranoid: they are being removed

Google sets a date for “Q-Day”, when quantum computing will be able to break current cryptography sooner than expected

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The arrival of the quantum computing brings us closer to an exciting horizon. It is a paradigm shift because, if classical computing is based on bits of 0 and 1, quantum computing uses qubits that can be in both states at the same time. Translation: if classical computing does operations one at a time, quantum computing does many at the same time. This opens up an ocean of possibilities, and will also allow any current encryption system to be broken. in a matter of seconds. Google has been around for a decade getting readyand has set a date for his arrival. 2029. PQC. It stands for post-quantum cryptography. It is a set of encryption algorithms designed to resist attacks by quantum computers and allow data that must be encrypted such as keys and digital signatures to remain so in the long term. Those complex mathematical algorithms designed to resist quantum attacks are designed to be implemented on classical computers. That is, it is not the hardware that is updated, but rather the security. Quantum cryptography is another approach, but also more experimental. It is the one that will use the full potential of quantum computing to achieve theoretically unbreakable security. The one that interests us at the moment is post-quantum, and it makes perfect sense because classical and the quantum They will coexist, and what is needed is to update encryption systems so that companies continue to have classic computers, but with security that resists quantum attacks. Q-Day. Companies have been preparing for this for a long time and, as we say, Google is one of them. Carry from 2016 investing in that post-quantum cryptography, migrating some key exchange systems for internal traffic to the post-quantum standard. A while ago they claimed that key exchange within Google services is now resistant to quantum computing by default. Proton also is in it. So as not to leave it there as a pending task that is never finished, they finish to mark a self-imposed deadline to complete the transition. By 2029 they will have to complete this migration of their security to PQC systems. In fact, on their blog, they have announced that Android 17 will integrate an algorithm that will provide quantum-resistant signatures to protect the integrity of boot software. It is a way of saying “hey, we are already preparing,” but basically what there is is a commitment to that security for a time that is near. And it won’t just be the boot system: applications will be able to generate and verify post-quantum signatures within the devices’ secure hardware, and Google Play itself will also begin generating secure keys for applications that choose to participate in the program during the launch cycle of the new system. The industry prepares. Aside from the announcement, the company urged the rest of the technology industry and governments to step up to accelerate the adoption of these more resistant encryption systems. And, although Google has been saying “the wolf is coming” for several years, they are not the only ones. Microsoft wants to start migrating its systems by 2029, culminating in 2033. US federal agencies also want do it for the 2030-2035 window and the European Commission has urged member states to make critical infrastructure resilient by the end of 2030. With this movement, Google has set a date that seems ambitious and is a declaration of intentions. “It is our responsibility to set an example and share an ambitious schedule,” says Google. It is also evident that as a digital infrastructure provider, offering a post-quantum security system before anyone else gives you a competitive advantage because if someone doesn’t arrive on time, they could always buy your services. Companies like Telefónica are also working on it, but when we talk to them They did not give us an indicative date. What they did comment is that they are beginning to see that there are parts of the industry that are becoming interested in their post-quantum cryptography services. Don’t panic. that the arrival of quantum computing represents a headache for everything that is encrypted (blockchain and cryptocurrencies, banking data and transactions and even messaging apps) does not mean that we have to panic. A few months ago, Keith Martin, professor in the Information Security Group at the University of London, commented that, although the threat is realresearchers have been working for years and most of the theoretical work is done. When cryptographically relevant quantum computers appear, the protection technologies will already be ready and we will not have to worry about anything. In fact, at the user level… we can do little. We are not going to be the ones who have a quantum computer at home to be able to encrypt our information. Basically, as I said a few lines ago, it is Google saying “get ready because this is going to come and, as an industry, we have to prepare.” And they have already set a date. There’s not much left… Image | Xataka In Xataka | Putin compared the quantum race to the nuclear race of the Cold War. China has just taken a leap in that war of the future

The trailer for the ‘Harry Potter’ series innovates zero things with respect to the film. Just what millennials want

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HBO has just released the first trailer for its television adaptation of ‘harry potter‘, and the most widespread reaction is neither enthusiasm nor rejection: it is that of a certain déjà vu uncomfortable. The series premieres on Christmas 2026 and already raises the question that has been floating for two years without an answer: what does this contribute that the film saga that started in 2001 and that marked the generation does not have? millennial? The trailer. The first season of this series based on the saga of children’s wizards by JK Rowling, titled ‘Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone’ (that is, everything indicates that it will focus on the first volume), will premiere on Christmas 2026 with eight episodes. Earlier than expected, since the calendar pointed to early 2027. The trailer presents the new leading trio: Dominic McLaughlin as Harry, Arabella Stanton as Hermione and Alastair Stout as Ron, along with a gallery of strong secondary actors: John Lithgow as Dumbledore, Paapa Essiedu as Snape, Janet McTeer as McGonagall and Nick Frost as Hagrid. Everything the same. “I don’t know how to explain it, but this looks like the live-action version of a live-action movie,” he wrote. a Reddit user a few hours after the trailer was published, and there are those who consider that phrase a perfect summary of the most widespread reaction. Another noted: “I feel like I woke up in an alternate reality where the series looks and sounds the same, but the characters have other faces.” The same suits, the same reference planes, the same spaces, but different faces. They had already warned. It can’t be said that we didn’t know. In August, Chris Columbus (director of the first two films and largely responsible for the aesthetic representation of the books on screen) declared that, upon seeing photos from Hagrid’s filming, the character was wearing “the exact same costume we designed. Part of me thought, what’s the point of this? I thought everything was going to be different, but it’s more of the same.” The trailer gave shape to their fears with absolute precision. The amusement park variable. There is an economic variable that is rarely mentioned, but that is decisive. Since Universal opened the first Wizarding World of Harry Potter in Orlando in 2010, the parks’ annual attendance has doubled and revenue grew by 109% between 2010 and 2015until reaching 3,340 million dollars. Today the ecosystem extends to Japan, Hollywood, Beijing and, in the coming years, an ambitious resort in Bedford, United Kingdom. All that framework (castles, costumes, interactive elements, stores) visually replicate the movies, not the books. TO JK Rowling It is also good for you to maintain that consistency. The second largest source of income for the author It is her participation in the profits of the theme parks, which makes her an interested party in ensuring that the aesthetics of the franchise remain stable. Rowling, who is also listed as an executive producer on the series, stated that worked closely with the scriptwriters in adaptation. Everything under control. Not all bad. There have also been positive reactions: some fans they perceive details of the books that the movies left out: these encyclopedic fans have been waiting for decades for a version that does literal justice to Rowling’s original, and as Columbus recognizedbeing able to adapt each book in ten hours allows us to include many aspects that were left out in the movies. The trailer, of course, has to focus on what is recognizable, on what the millennials They expect to see, and hence the mirror effect has been sought. The series, when it premieres, will have to find the balance between surprise and predictability. In Xataka | A Harry Potter fan fiction was so successful that it changed the names of its protagonists. And thanks to this he earned 3 million dollars

the intrahistory of the pact that isolates Spain from the global energy panic

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The world holds its breath in the face of what many already consider the Third Gulf War. According to ReutersEuropean gas prices have skyrocketed by more than 70%, dragged down by the Iranian attacks that 17% have been rendered useless of Qatar’s liquefied natural gas (LNG) export capacity, and by the almost total closure of the Strait of Hormuz. The situation is so critical that the European Commission has urgently urged member countries to replenish their reserves – currently at a meager 28% – for next winter. However, in the midst of this geopolitical chaos, Spain breathes with unusual tranquility. A resounding calm. During the recent shareholders meeting of Naturgy, its executive president, Francisco Reynés, sent the following message: “Our customers are assured of supply.” Reynés guaranteed that the company feels “more protected” by not depending “absolutely anything on any Middle Eastern country.” Also backed by a strong historical commitment for renewable energiesSpain seems to have its homework done. But, just in case, the Government of Spain has decided to activate a “Plan B” to shield the country and keep energy prices at bay. This plan has a geographical name and surname: Algeria. A lifesaver that not only ensures volume, but also guarantees an energy bill with a strategic ‘discount’ compared to the exorbitant prices of the rest of Europe. A strategic partner. To consolidate this energy shield, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares, has met on his first official trip to Algiers not only with his counterpart, Ahmed Attaf, and the Minister of Hydrocarbons, Mohamed Arkab, but with the Algerian president himself, Abdelmayid Tebune. The primary objective of the meeting has been to strengthen the bilateral strategic partnership in energy matters in the face of fears of global shortages. but this trip certifies the definitive end of the deep diplomatic crisis unleashed in 2022, when Spain aligned itself with Morocco’s theses on Western Sahara. Despite that historic setback, Albares wanted to emphasize that “Algeria is a reliable, constant supplier, under any circumstances”, recalling that the flow of Algerian gas was never interrupted during the months of tension. How is this cheap shielding going to materialize? The negotiations are in an advanced phase to squeeze the most out of the Medgaz underwater gas pipeline. The intention is to increase the volume of supply up to 10%which would mean injecting around 1,000 million additional cubic meters per year. At the moment, according to data from Bloombergthe pipeline was operating at about 28 million cubic meters per day at the beginning of the year, compared to its nominal capacity of 32 million. This government movement walks hand in hand with corporate strategy. Naturgy seeks to give even greater stability to its historical relationship with Sonatrach, the Algerian state company, with which it maintains supply contracts for around 5,000 million cubic meters annually until 2030. The alliance is so close that Sonatrach owns 51% of Medgaz and 4.1% of Naturgy’s capital. It is precisely these long-term contracts that act as an “anti-inflation shield”, protecting Spanish consumers from the violent increases of the free market. Beyond gas. The recovered attunement is not limited to ensuring the most immediate fossil supply. According to Europa PressAlbares and his counterparts have agreed to explore greater cooperation at the infrastructure level, opening the door to “possible analyzes and joint work” between Spanish and Algerian companies throughout the hydrocarbon sector. Furthermore, the will of both governments is to go one step ahead and analyze another type of supply where there is “a shared interest and commitment”, putting on the table the development of solar energy and the promising green hydrogen. The Italy factor: copy or desperate competition? Spain’s movement is not an isolated event in the Mediterranean. Just one day before Albares’ arrival, the Italian Prime Minister, Giorgia Meloni, also landed in Algiers looking for exactly the same thing: gas. According to Financial TimesItaly is one of the European economies most exposed to this crisis, since 44% of its electricity is generated in gas plants. Its big problem is that Qatar, which supplied 33% of Italian LNG, has declared force majeure after the Iranian attacks on its Ras Laffan facilities. To patch this huge hole, Meloni has appealed to historical diplomacy recalling the “Mattei Plan”, the legendary founder of the Italian energy company ENI, which financed and supported Algerian independence in the 50s and 60s. Accompanied by the current CEO of ENI, Meloni has signed agreements with Sonatrach for the extraction of shale gas and offshore exploration, with the dream of turning Italy into the gas distribution “hub” for northern Europe, as pointed out Euronews. Does this pose a threat to Spanish supply? In the short term, it seems difficult. As detailed by the British media, the TransMed gas pipeline that connects Algeria with Italy is already operating at maximum capacity. Furthermore, Algerian domestic consumption has grown by 7% in the last year, limiting its physical margin to export additional gas. And there is another difference, while Spain has done its homework, Italy has stagnated. The installation of new renewable capacity in Italy fell 8.2% last year, leaving it at the mercy of the whims of a hydrocarbon market with skyrocketing prices. The Mediterranean as a refuge. Ultimately, the Third Gulf War has forced Spain to relocate its energy compass, moving it away from the turbulent waters of the Strait of Hormuz to dock in the safety of the Mediterranean. By strengthening its ties with Algeria and supported by the strength of key companies such as Naturgy, the country has managed to isolate itself from the panic that is currently devouring its European partners. Leaving complex geopolitical tensions aside, the triumph of this shielding is above all economic. While Europe looks in panic at next winter’s energy bill after suffering increases of 70%, Spain has managed to secure a stable supply, direct by tube and at protected prices. An Algerian “discount” that, today, is worth its weight in gold. Image | Photo by Helio Dilolwa on … Read more

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