Mobile Tech & Gadgets

“It is unlikely that a five-year-old child today will ever need to work”

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The impact of AI on the labor market will be so important that some already predict that humanity will not be obliged to work in the immediate future. According to Vinod Khosla, co-founder of Sun Microsystems and one of the main investors in OpenAi, shared an important prediction about the future of human work with AI: “It is highly unlikely that a child who is five years old today will ever have to look for a job,” said the veteran investor. in an interview for Fortune. It is not the plot of a science fiction novel: it is the concrete prediction of one of the most influential investors in Silicon Valley. 80% of jobs, in the hands of AI. In one podcast interview Titans and Disruptors of Industry of Fortune. The veteran technology entrepreneur and Silicon investor predicted that, around 2030, artificial intelligence will be able to autonomously perform 80% of all jobs. He is not only talking about routine or manual jobs, Khosla includes doctors, radiologists, accountants, chip designers and salespeople on that list. Professions that until recently were considered safe havens from automation. “There will be an interim period where each professional will have four AI agents that they will train to improve themselves, and I think that initial model of AI implementation will consist of AI assistants who will work for someone who is either a senior accountant or a doctor, or a chip designer,” Khosla predicted. Work at zero cost. According to the OpenAI investor, this automation and the greater role in the labor market of the AI will lead to an economy of abundance of goods and services, carrying the price of labor to practically zero. The investor put a piece of information on the table that illustrates the magnitude of the change: “15 trillion dollars of US GDP currently comes from work. These are 15 trillion dollars that, in practice, will disappear.” However, Khosla does not present this devaluation as a disaster, but as an economic reconfiguration unprecedented in modern history that would lead to a increase in purchasing power. “With $10,000 you can buy much more than you can if you have $100,000,” stressed the OpenAi investor. ​A world without obligation to work. The most striking consequence of this scenario is that the new generations will not have to work out of economic necessity since, according to Khosla’s prediction, “line workers, commercial employees or accountants, all these services will be free and, in a competitive economy, that means lowering prices.” This economic change also changes the formation equation as we know it today thanks to AI. Khosla maintains that university degrees they will lose their usefulness as a key to access the labor market, except in very specialized fields. It is something in which the investor’s vision matches that of other millionaires from Silicon Valley. “You won’t even need an engineering degree unless your passion is learning,” he noted during his interview. If no one works, where will the money to live come from? This is an important debate that many believe they have the answer to: a universal income that covers the cost of those services for which you still have to pay. Relevant figures in the development of AI such as Sam Altman, Elon Musk or Bill Gates assure that the allocation of a universal income would cover these subsistence needs. However, none of them has clearly specified where the money that will finance this universal income will come from or who should pay it. Khosla also warns that this entire scenario depends on governments managing the transition well and designing appropriate public policies to prevent the promised abundance from being concentrated only in the hands of a few. What they do seem to be clear about Silicon Valley millionaires the thing is It won’t be your taxes. An easier transition for the youngest. You can’t miss what you’ve never had. Therefore, Khosla recognizes that this change it will not be the same for everyone. For older generations, who have built their lives around work as the central axis of identity and livelihood, the transition to this new model dominated by AI automation may be more difficult. On the other hand, for the youngest, the panorama It’s different from the beginning. They will grow up in a world where work will not be an obligation but a choiceand where their life horizons will not be defined by what the labor market demands of them. In Xataka | “They are much more daring”: Gen Z is overturning all labor consensus in its massive entry into work Image | Flickr (TechCrunch), Unsplash (Ludovic Toinel)

36 new models until 2030, more electrification and a commitment to new markets

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Renault will present all the details in an event that can be followed online in the morning, but it has already confirmed its new future plan, its name and its objectives. The company was complying with the schedule with Renaulutiona project that Luca de Meo devised upon his arrival with the clear objective of renewing the range, making it more attractive and presenting new electric cars that could attract the public for more than just their own technology. With the departure of Luca de Meo, François Provost, CEO of Renault Group, wanted to mark his line for the future and today presents futuREAdy, the company’s new strategic plan. Bigger, much bigger Growth. The new strategic plan of the Renault group is based on that word. In a press release sent by the company, they define futuREAdy as a project that is based on four pillars: Growth-ready: 36 new models by 2030. Tech-ready: Accelerate “all key technologies” (Renault has been defending a multi-energy future and not just electric) Excellence-ready: improve the competitiveness of the company by seeking better results and operational performance. Trust-ready: commitment to the distribution network and worker maintenance plan The plan proposal is ambitious. Renault talks about wanting to become “the leading European car manufacturer on a global scale”, based on the four areas above. Growth-ready The first point that Renault wanted to insist on is its product offensive for the coming years. Taking advantage of the three brands of their group, they want to put 22 new models on the market in Europe, of which 16 will be completely electric. In addition, they want to expand the bet with another 14 models on an international scale. It must be taken into account that the company has already announced models with a clear premium focus to compete outside Europe, in markets such as South Korea and the Middle East or Mexico. To do this, they foresee a roadmap that is based on its three brands: Renault: they aspire to launch 12 new products in Europe, maintaining hybrid options beyond 2030 but with a 100% electric offer with a new platform. Another 14 cars will be launched outside Europe with the aim that by 2030 the brand will sell more than two million cars (half outside Europe) of which 100% will be electrified on our continent to a greater or lesser extent and 50% of sales outside Europe. Dacia: the commitment to “the most competitive product combining price, cost and value for the customer” is maintained. Its electrification is accelerating, with two-thirds of the proposal electrified by 2030. Efforts will continue to be made for the C segment and for 4×4 and gas-powered vehicles. 25% of its cars will be electric from 2030. Alpine: A new generation of the A110 based on the Alpine Performance Platform (APP) will be launched. They aspire to attract new customers with the Alpine A290 and A390 but they will also keep the Alpine A100 R Ultime alive, which they will take advantage of to put limited series on the market with greater exclusivity and customization. They also point out that the objective is to improve the customer experience by making greater efforts throughout the entire product life cycle, from purchase, financing and after-sales service. The goal: a loyalty rate of 80% in 2030. Tech-Ready Renault has been one of the companies that has insisted the most on keeping hybrid technologies alivecombustion engines and the commitment to parallel alternatives such as hydrogen or LPG, beyond the mandatory European electrification. In this sense, its partnership with Geely and the Horse co-brand They are being key to the development of new engines and hybrid schemes. Among the objectives, they point out a new generation of electric vehicles in the C segment as a clear priority. The company has based its strategy until now on smaller vehicles, with the launch of the new Renault Twingo, Renault 5 and Renault 4. Now, the objective is to make the leap to a higher level and they will do it with the new RGEV Medium 2.0 electric platform. This platform will arrive with 800 volt architecture and “fast charging of up to 10 minutes by 2030”, although they do not clarify charging powers. They hope that it can cover cars from the B+ segment to the D segment and saloon, SUV and minivan bodies. They will use a “cell-to-body” design in which the battery cells themselves are attached to the chassis. This allows greater autonomy and the use of fewer parts. They believe that they will be able to put options on the market with 750 kilometers of electric autonomy according to the WLTP cycle and up to 1,400 kilometers in extended range versions with emissions less than 25 gr/km of CO2, what will be key from 2030. These cars capable of charging “in 10 minutes” will do so with chemical batteries with higher energy density. On the contrary, the most affordable versions will opt for 400-volt architectures, with 20-minute charges in 2030, designed for the AB segment. The electric motors will use a wound rotor without rare earths that aim to improve consumption by 20%, one of the points with which Renault has suffered the most in the first electric cars that it has launched on the market. These developments will be made in Europe and for Europe. This platform will take advantage of Google technology to be the digital heart of the vehicle. Renault assures that they will have the first carOS, “the operating system for vehicles, co-developed with Google’s partner, based on Android.” This development will not only remain in the infotainment system, it will also reach the ADAS and chassis modes to improve automated driving functions. This entire electric strategy will be supported by hybrid technology, with versions of less than 150 HP starting in 2030 focused on a non-European audience. Excellence-Ready The other great leap that Renault aspires to is the improvement of its production systems to achieve better operational results. Renault talks about … Read more

investors are panicking about AI

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Last February 23 was a disastrous day for some software giants. Companies like CrowdStrike, Expedia, AppLovin, Adobe or Datadog were prominent names on the list of S&P 500. Something they have in common is that they are software companies at a time when AI has eaten the technological news. They contrast with hardware companies, which are going like a rocket in full RAM memory crisis. And it all has to do with two things. Stock market volatility and panic that AI eats software. In short. These last few weeks, OpenAI and Anthropic have been very active. Apart from being in center of war to see what AI will be the one that powers the systems of the United States Department of Defense –that of OpenAI behind him Pentagon’s monumental mess with Anthropic-, they have presented models. And when these companies make a move, the software companies are shaking. Not so much because AI is going to eat up their market, since they are companies that are integrating their models or those of third parties into their systems, but because they are companies that have something in common: they are public and investors are extremely volatile. The WSJ pointed: February 23 was a disastrous date for software on the stock market. Panic. The situation has been normalizing since that day and many are recovering the price they had before rushing, but there is still something in the atmosphere. Investors believe, or can see, that those AI tools can cannibalize entire software suites of all kinds. What a human used to donow an AI can do it. And with agents knocking on the door, these investors no longer know how the companies in which they have money invested can respond. Therefore, those mentioned and others such as IBM or Blue Owl have become psychological victims in a scenario in which there are three specific fears: Companies that live on classic licenses and subscriptions must decide how much AI they put in to be in the conversation, but without destroying their business. Fear that agents can replicate actions at low cost, narrowing the sources of profit for investors. Fear of an AI cannibalizing a software suite. If OpenAI releases something tomorrow that ‘loads’ legal software, the company that makes that software will suffer the consequences, for example. Counterpanic. As always with the stock market, the aforementioned volatility comes into play and investors who bet their money do not have to know anything about the subject. They simply see bells and start to tremble. In the world of video games, a lot also happens with investors who do not know about the world, and we saw this precisely with Google’s AI that “”creates”” (and I’m missing quotes) video games. When Google introduced Genie 3the actions of a good part of the industry they fell plummeting. But, despite the falls, there are those who think that it won’t be that bad and that the market is exaggerating. The position of analysts at the Goldman Sachs firm is curious. On the one hand, they have been one of the catalysts for this fear of AI in the software segment, pointing out that there is an “existential” risk and certain jobs that can be carried by agents instead of by humans. However, the company’s own CEO has already pointed that things are being exaggerated and that these companies have plenty of capacity to pivot and adapt. Come on, as we pointed out, the movements of many investors are the result more of emotions than of realities. But of course, that implies something else: as point the firm, short positions have skyrocketed and long positions are falling, which indicates that fear of what will happen in the future is something that is the protagonist of the stock market conversation. Hardware holds up better. On the other side of the coin we see hardware companies. If there is fear of an AI that replaces software packages, those who have the power to create the components that are used to train and operate that AI see green numbers. TSMC either NVIDIA as a chip supplier. Samsung, SK Hynix, Micron or Phison as suppliers of memory and controllers. EITHER Western Digital and Seagate as storage providers. They are the same companies that are causing an unprecedented component crisis because they have allocated all of their production to the hardware that powers the data centers to train these AIs. How different the dynamics of hardware ones are compared to software ones. The agentic future. And you don’t have to go far from NVIDIA to sow more panic among investors. ITS CEO, Jensen Huang, commented recently that AI agents will reshape software companies. According to him, these companies will change the well-established models of subscriptions for absolutely everything with other models based on ‘rental’ of AI agents and specialized tokens. Huang isn’t saying those companies will suffer, but rather that they will have to rethink things if they want to become a much larger market than they currently are. Basically, he noted that “there will be no software that is not an agent” because companies will not be able to have software that is “dumb.” He is not the first to point out that direction and, although as we said, software companies have that necessary resilience, another thing is how the market responds and some investors who may choose to bet on something more “earthly”: infrastructure such as data centers. Images | Bear Bull Traders, Chad Davis In Xataka | Big Tech doesn’t stop firing its engineers. At the same time, they have stepped on the accelerator in hiring

Netherlands warns of Russian cyberattacks against Signal and WhatsApp around the world: they don’t need malware

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When we think about applications like Signal or WhatsApp we usually immediately associate them with the idea of ​​privacy. Both have been built on a very clear promise: end to end encryption prevents third parties, including the companies themselves, from reading users’ messages. This security model has made millions of people trust these platforms for personal, professional and even sensitive conversations. However, that protection does not mean that accounts are completely safe. The intelligence services of the Netherlands have warned now of a global campaign that seeks to compromise accounts of these unused applications malware nor exploit technical flaws. The objectives. The military intelligence service (MIVD) and the general intelligence and security service (AIVD) indicate that the attacks seek to access accounts belonging to dignitaries, public officials and military personnel. Authorities also acknowledge that Dutch Government employees have been both targets and victims of these attempts. In addition, the report indicates that other profiles that may be of interest to the Russian Government, such as journalists, could also be among the recipients of this type of attack. Social engineering instead of spyware. Unlike other episodes of digital espionage that have affected messaging services in the past, the campaign described by the Dutch services does not rely on malware or the exploitation of technical flaws. The report explains that attackers mainly resort to phishing and social engineering techniques to gain access to accounts. This difference is relevant when compared to tools such as Pegasusthe famous spyware capable of infiltrating mobile phones. In this case, the goal is not to compromise the phone system, but rather to take advantage of the user’s behavior to take control of their account or link a foreign device. “Account take-over”. One of the methods is direct takeover of the account. The attackers, they explain in the report, pose as the official support team of the application and send messages to the victim alerting them of alleged suspicious activities, possible data leaks or attempts to access their account. From there they request that the user complete a verification process and share the code they receive by SMS, as well as the PIN configured in the application. If the victim provides this data, the malicious actor can take control of the account and reassociate it with a number under their control. The trick of QR and linked devices. The report also describes a second access route that does not necessarily imply that the victim loses immediate control of their account. In this case, attackers use social engineering techniques to convince the user to scan a QR code or click on a seemingly legitimate link, for example under the guise of joining a chat group. That QR or link may be designed to link the attacker’s device to the victim’s account using the apps’ linked device features. Once connected, the attacker can access the conversations and, depending on the platform and access mode, see messages in progress or even part of the history, in addition to being able to send messages on behalf of the user. What the intelligence services recommend. The report also includes several practical recommendations to reduce the risk of these types of attacks. Authorities warn that you should never share verification codes or your account PIN through messages, even if the request appears to come from the app’s support service. They also recommend distrusting links or QR codes sent by unknown contacts and always verify these requests through another channel before interacting with them. Another important measure is to periodically review the list of devices linked to the account and remove any devices that are not recognized. The document also adds other useful measures, such as activating the registration block in Signal and notifying contacts by another means if there is a suspicion that the account has been compromised. Images | BoliviaIntelligent | Also AY In Xataka | That they can hack a mobile phone just by entering a website is scary. If that mobile phone is also an iPhone, it’s terrifying

Microsoft wants Copilot to do more complex tasks. To achieve this, it has turned to Anthropic AI

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For a long time, when we talked about artificial intelligence at Microsoft, there was one name that came up again and again: OpenAI. The relationship between both companies was decisive for the takeoff of ChatGPT and also for the launch of Copilot. But the AI ​​board is moving quickly. New models, new players and increasingly intense competition are pushing large technology companies to diversify their bets. In that context, Microsoft’s latest move is understood. The advertisement. Microsoft has decided to integrate Anthropic technology within Copilot, the assistant that is already part of tools such as Outlook, Teams or Excel within Microsoft 365. Among the new features is coworka tool based on Anthropic technology aimed at facilitating tasks within the work environment. But that’s not all: Claude’s models will also be available within the Copilot chatbot alongside the more advanced OpenAI models, thus expanding the capabilities of the assistant without depending on a single artificial intelligence provider. From asking for something to delegating work. Microsoft explains that Cowork is designed to go a step beyond the classic model of an assistant who answers questions or writes texts. The idea is that Copilot can take care of entire tasks within Microsoft 365. When the user makes a request, the system converts it into a work plan that runs in the background. To do this, it uses data from Outlook, Teams or Excel. From there, in theory, you propose actions, ask for clarification if needed, and allow the user to review or approve each step before the changes are applied. Some examples. Let’s imagine, for example, that we ask Copilot to review our agenda in Outlook. The system could analyze the calendar, detect conflicts between meetings and identify lower priority meetings. From there I would propose different adjustments, such as rescheduling some appointments or reserving blocks of time to focus on more important tasks. Once those suggestions are reviewed and approved, the system itself could apply the changes automatically, accepting, rejecting or rescheduling meetings and reserving blocks of time to focus on other tasks. The strategy. As we noted above, the move also reflects how Microsoft’s AI strategy is changing. The company has maintained a very close relationship with OpenAI for years and continues to be one of its largest shareholders, with a stake close to 27% after investments of around $13 billion since 2019. However, the rise of new models and the rapid evolution of the sector are pushing large technology companies to not depend on a single technology. Incorporating Anthropic tools within Copilot points precisely in that direction: building an ecosystem capable of relying on different models depending on the task. Platforms before models. What we are seeing with decisions like this is that the race for AI is not limited to developing increasingly advanced models. It’s also about deciding where those capabilities are going to live. In the case of Microsoft, the answer seems quite broad: The company has been integrating Copilot into more and more products and services in its ecosystem (and also external ones). For some users, this constant presence can be very useful; For others it can be somewhat invasive. But beyond these perceptions, the movement clearly shows Microsoft’s strategy. On the whole. So this is not just about adding another technology within Copilot, but rather reinforcing the idea that Microsoft wants to turn this assistant into a meeting point for different AI capabilities within its software. Incorporating Anthropic models alongside those of OpenAI points precisely to that scenario. Rather than relying on a single technology, the company appears to be laying the groundwork for a Copilot capable of combining different solutions as the AI ​​market continues to evolve. Images | Microsoft In Xataka | The best and worst of the Internet we know has been built on anonymity. AI brings bad news

If you want to buy a mansion at a bargain price, it’s easier than ever. The only thing is that you will have to move to Dubai

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Dubai and Abu Dhabi have positioned themselves as the favorite destination of the richest people on the planet thanks to very lax taxation and great possibilities to obtain profitability with a rising real estate market. Luxury apartments on the artificial island of Palm Jumeirah, penthouses with views of the Burj Khalifa or luxury mansions on the seafront They were sold in hours to newly arrived millionaires. The Iranian missile attacks on airports, ports and residential areas of the United Arab Emirates have suddenly shattered the image of a safe haven that the region had built for decades. The real estate market, which seemed bulletproof, faces your first challenge: not to sink in the face of the uncertainty of war. ​The boom that no one wanted to stop. The real estate boom in the Emirates is supported mainly by the investments that foreign millionaires have made in the country to obtain your residency. The UAE offered zero income taxes, long-term visas for investors, and political stability that few countries in the area could boast. By 2025, nearly 90% of the UAE’s more than 11 million residents were expatriates, according to data collected by Reuters. The result was an off-plan apartment sales machinery that worked at full capacity. According to the report ‘Dubai Residential Real Estate FY 2025‘ the consulting firm Betterhomes, 65% of real estate transactions in Dubai in 2025 corresponded to off-plan homes that did not yet exist. Promoters launched projects and sold them out in hours. In Abu Dhabi, real estate prices rose by around 32% in 2025 alone from the previous year, according to the report ‘UAE Real Estate Market Review Q4 2025‘ from CBRE. And then the missiles came. On March 4, the markets of Dubai and Abu Dhabi reopened after two days closed due to missile attacks launched by Iran against US interests and its allies in the area. Shares in Aldar Properties, Abu Dhabi’s largest listed developer, and Emaar Properties, the company behind the Burj Khalifa, fell 5% in a single session. The bonds of large developers also collapsed and the debt market, key to financing new developments, was practically blocked for new issues. A senior banking manager in the sector explained to Reuters that his firm canceled that same week a capital raising operation for the UAE real estate market. “Investors are not thinking about investing in the region at the moment,” he said, adding that the risk associated with property in the UAE had become “much higher”. Records and sales at the same time. In the midst of the confusion of the bombings, Dubai closed one of its most striking operations of recent years. A 2,900 m2 apartment in the Aman Residences Dubai project, in the coastal neighborhood of Jumeirah 2, was sold for 422 million dirhams (about $115 million), becoming the third most expensive apartment sale in the history of the emirate. It is only surpassed by an operation of 550 million dirhams in Bugatti Residences in 2025. But at the same time, the platform PanicSelling.xyz, that monitors prices on more than 20,000 luxury properties in Dubai and Abu Dhabi, detected 82 discounts that totaled 14.3 million dollars in just a few days after the Iran attacks. Dale Buckner, CEO of Global Guardian, explained to CNBC that the exodus of expatriates showed no signs of slowing down and that just that morning his company had seven corporate clients looking to evacuate between 1,000 and 3,000 employees. “This situation is similar to Ukraine,” Buckner said. The storm that was already seen coming. What aggravates the situation is that the problems do not only come from outside. JPMorgan analysts they already warned before the attacks that Dubai’s population growth would likely not absorb the 300,000 to 400,000 new homes expected by 2028. The market already had an oversupply problem on the horizon before the missiles arrived. Ryan Lemand, co-founder and CEO of Neovision Wealth Management in Abu Dhabi, summed it up: “Real estate investing depends on stability, visibility and investor confidence, and all of these factors tend to weaken during prolonged periods of geopolitical uncertainty.” The excess real estate supply and a complicated geopolitical situation have kept the interest of investors for properties in Abu Dhabi and Dubai, suggesting the best time to invest in the area. The risk in this case is not in profitability, but in the precision of the missiles. In Xataka | While NEOM builds ski slopes in the desert, Dubai is going in the opposite direction: attracting tourism without going bankrupt Image | Unsplash (Duane Mendes), Wikipedia

China claims that having its own ASML is not that difficult. At the end of the day “ASML is a simple integrator”

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China is advancing at a fearsome speed, but they are their own critics. A group of scientists and industry representatives has published an analysis very critical in which they describe their semiconductor industry as “small, dispersed and weak.” For these experts, the problem is that they do not have their own ASML, so they propose creating one, and the curious thing about it is precisely that: that they do not see it as difficult to do. Not authors, authorities. Among the authors of the study are Wang Yangyuan —co-founder of SMIC— or Chen Nanxiang —director of the YMTC NAND chip manufacturer—. Both they and the rest of the participants are recognized personalities in the field of semiconductors. That makes it clear that this articlepublished in the magazine Science and Technology Review China is valuable to understand the state of this industry. The US veto works. This article indicates that the United States has managed to contain China’s advance in three areas: electronic design automation (EDA) used in chip design, the manufacture of silicon wafers, and the creation of chip manufacturing equipment, especially those with extreme ultraviolet (UVE) photolithographic technologya segment that is absolutely dominated by the Dutch ASML and that China has not yet managed to match despite its efforts. There are many companies, but they are too small. The study analyzes in depth the situation of the Chinese semiconductor market, which they describe as small, dispersed and weak. And to prove it they give a significant fact: there are 3,626 domestic chip design companies in China, but “the total value of the industry’s output was 646 billion yuan (approximately 91 billion dollars). In other words: the total sales of these 3,626 companies were less than the sales of NVIDIA alone.” Smartphone chips are doing well. Of course, these experts point out that several Chinese companies have managed to reach “the world’s leading edge” in terms of chips for smartphones. They mention HiSilicon Semiconductor and Unisoc, which occupy the first and second place among the largest smartphone chip designers in China, with market shares of 20 and 10% respectively. And the “mature” chips, too. Something similar happens with chips with much more mature technologies, such as those manufactured with 28 nm photolithography or higher. That problem is already solved in China, which does not have to depend so much on foreign manufacturers. In fact, China now represents 33% of global production in this segment, and design and manufacturing processes are not limited by internal restrictions. Too dependent. Despite its many advances, China remains the world’s largest importer of integrated circuits. It invested $385.79 billion in 2024 in these components, even exceeding its oil imports ($324.7 billion). Here China has a big problem of dependence on chips from third-party foreign manufacturers, and this is especially noticeable in automotive chips (95% of them import) and memory chips (90%): all of them depend on imports. There is a clear bottleneck in high-end integrated circuit production. In search of Chinese ASML. The document also addresses competition with ASML but not as a direct commercial rivalry, but as a strategic challenge of technological sovereignty. The Dutch company is described as “a simple integrator” that coordinates more than 5,000 suppliers to manage the 10,000 components of an EUV machine. The suggestion of the study is precisely to create a Chinese ASML that unifies the advances made by different companies. But. Although progress has been made In this ambitious objective of creating SVU machines, “integrating them with a national effort is a problem that must be resolved during the 15th five-year plan” that concludes in 2030. To do this, these experts assure, there must be financial support and human personnel is required. We already knew that China I was trying to copy ASMLbut for now it is going badly. The document talks about developments such as promising Flip-FET technology (FFET) of Peking University. This advance allows us to reach 3-2 nm nodes without depending exclusively on EUV machines, but it remains to be seen if this method ends up being successful or not. In Xataka | Holland has just declared war on China in the most important battle of the century: control of semiconductors

The big winner of the Hormuz blockade is the country that the West has tried to suffocate for years: Russia

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The script was written and the West was already celebrating the definitive economic strangulation of Russia. However, geopolitics has a bad habit of blowing up office plans. Today, the world is witnessing a historical paradox: the United States has just opened the back door to Vladimir Putin’s oil to try to stop a global energy collapse. The war between the United States and Israel against Iran has set the markets on fire, pushing up barrel prices above 100 dollars. Faced with the abyss of an unprecedented crisis, diplomacy has had to surrender to the stubborn reality of infrastructure. The “digital fog” and an emergency rescue. To understand the magnitude of the paralysis you have to look at the maritime traffic monitors. As detailed Bloombergthe Strait of Hormuz has become a “digital fog.” The few ships that dare to sail do so by turning off their location transponders (AIS) and suffering constant interference and GPS spoofing (spoofing) fruit of electronic warfare. In this scenario of physical suffocation, India was on the brink of collapse. The Asian giant is heavily dependent on imports from the Middle East, and the closure of Hormuz has cut off its rennet supplies. Reuters reported last week that state refineries like MRPL (Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemicals Ltd.) have been forced to close entire processing units due to the simple and simple shortage of crude oil. The unexpected lifesaver? In a turn of events, the US administration has had to swallow its own sanctions. As confirmed The Moscow Times and it is observed in the official OFAC document (the Treasury Department’s General License 133), the United States has issued a temporary 30-day waiver, valid until April 4, 2026, allowing Indian refiners to purchase Russian oil loaded on vessels by March 5. Paradoxically, how to explain BloombergIndia had drastically reduced its purchases from Moscow at the beginning of the year after facing the threat of punitive 50% tariffs from Trump himself. Now, cornered by the crisis, dozens of Russian oil tankers that were wandering aimlessly are changing their coordinates on the high seas to come to the rescue of Indian ports. The political story versus the reality of the market. Officially, Washington tries to minimize the impact of this capitulation. In statements collected by The Kyiv Independentthe US Secretary of Energy, Chris Wright, assured that “there is no change in policy towards Russia” and that the exemption is only a “pragmatic decision.” For his part, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent defended that this measure “will not provide significant financial benefits to the Russian government” as it is applied only to crude oil stranded at sea. But the reality of the markets tells a very different story. According to CNBCRussian crude oil of the Ural variety has gone from being sold with humiliating discounts of between 10 and 20 dollars, to being traded at a historical premium of between 2 and 4 dollars above the barrel of Brent in its deliveries to India. This injection of capital to Moscow has unleashed an internal political storm. The Democrats They have demanded Trump to immediately reverse the exemption, accusing him of strengthening an adversary. From the humanitarian field, the NGO Global Witness, cited by Guardian, has been blunt, accusing the White House of “feeding Putin’s war machine” to cover up a price crisis that the United States itself has unleashed. Putin rubs his hands. To understand the magnitude of the Russian victory, you have to look at where they were just a month ago. Bloomberg, in your market analysishighlights that Russian exports were under unprecedented pressure. The Kremlin had nearly 140 million barrels stuck in the sea (65% more than usual), and was forced into a suicidal price war against Iran to try to place its surpluses in the limited Chinese refineries. Overnight, the Hormuz blockade removed all of its Middle Eastern competition from the equation. The crisis has been a gift from heaven. From Moscow they don’t even hide. How to collect CNBCKremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov publicly boasted to the press: “We are seeing a significant increase in demand for Russian energy resources in connection with the war in Iran,” reminding the world that Russia “remains a reliable supplier.” Hurt pride and a sea of ​​uncertainty. As Russian ships sail south, the battle of public perception rages in India. Although in the BBC estimates that the country It barely has crude oil reserves for about 25 days, the Indian government is trying to project absolute calm. As reported Mashable Indiaauthorities insist that “there is no shortage in the world.” However, on social networks the narrative is one of deep sovereignist indignation. Politicians like Rajiv Shukla cried out on social network X against American paternalism: “Who is the United States to dictate to us that we can only buy oil from Russia for a month?” Added to this is the harsh reality that there are no easy alternatives. Although Saudi Arabia or the United Arab Emirates They have pipelines to bypass the Strait of Hormuz, its maximum capacity barely covers a fraction of the 20 million barrels per day that the world has just lost. The laws of thermodynamics do not understand sanctions. This whole scenario returns us to a conclusion that We already analyzed in the recent crisis of the Druzhba pipeline in Europe. The West has spent years writing laws, imposing price caps and signing embargoes on elegant offices to isolate Russia. But geopolitics always ends up submitting to mathematics and thermodynamics. While China watches the crisis calmly, with its reserves filled to the brim after years of silent strategic purchases, the European Union and the United States have had to swallow their own sanctions in record time to avoid collapse. The energy embargo on Russia has proven to be a gigantic house of cards; It only took someone to cut off the passage through the Strait of Hormuz for everything to collapse. Image | Coded and kremlin.ru Xataka | The EU has a perfect plan to suffocate Russia. The … Read more

Sony is already testing it in the PS Store

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Since November 2025, Sony is carrying out in relative silence an experiment with the final prices of your games– Different users see different prices for the same game on the PlayStation Store. What started with 50 titles in 30 regions now covers more than 150 games in 68 countries. At the moment, the company continues to say nothing on the subject. Crazy prices. The first sign came when a Reddit user He noticed that his wife saw a lower price than his for the same game on the PlayStation Store. The gap was too large to be a rounding error by region. No one knew if it was a technical failure or something deliberate, until Pspricesa website that monitors PlayStation Store price history in more than 50 regions, found the answer in Sony’s own infrastructure: identifiers embedded in the store’s API responses, with labels like IPT_PILOT and IPT_OPR_TESTING. We are facing a controlled test. How testing works. Sony randomly assigns users to a control group or a test group. Those in the test group see different prices. According to the data collected by the site, all experimental prices detected so far are lower than the official price, with discounts ranging between 5.3% and 17.6%. ‘WWE 2K25’ is listed at €61.82 for some compared to the standard €74.99. ‘God of War Ragnarök’ and ‘Marvel’s Spider-Man 2’ drop from €79.99 to €69.99 for certain users. ‘Astro Bot’, from €69.99 to €61.16. There are extreme cases like ‘Helldivers 2’, which reached a 56% discount. What Sony measures is the price elasticity of demand: to what extent price determines the purchase decision of each user profile. Evolution of the experiment. The program began in November 2025 with about 50 games in approximately 30 regions. Three months later, according to Psprices data, it covers more than 150 titles in 68 regions including Europe, the Middle East, Asia, Latin America and Africa. The expansion itself is already a sign that the test is yielding data that interests Sony, and it is striking that the company has included its own AAA franchises in the experiment, such as the aforementioned games. It means that Sony considers it necessary to measure price sensitivity even in games where demand seemed guaranteed. Two territories (the United States and Japan) are outside the experiment, and the possible cause is stricter regulation and greater market sensitivity in both countries. Why now. A look at Sony’s financial context may shed some light on why this decision has been made. According to the company financial report Through December 2025, PS5 shipments fell 15.7% year-over-year in the Christmas quarter, with hardware revenue down 15.1%. CFO Lin Tao spoke of “monetizing the console installed base” as a priority. With 80% of software sales already in digital format, it is important to find a way to boost PlayStation Store sales. That store also operates without the competitive pressures of PC (market that Sony seems to be abandoning), where the user can buy the same game at different prices on Steam, GOG or many other stores. On PlayStation, the ecosystem is closed: there are no authorized third-party distributors, there are no game codes in physical stores as is the case with Xbox and Nintendo. If Sony controls the discounts and customizes them per user, whoever wants that game on PS5 only has one way to access it. The terror of dynamic pricing. To the user These types of policies do not suit him well. Airlines, hotels, vacation rental platforms or mobility services like Uber adjust rates in real time according to demand, time or area. The controversy has reached the world of concert tickets, with demands included. In video games, there is also an extra issue: on a plane, a hotel or a concert venue there is a real limitation on the tickets that can be sold. The inventory of a digital game is, by definition, unlimited. What Sony is going to do is called in economics “first degree price discrimination“and that is what has generated the main user complaints. Although there are no official statements about Sony’s plans, the truth is that the company, for the moment, has not raised prices above the official RRP, but rather has offered discounts based on various criteria that have not yet been revealed. Some bets: Users with less purchasing history could receive greater incentives to encourage them to spend. Thus, the question remains whether we are dealing with a discount for those who do not usually buy or a premium for those who usually do. If the promotion escalates, we’ll eventually find out. In Xataka | Playstation 6: all the information we know (or think we know) so far

a labyrinth of reserves that not even the G7 masters

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The alarms went off early on Monday, March 9. The barrel of Brent it shot up and touched the barrier of $120, figures that the market had not seen since the war broke out in Ukraine back in 2022. The fear of suffering the worst energy crisis in half a century has forced the G7 finance ministers to make urgent moves. Extraordinary meetings have already been called to try to stop the blow: The idea that is on the table is to suddenly release between 300 and 400 million barrels of its strategic reserves. But the real problem is not just the price, but the logistical collapse. The blockage has made it disappear from the board about 20 million barrels per day. To put it in perspective, this physical “hole” is five times larger than the impact of the historic Arab embargo of 1973. In the midst of this Western panic, all eyes point to a vital actor that could act on its own to save the furniture: Japan, holder of the third largest strategic reserve in the world, sAccording to energy expert Javier Blas. The Japanese dilemma. Japan is one of the most vulnerable economies to this blockade. According to oil pricethe country imports about 95% of its crude oil supply from the Middle East, and about 70% of those shipments transit through the now blocked Strait of Hormuz. Time is of the essence, since ships take between 20 and 25 days to get from there to Japanese ports. At the official level, the message is one of caution. The Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI), Ryosei Akazawa, has stated that there are “no immediate plans” to release reserves with the sole purpose of lowering prices, remembering that these are used to ensure supply. However, behind the scenes, the machinery is already moving. Akira Nagatsuma, an opposition lawmaker, in statements for Reuters, revealed that the Agency for Natural Resources and Energy (ANRE) already instructed the Shibushi national storage base on Friday to prepare for a possible release of crude oil. Stagflation and industrial paralysis. The consequences of this blockade are already palpable in the real economy. Bloomberg warns that an oil above $100, combined with a very weakened yen (around 160 per dollar), raises the risk that Japan will fall into stagflation. On the streets, the blow is evident. According to NHK World, Gas stations are already raising prices, which suffocates land transport companies for which fuel represents 10% of their costs. The manufacturing sector is also bleeding: giants such as Idemitsu Kosan and Mitsubishi Chemical have had to suspend or reduce their production of ethylene, a crude oil derivative essential for the plastics industry. Japan’s complex and hermetic armor. To understand why Japan is key, you have to look at how it stores its oil. While other countries have more transparent systems, the Japanese model It is a three-layer bunker: national storage (government), private sector storage (mandated by law) and joint reserves with producing countries. The figures vary slightly depending on the source, but reveal a colossal volume. Javier Blas estimate the total at about 440 million barrels, enough for 204 days of imports. For its part, the METI and report of Argus Media They place reserves at around 449-470 million barrels, covering between 214 and 254 days of consumption. The facilities are engineering feats. In addition to traditional above-ground tanks, the country uses underground rock caverns and, as highlighted Shirashima basegigantic floating tanks in the ocean, protected by double hulls and breakwaters. But Japan’s real commercial “Trojan horse” is its international agreements. According to data from JOGMECthe Japanese government rents tanks in its own territory to state oil companies from Saudi Arabia (Aramco), the United Arab Emirates (ADNOC) and Kuwait (KPC). In normal times, these companies use Japan as a trading base for Asia. In case of emergency, Japan has the priority right to buy that crude oil. The Asian contrast. Western suffering contrasts sharply with China’s situation. Beijing did its homework, the country has record commercial inventories of almost 988 million barrels, in addition to its strategic reserves, and keeps 166 million barrels floating safely off its coasts. Its massive transition towards electric vehicles and renewable energies acts as an impenetrable national shield in the face of this crisis. In South Korea, the response has been blunt. According to the medium UDNSouth Korean President Lee Jae-myung has not waited to take internal measures, ordering the preparation of caps on fuel prices and demanding severe punishments against refineries and gas stations that hoard oil for speculation. The country is well equipped: its private companies have reserves for more than 220 days, and the State stores strategic crude oil for another 116 days. A pulse between diplomacy and the physical world. The current scenario has made it clear that financial projections collide head-on with the harsh reality of immobilized ships. While Washington attempts to calm the markets by assuming that high prices are a minor cost for global security, Iran’s Revolutionary Guard warns that the barrel could rise to $200 if the offensive is not stopped. In the midst of this escalation of threats, Asian operators are clinging to a purely tactical deterrent: they trust that the sea route will not be completely blocked for fear of angering military powers such as China, South Korea or Japan itself. However, the paralysis of the oil tankers does not lead to commercial hopes and the diplomatic room for maneuver is quickly exhausted. If the G7 does not achieve convincing coordinated action in the coming hours, Japan could be forced to open the taps of its colossal and complex reserve alone. It will be the litmus test to discover whether its sophisticated three-layer bunker is enough to prevent Asia’s third-largest economy from drying up in the face of the biggest logistical collapse of the last half century. Image | sanjo Xataka | In 2015, Japan showed the world a train capable of reaching 600 km/h. Ten years later we … Read more

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