Mobile Tech & Gadgets

your satellite “tug” is ready to fly

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We are used to talking about satellite launches as if that moment marked the end of the journey. The rocket takes off, the cargo reaches orbit and the mission seems accomplished. But that is not always enough: placing a satellite in space is only the beginning of a much more delicate process, that of taking it exactly to the point where it must operate and ensuring that it can fulfill its mission under the expected conditions. In that silent stretch is where new proposals begin to emerge. Among them, a Spanish startup which claims to have its own orbital transport vehicle ready and a first mission planned for 2026. UARX Space. Behind this proposal appears UARX Spacea company based in Nigrán, on the coast of Galicia. Founded in 2020, the company has defended an unusual strategy within the ecosystem: advance during its early years with a low public profile and focus on technological maturity before presenting to the market. That approach raises the idea of ​​coming up with more developed systems. ready to fly. The most recent turning point comes not from a launch, but from a technical validation. In a post published on LinkedIn a few hours agoUARX Space notes that its OSSIE orbital vehicle has completed the environmental qualification campaign, a phase that includes vibration tests, tightness and conditions representative of takeoff. The results, according to the company, confirm compliance with the mission requirements and place the system in a state of readiness for flight. The work of the “tugboat”. The difference between understanding the concept and seeing its real impact is how those capabilities are applied in a specific mission. A vehicle like OSSIE It not only moves satellites from one point to another, but also undertakes maneuvers that determine whether a constellation works as designed or whether a payload reaches the exact orbit it needs to operate. As we say, the system is designed to execute precise injections, modify orbital parameters and coordinate relative positioning between satellites. When will the launch be? With that milestone on the table, the next question is when liftoff could come. From what we have been able to observe in UARX public informationthe first OSSIE mission takes place in 2026 and is limited to the first quarter of the year, with an initial insertion planned into sun-synchronous orbit around 500-600 kilometers. Other data comes to us from a previously published statementwhich indicates that the orbital launch system contracted for this important step will be SpaceX’s Falcon 9. OSSIE will carry twelve loads on its initial flight. One of them will be CORTISa UVigo SpaceLab initiative designed to compare the performance of commercial radiation sensors with proprietary developments and to test a flight heritage camera planned for another mission. The project has passed vibration tests at the company’s facilities before its integration, a necessary step for any cargo that aspires to travel to space. This collaboration between the academic environment and industrial infrastructure offers a more concrete image of the model that the company is trying to build. Refuel in orbit, but later. The scope of the project is not limited to the movement of satellites, but rather points to a different way of operating in space. UARX works together with Dawn Aerospace in the integration of a docking system that, in this first mission, will only have a structural function, but which is part of an architecture designed to allow in-orbit services in the future. Among them appears the possibility of orbital resupply, an idea still in development within the European ecosystem. Images | UARX Space In Xataka | Starlink’s dominance in space begins to move: another company already has permission for a constellation of 4,000 satellites

We have been searching for the origin of life in hot puddles for years. Bennu has shown that radioactive ice works just as well

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When the capsule OSIRIS-REx mission landed in the Utah desert in September 2023, NASA knew it had a treasure on its hands. We are talking about a bit of black dust that was collected millions of kilometers from Earth and that was about to rewrite one of the most important chapters of science: the origin of life. What we knew. Until now, the predominant theory regarding the origin of life told us that for “cook” all the basic components of life, such as amino acids, heat and liquid water were needed to make a kind of hot chemical soup. However, science has just flipped the script: the bricks of life They are not only formed in heatbut they can be born in the most extreme cold and under gamma radiation. And that completely changes our understanding of how we got here, and also of the possible presence of life in any corner of the Universe. The importance of Bennu. Definitely is the protagonist of this whole story, and it is nothing more than an asteroid of about 500 meters in diameter which functions as a fossil from the early solar system. But the most interesting thing is that it is approximately 4.6 billion years old, the same age as the Earth, although, unlike our planet, its surface has not melted or been drastically altered by geological processes throughout its ‘life’. And little by little we are learning more about this asteroid thanks to the samples brought by OSIRIS-REx that had already been confirmed in preliminary analyzes an unusual abundance of carbon, nitrogen, water and organic compounds. But what the team led by Penn State University has now found goes one step further. The surprise. This same team, when analyzing the isotopic composition of the amino acids present, especially glycine, came across a chemical signature that did not fit with the classical theory of formation in hot water. A radioactive freezer. Until now, we thought that amino acids in asteroids were formed primarily through aqueous alteration processes: ice melts from heat, liquid water interacts with rock, and voilacomplex organic chemistry. However, science now suggests that liquid water is not necessary for amino acids, an essential molecule of life, to form. Simply from simple ice they can arise without much problem. And there are many of these in the universe. The catalyst. The other important factor in this formation was the energywhich in this case came from gamma radiation emitted by radioactive elements that were abundant in the early solar system. And the energy could not come from thermal heat, since this process occurs in icy environments, long before the asteroid was compacted or heated enough to have liquid water. This explains why we found amino acids both in asteroids that underwent a lot of water heating and in those that remained “drier” and colder. Life, it seems, is more stubborn than we thought and can begin to develop in the most hostile conditions of the vacuum of space. An increasingly complex menu. But we are not just talking about simple molecules, since analyzes of Bennu samples have identified a variety of compounds. Among these is tryptophan, which is an essential amino acid, much more structurally complex, and vital for terrestrial life. Besides, DNA and RNA components have been detectedin addition to ammonia and amines, surpassing in richness many samples of famous meteorites such as that of Murchison. Backlash to Panspermia. If amino acids can easily form in irradiated ice grains in the solar nebula—before the planets even formed—it means that these “ingredients” are spread throughout the solar system. The fact that Bennu, a B-type carbonaceous asteroid, is packed with these compounds reinforces the idea that Earth didn’t have to produce all the components of life itself. A constant shower of asteroids and meteorites during the late intense bombardment could having “sown” our planet with a pre-made deep space biological starter kit. That is why in the end looking at a grain of Bennu dust is looking at ourselves. Or, at least, to the chemical great-great-grandparents who made us here today. Images | NASA Hubble Space Telescope In Xataka | NASA has just announced that this large asteroid has a 1% chance of impacting Earth. That’s not normal

break China’s monopoly on rare earths

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If in the 20th century the powers fought over oil wells, in 2026 the battle will be fought on the periodic table. Lithium, cobalt, gallium and rare earths have become the new barrels of crude oil, essential for manufacturing everything from the battery of an electric car to the guidance system of a hypersonic missile. In this scenario, Donald Trump’s administration has encountered an inescapable geological reality: the rhetoric of “America First” has a physical limit. To win the technology race of the 21st century, Washington needs its neighbors. In an unprecedented diplomatic and economic maneuver, the United States has launched an offensive to recruit Mexico, Argentina and a bloc of global allies, with the declared objective of shielding themselves from the vulnerability posed by China’s almost absolute dominance over critical minerals. The peak of strategic anxiety. The epicenter of this Copernican turn was the State Department in Washington, where Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Vice President JD Vance They served as hosts at the “Ministerial Meeting on Critical Minerals”. The call was no less: 55 international delegations sat at the table, under an urgent premise that the free market has failed. The American diagnosis is severe. China controls 90% of rare earth processing capacity and has begun to use that monopoly as a geopolitical weapon, imposing licensing requirements and restricting exports to pressure American industry. “The international market for critical minerals is failing,” said Vice President Vancearguing that Beijing floods the market with low prices to ruin Western competition and then raise prices at will. Project Vault and the lapse. To counter this, the White House has presented tools that rewrite the rules of global capitalism. Trump announced the creation of a strategic mineral reserve valued at 12 billion dollars (10 billion in Ex-Im Bank loans and almost 1.67 billion in private capital). Like the Strategic Petroleum Reserve created in the 1970s, this “vault” —call Project Vault— will accumulate stock to protect giants such as General Motors, Stellantis and Google from future supply crises. But the White House mentality has gone from business to war, literally. In a Freudian slip or statement of intent, the Trump administration’s official documents on these investments list the Pentagon under its 19th-century name: Department of War (War Department). Under this anachronistic headingWashington is already financing mining projects in Alaska and North Carolina, making it clear that resource extraction is no longer a matter of the market, but of pure and simple national defense. The FORGE alliance and “price floors”. To support this scheme, has been launched he Forum on Resource Geostrategic Engagement (FORGE), initially chaired by South Korea, to coordinate a “preferential trade zone.” The revolutionary idea here is floor prices: if China pulls down global prices, the members of the bloc external tariffs will apply to maintain high internal value, thus guaranteeing the profitability of mining investments in allied countries. However, the market has reacted with skepticism to this interventionism. Paradoxically, after the announcement, the shares of American mining companies such as MP Materials and USA Rare Earth plummeted between 6% and 9%. According to analysts cited by Reutersthe fear is that the Trump administration will withdraw direct subsidies for individual projects to focus on this complex global price engineering, leaving local companies exposed to regulatory uncertainty. This entire American strategy draws a two-speed map of the world. On the one hand, there is the technological “VIP club”: the United States, Japan and the European Union will sign a binding trilateral agreement in 30 days to coordinate their industries. On the other hand, there are the suppliers of raw materials: Latin America. Argentina and the delivery of Lithium. In the south, Javier Milei’s administration has decided to unconditionally align its resources with Washington’s interests. Argentina, the world’s fifth largest producer of lithium, signed a framework agreement that ties it to the American supply chain, using RIGI as bait (Incentive Regime for Large Investments). For the White House, Argentina is the key piece to deal a blow to Beijing. At the moment, more than 70% of Argentine lithium travels to China, a flow that the US is determined to cut off and redirect towards its own factories. The operation is already underway. While diplomacy was signing papers, money was moving: the giant Glencore has agreed with the Orion consortium (backed by the US) to acquire assets, demonstrating how Western capital is beginning to take positions on the ground. Secretary Marco Rubio He did not hide his enthusiasm for this total provision: “Argentina is going to be a key partner for the world,” he stated, highlighting not only the extraction, but the country’s capacity to process the materials that the US needs. In practice, this makes the South American country a primary link in American national security. Mexico: The treasure map and the threat of the “Menú”. The situation in Mexico is one of forced pragmatism under threat. With the T-MEC review scheduled for July, the Mexican government accepted an “Action Plan” 60 days that goes far beyond commerce. The agreement opens the door to something that strikes a chord with national sovereignty: the US Geological Survey will collaborate in the “geological mapping” of Mexican territory to locate deposits, an x-ray of the neighbor’s resources carried out from Washington to “provide transparency.” The Secretary of Economy, Marcelo Ebrard, justified the transfer with a phrase of brutal realism: “If you are not at the table participating, you are on the menu.” But for many, Mexico is already being devoured. The “Cambiémosla Ya” collective has issued a fierce alertdenouncing that this plan is a “return to neoliberalism” that subordinates national sovereignty to the industrial needs of the north. They warn that the rush to comply with Washington’s quotas will cause “the dispossession, displacement and destruction of communities”, relaxing regulations to turn the territory into a sacrifice zone for the US energy transition. Passport for rocks, walls for people. The backdrop of this great mineral alliance reveals a contradiction that defines the current era. While … Read more

In Spain to talk about “white label” is to talk about the Valencian chain

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In Spain, buying in the supermarket is equivalent (increasingly) to buy white label. And buying white label means (also increasingly) doing so at Mercadona. That is the conclusion left by the latest studies on the sector and that basically ratify the double trend that has been marking the sector for years. retail homeland First, the unstoppable advance of the Valencian chain. Second, how the distribution brand has become a pillar of baskets of the purchase. Both trends complement each other and have allowed Juan Roig’s company to achieve a milestone in the sector: hoarding half the business of the white label. A percentage: 50.4%. The news the newspaper has advanced it theEconomist. Mercadona said goodbye to 2025, reaching a key milestone: it already covers more than half of the market share in the distribution brand business. To be more precise, your ‘footprint’ on the lucrative (and growing) The private label business grew several tenths last year to stand at 50.4%. The data is based on a study by the consulting firm Worldpanel by Numerator and confirms that Juan Roig’s firm has not yet found a ceiling in its struggle to dominate one of the businesses. juicier for supermarkets: the sale of their brands, such as Hacendado (Mercadona) or Auchan in the case of Alcampo. Market share on private labels (2025) Mercadona 50.4% Lidl 13.1% Carrefour 8.2% Day 5.9% Eroski 3.1% Alcampo 1.8% Others 14.3% What exactly does that mean? theEconomist assures that 50.4% corresponds to Mercadona’s “quota” on the total value of the distribution brands. Even if the data refers only to food, leaving aside other sections of mass consumption, it would represent an astonishing percentage. It means that a little more than half of the money we spend on the white brands that fill our refrigerators and shelves come from Mercadona. Growing… and with ample advantage. That 50.4% is not the only striking percentage in the Worldpanel study. There are two others just as curious. The most surprising is the one that reveals the considerable advantage that Mercadona has over its direct rivals. The second chain with the largest market share in the private label business is Lidl, with ‘barely’ 13.1% of the pie. It is followed in third place by Carrefour (8.2%), Dia (5.9%), Aldi (3.3%) and Eroski (3.1%). In addition to consolidating itself in first place, the Valencian chain has managed to expand its footprint: in 2024 that same share was 50.2%, two tenths below what it registered in 2025. Lidl and Aldi grew at the same rate and Dia expanded its total share from 5.5 to 5.9%. Carrefor stepped back slightly. Other percentage: 46.6%. That Mercadona has taken half of the market share is curious, but the data would not go beyond a simple statistical curiosity if the general market for private labels was shrinking in Spain. He Worldpanel study by Numerator reveals that this is not the case. On the contrary. We Spaniards buy more and more items from Hacendado, Auchan, Seleqtia and the rest of the brands directly linked to supermarkets, which are gradually imposing themselves on the pulse that they have had for years with the brands associated with large manufacturers outside the distribution channel. If in 2021 the private label had a market share (in terms of value) of 35.8%, in 2023 it already exceeded 40% and last year it stood at 46.6%. Why’s that? The million dollar question. And there is no simple answer. The expansion of white label in Spain probably responds to a combination of factors, including its lower cost (often the chains themselves they favor them on its linear lines) and the makeover that they have experienced in the Spanish market. In a short time, the distributor’s brand has managed to shake off the stigmas that associated it with the idea of ​​’cheap’, ‘mediocre’ and ‘doubtful quality’ to compete face to face with large brands from external manufacturers. A perfect symbiosis. That the white label is becoming so strong in Mercadona or Lidl is not a coincidence either. Both commercial chains are (along with Aldi and Dia) the ones that have opted the most for this type of products. another study from Wordlpanel reveals that last year Mercadona’s white brands (with Hacendado at the helm) represented 77.8% of all its sales. At Aldi that percentage was 74.5%, and at Dia it was 65.1%. Lidl dominates, with 80.7%. Many of these companies fit into what is called ‘short assortment chains’supermarkets with a limited selection of products and a clear commitment to their own genre. The customer has fewer options when choosing (there are not dozens of brands of oil, just one or two), but in exchange their experience is simplified and, above all, they can benefit in price. The formula works so well that (coincidentally or not) Mercadona, Lidl and Aldi are precisely the chains that more have been expanding its influence on the market. Image | M. Peinado (Flickr) In Xataka | The white label has been conquering supermarkets for years. It has done so well that it is now the pillar of the Spanish diet

for Mark Zuckerberg to leave California

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Jeff Bezos is not going to be the only technology mogul patrolling the warm waters from Florida with his imposing superyacht. Everything indicates that Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan are preparing to change zip codes and move to Miami from California, as published The Wall Street Journal. The founder of Facebook could have found a mansion on the exclusive artificial island Billionaire Bunkerwhere you will have Jeff Bezos, Tom Brady or Ivanka Trump or Julio Iglesias as neighbors. Like other millionaires settled in California, Zuckerberg is not moving for the climate or the views, but rather he is doing so in the midst of the debate over new wealth taxes on West Coast millionaires. The Zuckerberg family packs its bags. According what was published by BloombergMark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan are in the process of purchasing an oceanfront mansion in Indian Creek, off the coast of Miami, for an estimated price between $150 and $200 million. The operation is considered one of the most expensive in the history of Miami-Dade County, despite the exclusive nature and privacy of Indian Creek, means that the few mansions that come on the market in that location reach prices well above the average. Sources of The Wall Street Journal they assure that the mansion that Mark Zuckerberg would be negotiating for is recently completed, on a plot that is almost one hectare of land and access from the sea. The “billionaire bunker”. Indian Creek is an artificial island in Biscayne Bay, off Miami, that was conceived almost as a residential bunker (hence its nickname “Billionaire bunker”) with a single road that connects it to the rest of the keys. The island is divided into about fifty plots facing the sea, located around a large golf course. The extreme security and level of discretion offered to its residents, far above that of a conventional gated community, make Indian Creek a perfect place for the privacy of large fortunes. Among the residents already settled on the island are figures like Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner, who own a beachfront plot for which they paid about $32 million, while others like Tom Brady or Carl Icahn reinforce the idea that this is less of a neighborhood and more of a private club for the ultra-rich. In fact, Mark Zuckerberg’s mansion is very close to the two adjoining mansions that Jeff Bezos bought, and that now is reforming to join them. California squeezes the ultra-rich, Florida rubs its hands. Rumors of Zuckerberg’s move to Miami come while an initiative to apply a single 5% wealth tax net of those who exceed 1,000 million dollars. This measure would affect to about 200 billionaires who live in that state. Most of these great fortunes are from the sphere of Silicon Valley and big technology, although some of these millionaires, like Jensen Huang, have assured have no problem paying more taxes. Several billionaires, including Peter Thiel or Larry Pagehave already abandoned California due to the threat of this tax. He California exodus to other states with more lax fiscal policies is not something new. Figures like Jeff Bezos or Elon Musk already changed zip code more than a year ago, establishing their new residence in Florida and Texas respectively. In Xataka | Zuckerberg’s neighbors are fed up with him. The last straw: he set up an illegal private school in his mansion Image | Goal

If you’re in a hurry to upgrade your PC, NVIDIA’s CEO has bad news: don’t be in a hurry

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Talking about artificial intelligence is talking about Jensen Huang. The CEO of NVIDIA has become the figure of an industry: that of artificial intelligence. In large part, it is your company’s products that are driving the engine of the data centers and, at the same time, enormous semiconductor industries and memory are the essential components of NVIDIA GPUs. And if Huang has been commenting for a few weeks that this 2026 it’s going to need wafers and a lot of RAMhas now asked for patience with AI. Because he has another seven or eight years of unchecked climbing left. In short. When we talk about artificial intelligence, there are two poles. On the one hand, those who see signs of a bubble that will burst in the short term. On the other hand, those who defend the billion-dollar investment against all odds. In that boat is Jensen Huang, who recently noted in CNBC that this massive spending is “necessary and appropriate” because a “once-in-a-generation infrastructure” is being shaped. The most interesting thing is that, for him, this career will continue for several years, pointing that the investment and construction of infrastructure for AI has seven or eight years left. Mortars of money. In his statements, Huang pointed out that companies like Anthropic and OpenAI are making money despite everything invested and that their current brake is not so much the budget as the limit of computing power. That is why you want your suppliers –Samsung in HBM4 memories new generation or TSMC with the processors- increase the pace. It remains to be seen, however, if the pace can be maintained over the next five years. On CNBC, the CEO of NVIDIA pointed out that, despite the astronomical amount of money, the spending is sustainable. And proof of this is that it is increasing. If in 2025 the total spending of Big Tech did not reach 400,000 million, wait that this year the number of American companies will rise to 650,000 million. Only between Amazon and Alphabet -Google-, they will invest about 385,000 million. They see the AI ​​computing race as the next “whoever wins the most,” and none are willing to lose – DA Davidson analyst Gil Luria speaking to Bloomberg Parallel career. And that, as we say, in American companies, since China is the other pole in this race for artificial intelligence. The Asian giant is the birthplace of several extremely capable models, but also something that is missing in the United States: energy to feed the enormous needs of AI. China is betting on AI, but also on robotics, and all this at the same time buy NVIDIA products and develop your own semiconductor network with the goal of achieving technological sovereignty. It is another race parallel to that of the United States, and apart from the two poles of infrastructure development, we have particular names. That so much money is being invested means that opportunities are being created, and there are companies that have gone through a bad patch and want to surf the wave. For example, a Intel that, after needing a rescue by the United Statesis positioning itself as one of the great foundries in the United States. In addition, they are putting their foot in a segment that they had not explored, that of DRAM memory, and They are doing it with the Japanese giant SoftBank. Japan has not had a say in the memory industry since the 80s, when South Korea snatched their positionand now they may have another chance. Translation for the user. These are a couple of examples of companies that are taking advantage of the conditions to obtain financing and expand, seeking to position themselves in what they have determined is the future of the technology industry. With that amount of money and investment, there is a question you may be asking yourself: will I be able to buy a PC? The answer It is not hopeful. Giants like Micron -one of the heavyweights in the RAM segment- They are investing a lot to expand facilities and be more capable when creating memories, but they will not be for us: they will be for data centers. If the end of 2026 or 2027 was targeted as the end of the component crisis like the RAM or SSD (which are still components with memory modules), now it is Lip-Bu TanCEO of Intel, who states that It won’t be until 2028at the earliest, when we can see a horizon in the current panorama. So, yes, the entire tech industry has turned to AI and those that can increase their production of key components will do so over the next few years. The issue is that they are going to focus on components that users neither care about nor care about, neglecting those that we really need on a day-to-day basis. AND an example is NVIDIA itself. Image | NVIDIA In Xataka | Apple has been the industry’s first customer for decades. AI is relegating it to the background

Google has borrowed money to repay in 2126. AI is already financed with debt for a century ahead

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Alphabet has just closed the largest debt transaction in its history: $20 billion in bonds. And it is preparing something even rarer: an issue in pounds that includes a 100 year bond. Expires in 2126. Why is it important. No major technology company has issued a centenary bond since IBM in 1996. That Google is doing it now says a lot about the scale of investment AI requires. And that this race is financed with wild debt. The background: A bond is borrowed money. The company pays periodic interest and returns the principal at maturity. The routine is terms of 5, 10 or 30 years. The extraordinary thing is to ask for money from a century into the future. Investors lined up: demand exceeded 100 billion, five times what Google was asking for. Alphabet planned to raise 15 billion, but raised the offer to 20 billion due to the flood. Between the lines. A century-year bond is a statement of intent: “we are building infrastructure that will last generations.” Google is thus conveying that AI is not a three-year fad or something that we will forget after the puncture, but something that will transform the economy in the long term like railways or electricity did. Yes, but. Michael Burry, the investor who anticipated the 2008 crisis, has issued a warning that has gone viral: the last technology company that issued a centenary bond was Motorola in 1997. And according to him, that was “the last year in which Motorola mattered.” In 1997 it was a top 25 company in the United States, but a year later, Nokia overtook it and then the iPhone, Android, Chinese manufacturers arrived… and now, in the hands of Lenovoit barely fits into the top 10 mobile manufacturers. Burry asks: is this trust or the gesture made right at the top, before everything changes? The figures. Alphabet’s spending on infrastructure this year may reach, according to figures published by the companyat 185,000 million dollars. More than the previous three years combined. They are data centers, chips, computing capacity for AI… The five other large companies that have increased their capex (Amazon, Google, Meta, Microsoft and Oracle; Apple has reduced it) issued 121,000 million in bonds last year. Four times more than the annual average for 2020-2024. Main winner? Google, without a doubt. Issuing very long-term debt locks in favorable interest rates for decades. If they go up, Google already has its financing. If they go down, you can buy back the debt sooner. Plus, the interest is deductible, so it’s cheaper than using your own cash. And it does not dilute shareholders. Win-win-win. What is happening. The era in which technology companies grew solely by turning to their profits is over. The enormous expense required by the infrastructure for AI makes them use financial instruments that until now they had barely needed. They are no longer software startups. They are the largest infrastructure builders of the 21st century. And they need a lot of capital. The big question. Is giving bonuses for a century vision or overconfidence? Probably both: What is certain is that technology companies now compete in the debt markets like banks and large industrial companies. And that defines what our industry has become. In Xataka | The intellectual luxury of our era is sustaining our attention, AI is making it worse Featured image | Mitchell Luo

another company already has permission for a constellation of 4,000 satellites

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The United States Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has authorized Logos Space Services to deploy up to 4,178 satellites broadband in low Earth orbit. A few days ago we also discovered that Blue Origin, founded by Jeff Bezos, was getting on board the satellite internet race for corporate clients with the approval of some 5,408 satellites. Low Earth orbit begins a new period of competition in which, until now, starlink dominated. Why it matters. Starlink dominates the sector with approximately 9,600 operational satellites of the nearly 14,000 that currently orbit the Earth, according to data of the European Space Agency. The recent approval of Logos satellites begins to break the hegemony that Elon Musk’s company had until now. Just like account Satnews, the US regulator, under Brendan Carr, has taken a more agile approach to approving mega-constellations and maintaining US space leadership. Who is behind. Logos Space Services was founded in 2023 by Milo Medin, former project manager at NASA and former vice president of wireless services at Google, together with veteran Rama Akella. According to SpaceNewsthe company, based in Redwood City (California), last year closed a Series A financing round of $50 million led by US Innovative Technologies (USIT), the investment fund of businessman Thomas Tull that has also bet on companies such as Anduril or Stoke Space. The deployment plan. Just like point In the middle, the satellites will operate in seven different orbital layers, located between 870 and 925 kilometers in altitude, with inclinations ranging from 28 to 90 degrees. FCC regulations require Logos to launch and operate half of the constellation over the next seven years, completing full deployment by January 30, 2035. According to has declared Medin himself told SpaceNews, the company only needs about a quarter of the proposed satellites to serve its global customers. The goal is to have the first operational satellite in orbit by 2027. The key difference with Starlink. While Starlink focuses on offering home and consumer internet, Logos presents itself as a specialized alternative for business and government users, very similar to the proposal from Blue Origin. According to the company, the constellation will use high-frequency spectrum bands (V, E, Ka and Q/V), which allow extremely narrow beams that are difficult to intercept or block, ideal specifications for the war conflicts we currently have underway. Furthermore, just as point Satnews, the satellites will incorporate coherent optical links between them, reducing dependence on terrestrial infrastructure and creating a more resilient global network with lower latency. The target market. Logos is not looking to compete for home users, but rather to offer MPLS and Ethernet connectivity services with “fiber-like performance” for multinational companies, remote data centers or offshore naval vessels. This dual-use (civil and military) approach is what has attracted investors like USIT. “A secure and resilient communications infrastructure is a fundamental requirement for both global competitiveness and business operations,” declared Peter Tague, managing partner of USIT, in the statement announcing the FCC approval. Partial regulation. The authorization occurred on January 30, although the FCC partially granted the proposal: it approved operations in the K, Q and V bands under certain conditions, but deferred and denied parts of the requests at higher frequencies. Logos had presented its initial plans in 2024 for 3,960 satellites, later expanding the proposal to 4,178 after refining the design. And now what. The European Space Agency esteem that by 2030 there will be 100,000 satellites in orbit. SpaceX has requested The FCC recently gave permission to launch one million Starlink satellites, although the final figure is likely closer to the 7,500 approved in previous rounds. Cover image | Satellite In Xataka | We knew that there was water on Mars, but not how much. It turns out that 3.37 billion years ago an ocean covered half the planet

Multiverse negotiates a round to exceed 1.5 billion euros

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In the midst of a global race to dominate artificial intelligence, where leadership is usually concentrated in the United States or China, a different story with a Spanish accent is beginning to emerge. Multiverse Computinga startup based in San Sebastianhas been gaining visibility among investors and large companies for some time, but a latest move clearly raises the scale of the conversation. The company would be negotiating a new round of financing that could place it among the unicorns, a category reserved for very few European firms in this sector. New Spanish unicorn. The information that places Multiverse in that possible leap comes, for now, from sources cited by Bloomberg that describe a negotiation in progress. According to those people familiar with the operation, the company would be in talks to raise around 500 million euros in new financing, a figure that would imply exceeding the 1.5 billion valuation. The calendar used by these sources points to the first half of 2026 and the entry of new investors, which leaves the operation in the realm of the probable, but not yet confirmed. What the company does. Multiverse Computing, created in 2019, focuses on developing software tools that allow organizations to use artificial intelligence with lower energy and computational costs. Its technology seeks to reduce the size of the models without sacrificing precisionan approach that responds to one of the major current problems in the sector, the high consumption of resources required to train and execute advanced systems. That promise of efficiency is what is attracting the attention of investors and industrial partners. Financial context. In March 2025, We portrayed how the company received an investment of 67 million euros through the Spanish Society for Technological Transformationthe public vehicle intended to promote strategic projects. Just a few months later, in June 2025, We wrote about it again in relation to a round of 189 million euros with the participation of several international and corporate funds. This succession of operations places the negotiation described by Bloomberg on another scale, no longer as an injection to grow, but as the step that could redefine its valuation within the European AI market. behind the scenes. Bloomberg puts Multiverse’s annual recurring revenue at €100 million in January 2026, a metric used by software startups to show future recurring revenue rather than current accounting results. At this point we must be very careful: this is a metric indicative of traction, not a synonym for profits. This difference is relevant in a sector where expansion is usually supported by sustained investment and high spending. Therefore, beyond commercial traction, it will remain to be verified what its real balance between income, costs and financial sustainability is in the next phase of development. Images | Multiverse In Xataka | Dreame started as a supplier to Xiaomi. Eight years later it wants to be the next Samsung and has paid 10 million to prove it

I just needed an excuse to definitely switch to Gemini: advertising on ChatGPT

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The day arrived. Not in Spain, but the day came. ChatGPT is already starting to show advertising in the United States. At the moment they are in the testing phase, but if OpenAI wants to clean up his accountsyou will have to start showing ads in the rest of the world. It was the last thing I needed to completely switch to Gemini. From ugly duckling to goose that lays golden eggs. If two years ago someone had suggested that I change ChatGPT for Gemini, I would have responded with a categorical refusal. In recent months my opinion has completely changed. I’m not saying it, the benchmark race says it in which Gemini has managed to surpass GPT5 without giving up its reasoning capabilities. This is also said by the work that Google is doing in terms of image and video creation, with a Nano Banana Pro that managed to completely sweep away the OpenAI model and force the rival company to improve and incorporate Images to ChatGPT. The pasta. AI has already become a fixed cost for millions of people. A few euros a month in exchange for an assistant who saves hundreds of hours seems like a fair deal. The most economical plan ChatGPT is Gofor 8 euros per month (96 euros per year). With Go we have access to GPT-5and expanded limits on memory and file uploads. With Google’s cheapest plan, AI Pluswe pay 7.99 euros per month. In addition to having access to Gemini 3 Pro, Nano Banana Pro and limited access to I see 3.1 Fast (GPT Go does not allow access to Sora, even in a limited way), we have: Access to Flow, Google’s cinematic creation tool powered by Veo 3. Whisk Access Gemini integration in Gmail, Vids and more Google apps. 200 GB of storage for your Google account (Photos, Drive and Gmail). If we jump to the intermediate plan, OpenAI offers its best reasoning models, faster image creation, access to Codex, agent mode and access to Sora for 23 euros per month. For 21.99 euros Google allows access to Antigravity, includes Google Home Premium (with integrated Gemini) and 2 TB of storage. Google can afford it. Google has an advantage when it comes to pricing its AI services. The company does not make a living by selling AI and can even afford to give it away in the search engine, in Gemini as an assistant on all Android phones and by integrating it natively into its apps. Google doesn’t need to introduce ads: its AI is the ad. Now what. OpenAI will have to go the extra mile to retain its users. Gemini is already managing to grow its customer base, and with the introduction of ads in GPT, OpenAI will have one of the few large ad-loaded AI models. The company will need to prove not only that ChatGPT is worth paying for, but that it is worth: Pay for the most expensive plans that do not contain ads Pay for plans that contain ads Image | Xataka In Xataka | Elon Musk’s Grokipedia is not exactly the best place to get objective information. ChatGPT doesn’t care

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