usatoday24, Author at usatoday24

Astronomers have no doubt that there is extraterrestrial life. Mathematics says that it will take 1,500 years to find it

May 25, 2026 by usatoday24

We have been sending signals to the cosmos for almost a century through high-power radio transmissions or even with military radars that exist around the entire planet. Little by little, humanity has been creating an electromagnetic “bubble” that expands at the speed of light, but unfortunately for some, we have not yet received a response to all these signals, and it is easy to fall into pessimism about the absence of other living beings beyond our atmosphere. The mathematics. The question here is not if we will connect with extraterrestrial intelligence, but when. And here the scientific community has great optimismsince the astronomical community is not based on UFO sightings, but on pure statistics. Here institutions like SETI They have been scanning the sky for decadesand although there is still no evidence of interference or signals of artificial origin, the conviction that we are not alone is stronger than ever. The bubble. To understand why scientists are so sure of this, you first have to look at the scale of the problem in our Milky Way, which is 100,000 light years across. This monstrous figure collides with our radio bubble that barely touches 100 light years, so on a galactic scale, we have not even crossed the street. This is where the famous Fermi paradox comes into play, which suggests that, if the universe is so vast and old, there should be someone around us, and that is why the question this researcher asked went down in history: where is everyone? The answer most supported by modern astrobiology is based on the “Mediocrity Principle”, an astronomical concept that maintains that there is nothing special about Earth and suggests that, if life arose here under certain physical and chemical conditions, it is statistically inevitable that it has arisen on a fraction of the billions of exoplanets that orbit habitable zones in our galaxy. Investigation continues. In 2016, an influential study from Cornell University put numbers to this paradox. To do this, the Drake equation was crossed with the expansion of our radio bubble with the aim of calculating how far our signal would have to travel to reach a sufficient number of stars to guarantee, by pure statistical probability, an answer. The result yielded a figure that has become a recurring reference in spatial dissemination: contact should not be expected before about 1,500 years. According to this mathematical model, for our signals to reach extraterrestrial ears requires that we cover at least half of the galaxy. Until then, it will seem like we are alone, even though the universe teems with life. Where do we look? While the 1,500-year clock continues to tick, scientists are not standing idly by, and that is why we have initiatives like SETI that they are not just looking to hear somethingbut to understand how we should listen to it. And for decades, the search for life has focused on very specific radio frequencies, highlighting the famous 1420 MHz hydrogen emission line, assuming that any advanced civilization would use that universal frequency to communicate. But… What if it’s not like that? New approaches aim to diversify the search towards broader technosignatures, since it is no longer just a matter of searching for an intentional “hello” in the form of a radio wave, but rather detecting electromagnetic pollution from other civilizations, the use of optical lasers for interplanetary communication, or even searching for signals at low-frequency radio frequencies that until now had been ignored or discarded by terrestrial interference. Images | Graham Holtshausen In Xataka | If we want to find extraterrestrial life, we already know where in space we should look: the “terminator zone”

so you can get a Dreo Humidifier 713S

May 25, 2026 by usatoday24

A new Monday arrives and that means two things: the first, that there is one less day until the summer holidays. The second, that we launched a new exclusive giveaway for subscribers of Xataka Xtra. On this occasion, the prize is a Dreo Humidifier 713S valued at 109.99 euros, a device that, as its name indicates, is ideal for controlling the humidity at home. This giveaway is reserved for members of Xataka Xtra. If you are already part of the Community, you already know how it works and you can go to the next section without any problem. If you are not yet a member, you can join for only 30 euros per year and access a growing catalog of exclusive benefits and discounts, a private Discord server, our editors to answer questions in El Consultorio and, of course, this giveaway and all those to come. You have all the information here. How to enter the draw for a Dreo Humidifier 713S Participating in this giveaway is as simple as being part of Xataka Xtraaccess your member area and check the box outlined in red in the image below. When you have done so, you will not only participate in this draw, but in all future ones. You don’t have to do anything else. Make sure you check that box to automatically participate in the exclusive Xataka Xtra draws | Image: Xataka If you are already part of Xataka Xtra and have participated in previous draws, you don’t have to do anything. You will automatically participate in the draw, as you already did in the previous ones. These are the coordinates of this edition: Requirements: be a Xataka Xtra subscriber and resident in Spain (Peninsula, Balearic Islands, Canary Islands, Ceuta and Melilla) Start of the draw: Monday, May 25, May. End of the draw: Friday, June 5, at 9:00. Winner selection and resolution: Friday, June 5. How will the winner be chosen? From Xataka we will choose a random subscriber and two substitutes. If the winner does not respond within the period stipulated in the legal bases of each draw, the winner will go to the first substitute and, if this does not happen either, to the second. Winning a giveaway does not prevent you from winning in the following ones. You can find the legal bases at this link. Image | Dreo As for the award, the Dreo Humidifer 713S is a humidifier with six liters of capacity capable of emitting cold or hot water vapor. It is, of course, smart and can be controlled from your mobile phone, in addition to being compatible with Google Home and Alexa. Now that summer is approaching and we use air conditioning a lot, a humidifier can help us avoid problems such as throat irritation or dry nasal passages. Good luck to everyone! In Xataka | Subscribe now to Xataka Xtra

the largest ballistic attack of the entire war

May 25, 2026 by usatoday24

In 1983, during a soviet drill of nuclear attack, thousands of people spent hours sheltering in the depths of the kyiv metro while authorities rehearsed how to survive to a rain of missiles on the city. Four decades later, the same underground stations have once again been filled with families, improvised mattresses and air raid sirens in the middle of a new war over Europe. The night everyone feared. Over the past weekend, Russia launched the major ballistic attack of the entire war in an offensive that for hours turned the Ukrainian capital into a continuous succession of explosions, fires and anti-aircraft alarms. The magnitude of the bombing was not only in the number of drones and missiles used, but also in the type of weapons used: Moscow once again resorted to Oreshnik missilean intermediate-range ballistic system originally designed to carry nuclear warheads and whose mere presence has a strong psychological effect on the Ukrainian population and defenses. For months, kyiv had warned of the possibility of a combined attack designed specifically to overwhelm the Patriot batteries and hit the city with an intensity not seen since the end of 2024. The feeling in Ukraine was that Russia was preparing something differenta show of force intended both to destroy infrastructure and to convey the idea that it still retains the capacity to escalate despite recent setbacks on the front. Oreshnik and the return of nuclear fear. The appearance of the Oreshnik has partially changed the nature of the air war over Ukraine because it functions not only as a conventional weapon, but also as a political tool of strategic intimidation. The missile releases multiple warheads during flight that fall at high speed in trajectories difficult to intercept even for the American Patriot systems, one of the few shields capable of stopping Russian ballistic missiles. Although Oreshnik’s previous releases had caused damage relatively limited and it is believed that they used simulated charges, in Ukraine the problem is not only physical destruction but the normalization of a weapon associated with the Russian nuclear arsenal. The Ukrainian and Western authorities had been alerting of preparations for use and the population of kyiv responded by filling subway stations and underground shelters even before the first detonations began. Wear phase. The attack also exposed a problem that worries kyiv greatly: Ukraine depends almost entirely of Patriot missiles to stop ballistic projectiles and the reserves are increasingly limited after the enormous consumption of interceptors during the war between the United States and Iran. Russia appears to have detected this vulnerability and is using large combined drone salvoscruise missiles and ballistic missiles to force Ukraine to quickly expend extremely expensive and difficult to replace defenses. On this occasion, Moscow launched dozens of ballistic missiles and Ukraine only managed to intercept a relatively small part, a figure that reveals the extent to which the Russian strategy simply seeks to saturate the enemy defensive system through volume and simultaneity. The worrying thing for kyiv is that the math works in the Kremlin’s favor: manufacturing drones and missiles is much cheaper and faster than producing Patriot interceptors. The Russian response. The offensive came just hours after Ukraine will hit facilities Russian forces and attack a base of the Rubicon drone unit in Lugansk, one of the most important unmanned warfare formations of the Russian army. Moscow presented the bombing of kyiv as direct retaliation and Vladimir Putin publicly ordered the preparation of a response after denouncing Ukrainian attacks against supposed civilian targets. However, the strategic context goes far beyond simple revenge. Russia goes through an awkward moment on the front: its ground advances have slowed considerably, Ukraine has managed to attack energy infrastructures deep within Russian territory, and waves of Ukrainian drones have even forced reduce symbolic acts like the Victory Day parade in Moscow. I remembered the new york times that the massive attack on kyiv also seems to respond to the Kremlin’s need to regain psychological initiative and convey that it can still impose enormous costs on Ukraine despite the accumulated wear and tear. kyiv as an eternal laboratory of war. If you like, the Ukrainian capital has become an extreme example of how contemporary wars are evolving: entire cities operate permanently under aerial threat while the population learns to live with attacks capable of paralyzing civilian infrastructure for hours. He bombing damaged subway entrances used as shelter, destroyed buildings, burned markets and left symbolic scenes such as the melted arches of a McDonald’s among the still smoldering ruins. At the same time, the attack showed how the border between conventional warfare, psychological warfare and technological competition is increasingly diffuse. Ukraine is trying to compensate for its industrial inferiority by hitting Russian refineries, logistics centers and drone bases with long-range strikes, while Moscow responds by resorting to a mix of volume, aerial terror and weapons designed to send strategic messages as well as destroy targets. The precedent that worries the West. Finally, the Financial Times reported that there is a growing feeling in kyiv that Russia is using Ukraine as a scenario to test how Western defenses react to massive and prolonged attacks with advanced ballistic missiles. Zelensky insisted before and after the attack in which the repeated use of the Oreshnik and the continuity of this escalation create a global precedent for future conflicts, especially at a time when the United States and Europe observe with concern the arsenal expansion similar in countries like China, Iran or North Korea. From that perspective, what happened in kyiv would not only affect Ukraine: it also serves as a warning about how they could future wars develop between powers with great missile capabilities and limited anti-aircraft defenses. The most uncomfortable conclusion for the West is that Russia seems convinced that it has found a relatively effective formula for wearing down modern defensive systems through massive, repetitive attacks that are increasingly difficult to contain. Image | Russian Defense Ministry In Xataka | Russia has found something more important than … Read more

complete list with all models

May 25, 2026 by usatoday24

We bring you a list with Android mobile models compatible with AirDrop from Apple, so you can send files, links and everything you want from one to another wirelessly. For years, AirDrop was the technology for all Apple devices to communicate with each other and share files easily, although Android was not compatible. But this has now changedsince Google has broken down this wall and its Quick Share now allows you to share photos or documents with devices with AirDrop. And after this technological milestone, we now have the list of the first compatible mobile phones. Yes indeed, not all manufacturers have made a move yet embracing this compatibility, which means that some may be missing. Android phones compatible with AirDrop And here we go with the current list of mobile phones compatible with AirDrop. If your mobile appears on the list, you just have to activate the option Share with Apple devices in the section Quick Share of the settings Connections. Inside, click More connections and you will see the Quick Share option. Google phones compatible with AirDrop Google Pixel 10 Pro Fold Google Pixel 10 Pro XL Google Pixel 10 Pro Google Pixel 10 Google Pixel 10a Google Pixel 9 Pro Fold Google Pixel 9 Pro XL Google Pixel 9 Pro Google Pixel 9 Google Pixel 8a Samsung phones compatible with AirDrop Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra Samsung Galaxy S26+ Samsung Galaxy S26 Oppo phones compatible with AirDrop Oppo Find N6 Oppo Find X9 Ultra Oppo Find X9 Pro Oppo Find X9 Vivo mobile phones compatible with AirDrop Mobile phones that will soon be compatible with AirDrop The above are the mobile phones that are already compatible, but there are also several that are known to be “soon” compatible. They are the following: Samsung Galaxy S25 Series Samsung Galaxy S24 Series Samsung Galaxy Z Flip7 Samsung Galaxy Z Fold7 Samsung Galaxy Z Flip6 Samsung Galaxy Z Fold6 Samsung Galaxy Z TriFold Oppo Find X8 OnePlus 15 Honor Magic V6 Honor Magic8 Pro In Xataka Basics | How to send files from your Android to an iPhone using Quick Share with AirDrop

We have been searching for extraterrestrial life for decades. According to these astrobiologists, we have been doing it wrong all this time

May 25, 2026 by usatoday24

We are very used to hearing that someone has found possible signs of life in space. Then life is never found, but the trail seems to be there. All of these findings often end up being false positives, something astrobiologists are more than familiar with. However, According to a study just published in Nature Astronomy, They could be overlooking false negatives and that would be serious. Pass life long. What the authors of this study point out is that false negatives could be more common than we think. That is to say, many of the times when it is clearly concluded that there is no life in a place in space, it could be that it did exist, but it had been passed by without being detected. The causes. There could be three reasons why these false negatives occur. On the one hand, no traces of life are preserved. That is, it exists or has existed, but has not left a detectable trace. It could also be that this fingerprint is difficult to detect. Or, perhaps, that the methods used to detect it have limitations. Along these lines, the authors of the study give an example. Let’s imagine that there is a living being that, through its metabolic reactions, generates some gas that is understood as a trace of life. Maybe oxygen or methane. But let’s also imagine that there is a geological activity in that place that captures that gas from the environment. I wouldn’t have time to measure it. Therefore, the detection of life would have to be covered from other points. The risks. There are two main risks of not paying attention to false negatives. On the one hand, instruments that would help find even more traces of life would be deprioritized. If we do not find anything that justifies its development, we limit the possibilities of continuing searching. On the other hand, if life is not adequately searched for, resources from other planets where such life is found could be exploited. We would destroy it before we even knew it existed. Solutions. These scientists believe that searching for patterns using artificial intelligence could be an option. If the usual methods have not worked so far, perhaps we should ask an algorithm to detect patterns that have gone unnoticed to find new search paths. Along the same lines, it would also be necessary to study the terrain better and pay attention to anomalies. For example, if an unconventional type of oxidation is detected on a planet, inexplicable with what we know on Earth, it could be that it was associated with some form of life. It may not look like the oxidation carried out by terrestrial living beings, but who says it has to be the same? You have to think outside the box. Combine different types of work. In short, these scientists consider that to adequately search for life it is necessary to combine laboratory experiments with modeling and field work. But, above all, it is important to change the questions we ask ourselves. What if it has already been found? In 2019, a former NASA scientist told in an article for Scientific American that, according to himhis agency found life on Mars, but accidentally destroyed it. Supposedly, it all happened in the 1970s, in an experiment that was part of the Viking mission. This consisted of depositing nutrients in the soil and checking if gases typical of microbial decomposition were produced. Then, to ensure that it was not a coincidence, they would repeat the process, but adding a substance lethal to living organisms to the soil. In that case, gases should not be produced. And no, they were not produced, so there was something alive generating the gases. It was great news, but NASA did not publish that result, because when trying to replicate the experiment it came back negative. In science it is very important to replicate the results, so they concluded that it must have been a false positive. However, this former member of NASA, Gilbert V. Levin, believes that they destroyed life unintentionally and that is why they could not replicate it. This is no longer an anecdote. Most likely, they would not have found life. However, this story shows that we are always more predisposed to false positive than false negative. The focus would have to be changed a little. Maybe then we will finally find some life beyond our own planet. Images | Eric Erbe and Christopher Pooley (illustrative image of E.coliit has nothing to do with the study)/ Brett Ritchie (Unsplash) In Xataka | Life on Earth underwent a spectacular change 540 million years ago. We have a new explanation why

DeepSeek is good, pretty and very cheap. And above all, the weapon to create a Chinese hardware industry independent of Nvidia

May 25, 2026 by usatoday24

The arrival of DeepSeek-V4-Pro It hasn’t caused that much of a stir. like the one caused by DeepSeek R1 a year and a half ago, but we may be facing an even more important model. If that version revealed to the world that China was advancing spectacularly in this race, this other one is beginning to allow us to glimpse something else more interesting. What most people see is a very decent model and above all “low priced”. Which hide the company It’s another more important thing: achieve independence from Nvidia and US hardware. what has happened. Last Friday, those responsible for DeepSeek announced something surprising: their promotional offer with a 75% price cut to use their DeepSeek-V4-Pro model will be maintained permanently. That makes this model offer very decent features (but not exceptional) for a really low price: 1M entry tokens 1M tokens output DeepSeek-V4-Pro 0.435 0.87 GPT-5.5 5 30 Opus 4.7 5 25 Gemini 3.5 Flash 1.5 9 Good, pretty and very cheap. It is true that the performance of DeepSeek-V4-Pro is inferior to that of rival models from OpenAI, Anthropic or Google. Artificial Analysis tests indicate that the DeepSeek model is at a very good level, but it is also much cheaper than its competitors. This is especially relevant for agentic tasks that consume many tokens and that with this model become accessible and very affordable. According to Artificial Analysis, DeepSeek is close to the performance of the best models in the industry, and although it is slower in its responses, it is also much cheaper than the frontier models from OpenAI, Anthropic or Google. A different strategy. How is this company going to make money? It does not have subscription plans like its local competition (GLM, Kimi) or the western one (ChatGPT Plus, Claude Pro). It also does not have voice or image models. It does not have an AI agent for programming that competes with Claude Code. It publishes the open weights of its models and shares its technical innovations with the industry (and with its competitors). For those who closely follow the company and these decisions, the strategy is clear. DeepSeek’s goal is not to win the AI model race. Their goal is to build a Chinese AI hardware industry that doesn’t depend on Nvidia or TSMC… and get paid their share in that process. Hardware independence. China has a structural problem in this AI race: sanctions and vetoes imposed by the US make you unable to access the most advanced chips nor to ASML UVE photolithography. And since China cannot currently compete in terms of computing power, what its companies are doing is ensuring that their AI models need less computing power to achieve similar results. Efficient architectures. The Mixture of Experts (MoE) and Multi-head Latent Attention (MLA) architectures are two key weapons in this strategy. The first already existed but was adapted by DeepSeek for their model: with it only part of the total parameters of the model are activated to answer the query without losing precision. What MLA does is compress the attention information (the so-called KV Cache) with which the model maintains the context of a conversation, reducing it by 90%. Both techniques allow us to reduce the need to use high-speed HBM memories, something that is also striking in order to reveal DeepSeek’s probable strategy. The importance of KV Cache. As the GDP analyst explains in Xthat use of MLA allows that for one million tokens, DeepSeek-V4-Pro only needs 5.48 GB of HBM memory. Competitors like Zhipo AI, which develops GLM 5, need 60 GB for the same, while Alibaba’s Qwen 3 needs 89 GB. This advantage allows DeepSeek to offer much lower prices to obtain performances similar to those of its competition, but it also means that DeepSeek models can run on Chinese memory chips that cannot compete in speed with HBM modules. Goodbye HBM, hello NAND and SSD. These innovations open the door to the use of NAND memories and even SSD drives to process this data, and there YMTC enters the scenea Chinese Flash memory manufacturer that is slowly becoming a global giant. Also CXMTwhich manufactures DRAM memoriesbecomes an alternative here and the reason is equally interesting: DeepSeek introduced a memory search module in LLMs called Engram which is also intended to avoid excessive dependence on HBM memories. How to bypass the CUDA monopoly. Nvidia continues to have a fundamental element in CUDA to maintain its market dominance, but here DeepSeek too has proposed an alternative. Is called Tile Kernels and these are software cores created with TileLang (a variant of Python for this field) that allow governing advanced AI chips (GPUs). Huawei as an invisible ally. Those responsible for Huawei recently indicated that its new Ascend AI supernodes fully support DeepSeek v4 models. Precisely this provides another fundamental advantage to the company, which thus avoids (at least in part) total dependence on the use of Nvidia chips and prepares to further strengthen Huawei’s relevance in a market in which until recently Jensen Huang’s company was queen and mistress. Open models to attract the hardware industry. US companies continue to maintain their closed and proprietary models, but DeepSeek is one of the many Chinese startups that publish them with open weights. With this, what she and the others intend to do is not only attract AI developers and users, but also create a hardware ecosystem that adopts these architectures. DeepSeek invites its rivals to use techniques such as MoE or MLA precisely so that all these advances become a de facto standard and hardware manufacturers also adopt them and integrate them in an optimized way into their designs. A round of 10,000 million to advance. The company is also preparing a financing round in which they intend to raise 10,000 million dollars and with which they would achieve a valuation of between 45,000 and 50,000 million dollars. Still far from the mammoth valuations of OpenAI or Anthropic (already close to a billion dollars) but certainly … Read more

The iPhone 17 finally drops in price. New historical low for very few days

May 25, 2026 by usatoday24

Apple mobile phones are going through a very particular situation, and that is that in addition to the lack of stock that they have had since their launch eight months ago (especially the base model), the offers have been very brief with very unattractive discounts. However, MediaMarkt is celebrating its new Apple Days right now and it is precisely the iPhone 17 who stars in the campaign with a historic minimum price. If you were thinking of buying the mobile, now you can do it for 899 euros. Of course, the offer will end along with the campaign on May 28 at 9:00 a.m. The price could vary. We earn commission from these links The iPhone 17 at an all-time low price He iPhone 17whose official and recommended price is 959 euros, has received very few offers since its launch. The stock has also been very irregular, preventing, for example, buying it in some stores for a while. However, right now there is sufficient stock in the MediaMarkt online store, allowing it to be purchased at this new price in its five different colors. This mobile phone is the one that has benefited the most from the generational leap, since it is the one that has changed the most compared to the iPhone 16. We find a very good screen both for its quality and for its 6.3-inch format, but above all because it now has the 120Hz refresh rate that until its launch we only saw in the most expensive Apple phones. Another of the great news is that Apple has finally started manufacturing its mobile phones with a 256 GB minimum configuration internal storage, a larger number to store information locally. In addition, it is also worth mentioning that the iPhone 17 incorporates the A19 chip and that it has wireless charging through MagSafeone of the most useful technologies in Apple phones. ⚡ IN SUMMARY: iPhone 17 offer today ✅ THE BEST The arrival of 120 Hz: Until its launch, we only saw this refresh rate in the most expensive Apple models. Increasing base internal storage: Apple has finally abandoned the minimum configuration of 128 GB. ❌ THE WORST It gets too hot: something that happens especially during long gaming sessions or with intensive use. Its fast charging: It improves generation after generation, but it is not up to par with the competition, which has much cheaper mobile phones with greater fast charging. 💡 BUY IT IF… You are looking for the best quality-price ratio within Apple’s current generation, if you are coming from Android phones and want an iPhone with a 120 Hz refresh rate and you are also looking for a model that is compact. ⛔ DON’T BUY IT IF… The 256 GB of storage is not enough because you usually take a lot of photos (and in good quality) or if you are looking for a cheaper iPhone, like the iPhone 17e. You may also be interested Spigen Case for iPhone 17, Ultra Hybrid MagFit Compatible with MagSafe (Dura Clear Technology) – Light White The price could vary. We earn commission from these links Apple AirPods 4 Active Noise Cancellation, Wireless Headphones, Bluetooth, Adaptive Audio, Ambient Sound Mode, Custom Spatial Audio, USB-C Charging Case and Wireless Charging The price could vary. We earn commission from these links Some of the links in this article are affiliated and may provide a benefit to Xataka. In case of non-availability, offers may vary. Images | Antonio VallejoApple In Xataka | The best mobile phones, we have tested them and here are their analyzes In Xataka | Best truly wireless (TWS) earbuds with noise cancellation. Which one to buy and seven recommended models

Perovskite is the “holy grail” of solar energy, but its industrial manufacturing was hell. This new technique changes everything at once

May 25, 2026 by usatoday24

Solar energy has a clear favorite to lead the future: tandem solar cells. The idea is brilliant and simple on paper, since if you combine traditional silicon with a top layer of revolutionary perovskite, you create a “super panel.” Perovskite swallows high-energy, short-wave light, and silicon finishes the job with longer waves. So the result is capturing much more solar spectrum and generating more electricity than with traditional plates. The valley of industrial death. The problem is that the photovoltaic industry had been banging its head against a wall for years. Perovskite was a wonder in the “Petri dish” of the laboratory, but manufacturing those very thin layers on a large scale, uniformly and quickly, was a true technical nightmare. Technology ran the risk of remaining an eternal promise, until a bridge built between Karlsruhe and Valencia showed that the problem was not the material, but the method. The 10 minute record. A team of researchers from the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) in Germany and the University of Valencia, supported by institutions in France and Argentina, has just published a historic milestone in the magazine Nature Energy. They have designed an ultra-fast, solvent-free vacuum process that deposits the layer of perovskite at a pace never seen before. They have managed to manufacture tandem cells with a very high efficiency of 24.3% and the conversion process lasts just 10 minutes. To understand why this turns the industry upside down, you have to look at the factory numbers. As Professor Ulrich Paetzold (KIT) explainsIn the industry, not only efficiency matters, but also that the process is robust and scalable. This new method achieves a deposition rate of 47 nanometers per minute, that is, a speed ten times greater than that of conventional thermal evaporation methods. In addition, it consumes very little material and allows sources to be reused, drastically reducing costs. The “magic” of sublimation. The technique is called Closed Space Sublimation (CSS). We could say that it is like a microscopic oven: the precursor materials evaporate and collide directly against the silicon cell, which is placed just a few millimeters away. There they react on site to form the structure of the perovskite almost magically. Sofía Chozas-Barrientos, researcher at the University of Valencia, emphasizes that this system It allows you to do without solvents and save a lot of time. However, the recipe needed to be refined. For the tandem to work, the perovskite The upper part must act as a spectral filter (have a wider bandgap), and this is achieved by adding bromine. The drama was that, when trying to introduce bromine, it literally vanished during the process. The solution, according to researcher Alexander Dierckswas to create a mixed organic source by mixing methylammonium iodide and methylammonium bromide in an exact ratio of 3 to 1. Thus they managed to retain the bromine and nail an ideal band efficiency of 1.64 eV. Ready for the real world. The point is that good solar panels are not smooth; They are full of textures (with micropyramid shapes) to better catch the light. And this CSS process has worked perfectly on smooth, nanostructured and microstructured silicon, without having to touch a single button in the machine’s settings. Microscopes confirmed impeccable coverage in all topographies. As Professor Henk Bolink summarizesfrom the University of Valencia, a process that only works on smooth laboratory surfaces is of no use in industry. The fact that this sublimation achieves uniform layers on textured silicon is what makes this advancement real, viable and marketable. The future, on the roofs. Closing the gap between the laboratory and the factory is the great challenge of our energy era. With this Spanish-German milestone, the mass production of tandem solar technology finally removes the “unviable” label. The perovskite revolution no longer has to wait decades; is ready to make the leap to factories and, very soon, to rooftops around the world. Image | Eurekalert Xataka | Where you see an old bullet from the 17th century, Germany sees a magnificent source of perovskite for solar panels

a millionaire is looking for ideas because money has not given him happiness

May 25, 2026 by usatoday24

Some people think that the only thing you need to be happy is a checking account whose balance looks like a phone number. This is a fact confirmed by science. Others, on the other hand, cannot even use all the money in the world to achieve happiness. This is the case of Vinay Hiremath, a 34-year-old engineer of Indian origin living in the US who became a millionaire in a short time. but he doesn’t know what to do with his life to be happy. So he didn’t hesitate to make it public. from your personal page to see if anyone would give him ideas about what he could do with his life. “I know. It’s an absolutely otherworldly situation,” the millionaire wrote. Millionaire with all the time in the world Hiremath co-founded the startup Loom in 2015 alongside Shahed Khan and Joe Thomas. The company developed software that allowed screenshots and video capture in third-party applications. At its height, the pandemic meant that we all suddenly needed record meetings and taking screenshots of video calls, so the company’s valuation skyrocketed. In 2023, Atlassian purchased the company he had founded for $975 million, of which Hiremath would receive $60 million as a compensation salary package. for leaving the company. After formalizing the purchase, the young millionaire found himself with a fortune in your pocket and all the time in the world to spend it on things that made him happy. That was the first disappointment. “I have infinite freedom, but I don’t know what to do with it and, honestly, I’m not the most optimistic person about life,” Hiremath said on his blog. The first weeks were spent meeting with entrepreneurs and robotics experts in the hope of finding an exciting idea with which to get involved and help it grow as he had already done with his own company a few years ago. It was useless since none of the proposals inspired him. “I began to realize that what I really wanted was to look like Elon (Musk), and that is incredibly embarrassing. It hurts me to even write this,” the millionaire acknowledged. Since he didn’t know what to do with his money, thought that perhaps it would be a good idea to give a good part of his fortune to his parents so that they could retire earlier. He also tried to have fun traveling the worldand he did that accompanied by his girlfriend for six months. Unfortunately, that didn’t work either and, not only did it not make Hiremath’s life make sense, but he ended up breaking up with his girlfriend after “two years of unconditional love.” “We started arguing frequently and I knew it wasn’t her fault, it was mine.” It’s not what you have, it’s what you do After his romantic breakup, the millionaire understood that nothing he did would make him feel fulfilled if he did not first do an introspection exercise: he needed to “face himself completely.” Founding the company had made him feel fulfilled and, suddenly finding himself without a purposeleft him disoriented and without a vital goal to pursue. Hoping to find himself, he left Himalayan climbing without prior preparation and without any experience. On the verge of hypoxia lack of oxygendecided that his “inner self” was definitely not going to be in the peaks of the Himalayas, so he came to his senses and returned home, but not before climbing two of the peaks of that mountain range. “I completed the two summits I had planned and I realized again how important it is for me to do difficult things. It is the heart of my life and I don’t understand 100% why, but it probably has something to do with the fact that I didn’t have the best childhood,” said the millionaire in his writing. Upon returning home and telling his friends about the conclusions he had come to while hanging from a rappelling rope in the Himalayas, his friends joked that “I should work for Elon and Vivek at DOGE and help America get out of its current crisis and not pay its own debt. So I contacted some people and they accepted me.” For a month, the millionaire was talking to the army of candidates to be part of the new “extragovernmental” department“which created, with more pain than gloryElon Musk. “I learned about the power of urgency and having an undeniable mission. I didn’t read it somewhere, I experienced it.” However, the young millionaire also realized that That wasn’t going to be his battle.. “After four intense and intoxicating weeks, I canceled my plans to move to Washington and embark on a journey to save our government with some of the smartest people I have ever met. And I booked a one-way ticket to Hawaii,” Hiremath said. After a journey through the desert of the human condition, the engineer has “learned to accept that I am happy learning physics.” However, that was not going to be his destiny either. As a restless engineer, Hiremath has found a purpose. Recovering one of the thoughts that went viral from his blog, the young millionaire has managed to “lay the foundations of my basic principles and be able to start a company that manufactures things in the real world.” He has discovered a new passion developing sensors and automation for startup Specterwhich is responsible for implementing “physical intelligence” to control the security data in public and strategic facilities. In the end, happiness was in something as humble as a weld of tin in a silicon circuit. He who has more is not richerbut who needs it least. In Xataka | If the question is whether money brings happiness, a Harvard expert answers: it’s not having money, it’s what you do with it Image | Unsplash (Danka & Peter, Clark Tibbs) A version of this article was published in January 2025.

China is very clear that the future of education involves AI, so it is going to require its teachers to have knowledge

May 25, 2026 by usatoday24

China has one objective between its eyebrows: become the first world power. It is clearly an ambitious objective, but in the latest Five-Year Plan they detail the roadmap that must be followed to achieve that goal in the period 2026-2030. That of the five year plans is a very communist tradition which was not born in China, but in the Soviet Union, but which the Asian giant began to implement in 1953. It consists of setting guidelines to achieve certain objectives in all the main areas of the country. And one of those objectives is to be sovereign in artificial intelligence. This does not happen have models either chips to train those models: goes through an industrial renewal of all the legs of the system ranging from how it is designed, how it is applied, how it is powered and, above all, how AI is taught. And, to comply with it, China is clear that this is not just a matter for students: teachers must be on the hook. Teachers, learn AI to teach AI In April of this year, China’s Ministry of Education launchedwith the support of other government agencies, the “AI+ Education Action Plan” program. This is a national plan to integrate AI throughout the educational system with the aim of building “an AI literacy system for all levels of schooling and throughout life.” The Ministry exposes We are entering a new era in which teaching and learning must be reconfigured to ensure that all students acquire basic knowledge of AI. That is, it is clear that AI is important and that it is being used in classrooms around the world, but China is aiming for a profound update of the educational program. With this, they show that They consider AI a pillar of the future of education And, if students must obtain knowledge in AI and then be able to apply it in a world in which they will coexist with these systems, someone must transmit that knowledge to them. That will be the new job of the teaching staff. All primary and secondary school students in Beijing receive at least eight class hours of AI courses per academic year – Li Yi, director of the Beijing Education Commission This revision of the educational plan specifies that the program will incorporate AI exams into teacher qualification exams. In fact, this is not something that starts now. In 2025, the Ministry of Education published two guides about the use of AI and generative artificial intelligence to primary and secondary schools. That same year, the Administration organized specific training sessions in AI for directors of primary and secondary schools in which he emphasized the need to reinforce the digital and AI skills of teachers so that they can take advantage of their functions. In the end, everything is framed in that desire to have a world-class educational system by 2035 because this extends beyond primary and secondary school. That “AI literacy” order incorporate AI also in extracurricular services, as well as in vocational training and university, becoming in these cycles a general basic course with programs and degrees aligned with the industrial transformation driven by AI. “We teach children to use LLMs to solve problems and most importantly: think critically, question whether the AI’s answers are correct, and verify information from multiple sources” – Yao Xiaoying, principal of a primary school in Shenzhen And you may be wondering what teachers should apply to comply with this “AI literacy.” Here things are a bit fuzzy because speaks to promote the use of teaching systems throughout the educational process to automate tasks (such as tutoring, questions and answers and corrections), as well as analyze teaching practices so that their workload is reduced and they can spend more time training young people. For the adult population there is also a plan: carry out learning courses so that they adapt and are not left behind. Difficulties The truth is that there has been a debate about this situation for some time. Given the commotion caused by this, the Minister of Education came out lecture to prohibit students from using AI to complete their assignments. As we said before, AI should only be a supervised support tool. Because basically there is a question of class and resources, and there are already those who warn that AI can widen the social gap. While in large cities where parents may have more resources and educational level, families and the center can do a good job in training in AI so that children know how to use it and question the answers. However, in more rural areas where there may be less education, families have lower incomes, and parents must work longer hours, students run the risk of being “locked in” in some cubicles that have begun to bloom by several locations in which there is a tablet, it proposes tests and supervises the children’s responses, but does not teach or explain the subject. There are also those who point Almost as interesting as knowing the Government’s plans for teaching AI to both teachers and students is checking the speed at which all this goes from a political document to the reality of the classroom. In Xataka | China continues to draw up five-year plans in the old communist way. Objective: tech self-sufficiency

Log In

Sign In

Forgot password?

Your password reset link appears to be invalid or expired.

Log in

Privacy Policy

Add to Collection

No Collections