broke

James Webb just broke what we thought was the established order of the Universe

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Even an instrument as powerful as the James Webb Space Telescope can detect puzzling phenomena at times. It is the case of the multiple red dots that has been found throughout the Universe in recent years. Many of them are a mystery that is difficult to decipher with the technology available. However, thanks to a very propitious physics phenomenon, James Webb himself has managed to enter on one of these little red dots, to find something fascinating. A black hole that goes against known physics, for having formed before the galaxy that houses it. The data. The black hole in question is enormous, with a mass 50 million times that of the Sun. It is located within a tiny galaxy, called Abell 2744-QSO1, with a diameter of 1,300 light years. To give us an idea, our Milky Way has a diameter of more than 100,000 light years. It is estimated that this galaxy formed 700 million years after the Big Bang, making it very old. However, according to the calculations According to a team of scientists from the Universities of Cambridge and Florence, the black hole could have formed one second after the explosion that gave rise to the Universe. What came first, the chicken or the egg? If we change the chicken and the egg for the galaxy and the black hole, the answer until now was more or less clear. Not all galaxies have a black hole at their center, but most of them do. Traditionally it has been thought that the black hole was formed when some of the galaxy’s stars ran out of fuel and collapsed. Such a concentration of mass was formed that its gravity began to attract everything that was at a specific distance (the one within its event horizon) and, thus, it fed itself, becoming larger and larger. That is what was believed, but it is a hypothesis that sometimes does not completely add up. A little red dot with a trick. The system formed by a tiny galaxy and an immense black hole inside makes up one of the red dots detected by James Webb. Most of them are very difficult to analyze, but this one has an advantage that makes it easier to observe. And, between the galaxy and James Webb, there is a galaxy cluster called Abell 2744 (Pandora cluster) that acts as a lens. It is so massive that it bends space-time around it and forms a kind of lens which allows us to see the QSO1 galaxy in a larger size. In very simplified terms, it acts like a magnifying glass. Furthermore, thanks to this same effect, a triplicate image is formed that can be analyzed in more detail. Primitive black holes. By being able to see these images with a magnifying glass, a tiny galaxy and a huge black hole have been observed, both very old. Generally, the mass of black holes cannot be measured. The calculations are made using assumptions extrapolated from what we know about black holes in the local Universe. Thus, it was calculated that the QSO1 black hole had a mass equivalent to 40 million times that of the Sun. But it did not add up much for such a small galaxy. How could it have become so large by “feeding” only on material from the galaxy itself? All this has been able to be answered, again, thanks to James Webb. Beyond the magnifying glass. In order to better measure this black hole, the Integral Field Unit (IFU) of the James Webb near-infrared spectrograph. This instrument, instead of focusing on a single point, has the ability to make a 2D map of a region of the sky. Thus, you can track the effects of gravity on the gas that occupies that specific region and even analyze the distribution of different elements in that same gas. With all this, something interesting has been seen. That the gas rotates around a center in a similar way to how the planets do around the Sun. According to Kepler’s laws, the further away from the center an object orbits, the slower it does so. This is true with the planets, but also with gas. Therefore, the black hole must be very very massive. So far so good. We had already assumed that, but what is its mass? The calculations of truth. By knowing how fast a gas orbits at a certain distance, you can know the mass of its center. Since the center was the black hole, these scientists only had to do the calculations to know that its mass is equivalent to 50 million suns. Guesses pointed to 40 million, so they were relatively close in astronomical terms. But it is strange, since its mass is equal to two thirds that of the galaxy. It’s too big for that galaxy. Another interesting fact. Since this James Webb instrument also allows the composition of the gas to be determined, it has been seen that the black hole consists mainly of hydrogen and helium. There is very little oxygen, as would be expected if it had formed solely from the stars of its galaxy. In fact, its metallicity is less than 0.5% that of the Sun. All this data does not fit with a black hole that formed from its galaxy. He had to train before. The hypotheses. All this points to the fact that the black hole was formed by a direct collapse. But when? That is not so clear, although there are two hypotheses. For one thing, it could have been formed by a heavy seed that originated in the first second of the Big Bang. Or perhaps it was formed a little later, by the collapse of a gas cloud. Either way, this is a great find, since it is about of the first direct measurement of the mass of a black hole within the first billion years after the Big Bang. And the good thing is that it agrees with the assumptions that … Read more

Princeton had not monitored its students in exams for 133 years due to an “honor code.” AI just broke that pact

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For more than a century, Princeton has based its academic trust on an honor code, an oath its students signed not to cheat on exams. Even the teachers left the classroom. Nobody watched, because honor was enough guarantee. That model just disappearedand artificial intelligence is largely to blame. What has happened. Princeton faculty voted earlier this week to have all in-person exams proctored starting July 1. The measure throws away a policy that dates back to 1893, when students themselves asked to eliminate supervision in exams. With only one vote against, the decision ended up being practically unanimous, making it the most significant change to the university’s honor system in 133 years. Why now. Generative AI has radically transformed students’ ability to copy without detection. According to the proposal presented by Michael Gordin, dean of the faculty, tools such as ChatGPT They allow copying in a way that is almost impossible to identify with the naked eye, especially during an exam. If before cheating required some effort (finding someone who would let you cheat, taking a cheat sheet in the middle of the exam, etc.) now there are a thousand and one ways to do it digitally. Numbers. In one student newspaper survey Of more than 500 seniors, almost 30% admitted to having cheated on an exam or assignment during their time at Princeton. 44.6% claimed to have known people who had violated the code, without telling them. Only 0.4% filed complaints. The number of cases investigated by the Honor Committee reached 60 this year, and the president of that committee, Nadia Makuc, believe They are just the tip of the iceberg. Nobody says anything. Princeton’s honor system historically relied on students themselves denouncing their peers. That doesn’t work anymore. According to the approved proposal, the fear of being publicly pointed out on social networks or in anonymous applications such as Fizz (the campus social network) discourages any complaint. Additionally, the way the AI ​​works makes the traps much less visible to whoever is sitting next to you. There are no more little papers or little glances or those stories. What exactly changes. According to account the faculty newspaper, professors will be present in the classroom during exams, but not to actively intervene. Their role is as witnesses, referring any possible infractions to the student Honor Committee if they detect something. On the other hand, the code oath (“I promise on my honor that I have not violated the Honor Code during this exam”) remains. The difference is that now there will be someone watching. Trust. Professors such as David Bell or Anthony Grafton, from the Princeton History Department, have recognized that the change alters the relationship of trust with their students. The former dean of the faculty, Jill Dolan, counted to the student newspaper that “I think it’s a shame, but it’s necessary.” AI has forced a spiral that is difficult to break. And the more people believe that others copy, the more tempted people feel to do it. Christian Moriarty, professor of Ethics and Law at St. Petersburg College in Florida counted to the Wall Street Journal that “what is at stake is not just the soul of education, but the genuine development of critical thinking.” Further supervision. Princeton has more measures than proctors to supervise the work of its students. In the last year, the number of at-home exams has been reduced by more than two-thirds. Furthermore, according to they count at The Atlantic, the Economics department will introduce oral defenses of term papers. Other teachers have also started to require that essays be written in Google Docs, to be able to review the editing history and verify that the text has been written progressively. Cover image | Roxana Crusemire and Ben Mullins In Xataka | Some Chinese humanoid robots are already going to “school”: the mission is to teach them to work in real life

China turned off the oil tap when the conflict with Iran broke out. Now he reopens it to rescue a thirsty Asia

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When the Strait of Hormuz was practically sealed after the outbreak of the well-known Third Gulf War, the world held its breath. In the midst of widespread panic over the strangulation of one of the planet’s most vital energy arteries, the first major tectonic movement came from Beijing. The Asian giant opted for the crudest pragmatism: it ordered its large refineries to immediately and opaquely stop gasoline and diesel exports to shield its own tanks. China isolated itself to survive. However, in just a few weeks, the board has taken an unexpected turn. With an Asia that looks into the abyss of the shortage, Beijing has decided to reopen the valve, going from being a protectionist actor to establishing itself as the great energy lifeline of the region. Asia’s savior: China. The shockwaves of war have left the Indo-Pacific region shivering. Asia has become “ground zero” of the crisis. In Australia, the panic has emptied the gas stationsforcing the government to cut emergency taxes; India has had to sacrifice tax revenue to freeze prices due to shortages; Japan has refused to share its strategic reserves with its neighbors; and Vietnam airlines They have had to cancel en masse their flights due to the lack and extra cost of aviation fuel. In the midst of this desperation, China has made its move. As anticipated BloombergBeijing has given the green light to its state refineries to export 500,000 tons of fuels (gasoline, diesel and kerosene) over the next month. According to sources cited by oil pricecompanies such as Sinopec and China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) already have shipments ready on ships that will be destined, as a rescue, to severely punished neighboring nations such as Vietnam and Laos. The energetic rice bowl. That China can afford to export fuel while the rest of the continent applies rationing measures is not a miracle, it is the result of a silent strategy. China took advantage of previous years to buy heavily sanctioned and cheap crude oil (Russian, Venezuelan and Iranian), managing to accumulate colossal reserves of almost 1.4 billion barrels. According to researcher Henry Tugendhatthis gives Beijing a cushion of about 104 days of domestic demand, in addition to having a “floating warehouse” of Iranian oil tankers anchored off its coasts waiting to be unloaded. Returning to “Game of Thrones.” But Beijing’s move goes far beyond helping its neighbors; It is a direct geopolitical challenge. As detailed South China Morning Post (SCMP)China has for the first time activated its so-called “Blockade Rules” of 2021. The Chinese Ministry of Commerce has issued an official order prohibiting domestic companies from complying with the sanctions recently imposed by the United States. Washington had sanctioned five refineries Chinese independent companies (known as “teapots”), including Hengli Petrochemical, accusing them of financing the Iranian military by purchasing its oil. By ordering the contempt of these sanctions because they are considered a “improper extraterritorial application”Beijing demonstrates that it not only has physical control of the crude oil, but that it is willing to engage in a legal and financial confrontation with the United States to protect its supply lines. Tightrope diplomacy. The short-term scenario will be played in the offices. As explained The New York TimesChina is playing both sides in this conflict. On the one hand, he acts as a peaceful mediator, pushing Iran to negotiate to de-escalate tension, having been key in the fragile temporary ceasefires. However, on the other hand, US intelligence agencies suspect that Chinese companies continue to export dual-use material and even military technology to Tehran. All of this is meticulously calculated ahead of the imminent May 14 summit in Beijing between Xi Jinping and US President Donald Trump. According to the analysts consulted through the New York environmentthe fact that the US is bogged down in the Middle East and rapidly spending its military resources, gives China a position of tremendous strength to negotiate over tariffs, trade and the US naval blockade. lenergy as the definitive weapon of the 21st century. The Strait of Hormuz crisis has functioned as a stress test for energy globalization. The sanctions drawn up in Washington attempt to financially suffocate the actors in the conflict, but the tyranny of physical infrastructure imposes its own rules. China has shown that the energy wars in this decade are not only decided with naval deployments, but with warehouses full of strategic reserves, independence in refining capacity and overwhelming dominance in the manufacturing of renewable energy. By reopening its export tap, Beijing sends a clear message to the world: while the West hyperventilates over the price of a barrel, China is the one who has the ability to decide who is left in the dark in Asia. Image | Photo by Bundo Kim on Unsplash Xataka | China is one of the largest refining powers on the planet. And he has decided something: to keep all the gasoline he produces

Someone with a hairdryer “broke” Polymarket weather forecasts and pocketed $34,000

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On April 5, a Polymarket user with the name “xX25Xx” bet $119 that the temperature in Paris would exceed 18ºC that day. Shortly afterwards the temperature recorded by the Metéo-France network sensor at Charles de Gaulle airport unexpectedly rose several degrees. That caused xX25Xx to cash out $21,398 for profits. Then something even more striking happened: no other sensor in Paris recorded that rise, and the user had already deleted his account. French police are investigating whether someone physically manipulated the sensor to win the bet. As? Easy. The “crime” weapon according to the forums. In Polymarket’s Discord channels, the “traders” themselves began to share theories of all kinds after hearing the news. AI-generated images were also shared on Twitter showing how someone with a hair dryer could have modified the sensor located near Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris. Multiple users They aimed for the “cordless hair dryer trick”, although it would have also been possible to achieve the same thing with a lighter. There’s the bet: from $119 to more than $21,000. Source:Polymarket The temperature did not rise. The analysis of the French company Bubblemaps revealed that no other meteorological sensor in Paris recorded the temperature rise that the Charles de Gaulle sensor recorded. The anomaly was therefore perfectly located, and the French national meteorological service, Metéo-France, announced that had filed a lawsuit due to manipulation of its data processing sensors. Both the sensor analysis and the data led to a clear conclusion and the French police are now investigating the matter. The Bubblemaps analysis revealed that this temperature peak experienced in a specific sensor was not experienced in the rest of the weather sensors in Paris. Source: Bubblemaps. It was not an isolated incidenteither. What happened on that occasion had actually happened other times. On April 6, the Charles de Gaulle sensor recorded a rise of four degrees Celsius in 12 minutes despite other sensors showing lower figures. A Polymarket user who had bet on higher than normal temperatures on that specific day won almost 30,000 euros. The pattern repeated itself on April 19. Three different Polymarket wallets won more than $280,000 in total by betting that the temperature in Paris would reach 19ºC on April 15. The real problem. The most striking thing about this event is not being able to use a hairdryer to win $20,000, but the fact that Polymarket has a single physical sensor in Paris as a data source for those temperatures. This means that anyone with physical access to said sensor – knowing it is the right one – can manipulate it without problems. There is no verification or redundancy in data sources, and here Polymarket has a notable underlying problem with bets that can be manipulated really easily. A more worrying pattern. The dryer case is a clear example of a new category of crime that these “prediction” markets have created. In recent months we have discovered how there have been investors in Polymarket who have managed to win large sums of money by betting on events in which there was a clear suspicion of insider information. It happened with the pardons that Biden granted before leaving the presidency, with the capture of Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela and with the moment in which would announce ceasefire in Iran. In all of those moments, someone knew something before the market and took advantage of it. Polymarket as oracle of the financial world. The disturbing thing is that Polymarket is becoming a tool that is being used by financial and investment companies like the prestigious Goldman Sachs. She and several investors use Polymarket data for their own operations, but if the platform’s data is as manipulable as it seems, that information is contaminated from start to finish. Image | Sunny River generated by AI In Xataka | If you think you can beat a betting house in the long term, we have bad news: they have you in from the beginning.

International law was written with humans who decide in mind. AI just broke that chain and no one knows who answers now

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Pete Hegseth’s threat to Dario Amodei has a subtext that goes far beyond the $200 million contract that the Pentagon can cancel: If the US military deploys AI-controlled autonomous weapons without the safeguards that Anthropic requiresyou will have removed the only firewall that has historically prevented an illegal order from being executed. Why is it importantand. The entire legal and ethical system of the US military rests on a principle that seems obvious but has important consequences: a soldier can and should disobey a manifestly illegal order. It is the mechanism that, in theory, prevents war crimes. A drone AI-controlled autonomous vehicle does not have that mechanism. You can’t refuse. You can’t hesitate. He cannot be tried in a court-martial. Between the lines. Amodei speaks of “autonomous weapons that fire without human intervention” to point out a legal vacuum. If an AI makes the decision to kill, who is responsible criminally? The programmer? The general who activated the system? The president who signed the order? International humanitarian law (including the Geneva Conventions) was written with human beings making decisions in mind. And now AI dissolves that chain of responsibility. The backdrop. The mass surveillance argument is also a bitter pill to swallow. The Fourth Amendment of the US Constitution protects citizens from warrantless searches and interventions. It works, among other reasons, because the State has never had the physical capacity to process everything that happens in public spaces. And in the same way, with AI that operational limit disappears: we move to millions of conversations recorded in real time, transcribed, classified and connected in just seconds. What was previously impossible due to lack of human resources becomes routine with a LLM. Constitutional protection until now has depended, in part, on the inefficiency of the State, its limitations. Yes, but. The Pentagon has an argument that cannot be ruled out: other democracies are also developing these capabilities, and China or Russia are not going to wait for the United States to resolve their ethical dilemmas. The practical question is whether having those unrestricted capabilities makes you safer or simply more dangerous to your own citizens. The big question. OpenAI and Google have accepted the Pentagon’s conditions“all legal uses” without specific exceptions, and xAI has just been cleared to operate on classified systems. Anthropic has been left alone in its position. And what is at stake now is not whether Claude survives as a military supplier or not, it is whether the AI ​​industry is going to set some limit on what it sells to the State, or whether that debate will be settled directly by Congress, the courts or, in the worst case, the first serious incident that no one could have foreseen. It seems like a matter of time. In Xataka | AI is already a battlefield: Anthropic has just accused DeepSeek and other Chinese companies of “distilling” Claude Featured image | Xataka

2025 broke the dream of cheap electricity

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At the beginning of 2025, Spain’s energy story was one of absolute success, coming to work only with renewables. But the “Great Blackout” of April 28 threw a jug of cold water on the country’s climate ambitions: greenhouse gas emissions rose 0.6%breaking a years-long trend. How is it possible to emit more when we have more solar panels than ever? The answer lies in a technical paradox: the Spanish electrical system entered into “reinforced mode”prioritizing the stability of gas over the cleanliness of renewables. Gas as a “bodyguard.” After that incident, Red Eléctrica (REE) adopted a “reinforced operating mode”. This adjustment involves intervening in the market to ensure that there are always “firm” plants (gas, nuclear and hydraulic) operating to give inertia and stability to the network tension. The problem is that this decision has marginalized cheap energy. As detailed by the Sustainability Observatory (OS)gas consumption in combined cycles shot up 26% after the blackout. Spain has been burning gas preventively to prevent the system from collapsing, even at times when the sun was abundant. This has caused the curtailment (clean energy wasted because the grid cannot manage it) will triple, going from 1.8% to 7.2% between May and July. The third “rate” in history. This forced dependence on gas has directly hit the pocketbook. According to a study by Facuathe electricity bill for an average user with a regulated tariff (PVPC) became 15.5% more expensive in 2025. With an average annual bill of 975.88 euros, 2025 is the third most expensive year in history, only behind the years of the energy crisis due to the War in Ukraine. The maintenance of this “anti-blackout insurance” has cost 422 million euros in technical extra costs, which companies like Iberdrola they have already started to have an impact on the renewed contracts of its clients. So why is there more energy but the price goes up? Herein lies the great technical paradox of last year. Spain installed 8,852 MW of new renewable power last year, according to REE data. However, the network is saturated since 83.4% of the electrical nodes no more connections allowed. The root of the problem is unbalanced investment. While Europe invests 70 cents in networks for every euro in renewables, Spain only invest 30. In addition, the country ranks 13th in battery capacity in Europe. Without storage, the system is rigid: if the sun hits suddenly, only the gas can react in time. Even domestic self-consumption failed in the April blackout: only 33% of homes they have batterieswhich left millions of users in the dark despite having their panels at full capacity. It is not the only one responsible for the emissions. The OS report points out that the rebound in emissions It’s not just electric. Spain approached 100 million of visitors in 2025, skyrocketing the consumption of kerosene (+5%) and gasoline (+8%). Added to this is a year of climatic extremes: fires They burned 400,000 hectaresreleasing 19 million tons of CO2, four times more than the average. Horizon 2026. The immediate future is not simple. For this new year, an increase in tolls and charges from the Government of up to 12%. In addition, the system faces a new challenge: the massive installation of data centers. In Aragon, these complexes are expected to consume so much energy that will further strain the network. To avoid collapse, the Government has activated “capacity markets”. Basically, gas plants will be paid simply for “being there” and not closing, an expensive but necessary insurance until the planned 2,600 MW of batteries or the synchronous compensators that promise to provide stability without burning methane are deployed. Europe’s laboratory. At the international level, Spain has assumed the vice presidency of the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) to lead the global transition in the face of the departure of the US under Trump’s mandate. But political leadership contrasts with internal fragility. Spain has shown that it is possible to expel coal from the system, but also that the abundance of cheap energy is useless if there are no cables to transport it or batteries to store it. As a source in the sector succinctly summarizes:: “The mistake was not putting up panels, but forgetting about the networks.” Without this investment, gas will continue to be the owner of the Spanish night and responsible for the electricity bill continuing to break records that no one wants to boast about. Image | freepik and Anton Osolev Xataka | The “reinforced mode” that prevents a new blackout will cost us 422 million euros. Iberdrola has already begun to collect it

Time magazine decided that “the architects of AI” were ‘Person of the Year’. And chaos broke out in the betting houses

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‘Time’ magazine has named ‘Person of the Year’, its traditional editorial recognition of the most relevant people of the year, to the “Architects of AI”. The topic is sensitive and controversial, and has unleashed opinions for and against the election. But it has also unleashed a parallel and unexpected tidal wave: people losing small fortunes at betting houses because of this Time decision. Beings of the year. When ‘Time’ revealed on December 11 that “AI Architects” (and not simply “AI”) would be its “Person of the Year 2025”, betting platforms Polymarket and Kalshi were plunged into absolute chaos. More than $75 million was left hanging over semantic disputes over what exactly constitutes a “person.” We are not going to go into the legitimacy of that decision or the technical quality of the cover assembly, but we can comment on how The cover effect among betting professionals brings to the table some characteristics of unregulated speculative markets that convert cultural events into casino chips. The collapse of betting. The users of Polymarket who invested more than $6 million betting on “AI” as the winner discovered that its interpretation did not match the platform’s rules. The final decision established that the title “Architects of AI” was not equivalent to designating artificial intelligence as such, giving thousands of bets as losers. The distinction was crucial: Naming those who build the technology differs radically from crowning the technology itself. In KalshiHowever, bets on individual executives (Sam Altman, Elon Musk, Jensen Huang, Mark Zuckerberg, Dario Amodei, Lisa Su and Demis Hassabis) were winners, while those who bet on corporate entities such as “ChatGPT” or “OpenAI” lost. Polymarket had more restrictive rules: betting specifically on “Jensen Huang” was a losing option, validating only the generic “Other” option. Polymarket cited an illustrative precedent: if ‘Time’ awarded “Donald Trump and the MAGA movement,” bets on Trump would win; but if the title were just “The MAGA Movement,” Trump would be excluded even if he was on the cover. Other Polymarket controversies. This scandal adds to a series of episodes that question the integrity of Polymarket. In November 2024, an unauthorized modification to the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) maps temporarily showed a Russian advance on the Ukrainian city of Myrnohrad. The change allowed bettors to earn returns of up to 33,000% before ISW admitted to fraudulent editing and fire the responsible geospatial specialist. weeks latersomeone identified as AlphaRaccoon generated profits of $1.15 million by betting with suspicious accuracy on the results of the 2025 ‘Google Year in Search’. Meta engineer Haeju Jeong documented on social media that the bettor had gotten 22 of 23 predictions right, including that singer d4vd (with just 0.2% probability) would top the searches. the same user had previously won $150,000 predicting the exact launch of Gemini 3.0, which fueled accusations of privileged access to Google information. Semantic controversy. And another one from Polymarket, which got into define whether President Zelensky had worn a suit at the NATO summit in the summer of 2024. Despite more than forty global media describing his outfit as a formal suit, the resolution protocol UMA (a decentralized oracle on Ethereum that verifies real-world data for blockchain applications) ruled “No” in a series of bets that moved $242 million. Numerous media They talked about large holders of UMA tokens manipulating the result through coordinated voting. Person of the Year, or whatever. Time magazine has been deliberately stretching the definition of “person” for decades, setting precedents that preempted this year’s confusion. In 1982 he chose “The Computer” under the title “Machine of the Year”, while 1988 crowned “The Endangered Earth” as “Planet of the Year”. The 2006 edition generated controversy by awarding an indeterminate “You”, referring to all users of digital content. “The Silence Breakers” of the #MeToo movement (2017) and “US Scientists” (1960) are other examples of award-winning collective entities. In Xataka | Five years ago he worked from his bathroom on the brink of ruin. Today he runs a company valued at 8 billion

Building data centers in space was the new hot business. Elon Musk just broke it with a tweet

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The debate over the feasibility of building gigantic data centers in orbit had been heating up for months. It is Silicon Valley’s new big idea to solve the insatiable energy appetite of artificial intelligence. Until, as usual, Elon Musk has entered the conversation with the subtlety of a hammer. Elon Musk has joined the chat. After weeks of debate about the feasibility of building servers in space, Eric Berger, editor of Ars Technica, argued that will end up being a more plausible option when the technology exists to assemble satellites in orbit autonomously. It was the moment chosen by Elon Musk to enter the conversation. “It will be enough to scale the Starlink V3 satellites, which have high-speed laser links,” wrote the CEO of SpaceX. “SpaceX is going to do it,” he said. A phrase that has probably fallen like a blow on startups that are taking advantage of the momentum of AI to go out in search of financing. Why the hell do we want servers in space? The idea of ​​moving computing to Earth orbit responds to a very real crisis: AI is an energy monster, and Demand for data centers continues to grow. Given this panorama, space offers two advantages that are impossible on Earth: Almost unlimited energy: In a sun-synchronous orbit, solar panels receive sunlight almost continuously (more than 95% of the time). Free Cooling: Land-based data centers consume millions of liters of fresh water to cool. With a large enough radiator, the gap can be “an infinite heatsink at -270°C.” The heat would be radiated into the vacuum without wasting a single drop of water. The new titans of space AI. Musk is not the first to see the business. In fact, he arrives at a party where the first contracts are already being distributed. Jeff Bezos predicted during the Italian Tech Week that we will see “giant training clusters” of AI in orbit in the next 10 or 20 years. Eric Schmidt, the former CEO of Google, bought rocket company Relativity Space precisely for this purpose. And Nvidia, the undisputed king of AI hardware, has actively backed startup Starcloud, which plans to launch the first NVIDIA H100 GPU into space this November, with the goal of eventually building a monster 5-gigawatt orbital data center. Why Musk would win. The vision of Bezos, Schmidt and Starcloud faces two colossal obstacles: the cost of launch and the construction of the servers themselves. Calculations for a 1 GW data center would require more than 150 launches with current technology. And Starcloud’s plan for a 4 kilometer wide array is a logistical nightmare. Elon Musk has Starship, the giant rocket on which all of his competitors’ business models depend to be profitable. And you don’t need build a new orbital data center. Just adapt and scale the one you already have. 10,000 satellites and counting. SpaceX’s Starlink constellation no longer competes against satellite internet, goes for terrestrial fiber. Musk’s company has already launched 10,000 satellites and is preparing the deployment of the new V3 satellites, designed for Starship with high-speed laser links. According to SpaceX itself, each Starship launch will add 60 terabits per second of capacity to a network that is already, in practice, a global computing and data mesh. While Starcloud needs to hire a rocket and assemble 4km-wide solar and cooling panels, Musk simply needs Starship to finish development to continue launching satellites. In Xataka | Starlink stopped competing with satellite Internet companies a long time ago: now it is going for something much bigger

Cameron’s ‘Titanic’ was going to be a flop. Until a trailer that broke several Hollywood rules changed the narrative

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In a few weeks the posthumous memoirs of Jon Landau, producer of ‘Titanic‘ and ‘Avatar‘, and frequent collaborator of James Cameron. Media as Variety have been able to access its content, and they tell of a masterful marketing maneuver: how a film that seemed doomed to failure, ‘Titanic’, was saved thanks to an intelligent trailer. It was sinking. Before the release of ‘Titanic’ In 1997, there was a certain pessimism in Hollywood and in the press about the film’s chances of success. With a then-record budget of $200 million, constant delays during filming, and negative rumors about the development of the production, many experts and media assumed that the film would be a financial disaster. Landau says that he was famous an article from ‘Time’ magazine in which the possible future of the film was compared to the real fate of the ship with the onomatopoeia “Glub, Glub, Glub…” Too much noise. But as he says in his memoirs, titled ‘The Bigger Picture’, Landau knew that “perception becomes reality”, even though expectations were not good: the jump from 100 to 200 million dollars brought to mind another major failure (and with a very marked aquatic component as well): ‘Waterworld’ by Kevin Costner. Paramount’s marketing team proposed a conventional trailer. Landau described it as a “John Woo-style trailer”, meaning “quick cuts and booming music, gunshots and screams. It made the movie look like an action movie that just happened to take place on the Titanic.” Cameron and Landau knew this wasn’t their movie. Four minutes or so. The decision they made was seemingly counterintuitive: an exceptionally long trailer, four minutes and two seconds. Before, they had to fight for a long time with Paramount executives, who initially wanted a shorter trailer oriented solely towards action. Landay and Cameron argued that a longer trailer was necessary to convey the magnitude and complex narrative of Titanic. They presented it at the ShoWest event in Las Vegas, a key convention for theater owners. Kurt likes it. The trailer had an immediate and favorable effect among attendees, decisive for the good distribution of the film. It also had a positive impact on stars like Kurt Russell, who helped spread the word that they were watching a great film. The actor, sitting at the Paramount table, stood up and shouted, “I’d pay ten dollars just to see that trailer again.” Since then, even the initially skeptical press began to reconsider the film, marking a turning point in public perception and hopes for commercial success. Change in narrative. The trailer not only showed what no one had seen and how the film worked (the memories, the romance, the action, the gigantic scale), but it also redefined the conversation from rumors of failure to raising the possibility of it being a success. The film was released in December 1997, became the highest-grossing film of all time and won 11 Oscars. Another victory for Cameron, although with this one he didn’t have it with him all the time. In Xataka | The “ghost” category of the Oscars: it exists but it is so demanding that there have never been films that compete for it

It is more likely to reach a ray to touch your lottery. Until an economist broke the game winning 14 times

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The lottery is more an act of faith than anything else. I don’t say it, Mathematics say. In fact, there is more likely to be a ray to become a millionaire at night. It is possible that all that of the same, and that even knowing that we will not touch us, let’s continue playing to feel part of something. The problem is that there are legends that They talk about tricks and Formulas To win. And then there is the story of Stefan Mandel. A mathematical mind. In the mid-1990s, while millions of people worldwide continue Murify the rules Not written from the lottery applying, not magic or superstition, but an elementary probability system and a colossal logistics. The “trick.” His formula was as basic as radical: identify those draws in which the accumulated prize It exceeded by far the total cost of acquiring all possible tickets. By converting a problem of chance into a mathematical operation with a positive statistical return, Mandel transformed the game into a profitability equation. After successfully trying his system in his native Romania and then in Australia, Mandel perfected his strategy With a small team, developing algorithms that generated and printed millions of valid combinations for specific lotteries. The jump to Washington. The high point of his odyssey came when he looked at the United States, where he detected that Virginia’s newly established lottery used only 44 numbersgenerating “barely” 7,059,052 possible combinations. With the boat reaching 15.5 million dollars, and after having prepared in advance A network of investorsprinters and points of sale, Mandel activated his machinery. For two frantic days, his team managed to buy 6.4 million tickets. They did not reach the desired total, but among the paper mountain was the winning ticket. Although the feat unleashed an investigation by the FBI and the CIA, no legal violation was detected: its maneuver, although clearly outside the spirit of the game, it did not transgress any norm written in the regulations in force. The boundaries of chance. The key to the mandel method was not in sophisticated numerical tricks, but to detect when the conditions of the game offered A structural advantage. In this way, its formula only worked when the prize I tripled the cost To acquire all combinations and when lottery systems allowed printing tickets directly with chosen combinations, a possibility that was later prohibited in many countries precisely by cases such as yours. Winning horse. In essence, its strategy converted the lottery into A safe betprovided that resources, time and discipline were available to execute a plan of such magnitude. However, the profit margin was not immediate: Mandel had to distribute the profits between dozens of investors and assume considerable operational and legal costs. Even so, the system allowed him Win 14 lotteries over several years and knead a considerable fortune without resorting to traps or privileged contacts, only to applied mathematics with implacable determination. Legacy and sunset. After his last significant victory, Mandel He retired to a paradise in the Vanuatu Islands, where he lives away from media foci. Its history, however, not only challenges the myth of fate in games of chance, but has become A mathematical legend which highlights the design gaps of many lottery systems before digitalization. Today, with stricter regulations, limits in the purchase of tickets and automated systems, replicate its model It would be unfeasible. Thus, its feat remains one of the most forceful demonstrations of how human ingenuity, when it faces in intelligence and rigor, can alter the balance of the improbable. Image | Barcex In Xataka | We all know that the lottery will not touch us. It doesn’t matter: we play for feeling part of something In Xataka | The trick to prevent the Treasury from staying with 20% of the Lottery Award has a trick. And is called the income statement

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