Mobile Tech & Gadgets

make hair of all bald Spaniards

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When the Spanish government refused to join in supporting the attack on Iran by the United States and Israel, something unexpected happened on Turkish social networks: an avalanche of memes, declarations of affection and promises of discounts at hair transplant clinics. The phenomenon is neither spontaneous nor capricious: there is a history of concrete gestures behind it, and it says a lot about how geopolitics is processed on the internet today. No to war. Sánchez’s Government has refused from the first moment that the United States uses the bases of Rota and Morón de la Frontera, located in the south of Spain and operated jointly between the US and Spain under an agreement signed in 1953, but whose sovereignty remains Spanish. Washington’s reaction was immediate: in a press conference at the White House with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, Trump called Spain a “terrible partner” and announced that would cut all commercial relations with the country. President Sánchez responded by referring to the now legendary slogan of “No to war”, and the Minister of Finance, María Jesús Montero, was even more direct: Spain “will not be a vassal” of any other country. Novel. This is an unprecedented position in the European context: the United Kingdom, which initially also refused to use its bases to attack Iran, ended up authorizing them under the “collective defense” formula in the face of Iranian counterattacks. France and Germany also did not directly condemn the US attacks. Spain, however, called the intervention “unjustifiable” and “dangerous,” and aligned its reading with that of international law, not with that of its Atlantic partners. The position has generated both the rejection of parties such as PP and Vox and the alliance, even if it’s in the form of a memeof ultra-leftists and ultra-rightists under the same flag. The memes arrive. Among the most unique reactions that have aroused this positioning There is the wave of affection that, via meme, is arriving from none other than Türkiye. open declarations of love across the Mediterranean, unconditional support without losing humor and offers for bald Spaniards who want hair implants. It is a movement that has arisen spontaneously and regardless of whether they reach us distorted from here (most are in Turkish and refer to their own memetic mythology), but the wave is fascinating. Although it has very clear precedents. Help in fires. One of the reasons that Turks use to worship Spain is the shipping in August 2021 of two Canadair aircraft through the EU Civil Protection Mechanism together with a team of 27 people. Spain was not the first country to respond, but it acted quickly. The fires that summer were the worst in Türkiye’s modern history: almost 95,000 hectares They had burned at that point in the year. The affected areas (Antalya, Muğla, the Turquoise Coast) concentrated part of the summer tourism and entire rural communities saw their forests burned in days. Internal indignation was considerable, because Erdoğan’s government admitted not having firefighting aircraft, and foreign aid acquired great symbolic weight. Recognition of Palestine. In May 2024, Spain made the recognition effective of the Palestinian State together with Ireland and Norway. Israel immediately withdrew its ambassadors in Madrid, Dublin and Oslo, but the reaction of the Arab world was the opposite: Saudi Arabia called it a “positive decision” that affirms the right to Palestinian self-determination, Egypt described it as “a welcome step” and Qatar welcomed it as a move towards the solution of the conflict. Turkey does not have an Arab majority, but it does have a Muslim majority, as well as a historical position of support for the Palestinian people and a foreign policy that, under Erdoğan, has maintained increasing distances from Israel. Spanish recognition in 2024 placed us as one of the few Western European countries willing to pay a real diplomatic cost for a cause that generates massive support in Turkish society. It was, furthermore, a decision of the Spanish government with a broad social support. They like memes. The political meme in Türkiye has a long tradition of using high-intensity irony. Turkish internet culture (one of the most active in the region) has produced memes about relations with Russia, about Erdoğan and the opposition or about Turkey’s position in NATO. Because Turkey is a member of NATO but maintains trade relations with Russia, opposes military intervention in Iran and has been critical of Israeli policy in Gaza long before that position was popular in Europe. On that map, Spain appears in 2026 as the only major Western European country that speaks the same geopolitical language as Ankara. The climax: the bald men. Perhaps the perfect distillation of the memes that capture the romance between Türkiye and Spain are those that refer to Türkiye as a hair implant superpower. The Turks have grabbed notorious bald men from Spanish folklore (that is, footballers) and planted them lush manes or have played before and after. Nothing unites people more than styling soccer players as if they were Famosa dolls. Header | @1907medya__ in X In Xataka | Going on vacation to Greece is not unusual. The strange thing is that there are thousands of Turks going to a Greek Lidl

where the hell to put a garbage can

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Madrid has discovered that there is something even more delicate than the ‘tazo’ of garbage: where the hell to install a garbage canton. The Consistory takes years planning one of these facilities in Montecarmelo, a residential area in the north of the city, but has encountered radical (and belligerent) opposition from its neighbors. The problem is not so much the complex itself but what dimensions it will have, what functions it will perform and how it will affect the daily life of the neighborhood. The controversy is served. What has happened? May Montecarmelo has declared war to the garbage canton that the Madrid City Council wants to install there. That is indisputable. What is more difficult is to gauge the scope of the project. For the Consistory it is about a “small” installationwhich will include changing rooms, offices and a small warehouse for machinery. Nothing else. Things change if we ask the residents of the area. They talk more about a “megacanton” of around 10,000 square meters that will turn the life of the neighborhood upside down. Is it something new? No. The issue has been on the table for several years now. In fact it can go back at least until 2023when the residents of Montecarmelo already took to the streets to show their rejection of the canton. At that time (election year) the work they came to a standstill both in Montecarmelo and in other districts of the capital in which new cantons were proposed, but the project was never ruled out. He was not spared from controversy either. The neighbors have brought your claims to Brussels (the European Parliament has agreed to investigate) and a few days ago some 8,000 people took to the streets, called by the No To Canton Platformto show his rejection. Why is it so controversial? Because the neighbors are convinced that the canton will be a “industrial installation” incompatible with the daily life of an urbanized area. Residents warn that the “megacantón” (10,000 m2) will be located between homes and three schools and that it will have a negative impact on the daily life of the neighborhood. Specifically, they warn of the dangers posed by the handling of solvents and the storage of flammable products, the bad odors, the noise that the facilities will cause and the movement of trucks that will be generated. According to your calculationsthe canton will add a flow of 117 vehicles (80 of them trucks) to an area already overwhelmed during school hours. What are they based on? The group assures that their fears have been confirmed by the environmental memory published at the end of last year, a document that, they insist, shows that it will be “a heavy industrial installation.” “The document contradicts more than two years of official political discourse,” censorship the Regional Federation of Neighborhood Associations of Madrid (Fravm). The entity warns that, beyond its “extraordinary dimensions”, the project will integrate an urgent cleaning service (Selur) in the “heart” of a residential neighborhood, between homes, schools and “destroying” a green area. Would it cause so much inconvenience? “The report describes machinery and processes typical of a large-scale mechanical workshop. It mentions truck lifts, hydraulic presses, welding equipment, electronic diagnosis, parts washing, oil changes and other dangerous and polluting liquids… Nothing to do with what the mayor and (the delegate of Urban Planning, Environment and Mobility Borja) Carabante say,” warn from the neighborhood group. What’s more, the document recognizes that the canton could generate up to 106.5 dB, well above the recommended (and permitted) limits in inhabited areas. This is what Fravm maintains, who compare it with the noise of a plane taking off. What does the City Council say? It considerably reduces the impact that the complex will have. And they defend their necessity. So claimed it a few days ago Borja Carabante, who insisted on talking about a “small canton” of garbage. “The neighbors told us to reduce the installation to a minimum, we have done so by only installing changing rooms, some small administrative offices and a small warehouse for them to have the carts,” says the municipal leader who recognizes that, although 10,000 m2 have been fenced, that will not be the final size of the canton. “It will certainly have less than half that area.” What is the problem then? “The neighbors have gone further because it is no longer that they just want a canton with changing rooms and a small warehouse, it is that they no longer want the canton not only in the neighborhood, practically in the district,” Carabante assures. “We cannot assume that because we are building 15 cantons throughout the city without in any of them we have had the controversies, the complaints, the claims that we are having in Montecarmelo.” Is it so controversial? That the Montecarmelo project has generated so much controversy is explained by several factors, beyond the surface (and scope) of the infrastructure. To begin with, the controversy goes back years. Furthermore, it does not occur in just any neighborhood. Montecarmelo is located in the district of Fuencarral-El Pardo, an important fishing ground of PP votes in 2023, which has given even more interest to protests aimed at a popular Government. The issue has not taken long to become politicized, with pronouncements of the different municipal parties and institutions such as the Ombudsman. As if the above were not enough, the residents of Montercarmelo have not hesitated to use all the resources at their disposal to stop the project. And that happens both by going out into the streets, organizing mass demonstrationssuch as taking their case to the courts or the European Parliament, which has committed to investigate the canton project. Among the residents there is also no shortage of those who relate the project to the Madrid Nuevo Norte residential development. Images | FRAVM 1 and 2 In Xataka | In the midst of the housing crisis, more and more people do something in Madrid: donate their house … Read more

You’ve probably never heard of urea. The missiles in Iran are destroying their production, and that will affect your food

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At the beginning of the 20th century, the world feared it would run out of food because crops were not growing enough to feed a growing population. The solution came from chemistry: an industrial process capable of manufacturing artificial nutrients for plants and multiplying crops across the planet. Today, this invisible system supports much of what reaches our plates, but it also depends on a global chain. surprisingly fragile. The invisible substance that feeds us. We already said it in the headline, you may not know urea. However, this chemical compound is one of the silent pillars of modern agriculture. It is nitrogen fertilizer most used in the world and indirectly responsible for approximately half of global food production. Its function is simple but crucial: providing nitrogen to crops so they can grow quickly and produce larger harvests. To give us an idea, approximately half of global food production depends on synthetic fertilizers. nitrogen basedand urea is the most widespread of all. Without it, agricultural yields would fall abruptly, which would directly affect products as basic as wheat, corn or rice. The Gulf and fertilizers. It happens that a large part of this global agricultural system depends on a very specific region of the planet: the Persian Gulf. The Middle East is home to some of the largest plants of fertilizer production in the world and is also a key source of raw materials necessary to manufacture them, such as ammonia or sulfur. Furthermore, the Strait of Hormuz has become an essential artery for this trade. between one quarter and a third of the world’s traffic of raw materials for fertilizers passes through this maritime passage, along with approximately 35% of global urea exports and 45% of sulfur trade. A war that hits the food chain. The military escalation in Iran and the attacks around the Strait of Hormuz are starting to interrupt that delicate system. Maritime traffic through the area has been drastically reduced and several ships have been attacked, while industrial facilities in the Gulf have suffered direct damage. In Qatar, one of the largest fertilizer facilities in the world had to stop your production after a drone attack, while Iran has paralyzed its own ammonia production. Every missile in the Iran war is not only destroying its production, it brings us a little closer to a dystopian future scenario. Urea sample in the form of granules The domino effect of urea. When the supply of fertilizers such as urea is interrupted, the impact soon spreads to the food system. If farmers cannot apply enough fertilizer, the ccrops produce less. Some experts estimate that the lack of fertilizers could reduce harvests by up to 50% in the first affected agricultural cycle. This decline would quickly translate in price increases in basic foods. Bread could become more expensive in a matter of weeks, while derived products such as eggs, chicken or pork would do so months later, as the increase in the cost of animal feed is passed on to the entire food chain. Gas, the hidden ingredient. The manufacture of nitrogen fertilizers also depends on another key factor: natural gas. Between 60% and 80% of the cost of producing fertilizers comes from the gas used in the chemical process that transforms atmospheric nitrogen into compounds usable by plants. With the war driving up energy prices and damaging industrial infrastructure, the cost of production skyrockets even before fertilizers reach the market. In a few days, the international price of urea has risen more than 25%reaching levels close to 625 dollars per ton. Risk of global food crisis. I remembered the financial times that the situation also comes at a particularly delicate moment in the agricultural calendar. In much of the northern hemisphere, farmers are starting the season spring planting, when they buy and apply the fertilizers that will determine the year’s crops. If the Strait of Hormuz disruption lasts more than a few weeks, the impact could extend far beyond energy or maritime trade. Thus, what today seems like a localized geopolitical crisis could transform into something much deeper: a global food shock reminiscent of (or even surpassing) the one that occurred after the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022. In that scenario, the war in Iran would not only be fought with missiles and drones, but also in the fields of crops half the planet. Image | liz west, nara, LHcheM, eutrophication&hypoxia In Xataka | Iran is directing its attacks where it knows it hurts the West: energy and data centers In Xataka | In 2022, the gas crisis skyrocketed the price of electricity in Spain. In 2026 we have a “green shield” but also a serious problem

Tencent has a significant stake in US military training tools. Trump is going to stand up to it

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The Trump administration is debating if it forces the Chinese giant Tencent to get rid of its stakes in the largest Western video game companies. At stake are Riot Games, Epic Games and Supercell (more than a billion players) and the Unreal Engine, used in military simulations. The ghost of TikTok returns, but this time the affected market is different. Why Tencent. Tencent is not only the largest video game company in the world. It is also the largest silent shareholder in the Western industry: it owns 100% of Riot Games, 28% of Epic Games and majority control of Supercell, the Finnish company behind ‘Clash of Clans’. To this we must add participations in Larian, Remedy, Ubisoft and Discord, among dozens of other studios. For years, that capital has flowed to the West: the studios needed investment, Tencent had liquidity, and no one was looking for trouble. The White House sniffs. Washington, however, he has had doubts for years. The Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) began to review these investments during Trump’s first termand the case became one of the longest in the history of the organization, going through two administrations without reaching a clear resolution. What worries the White House is that video game platforms collect financial information, personal data and chat logs from hundreds of millions of users, many of them Americans. These databases are candy for any intelligence agency. The Epic case. The Unreal Engine adds an extra issue in which the White House has a special interest. The engine not only gives life to video games like ‘Fortnite’; It is also used by defense contractors and the US military itself for military simulation and training. In fact, the country’s Armed Forces have worked directly with Epic for years on that development. That Tencent is a shareholder in the company that builds this technology is what turns this issue into a national security problem. So much so that in January 2025, the Pentagon formally classified Tencent as a company linked to the Chinese military. Tencent rejected that classification, but the Pentagon did not withdraw it. There are problems. During the Biden administration, the issue was entrenched by an internal disagreement that no one knew how to resolve: Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco defended forced disinvestment, but the Treasury Department preferred to keep investments under data segregation protocols. Without consensus, the case was frozen. The cabinet meeting scheduled for March 4 was postponed due to scheduling conflicts. That same day, Tencent shares fell 1.72%. Parallels with TikTok. There are similaritiesbut also differences. With ByteDance, the US forced the creation of a new entity with 80% in the hands of US investors, as a condition of operating there. But the problem with Tencent is that it does not operate on American soil, but rather is a shareholder in companies already established there. Getting rid of these stakes is not the same as closing an app, it is more a restructuring of private capital. The consequences in the case of Tencent would go beyond Riot and Epic: the Chinese company has been the main injector of capital into studios for a decade, and a forced disinvestment would change the financing conditions of the entire sector, favoring large publishers. When will there be a solution? The decision has an undeclared but known deadline: Trump travels to China in April to meet with Xi Jinping. Forcing Tencent to sell would send a message of maximum pressure before sitting down to negotiate. In any case, neither the US Treasury, nor Tencent, nor Epic nor Riot have made public statements. Silence, in this type of situation, is louder than if they were discussing it loudly. In Xataka – China has made a drastic decision: prioritize ‘its’ technology, even if it is worse

The Iran war has thrown a rug over Russia

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In almost every modern war there is an unexpected object that ends up symbolizing the conflict. In the First World War were the trenchesin the Second the tanksand in Ukraine many thought that this role would be filled the drones. However, another much less sophisticated tool has appeared on the front that has become just as essential: a construction machine capable of moving tons of earth in a few hours and completely changing the way of surviving on the battlefield. Also a sign of the emergency situation. The shield that supports Ukraine. Since the start of the full-scale Russian invasion in 2022, Ukraine’s military survival has largely depended on an outer shield: the constant flow of weapons, technology and financing from from the United States and Europe. Patriot anti-aircraft systems, interceptor missiles, advanced drones and Western munitions allowed kyiv to resist to a much larger enemy and regain territory in the early stages of the war. Over time, this cooperation even evolved into a new industrial model in which European companies began manufacturing weapons based on Ukrainian technology, creating a production network that combined battlefield innovation with the industrial capacity of Western allies. Iran threatens the shield. That support system is now beginning to show cracks for an unexpected reason: open war between the United States, Israel and Iran. The new front in the Middle East has forced Washington to concentrate resources military, missiles and strategic attention in another crisis, generating fear in Europe and kyiv that Ukraine will be left in the background. They remembered in the Wall Street Journal that the same interceptors, munitions and systems that Ukraine needs to defend itself against Russian bombing are now being used in operations against Iran, and if the conflict drags on, the United States could be forced to prioritize replacement of their own arsenals rather than continue supplying kyiv. Change of priorities. The risk is not only military, but political. With the White House focused on the Middle East, European diplomats they fear that the momentum to maintain pressure on Russia will be diluted in a conflict that has already entered its fifth year. In fact, Washington had long reducing your involvement directly and pressing to find a negotiated solution, but a prolonged conflict with Iran could absorb even more resourcesattention and industrial capacity. For Ukraine, that scenario would mean confronting Russia with fewer defensive missiles, fewer components for its military industry, and a flow of aid. increasingly uncertain. Ukrainian soldier operating an excavator near the front Objective: dig. On the battlefield, this potential shortage is translating into increasingly rudimentary decisions. Drones dominate modern combat, but their effectiveness depends on something much older: the excavated ground. Defensive positions have become underground networks of trenches, shelters and tunnels designed to survive constant surveillance by drones, artillery and guided bombs. In an open field where any movement can be detected within minutes, survival depends on staying hidden underground and operate from fortified positions that withstand constant attacks. Excavators in front. In this regard, they had in a Forbes report that the arrival of the bulldozers is also the most fearsome signal for Ukraine, because the war in Iran is destroying the shield that prevented the invasion to Russia. In a conflict dominated by advanced technology, the most urgent element in many brigades is not a new weapons system, but construction machinery Able to dig through defenses quickly. Each battalion tries to achieve at least one excavator to build deep trenches, covered shelters and obstacle networks that channel Russian attacks into controlled fire zones. These machines replace weeks of manual work and allow us to build defenses that can save dozens of lives. Modern warfare underground. If you will also, the evolution of combat has turned fortifications into a complex infrastructure that integrates technology, electrical cables, charging stations and shelters for drones and ground robots. However, it all starts with the same basic task: move earth before the next attack comes. On a front where Russia launches hundreds of drones and missiles in a single night and where gliding bombs seek to breach defensive lines, it turns out that the speed of digging can decide whether a position survives or disappears. and that reality sums up the moment that Ukraine is experiencing: a modern war sustained by drones and algorithms, but whose last line of defense depends on what happens in another conflict…and in a yellow machine digging mud in the middle of the front. Image | Tonya Levchuk In Xataka | Shahed drones are spreading terror in the Gulf. Ukraine has offered the solution and the price to pay has a name In Xataka | The Russian military is so desperate for Internet access that Ukraine has used it to spring a death trap.

So a MacBook with an iPhone chip can have macOS. But an iPad with an M4 chip, no

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Neo. It is the surname that gives life to the new cheap macbook. 699 euros for a Mac with a good panel, a promising speaker system, a design that makes you fall in love at first sight and that, for all those looking for a simple laptop for office purposes, is considered one of the best options on the market. The small detail is that, with its launch, Apple has admitted that running macOS It is not particularly demanding at the hardware level. So much so that we find ourselves faced with the paradox of having a processor of iPhone 16 Pro running macOS and iPads worth thousands of euros with M4 chip running… iPadOS (iOS with some modifications). A movement with meaning. My colleague Javier Lacort told it, the only option that Apple has found to make a cheap laptop has been to give it the heart of a mobile. It is thus manifested, indirectly, that a A18 Pro It is more than enough for the majority of potential consumers of this laptop. But there is a key that can hurt users of latest generation iPads: right now there is a laptop with an A18 Pro moving PC programs, while a iPad with an M4 chip moves completely layered apps. The point is not just macOS, the point is the apps. Apple has been implementing M chips in its iPads for years. We all agree that a Mac is a Mac and an iPad is an iPad but… selling a iPad with an M4 chip and phone applications is to sell a horse tied by the legs. It is an inexplicable paradox, one in which a MacBook with an A18 Pro can run desktop programs like Davinci Resolve, Adobe Premiere or Lightroom CC, while a much more powerful iPad has layered versions closer to those of a mobile phone. I don’t want a touch Macbook, I want an iPad according to its hardware. In my particular case, I am the perfect potential buyer of an iPad capable of running desktop apps. I work 90% of my day in front of the PC, but mobility is very important to me. And the iPad + keyboard format sweeps any Mac, no matter how small. But I have been forced to buy a MacBook Air M4 because, with an iPad, it is simply impossible to do my work. The apps are not up to par with the processor, and for professional uses it is of little use to have one of the best processors on the market if the operating system is nailed to that of my iPhone. It’s not going to happen. Dreaming of an iPad with macOS or, at least, capable of running some desktop applications, is still a dream. Apple is clear about its product categories and, although it sells the iPad M as productivity tools, they are still products limited to the use that Apple wants us to give them. Be that as it may, reality is inevitable: the iPad falls short of iPadOS. It is a platform that, in its day, made sense as a version of iOS for tablets. Today, the iPad is more powerful than most computers on the market and, at the very least, deserves software on its level. Image | Apple In Xataka | I’ve tried replacing my MacBook Pro with the new iPad Pro. iPadOS is still a stumbling block

the new Xataka Xtra newsletter where we will talk about the five most fascinating stories of the week

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As you know, Xataka launches this week Xataka Xtraour subscription plan where we offer you a lot of special content, direct contact with the editors, a Discord, an officeadvice and giveaways of all kinds (here the first, a 75″ television). Among the many new features, including several newsletters. The one we present to you today is perhaps the strangest of all of them: ‘Sides B‘. Our premise is simple: everyday life is full of urgent news, stressful events and seriousness, a lot of seriousness. ‘Caras B’ is a small antidote to all that, a weekly space where we take a break and pay attention to five strange, strange, curious stories; stories that will not open the news but that allow us to disconnect from current affairs. From a medieval manuscript written by Satan himself until the crazy occasion in which we prohibit sliced ​​bread, passing through the “invention” of modern chinese or the existence of several infinities within infinity. ‘Caras B’ will be weekly and concise. The objective is to discover the most fascinating corners of the world and history, to immerse yourself in them and to be able to savor them without wasting more than ten minutes of your time. It will arrive in your mailbox every saturday, signed by a server. I’ll wait for you! Other Xataka Xtra newsletters ‘Caras B’ does not arrive alone. The Xtra subscription plan includes two other exclusive newsletters: Chip War (weekly, every Monday): The semiconductor industry is the technological, economic and geopolitical battlefield of our time. Every week we analyze what is happening in the race for chips: from the tensions between the United States and China to the decisions of TSMC, Intel, SK Hynix or Samsung that will determine who leads the next decade. Next X (biweekly, every other Thursday): Biweekly analysis of the trends in technology and science that are changing the present and will define the future: AI, quantum computing, biotechnology, space exploration. Context and perspective on where we are going and why it matters. In Xataka | We launch Xataka Xtra: your experience at Xataka goes up a level with exclusive newsletters, raffles, El Consultorio and more Image | Xataka

The California peach industry has suffered an unprecedented collapse. But it will be repeated, it will be repeated a lot, it will be repeated all over the world

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Richard Lial He lived peacefully in his little house in Escalonnorthern California. He had acres and acres of productive almond trees that he had been exploiting for the last decade. But three years ago, just when costs began to become unsustainable, Del Monte (one of the largest fruit and vegetable companies in the world) made him an offer. A 20-year contract for Lial to exchange its almond trees for the peaches that the company’s large cannery in Modesto needed. Del Monte’s move put on the table some 550 million over the next few years and a business of tens of thousands of tons per season. The problem is that on July 1, 2025, Del Monte Food Corp declared bankruptcythe Modesto plant has closed and, with it, the entire Californian peach industry has collapsed. What exactly happened? Del Monte accumulated a debt of 1,245 million dollars on the day they filed the bankruptcy petition. And the reason is simple: in recent years, the company had been going into debt to make certain purchases in a sector that was in full decline. Today, the world consumes less canned goods and Del Monte executives believed that the only way to survive was to grow and ensure margins. The problem is that, with the rate increase in the months prior to the bankruptcy declaration, interest had doubled to the point of eating into the operating margin (a margin already quite affected by things like Trump’s tariffs that had made cans more expensive). The chaos has lasted for many months, but on February 6 the courts approved the sale of the company in parts. Peach growers breathed easy until they discovered that none of the buyers wanted the plant of Modesto. And why is that plant so important? Well, because Del Monte did not ask farmers to plant the peach they wanted. They were asked to plant the clingstone variety: a peach that simply has no fresh market. The pulp of the clingstone adheres to the bone and makes direct consumption uncomfortable. That is, it is a variety whose only destination is processors. In this case, the Modesto plant consumed 35% of the production of this stone fruit, about 50,000 tons in 2026. They are, to be honest, 50,000 tons that are now almost impossible to place anywhere. But the problem transcends 2026… Because the contracts that Del Monte I was signing Until a few months before the bankruptcy, they forced farmers to make investments of around $8,000 per acre in exchange for the peace of mind that comes with a 20-year contract. They went into debt for it. Many made the transition in 2023. So there are about 140 Californian farmers fgame era and some 1,200 jobs will be lost. But the impact is deeper. And it is not that talking about ‘sector cataclysm’ is not justified, it is that the central issue is the structural dependency that the dynamics of the primary sector are pushing the economy towards. …and that transcends even the peach. Because it doesn’t matter what product we look at: the consequences of financialization are there. It is enough to remember that in 2015 there were only 45 funds specialized in ‘agrobusiness’ in the world; Today they exceed 1,000 and move an enormous amount of money that is radically changed the way everything is managed. The rresult is as simple as it is tragic: Capital arrives, exploits the land as if there were no tomorrow, exhausts the territory’s resources, abuses the local socio-productive fabric and leaves. One day we will realize that there will be nothing left. Image | Ayla Meinberg In Xataka | Spain faces its greatest agricultural challenge of the century: converting 1,901,529 hectares of olive groves into irrigation before it is too late

NVIDIA was going to make the mother of all investments in OpenAI, but the era of favors between friends is over

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NVIDIA has emerged as the pillar of artificial intelligence. Your chips They are the ones who move the more powerful data centers of the world and is getting billion-dollar investments to keep the wheel turning. At the same time, it has become one of the largest strategic investors of the artificial intelligence ecosystem. OpenAI She seemed to be his best friend, but that’s over. AND Jensen HuangCEO of NVIDIA, makes it clear: the next investments will probably be the last. Also in its great rival. Of 100,000 million. That was the magic figure of which we talked a few months ago. Recreating the schemes of “vendor financing“of the dotcom bubble, NVIDIA was going to finance OpenAI with $100 billion. In exchange, OpenAI would buy NVIDIA chips for the same value. It was a “trap” operation because the company would become the financier of its own premium client. With such an investment, it was expected that OpenAI will build data centers that they would need between four and five million NVIDIA GPUs: Huang already commented at the time that this represented double the total GPUs they distributed the previous year. In short: an absolute animal. And those 100,000 million were a mega-operation, yes, but one more of the many rounds of financing that the company led by Sam Altman. To 30,000 million. But in early February of this year, something unexpected happened. In what seemed like a historic turnaroundJensen Huang, cornered by the media after a Casual dinner at a Taiwanese restaurantcommented that there was never a 100% commitment to make that mammoth investment. The CEO of NVIDIA pointed out that they would surely continue making “the largest investment” they have made in their history, but although he did not give a figure, it was clear that nothing more than 100,000 million. How much? Lessmuch less: 30,000 million dollars. Good luck, OpenAI. Love broke, a love that began when Jensen Huang gave a DGX-1 server to Elon Musk back in 2016. Because it is not only that Jensen has commented that the figure will be around 30,000 million, but because he has mentioned that “it could be the last time” that they inject money into OpenAI. And the reason is very clear: “the reason is because they are going public.” From there, OpenAI will have to change its model completely and will be under the designs of the market. Big bets. NVIDIA, with this operation, shows that it is taking another course, one in which it prefers not to marry anyone and not commit in a truly serious way to a single company. Of course, OpenAI is not the only big operation that NVIDIA is going to get into. Another $10 billion is in store for Anthropic, OpenAI’s great rival both professionally and personally (since Altman and Amodei they can’t stand each other). Worse Huang has also mentioned which, again, will probably also be the last. They are also expected to go public. Fewer giants, broader base. OpenAI will have 110 billion soon. Apart from NVIDIA’s 30,000, Amazon will inject 50,000 million and SoftBank has committed 30,000 million. Huang has hinted that these two large operations could mark the beginning of a change of course. Instead of operations that can be counted on the fingers of one hand in giants, more investment in smaller companies. NVIDIA has gone investing more modest sums at other AI companies over the years. Model and software companies, infrastructure, robotics and even autonomous driving. It has been converting its GPUs and platforms into the standard on which it is founded the entire artificial intelligence industryand perhaps this break with giant companies like OpenAI or Anthropic marks a new beginning in which the focus is on supporting a broader ecosystem of partners. In this way, you will be able to continue shaping your objective: a range of more or less large companies that scale on your platform. Image | Steve Juvetson, NVIDIA In Xataka | AI engineers are closer to football stars than ever: NVIDIA has paid 900 million for one

energy and data centers

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When talking about Iran’s weapons, missiles are often mentioned. However, a fundamental leg of the country’s war machine is that of kamikaze drones. He Shahed-136 introduced in 2020, known as “loitering ammunition“, has been Iran’s strategic spearhead in the Middle East for years. Also a weapon that Russia has used in the Ukrainian war. After the beginning of the war against the United States and IsraelIran has directed these drones against its enemies. Not against bases, but against the two pillars that can do the most damage to the West. Energy and data centers. The drones. Since the Ukrainian war began, drones have proven to be the most fearsome weapon. There are more homemade ones, there are more sophisticated ones, but they all have something in common: power to destroythey can be operated at a good distance, they are very cheap, it is difficult to intercept them and the most advanced ones can be launched in swarms without risks for the operators. But Shahed’s drones are not like a street DJI with explosives: they are drones with a range of up to 2,000 kilometers that are ideal for attacking very effectively. The key is in the price: they are thrown a lot and, even if many are intercepted, the cost of that interception is extremely favorable for the attacker. It is estimated that a drone costs about $20,000 while a interceptor missile The average is between 300,000 and 400,000 dollars. That relationship is making even the US is using them. Ras Tanura. And it is these drones, and their variants, that Iran is using to attack critical infrastructure. Because they don’t have to hit the targets directly: they just need to land nearby or with the simple threat that they can reach that key infrastructure. We have an example in Ras Tanura. It is one of the largest oil refineries in the world that had to close its doors last Monday. Aramco (the owner) made the decision after debris from intercepted drones fell near the facilities in Saudi Arabia. This caused a crisis in the crude oil market, with the barrel rising in price meteorically and with a lot of Overcrowded cargo ships in the Strait of Hormuz. Data centers. But if power is critical, in the age of AI, data centers have also become a vital infrastructure. That is why these facilities are also in the crosshairs of an Iran that attackeddirectly, two installations of Amazon Web Services, or AWS, on March 1 and 2. AWS presence These are two data centers in the United Arab Emirates, while another Amazon facility in Bahrain also suffered some damage from a third attack. And specifically, computing on EC2 and cloud storage on both S3 and DynamoDB began to experience high error rates. Amazon itself confirmed that “these attacks have caused structural damage, disrupted power to our infrastructure, and, in some cases, required fire suppression activities.” They point out that the water damaged part of the equipment and, as a consequence, their clients should migrate their workload to servers in other parts of the world because the recovery “will be prolonged.” Market with anxiety. This has impacted the market, of course. If in the energy and crude oil segment it is evident that stopping a plant that ‘produces’ 550,000 barrels a day and cutting off a transit area through which passes 20% of the world’s oil has its consequences, which data centers becoming a target has also shaken the market. Major companies related to AI, semiconductors and storage suffered the consequences this past Monday/Tuesday/Wednesday. NVIDIA, Micron, Western Digital, ASML, Applied Materials, SK Hynix and Samsung traded lower on the worst day in recent months. It is not known if components can continue to be transported at the high rate we had if two of the busiest container shipping corridors of the planet suffer an alteration in traffic. But don’t worry, they are already recovering so that the AI wheel keep turning in any way. Images | Goal, Tasnim News Agency In Xataka | Ukraine has shown that wars are no longer won with tanks. They are earned with something that Spain has in its hands: PAMOV

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