Mobile Tech & Gadgets

Amazon was already using robots like crazy. Now you have a 42-inch humanoid robot that dances and picks up toys from the floor

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Amazon has been using robots in its logistics centers for years, but although these robots have demonstrated a brutal automation capacity for certain processes, they were “limited” to moving boxes and managing orders. Last week this technology giant took another step in this area: acquired the company Fauna Roboticsa New York startup developing a humanoid home robot called Sprout. Now the question is: what will Amazon do with it? Hello, Sprout.. The Fauna robot has a very different profile from the industrial robots that until now dominated Amazon’s logistics centers. It is not designed for factories, but for living rooms and kitchens. The startup describes it as a housework assistant. If the children don’t clean up the room, he will do it. Sprout is able to pick up toys from the floor, bring food from the pantry, and interact with children and pets. It works when you call it by name, it recognizes faces, it creates a memory over time and it has an interchangeable battery with an autonomy of about three hours. Its current price: $50,000, and its “heart” is NVIDIA’s Jetson Orin robotics platform. From Astro to Sprout. In September 2021, Amazon presented AStro, a home robot that I wanted to be more than just an Alexa on wheels. That model hardly caught on and in fact raised certain suspicions about the threat posed to privacy. The difference with Sprout is that this robot has limbs and instead of “rolling” it walks. It also has social interaction capabilities that Astro did not have. Alexa+, candidate to be part of Sprout. Amazon has been trying to boost its ecosystem with AI solutions for a long time, and its latest attempt is Alexa+an intelligent assistant whose deployment is being especially gradual. Months after its launch, it is still available on a limited basis in some company products such as your Echo speakers or your Echo Show smart displays. The question is whether this new assistant will be an integral part of Sprout. An increasingly lively race. The acquisition of Fauna makes Amazon the latest major protagonist in a race in which more and more large technology companies are involved. Tesla has Optimus, for example, while others like Figure AI or Boston Dynamics are aiming high. Apple, Meta and Google have expressed interest in this field, although none have presented specific projects and they are all rumors. A decade ago everyone wanted to have smart speakers. Now everyone wants to have humanoid robots, but there is a problem. China. Although Western companies are advancing, those that are clearly leading the way in this market are Chinese humanoid robots. The Asian giant manufactures 90% of the world’s humanoid robotsand the spectacular demonstrations that we have seen in recent months seem make clear that their progress is really promising. Unknowns. At the moment Amazon does not seem to be clear about the marketing of these robots. Fauna will maintain its name and apparently some independence. Its 50 employees will join Amazon, but Amazon will not use Sprout for its logistics operations and has not confirmed whether it will be sold to end users. It seems more of a bet on the technology of Fauna and his team, and a more defensive move. If humanoid robots end up taking off, Amazon has a good starting point here. Image | Wildlife Robotics In Xataka | We have been living with robots for years that beat us at chess. Now we have robots that beat us at tennis

The Hong Kong police may ask you for your mobile and computer passwords: refusing can cost you prison

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Traveling with your cell phone in your pocket and your laptop in your backpack is part of the routine of many travelers. In places like Hong Kong, however, that normality has just taken on a different nuance. Recently, refusing to comply with a police request to facilitate access to these devices in certain investigations is no longer just an uncomfortable decision, but can lead to criminal consequences. What could previously be interpreted as a privacy issue now falls squarely within the scope of the law. The change. The Hong Kong Government amended on March 23, 2026 the application rules linked to the national security lawintroducing new powers for security forces in this type of investigation. According to the Consulate General of the United States in the cityfrom then on refusing to provide passwords or decryption assistance may constitute a criminal offense. The obligation is not limited to delivering a code, but includes decryption methods and the assistance necessary to access the information contained on mobile phones, computers and other electronic devices in investigations related to national security. Scope of measurement. This is not an issue reserved for residents of US origin or especially exposed profiles. The change affects anyone in the city, including foreign citizens, as well as those arriving at or simply transiting through the international airport. At the same time, the information collected by Euronews specifies that the measure operates in investigations connected to the national security law and that it affects not only the owner of the device, but also anyone who controls it, is authorized to access it or knows the keys necessary to unlock it. Legal consequences. Refusal to collaborate does not remain an administrative clash, but can lead to specific criminal sanctions. Refusing to provide passwords or required assistance can lead to up to one year in prison and a fine of up to HK$100,000 (about €11,000). The scenario becomes even tougher if the person provides false or misleading information, since in that case the penalties can reach up to three years in prison and fines of up to 500,000 Hong Kong dollars (about 55,000 euros). Beyond the password. The scope of the reform is not limited to specific access to a device. Authorities now have greater ability to seize and retain mobile phones, computers or other personal equipment as evidence if they allege they are linked to national security crimes. Added to this is another relevant element collected by the aforementioned medium: the obligation to collaborate can be imposed even when there is a duty of confidentiality or other restrictions on the disclosure of information, as in the case of journalists, doctors or lawyers. Context. Hong Kong authorities maintain that these tools are necessary to prevent, suppress and punish activities that put national security at risk, and defend that the rules respect the Basic Law and human rights protections. Faced with that position, Reuters picks up criticism from jurist Urania Chiuresearcher and law professor in the United Kingdom, who considers it disproportionate to grant such broad powers to security forces without judicial authorization. That is where this reform stops being a simple procedural change and begins to reopen the debate on privacy, communications and freedoms. Images | Jiachen Lin | Nick Low In Xataka | A woman spent six months in prison because an AI made a mistake. The terrible thing is that no one checked it

fewer and fewer companies offer it

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When the pandemic forced millions of Spaniards to work from home, many thought that nothing would be the same again. Companies had shown that it was possible and employees had found that they would rather do it than lose hours of your life in traffic jams or by public transport to their offices. And yet, six years laternumbers tell a story completely different. The 16th edition of the report State of the labor market in Spain 2025 that InfoJobs and Esade have just presented makes it clear: teleworking has not only not grown in new job offers, but it has been declining for four years in a row. And in 2025, remote work has hit a low that few anticipated. A setback that is no longer punctual. The study indicates that, in 2021, when hiring for remote work was at its peak, 21% of the vacancies published on InfoJobs included some form of remote work. In 2025, that figure dropped to 11%, which represents 280,810 positions with this modality. Four consecutive years of decline already make this data a structural trend, not a temporary correction in business culture. The sharpest drop in this type of day It occurred between 2023 and 2024, with a decrease of four percentage points in a single year. In 2025, three more points were lost, leaving the data below even the teleworking offers that were published in 2020, in the midst of the health crisis. Mónica Pérez, director of communication and studies at InfoJobs, assures that “many companies that launched into these models and saw the B sides related to productivity, team building or cohesion, backed off somewhat.” What the official data say. It should be noted that the data provided by the Infojobs study refers to new job offers, not to positions that already existed and have been maintained during these years. When observing both phenomena we find opposite trends. As companies cut teleworking options in their new vacancies, the data from the Active Population Survey (EPA) highlight that the real number of employees who telework in Spain has continued to grow. The last ones consolidated data of 2024 indicate that 14.6% of employed people teleworked regularly or occasionally, the highest figure high since the pandemic. Of course, Spain is still very far from the European average. According to EurostatIn the European Union, 22.6% of employees carry out some form of teleworking (100% remote or hybrid workday), compared to the 15.4% assigned to Spain. Countries such as the Netherlands or Sweden exceed 46% teleworking, which gives an idea of ​​the existing gap and to what extent the in-person work model continues to be dominant in the Spanish labor market. Sectors that make a difference. The gap between sectors is also enormous, although the nature of each job makes it logical. IT and telecommunications is the most favorable field for remote work, with 68% of its vacancies including the teleworking option. This is followed by the legal sector with 59% and the finance and banking sector with 51% of vacancies with teleworking. At the opposite extreme are the sectors where presence is simply inevitable: logistics and warehouse, health, tourism and restaurants or retail sales. The study hardly sees any differences in the number of vacancies with teleworking with respect to the size of the companies, which indicates that it is a factor that depends more on the sector to which it belongs than on the number of workers that form it. Madrid and Barcelona, ​​​​in another league. The geographical distribution teleworking is not homogeneous either. Madrid reaches 40% of all vacancies with some remote modality published in 2025. Catalonia follows, with 19% of vacancies with teleworking, followed by Andalusia with 11% and the Valencian Community with 7%. There is a quite logical reason behind these data: Madrid and Barcelona concentrate most of the corporate headquarters, consulting firms, offices and technology companies in the country, the sectors with the greatest compatibility with remote work. This pattern coincides with what the INE already recorded after the pandemic, when teleworking skyrocketed especially in Madrid and Catalonia compared to the rest of the communities. In Xataka | Working from anywhere was the dream of teleworking: not notifying those location changes can get you fired Image | Unsplash (Rodeo Project Management Software)

Someone has passed ‘One Hundred Years of Solitude’ to an AI text detector. He said he is an AI

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Tools to detect text generated by AI They systematically fail when analyzing great literary works. The biblical Genesis, the US Constitution, ‘Harry Potter’ or ‘One Hundred Years of Solitude’ are identified by these detectors as creations of machines. The reason has a perverse logic: what algorithms interpret as AI writing is actually good writing. Robot Bible. The tools for detect AI generated text They have been accumulating absurd verdicts for months. You just have to submit ‘One Hundred Years of Solitude’ by Gabriel García Márquez to one of these systems and you will obtain that 100% of the novel has artificial origin. The biblical Genesis or the North American Constitution do not fare better: the ZeroGPT tool rates the first text with a 88.2% chance of being AI writing and the second, as written by AI at 96.21%. Experiments with ‘Harry Potter’ or the lyrics of ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ show similar results. The pattern is so consistent that it goes beyond the anecdote: these tools have an underlying problem. Good bad. The irony is that AI-generated text detectors were designed to identify writing done by machines. However, they end up pointing out exactly the opposite: texts that exhibit greater stylistic care, greater internal coherence, and greater mastery of narrative rhythm are considered unlikely to have been made by humans. That is, writing well, in technical terms, is similar to writing as a language model. How it works. To understand why this happens You also have to understand how these tools work. Most are based on two main indicators. The first is perplexity (perplexity): how predictable the choice of words in a text is. If each word follows the previous one in an expected way, perplexity is low. If the text jumps unpredictably between registers, vocabulary, and syntactic structures, perplexity is high. The second indicator is the burst (burstiness): the variation in the length of the sentences. Humans alternate long paragraphs with very short sentences, while language models tend to produce sentences of more uniform length. A well-constructed text (precise vocabulary, clear structure, uniform rhythm) has low perplexity by design. Like García Márquez, who chooses the exact words in his texts, with almost surgeon-like precision. The Genesis has an almost hypnotic narrative cadence, deliberate, without noise, like a song with balanced meter. “Writing well” is a very complex concept, but it can mean, among other things, being predictable in the most virtuous sense: that the reader understands the text effortlessly. And that, for a detector trained in distinguishing “what a language model would do”, sets off alarm bells. It’s the same. What complicates the problem is that generative AI models have been trained, precisely, with quality human writing. ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini produce fluent, coherent, low-perplexity texts because they learned from millions of human texts that also had those characteristics. Detecting writing done by an AI and differentiating it from good human writing is an almost impossible task for these algorithms. Another way to fail. These criteria can take multiple forms. For example: a study on the performance of seven popular detectors when analyzing newspaper essays. TOEFL (official English exam for non-English speakers) in front of essays by American high school students. The results: 61.22% of essays written by non-native students were marked as generated by AI. In 20% of the cases, the seven detectors agreed on the erroneous diagnosis. The native student texts passed without problems. The explanation is the same mechanics of perplexity: someone who writes in their second language uses a more limited vocabulary, simpler structures and fewer grammatical variations. It doesn’t write badly, but its tools are more limited, and AI detectors systematically penalize writers with less command of the language. The team that carried out the study recommended avoiding using these tools in evaluation contexts, especially when international students are involved. In Spain, an episode of this type took place: In 2024, the Australian Catholic University opened files to nearly 6,000 students using Turnitin, the most widespread screening platform in universities. Many of them had not used AI at any time. Force the machine. Edward Tian, ​​CEO of GPTZero (one of the reference detectors, with more than eight million users) openly acknowledged that many tools in the sector adjust their thresholds to intentionally generate more false positiveswith the aim of not passing through texts generated by AI even if that means wrongly pointing out a human text. Tian talks about how GPTZero fights to avoid this proliferation of false positives, but the adulteration of the results is there as a clear problem. The last case. The publisher Hachette has just canceled the publication in the United Kingdom and the United States of ‘Shy Girl‘, a novel that the Pangram tool has detected as 78% generated by AI. The author denies having used the tool. Whatever the truth in that specific case, the episode illustrates the factual power that these tools are acquiring: they can destroy publishing contracts and put humans under suspicion before there is any definitive proof on the subject. In Xataka | OpenAI has an AI-written text detector that works almost perfectly. And he doesn’t want to put it on the market.

It is not only secure, but also very easy to use and configure

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If you worry about security while browsing yourself from home, How could you not do the same if you have a company? Not only does your data or your Internet traffic come into play here, but you also have to add that of your employees and even the data of your clients. A very interesting security solution is offered by ExpressVPN with its newly released service ExpressVPN for Teamswhich part of 48.70 euros per month for five users, although it can be much cheaper depending on the modality we choose. Let’s talk about them. ExpressVPN for Teams (1 month/5 users) The price could vary. We earn commission from these links You don’t just protect yourself. You also protect your entire team We’ll talk a little more about the price a little further down, but first let’s talk about the service itself. ExpressVPN is one of the best vpn that is in the market, something that seeks to transfer to the world of SMEs. The idea of ExpressVPN for Teams It’s basically the same: give security to your company with a tool that is easy to install and use. In fact, it installs like any app in just a few minutes. One of its best virtues is that it uses AES-256 encryption and has a system to mask the IP. Thanks to this, both you and your employees will be able to browse the Internet, use internal tools, upload files to the company’s servers and share data with clients securely. Whether in the office or at home or even using public WiFi. It is also designed so that you can manage it yourself without needing expert help. All through a single panelthrough which you can give access (or remove it) to your employees or see who has a license. This way, you don’t have to go team by team to manage it, but you can do it from your own team in a few minutes. To all this we must add that ExpressVPN for Teams has the possibility of add a fixed IP solution. With one of these assigned to each worker, we will have an easier time configuring access or privileges for each one, all from the single panel that we mentioned above. Now, let’s talk about the price again. This tool does not have a fixed price, but it varies depending on the number of licenses we contract. What does that mean? That, as our company adds personnel, we can add licenses and the price for each one will be lower. If we want to bet on it and we want to obtain the best price in the long run, The best value will be given to us by your 24-month subscription. This, if we hire five user licenses, will cost us 3.05 euros per month per user (that is, a total of 366 euros). What if we need 15 licenses? Then the price drops to 2.85 euros per month per license. 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 | ExpressVPN In Xataka | Best VPNs: guide with the 17 best services to protect your online privacy In Xataka | Public Wi-Fi, these are the steps I take to protect myself when connecting to a public network

Danone wants to pay 1 billion for a powdered shake company. It’s his answer to Ozempic

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Danone has announced the acquisition of Smella British shake and powder company that competed with things like Soylent or Joylent in the “complete nutrition” sector, for about 1,000 million euros. It is an earthquake in the sector, but (above all) because of what it implies. The food industry is preparing for the earthquake caused by the new GLP-1 drugs and is doing so by gobbling up everything there is for functional nutrition. What is Huel? Founded in 2015 in the United Kingdom, it had a turnover of around 250 million pounds in 2025, sells in more than 100 countries and has among its investors to Idris Elba and Jonathan Ross. But none of that explains why a company like this is worth so much money. After all, Human Fuel sells nutritionally complete meals: powders, shakes, bars and instant meals. Although the idea is that these products cover 100% of daily needs, the same company recommends complementing it with conventional food. And why does Danone want that? That’s the big question. The purchase of Huel is part of the strategy Renew Danone which, since 2022, seeks to expand and diversify the company’s work. Danone already has Nutriciaits specialized medical nutrition division (Fortimeloncological supplements, pediatric formulas), which operates in the clinical and hospital setting. With Huel, you are building a functional and specialized nutrition ecosystem that covers all steps from the clinic either probiotics to mass consumption. The central issue is that the market does not stop growing. To grow and transform. It is estimated that meal replacements move between 16,000 and 21,000 million dollars each year. and heanalysts agree in which it will grow at a rate greater than 5%. But what makes this operation more than a corporate purchase is the context. GLP-1 drugs (Ozempic, Wegovy, Mounjaro) are radically transforming food purchasing habits. Users eat less, buy less ultra-processed foods, and when they eat, they look for maximum nutritional density in every bite. According to Circana, households with LPG-1 usersThey will represent 35% of food sales in the US by 2030. Nestlé has already launched a specific line (Vital Pursuit), Conagra Label your dishes “GLP-1 Friendly” and General Mills is reformulating its products so they have more protein and fiber. And why now? Basically because Danone has money. In 2024, they had a cash flow of more than 3,000 million euros. In 2025, Danone CEO made it clear that the company wanted to “go on the offensive with acquisitions. And I have done it. In the last few years they have bought three emerging companies in key sectors (and many others that, finally, has not been able to acquire). Danone isn’t buying a smoothie maker: it’s buying a position in the new food chain the GLP-1s are creating. One where food is not sold for pleasure or convenience, but for function. Image | In Xataka | Neither Soylent nor Joylent. May the future not take away the ritual, flavor and texture of eating.

is left out of the elections and reopens the debate on its verification

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Carrying your ID on your cell phone is no longer a hypothesis, it is a reality in Spain. The official application MyDNI allows you to identify yourself with legal validity on a day-to-day basis, replicating in digital format several of the uses of the physical document and relying on systems such as the QR code verification. On paper, the approach is clear: simplify identification without losing guarantees. But when this technology leaves the controlled field and enters more demanding contexts, questions arise. And that is precisely what just happened. The point of friction has not taken long to appear, and it has done so in one of the environments where any identification system is most stressed: elections. The Central Electoral Board has agreed suspend the use of MiDNI and MyDGT in electoral processes until “it is guaranteed that the control of the verification of the identity of voters by these systems is sufficiently secure.” The measure responds to a request from the Popular Party, which had warned of “doubts and social alarm” around how identity is verified in these applications, especially in the absence of additional mechanisms. A digital advance in the face of its first major trust test To understand where that point of friction appears, you have to look at how the system is designed. MiDNI allows you to display on the screen a version of the document with basic data such as name, photo and ID numberelements that the Central Electoral Board itself had considered valid to identify the voter. But it also offers an additional level through a QR code that gives access to the complete DNI and whose validity is temporary. This code acts as a real-time verification mechanism, since it connects with the National Police servers. In practice, however, it is not always used and there is no general system at the tables to check it. Until now, in fact, the Central Electoral Board itself had maintained a more flexible criterion. According to El Paíshad already rejected a similar request from the PP before the elections in Castilla y León. Interior also defended that this interpretation fit with the flexible criteria that the Board itself has been applying to facilitate voter identification, to the point of allowing voting with an expired DNI or without documentation if the members of the table know the voter personally. The change in criteria, therefore, does not come after incidents reported at the tables, but rather as a result of reopened doubts about how identity should be verified with these applications. The case does not mean the end of the digital DNI, but it does introduce an important nuance in its development. MiDNI continues to be part of the identification digitalization process in Spain and maintains its role in different face-to-face uses. At the same time, its landing in a context such as the electoral one has reopened the debate on how identity should be verified in especially sensitive environments. The suspension agreed to by the Central Electoral Board is proposed as a temporary measure until this aspect is resolved. Images | MiDNI Portal In Xataka | Carrying your ID on your cell phone is very easy. You just have to take advantage of your next visit to the police station

The Bernabéu was facing a financial disaster after the concert fiasco. So he has converted to tennis

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The Bernabéu will convert its retractable grass into clay courts for training at the Mutua Madrid Open 2026. The move is possible thanks to the engineering of the stadium renovation, which has invested more than 1.3 billion euros, and the gap in events left by Real Madrid’s calendar. It is also the latest expression of an ambition that has been colliding with neighbors and noise limits for years. What’s going to happen? From April 23 to 30, the Santiago Bernabéu will stop being a soccer field and become several clay courts. The best tennis players on the circuit (among others, Carlos Alcaraz, Jannik Sinner, Aryna Sabalenka and Iga Swiatek) will train at the Real Madrid stadium during the first week of competition of the Mutua Madrid Open 2026, which begins on April 20 at the Caja Mágica. The Bernabéu will be a minute’s drive from the players’ hotel. The information, advanced by The New York Timesmarks the arrival at the stadium of a sport that Florentino Pérez has been fooling around with for years. How to do it. All this is possible thanks to retractable pitch system installed during the remodeling of the stadium, completed at the end of 2023. The field is divided into six trays measuring 107 by 11.67 meters, each weighing approximately 1,500 tons, which are moved by 24 transport carts and stored in the hypogeum: a 30-meter-deep underground greenhouse equipped with growth lamps and air conditioning systems that keep the grass in optimal condition. The entire process takes approximately six hours. Once the grass is stored, the concrete base is free to install any other surface, such as clay for tennis. It is the same mechanism that allowed us to host the first NFL game in Spain last November. 1.1 billion does not pay for itself. The conversion into a multifunctional stadium is not Florentino’s whim, although he tries to sell us that it has always been a personal dream, as we explain below. The renovation of the Bernabéu has cost, after chaining up to three loans, around 1,100 million euros. Football is not enough. Real Madrid plays around twenty home games per season, which leaves the stadium empty more than three hundred days a year. The strategy is to fill those days with events that generate additional income, following the model already practiced by facilities such as SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles or Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in London. The club surpassed €1.2 billion in annual revenue in 2023-24 in part thanks to this diversification. AND as we counted at the timethe large Spanish stadiums are looking for new sources of income: Athletic is studying options with San Mamés, Betis is working on Villamarín, Barcelona has just invested 1,450 million in the Camp Nou. They all look for the same thing: that the business does not depend on those 19 or 20 game nights a year. Dreaming since 2019. In the general assembly of Real Madrid that yearthe club president explained that injuries had frustrated several attempts to organize an exhibition match between Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer at the Bernabéu. Pérez had been thinking about the idea for some time. Federer retired in 2022, Nadal in 2024, and the match never came. But the link with tennis remains intact: Nadal has declared on several occasions his desire to preside over the club one dayand Alcaraz, number one in the world, is a declared Madrid fan. The first team players frequently appear in the boxes of the Caja Mágica during the tournament. That the Bernabéu now hosts the training of the circuit’s great figures is, at least, the modest and executable version of that effort by Florentino Pérez that was never fulfilled. Previous setbacksand how to solve them. The plan to turn the Bernabéu into an events machine has had a serious setback: the concerts. Since the inauguration of the stadium as a music venue in April 2024, the residents of Chamartín complaints about noise levels accumulated which sometimes exceeded 85 decibels, when the municipal ordinance establishes a maximum of 53. The City Council processed sanctions for a total of 2.6 million euros between April and December 2024. In September 2024, Real Madrid suspended the concerts scheduled until early 2025, and the complaint by the Association of People Injured by the Bernabéu is still ongoing. The situation ended up expelling artists like AitanaLola Índigo or Dellafuente from the stadium. On the other hand, tennis training does not generate this problem: a group of tennis players training in a stadium without 80,000 attendees in the surrounding streets is, acoustically, an activity of another category. For the club, it is also a way to demonstrate that diversification is possible without raising eyebrows. In Xataka | Shakira is not convinced by any stadium in Madrid to close her world tour. So he’s going to build his own

96 drones with a science fiction launch

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In recent years, the cost of many drones has dropped to the point that many military models are infinitely cheaper than the missile that tries to shoot them down. At the same time, advances in artificial intelligence have allowed relatively simple machines execute tasks that previously required entire human teams. In China they have taken an unprecedented step towards the war of the future. The next step. Yes, Beijing just taught in a video something that goes far beyond the individual drone: a coordinated swarm of up to 96 units which works like a single system intelligent at a devilish speed. This is not about launching devices, but about orchestrating a distributed air force where each drone has a role and all act as a single organism, marking a clear leap towards a dominated war by software, algorithms and autonomy. The demonstration also leaves a clear idea: the future will not be a more advanced drone, but rather many drones working together as if they were one. The “kill chain” converted into a single system. As can be seen, the Atlas system integrates a single sequence the entire combat process, from detection to attack, eliminating traditional intermediate steps along the way. In the test, the swarm identified a target among several similar ones, made decisions autonomously and executed a precise attack in mid-flight, displaying a chain of destruction continuous and automated. There is no doubt, this approach completely transforms war, because it is no longer a question of isolated platforms, but of complete systems capable of to perceive, decide and act without interruptions. Science fiction. The heart of the system is its deployability: we are talking about a vehicle that can launch drones at a rate of one every three secondsquickly generating a critical mass in the air. This technical detail is key, because it allows one to be built in a matter of minutes. dense and coordinated formationone capable of saturating defenses or executing complex attacks. It is, therefore, not just speed, it is the ability to turn a launch into a controlled avalanche of perfectly synchronized units. A swarm that thinks and reorganizes itself. As we said, each drone is equipped with algorithms that allow you to communicateshare information and adapt in real time, avoiding collisions and adjusting your position within the group. Besides, can be reassigned during the mission, changing functions as the combat evolves, which introduces unprecedented flexibility in conflicts. In other words, this kind of “collective brain” turns the swarm into something closer to a distributed intelligence than to a set of independent machines. Algorithmic control. They had something in the PLA that already we had seen beforethat one of the most profound changes has to do with the fact that a single operator can control the entire system, delegating complex tasks such as target recognition, mission assignment or route planning to artificial intelligence. This reduces human burden and accelerates decision times to levels that are difficult to match by traditional systems. War thus goes from depending on operators to depending on previously trained algorithms. Attack and defend in another way. Plus: the system allows combine different types of drones in the same mission, from reconnaissance to electronic warfare and attack, creating staggered waves capable of overcoming defenses or penetrating in depth. That is to say, for either side, progress blurs the line. between front and rear and forces us to completely rethink anti-aircraft defenses, which no longer face just one missile or drone, but dozens of them acting in a coordinated manner. A new and disturbing scenario where the real weapon is no longer the drone itself, but the system that connects them. Image | CCTV In Xataka | Ukraine is close to achieving a milestone that no one has achieved: building the largest drone industry without China’s help In Xataka | 200 drones in the hands of a single soldier: China is advancing very quickly in a type of war that seemed like science fiction

Saudi Arabia had billions to build the future in the desert. He has decided to sacrifice them to destroy Iran

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The cranes have stopped roaring in the Tabuk desert. There where it should rise a colossal artificial lake at 2,600 meters high and a science fiction metropolis valued in billionsToday the priority is to look at the sky looking for the trail of ballistic missiles and kamikaze drones. Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) had promised the world a glass and petrodollar utopia called NEOM, a monument to his own ego designed to whitewash the regime’s image. However, the harsh reality of the Middle East has ended up imposing itself on the renders in 3D. A crossroads in the gulf. We are looking at what is now, for all intents and purposes, a Third Gulf War, and Saudi Arabia has reached a historic crossroads. Caught in the war waged by the United States and Israel against Iran, the Saudi monarchy faces an existential dilemma: save its economy and its megalomaniac pharaonic project, or take advantage of the chaos to dismantle, once and for all, the regime in Tehran. And judging by the shadow movements of its leaders, Riyadh seems willing to let its economic utopia bleed if it means it can win this war. Facing the gallery. Behind closed doors, Saudi Arabia’s message is one of absolute containment. In recent communicationsthe Saudi government has insisted that it has “always supported a peaceful resolution” and that its only priority is defending its population and infrastructure from daily attacks. This is what an analysis by Dr. Turki Faisal Al-Rasheed has defined as “strategic patience”: a tactic in which Riyadh avoids direct confrontation to protect its investments, while subtly encouraging the weakening of its regional rival. The reality is more complex. However, the leaks tell a very different story. As revealed The New York TimesBased on sources informed by US officials, MBS has been privately pressuring US President Donald Trump not to stop the war. The crown prince sees the current US-Israeli military campaign as a “historic opportunity” to destroy Iran’s hardline government. The talks have reached the point where MBS would have advocated for ground operations and even the military takeover of Kharg Island, the Iranian oil heart. The diplomatic board is abuzz. Mohamed bin Salmán’s phone does not stop ringing, as he urgently needs to shield his vital infrastructure from attacks and, to do so, he relies on the Western umbrella. As detailed ReutersBritish Prime Minister Keir Starmer personally telephoned MBS to condemn the Iranian offensive and confirm the deployment of more British defensive military equipment. London’s goal is to protect the kingdom and try to ensure that the sea trade route does not completely collapse. But while MBS is piling up shields and secretly pressuring Trump not to relax the blow against Iran, other regional allies are desperately trying to put out the fire before it devastates the entire Gulf. As revealed by the agency AnadoluPakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif contacted the crown prince to underline the “urgent need” for a de-escalation. Islamabad’s move is not a toast to the sun: Pakistan has emerged as the great shadow mediator, to the point of offering to host direct talks between the United States and Iran based on a 15-point American peace plan. The sacrifice of Vision 2030. “It’s the last thing he wanted. He wants stability and order, he doesn’t want missiles or drones flying.” This is how forceful an expert seemed consulted by him Financial Times. The diplomatic “detente” that Saudi Arabia had signed with Iran in 2023 has been shattered. Iranian retaliatory attacks have hit the giant Ras Tanura refinery, the Shaybah field and the Prince Sultan air base. The cost of this war for MBS’s dreams is already incalculable. Formula 1 had to cancel its April races. In the entertainment sector, the CEO of Savvy Games Group recognized that the war escalation It will “cool the perception” of Saudi Arabia as a safe destination for investment of 38 billion in eSports. The biggest collateral victim: NEOM. The artificial lake project Trojenaawarded for $4.7 billion to an Italian construction company, is already facing leaks about delays of between three and four years. The 2029 Winter Games have been postponed indefinitely and the extra costs suffocate an already deficient budget. The war and instability in the Red Sea discourage foreign investment, vital for these science fiction cities to go from render to reality. The reality of the Saudi coffers is critical. As revealed The New York TimesEven before the conflict broke out, the crown prince was already facing serious financial challenges. The 2030 deadline is approaching and the government assumes budget deficit forecasts for the coming years, suffocated by excessive spending on megaprojects and vast investments in artificial intelligence that are straining the country’s resources to the limit. And a prolonged war threatens to blow everything up, since MBS’s success depends on a single factor that is currently non-existent: a safe environment for investors and tourists. Holding the pulse. To withstand the challenge, Saudi Arabia has had to resort to an engineering work born of fear in the 80s. With the Strait of Hormuz strangled by the Iranian threat, Riyadh has activated its logistical “antidote.” State oil company Aramco is pumping against the clock through the East-West Pipeline, a 1,200 kilometer pipeline that crosses the desert to the Red Sea port of Yanbu. The objective is to move up to 7 million barrels a day by land, avoiding Tehran’s missiles. The landscape in Yanbu is like something out of a movie: an “army” of at least 25 supertankers (VLCC) crowds on the coast to evacuate some 50 million barrels. However, there are no magic solutions. The port has a physical funnel (it can only load between 4 and 4.5 million barrels per day) and, in addition, ships must cross the Bab al-Mandab Strait, exposing themselves to the Houthi rebels. Added to this is that the pipeline only moves crude oil, leaving markets such as Europe without their vital supplies of refined products such as diesel, exacerbating the global energy … Read more

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