cards

If a GPU with 8 GB was already insufficient to play, the crisis has brought us ghosts from the past: cards with 4 GB

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This is the worst year I remember for build a PC. It is no longer that the prices of components such as HDDs and, above all, SSDs and RAM are completely out of control, but that there are no new graphics cards. AMD’s are a renovated from the previous ones and Nvidia, directly, goes from the RTX 60. But of course, something has to be removed, and the clue of a new GPU has just appeared that awakens the ghosts of 2022. If with the beginning of the RAM crisis We already pointed out that we could once again see mobile phones with absurdly low amounts of memory, a leak points to the same thing, but on the graphics cards side. The ASRock assembler would have missed two new models of AMD’s RX 9000 seriesspecifically the RX 9050 and the peculiarity is that they would arrive in versions with 4 GB and 8 GB of memory. As pointed out Digital Foundrythe last time we had new cards with 4 GB of memory was four years ago with the Intel Arc A310, Nvidia GTX 1630 and AMD Radeon RX 6400 and 6500 XT, so the RX 9050 ‘Challenge’ would be the first modern GPU with only 4 GB of VRAM to try to offer itself at a reasonable price, but with more current capabilities. The problem is that 4 GB of VRAM is currently worth little. So little that even playing at 1,080p is difficult in the most recent titles. And it tells us about an even more worrying future for gaming on PC. A 4GB VRAM GPU makes sense. sadly First of all, it must be clarified that AMD has not made an official presentation and everything comes from an ASRock leak that can now only be accessed through of a system like Archive. The features are… discreet. The architecture of the AMD Radeon RX 9050 Challenger 4 GB is RDNA 4, yes, but the specifications tell us about a memory speed of 1,920 MHz with a boost of up to 2,600 MHz with 18 Gbps with 16 CUs and a power recommendation of 450 W. It is below the 9060 and the leak points to a bandwidth of 288 GB/s with a 128-bit bus for the 8 GB GDDR6 model and just 144 GB/s with a 64-bit bus for the 4 GB model. Criticism, evidently, has focused on this 4 GB version. Because It is necessary that there be graphics cards that have modest capacities because not everyone may want to play in ultra with frame rates per second greater than 60 and ray tracingbut even at 1,080p that excessively low amount of memory can cause problems in not so current titles. As we say, being a filtration There is no price, but the range will be between 100 and 200 euros if we take into account the launches of the aforementioned models in 2022. Although, of course, they did not have the supply problems that they do now, so we will have to be attentive, even if out of mere curiosity, to the price of these 4 GB RX 9050 Challenger. Wanting to read beyond the criticism and astonishment at this abnormally low amount of VRAM for 2026, there are two issues. The first is that yes, a card with 4 GB is still useful for games from a decade ago that do not require many resources or for many indie titles. There is a lot to play with that amount of VRAM and, in addition, there is the fact that they are cards with a modern architecture, so it is not taking an RX 580 that no longer has scaling or those types of techniques. But of course, depending on the price, perhaps it is more sensible to opt for the second-hand market to have access to an 8 GB GPU that, at least, is more comfortable in 1,080p and 1,440p resolutions. And the second reading is related to what I said at the beginning of the text: the wheel must continue turning and companies have to launch products to continue existing. The size of the market for such a product is something they will have studied, but the other alternative is to not launch anything and run the risk of disappearing. The CEO of SMIC, China’s large foundry, already said it: we are in a tsunami because of AI and many companies they will stay by the way. But although this product has a certain logic, it is certainly shocking to see a GPU with 4 GB of VRAM in the middle of 2026, being a reflection of how bad things are. In Xataka | Buying a pack of Pokémon cards in Japan now requires more than just money: now you also need your face

In 1966 a player from Argentina was sent off but there was no way to explain it to him. Since then there have been yellow and red cards

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When two people want to understand each other but do not speak the same language, they try to do so by speaking louder, gesticulating or resorting to things they do not understand about borders. And be careful, this is assuming that in football we always want to understand the referee: it would not be the first or the last time that a player acts the Swede when faced with a warning or a substitution… if he is winning, of course. Despite the sui generis speech by Tom Cruise In the last World Cup 2026, in modern football we manage with English (however tacky) and the rules of the IFAB, made up of the four football associations of the United Kingdom and FIFA, which allows anyone to know what it means when the referee team raises the flag or a card suddenly appears. It wasn’t always like this, so imagine the pitched battles that took place. The problem. An Italian and a Chilean go and… no, it’s not a joke: at the beginning of the 60s there were episodes of great violence in football and one of the most sadly remembered matches was the match between Chile and Italy in the 1962 World Cup, so much so that it is known as the “Battle of Santiago“. At that time there were no mechanisms to put a stop to that aggressiveness in the form of fights and fouls that occurred as a result of the heat on the playing field. The World Cup that changed everything. The quarterfinal match between Argentina and England in the 1966 World Cup was a before and after. As pick up the Smithonianat one point, an Argentine player tried to communicate with the (German) referee and his vehement gestures and pleas, impossible for the referee to understand, cost him expulsion for verbal violence. The player refused to leave the field until Kenneth George Aston, a member of the FIFA Referees Committee and also responsible for the refereeing of that World Cup, intervened. In that match the referee Rudolf Kreitlein had warned the English Bobby and Jack Charlton and had expelled the Argentine Antonio Rattinbut it was so unclear in the game that those interested they found out better laterthanks to the press. In fact, so much so that the England coach, Alf Ramsey, He went to a FIFA representative to clear up any doubts. Of course, the heat resulting from the match, the ambient noise and the language barrier between players and referee made understanding each other an impossible mission. Aston came to that conclusion, and he left there determined to change it. The solution. So he set out to do something to make the referee’s decisions clearer for both players and spectators. And something came to mind that everyone knows: traffic lights. Aston counts how it came to him: “As I was driving down Kensington Street in London, the traffic light turned red and I thought: ‘Yellow’, you can still get through; ‘Red’ means stop, out of bounds.” When he got home, he told his wife Hilda about his idea, who they count He disappeared from the room to return a few minutes later with two cardboard cards that fit perfectly in his shirt pocket, thus materializing the idea. The system officially premiered at the 1970 World Cup in Mexico, 107 years after the birth of football’s first governing body, and since then it has been adopted in all federations. The power of a simple cardboard. The writer Rob Walker summarizes well the effect that that simple piece of paper has: it has enormous power when a referee displays it in an almost theatrical way in the player’s face. It provokes a stadium full of whistles and exaggerated gestures from the arms of the cautioned player and his teammates. Because everyone knows what it means: the loss of possession of the ball, a free kick and even being left with one less player on the field of play. Kenneth George Aston, who died in 2001, summarized the vision of football where that gesture that he himself invented and that is still valid in each and every match has extreme importance: a dramatic work in two acts with 22 actors and a stage director, the referee, without a script and without a known ending. In Xataka | Argentina 6 – Peru 0: the story of the alleged biggest fixing of the World Cups between dictatorships and missing people In Xataka | There is something in which Uruguay is a true and overwhelming world power: generating elite footballers Cover | Jason Gulledge and Tasnim News Agency

With Prime Day the RAM crisis hurts a little less, thanks to these offers on memories, graphics cards and laptops

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Buy hardware, especially anything related to RAM memory or the SSDit has been very complicated and expensive for weeks. The rise of AI The domestic PC component market has suffered (a lot) and devices in general, making everything enormously expensive. And as a result, this is one of the worst times we remember to renew equipment. However, sales campaigns such as Amazon Prime Day They help to weather the storm of surcharges a little, thanks to some bargains that, although they are not as succulent as they were in past editions, are ideal for saving us a pinch. In this sense, the Prime Day 2026 It will be available until late Friday the 26th and, until then, we can take advantage These discounts on laptops, SSDs, RAM and graphics cards. Crucial P310 PS5 SSD 2TB PCIe Gen4 NVMe M.2 with Heatsink The price could vary. We earn commission from these links Yes indeed, These are exclusive offers for Prime members. Although, if we are not, we can take advantage of the 30 day free trial for new registrations and thus access these discounts, in addition to enjoying shorter and free delivery times, the catalog of Prime Video series and movies and much more. Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 5 Gen 10 with 32 GB of RAM and 1 TB of SSD per 749 eurosa laptop with an excellent quality-price ratio NVIDIA RTX 5070 12GB GDDR7 graphics card by 579.90 eurosideal for gaming at 1440p for years Crucial P310 2TB SSD with heat sink 234.99 eurosone of the few interesting offers in storage Asus TUF A18 by 1,199 eurosgaming laptop with 16 GB of RAM and the RTX 5070 to play, work or any demanding task. RAM Corsair Vengeance RGB 32 GB DDR5 by 389.99 eurosnot at the ideal price but very good in the current context Amazon Prime – 30 days free trial The price could vary. We earn commission from these links Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 5 Gen 10 Take a full team with us 749 euros with 32 GB of RAM and 1 TB of SSDin the middle of 2026, is not easy, but this Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 5 Gen 10 discounted on Prime Day makes it possible. In addition to that great memory configuration, this Lenovo contains an Intel Core i7-13620H with integrated graphics, a 16-inch 1200p screen and even Windows 11 Home. Overall, a balanced laptop perfect for studying or working. Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 5 Gen 10 The price could vary. We earn commission from these links Gigabyte GeForce RTX 5070 Windforce OC The hardware crisis is not affecting components such as processors or graphics cards equally, but it is still interesting to see a good offer on a next-generation GPU. In this case, we can take the Gigabyte GeForce RTX 5070 Windforce OC by 579.90 euros. A graphics card with 12 GB of GDDR7 VRAM memory, overclockthree fans and several DisplayPort and HDMI ports to connect multiple monitors. Perfect for playing at more than 60 FPS in 1440p thanks to its compatibility with the most recent versions of DLSS. GIGABYTE GeForce RTX 5070 WINDFORCE OC The price could vary. We earn commission from these links Crucial P310 2TB As we say, brand new SSD It is not simple or cheap in 2026. But this Crucial P310, without having a historical discount, does have a very good price in these times. Now on offer for 234.99 eurosoffers 2 TB of capacity and speeds around 7,000 MB/s. It is a NVMe M.2 2280 PCIe Gen4 SSD and is compatible with laptop motherboards, desktop PCs and even PS5. Additionally, it comes with a heat sink that helps it maintain better temperatures at full performance. Crucial P310 PS5 SSD 2TB PCIe Gen4 NVMe M.2 with Heatsink The price could vary. We earn commission from these links Asus TUF A18 The gaming hardware sector is especially suffering from the component crisis, especially when we move into the field of desktop PCs. custom. However, in already assembled equipment and in laptops We continue to find great purchase options at great prices in mid-2026. This Asus TUF A18 is a good example: a gaming laptop discounted to 1,199 euros which has RTX 5070, Ryzen 7 260, 16 GB of RAM and 1 TB of SSD. In addition to a giant 18-inch screen at 1200p and 144 Hz. The price could vary. We earn commission from these links Corsair Vengeance RGB 32GB DDR5 With the RAM memorywe click on the bone. When it comes to this component, today it is really difficult to find a normal price, let alone a good offer. If we can wait, the smart purchase involves leaving room for the market to stabilize and not paying an arm and a leg. However, if we need two RAM modules right now, these 16 GB (which make a total of 32 GB) DDR5 at 5,200 MHz by 389.99 euros They are an option to take into account. Compatible with Intel and AMD motherboards, they even come with RGB. CORSAIR Vengeance RGB RS DDR5 RAM 32GB (2x16GB) The price could vary. We earn commission from these links Some of the links in this article are affiliated and may provide a benefit to Xataka. In case of non-availability, offers may vary. Images | Lenovo, Gigabyte, NVIDIA, Crucial, Asus, Corsair In Xataka | Best mice in quality price. Which one to buy based on use and seven recommended models In Xataka | Best laptops in quality price. Which one to buy based on use and eight recommended models

A man is making a fortune selling Yu-Gi-Oh cards he found in the trash. Or that’s what he says

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When it comes to collectible card games, the first one that comes to mind is ‘Magic: The Gathering’but he is not the only one. There are other highly sought-after games in the world of collecting such as Yu-Gi-Oh, the card game based on the Japanese manga of the same name and the protagonist of this crazy story. What has happened? They count in 404media that a Texas man claims to have found a stack of Yu-Gi-Oh cards in a dumpster, valued at almost $1 million. What at first seemed like a peculiar stroke of luck has unleashed a drama, with part of the community accusing him of having stolen them and his mother intervening to defend him. The beginning of the drama. In late March, several uncut sheets of Yu-Gi-Oh cards appeared on eBay, Facebook, and TikTok. It immediately attracted the attention of the community because it is very rare for these types of leaves to appear for sale. The usual thing when there is a printing error (for example, a color does not come out correctly or a plate is misaligned) is that those sheets are destroyed and in fact Konami, the company behind Yu-Gi-Oh, is very strict about this. They do give out sheets of 3×3 cards as prizes in some tournaments, but they do not allow their sale and in the past they have intervened when they have detected this type of products on online sales platforms. In total, the “stash” consists of more than 500,000 bulk letters and at least 400 uncut factory sheets, almost nothing. Suspicious. Besides the rarity of what he was selling, there were other factors that were highly suspicious. Instead of selling slowly and at high prices, it began to sell at prices well below its value and very visibly on different platforms. In the ads there were blurry photos with hundreds of sheets of ultra-rare letters, piled up like trash. Each of these sheets can cost thousands of dollars, so their value is enormous, and selling one sheet occasionally is one thing, selling hundreds set off all the alarms. Theft accusations. The seller, who claimed on Facebook to have already made “over $60,000 on these damn Yu-Gi-Oh! cards out of the trash,” had very erratic behavior: he posted ads with titles that didn’t match what he was selling, deleted posts, and posted strange comments. The case reached Uncut Sheet Collectors Facebook Groupwhere the majority agreed that the letters had to be stolen, something that did not please the seller, who commented insisting that he had found them in the trash, but no one believed him. Maternal intervention. “Well, let me ask you all: if you found the same thing that was found in the trash (the uncut sheets, the cards and so on), would you try to sell it or not?” said the seller’s mother in one of the posts in the Facebook group. In addition, he asked that a video compiling several advertisements published by his son be removed because it was exposing “his past history.” Until that point, no one had looked into the seller’s past, but the mother’s message caused a Streisand effect and they discovered that he had a criminal record for theft. What was missing. What if in the end he told the truth? It’s not entirely clear, but there are hints that the dumpster story could be true. The strongest one is that the mother owns a company in Dallas, which is where one of the factories is located. Cartamundi, company dedicated to the manufacture and distribution of collectible cards. Furthermore, some of the prints he sent were in very poor condition, which would be consistent with having found them in a container. In redditthe consensus is that they really came out of the trash and that the seller was inexperienced and was overwhelmed by the situation. The last thing known about the seller is that on May 4 he posted on Facebook that he was “back in business.”

Speculation with Pokémon cards is such a serious problem that some stores already give knowledge tests to their customers

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In 2024, global sales of ‘Pokémon’ collectible card game They reached 2.2 billion dollars, with a growth of 25% compared to the previous year. The Pokémon Company increased production up to 10.2 billion letters by 2025. During the pandemic, Logan Paul and other content creators began opening envelopes on videos that reached millions of views. Since then, the fever has not stopped growing, and stores are beginning to propose unusual tests to distinguish genuine buyers from resellers. This is a test. At the west branch of Ikebukuro, in Tokyo, the specialty store Bic Camera made a decision that would separate the buyers of ‘Pokémon’ trading cards from the scalpers: to buy packs of the latest expansion, Ninja Spinner, you must first beat a written questionnaire of 15 questions about the ‘Pokémon’ universe without a cell phone, without help and in Japanese. It’s just the beginning. The questionnaire is not the only requirement. Shoppers must have an active loyalty account in the chain, either via app or physical card, allowing staff to spot suspiciously frequent purchases. Additionally, the store applies a limit of one box per customer and removes the seal and outer packaging upon delivery: an opened product loses much of its value on the secondary market, where resellers need the seal intact to inflate prices. According to X user Ryo Saeba, the system is working: Several resellers failed the test and left without product, since due to the random nature of the questionnaire it cannot be prepared in advance. It is a problem that, however, does not have an easy solution even from The Pokémon Company: if more copies of the most in-demand cards are printed, speculation would be reduced, but competitive play would be affected, as would the feeling of exclusivity of finding a rare card in a pack. Why Ninja Spinner. The Ninja Spinner expansion is the Japanese version of the western Chaos Rising, scheduled for release on May 22, and which features Mega Greninja ex as the main card. The former Mega Greninja gold card was worth $593 in March and It is now quoted in thousands.. An envelope that costs around 5 euros in the store can be resold for 40 in a matter of hours. The bad yen. Additionally, there is an additional economic factor that makes the reseller problem more serious: the structural weakness of the yen, combined with the relatively affordable price of the boxes, has made Pokémon cards a common target of foreign buyers and international resellers. Japan-exclusive releases, which include illustrations and finishes not available in other markets, multiply the appeal. Sometimes new items last minutes on shelves before ending up on resale platforms. How they do it. Professional resellers have tactics to circumvent the control systems that stores establish to give preference to real buyers: they hire several people to wait in line simultaneously, use multiple payment cards and create fake accounts to access online reservations. In October 2025Japanese police arrested two Vietnamese citizens who had created thirty fictitious accounts using fraudulently obtained SIM cards to participate in purchase raffles and obtain dozens of boxes that summer. Other initiatives. Other Bic Camera branches have adopted measures such as requiring a driver’s license or Japanese tax identification document, which limits purchases to residents. Official Pokémon Center stores also maintain strict unit limits per customer to preserve prices close to the official one. Outside Japan there has also been a lukewarm response to the activity of the scalpersname as resellers are known in the sector: Walmart, for example, introduced a limit of five packs per purchase at the end of 2024 after a video with 12 million views on TikTok showed a scalper emptying a store’s entire display in one trip. Header | Pexels In Xataka | In 2016, millions of people went out to hunt Pokémon on the streets. In 2026 there will be autonomous robots guided by this

C-3PO had a boner in 1977 and was seen on thousands of trading cards. Until the parents realized

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As is well known, ‘Star Wars‘ was revolutionary in 1977 on many levels, but in no way was it more so than in merchandising. The story of the action figures and how Kenner beat Mattel by taking over the exploitation rights to the franchise is the most popular part of the story, but there are many other crazy anecdotes in a field that was literally beginning to be sown. For example, Topps launched a collection of trading cards with a very peculiar copy: 207 of the fourth series, with a nondescript image of C-3PO emerging from an oil bath. It lasted until the parents took notice. The sticker war. Sticker rights They were also disputed very briefly, as was the case with the action figures. Donruss, a company with experience in science fiction trading card collections, had the first option on the license and rejected it. Topps came in after some hesitation, put out a first series and watched it run out at an unprecedented rate. Five series later in 1977 alone, the film was still in theaters, and the company had to launch, with almost no time for revisions, series after series. For the fourth, the available photographs were almost the same as those already used in the first two, and that was where the problem arose. C-3PO oily. The controversial photograph showed C-3PO emerging from an oil bath. At first glance nothing seemed scandalous, but if you paid attention, the protocol droid seemed to have bypassed protocol with a large metallic appendage. The chrome earned its own nickname, “Golden Rod.” Parents’ complaints They didn’t take long to arrivethe letter was withdrawn and an airbrushed version produced. What happened really. There are three versions about the reasons that led to the error. The first, when in 2007 the official ‘Star Wars’ website published an explanation later removed: It was an optical effect because at the exact moment the photo was taken, a piece of the suit came off and was aligned in a way that suggested the obscene image. In his book ‘Star Wars: The Original Topps Trading Card Series, Volume One’, author Gary Gerani raised another theory: someone from the prop team on the set had placed a metal appendage as a joke between colleagues. Because. The most detailed explanation was given in 2019 by Anthony Daniels himself, the android’s interpreter, in promoting his autobiography ‘I Am C-3PO: The Inside Story’. According to the actor, the oil was real and C-3PO’s suit at that time consisted of two pieces of thin plastic (front and back) joined with gold-colored adhesive tape. The oil dissolved that tape and when Daniels left the bathroom, the pieces separated and formed a crease in the crotch that created the bulge. Additionally, the actor believes that a Topps employee, when processing the photograph, identified the crease and deliberately accentuated it. Error wanted. Paradoxically, the corrected version of chrome 207 is today rarer than the original. There are more than 1,800 copies of the card with the error compared to less than 700 of the amended version, since the error circulated for months before being removed, and the correction arrived at the end of the fourth series, with smaller print runs, and was quickly eclipsed by the fifth series. And how much is it worth? In medium condition it costs 30 or 40 dollars, but in good condition it can exceed 5,000. By the way: Daniels has systematically refused to sign the error card. Any copy with his autograph is a fake, he says. In Xataka | This Star Trek movie was canceled in 1977 because science fiction had no future. Two weeks later Star Wars premiered Header | Kory Westerhold on Flickr

The question is not whether the eSIM will replace physical SIM cards. The question is when

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We have been telling you for years how technology eSIM It is gaining ground little by little, so much so that today it is normal for smartphones to include these chips as a complement to physical SIM cards. It is a technology with its advantages and disadvantages, But it is increasingly clear that the idea is not that both technologies coexist, but that the eSIM ends up making physical cards disappear. At least that is the direction in which the industry seems to be heading if we look at the steps of recent years. This makes the question no longer whether it will happen, but when will it start to happen. There are no dates or calendars set for this technological change, but there are data and projections that seem to point to the next decade. The slow but sure adoption of the eSIM Evolution of SIM cards. Source: Thalesgroup Since their creation in 1991, SIM cards have become smaller and smaller. SIMs began to become MiniSIM, and then they became MicroSIM, and then the NanoSIM that the vast majority of mobile phones currently use. The next evolutionary step was eSIMan internal chip of the mobile phone where the data that has always been on the SIM cards can be downloaded and installed. This opens the door for you to have on your mobile not only the data of your operator, but also that of other third-party services specialized in cheap eSIM such as Saily of NordVPN and the like. Saily eSIM in +200 destinations, prepaid and with an extra level of security The price could vary. We earn commission from these links eSIM chips were created in the last decade, and over the years they have also been miniaturized to take up less and less space. But one thing is the existence of technology and another its implementation on commercial deviceswhich has been slow. First they began to arrive at smart watches like the Samsung Gear S2 Classic 3G of 2016, being a solution to give them connectivity without having to spend space in a physical card slot. And in 2017 the first compatible smartphones began to arrive, such as the Pixel 2 from Google (although it was only compatible with Google Fi) and since then they have been reaching more and more mobile phones. Until recently, the eSIM has been implemented as a complementary alternative to the SIM. Almost all users continue to use the SIM, but if you went abroad and needed a data card it was easier to contract an eSIM. There were also the most curious users starting to test this technology. Since then, the eSIM has begun to reach other devices such as home automation products, and even laptops. Some manufacturers like Apple have taken risks to promote the eSIM. First it was in 2022 with the iPhone 14which would be sold without a SIM card slot in the United States, and in 2025 launched the iPhone Aironly with eSIM in the United States, although in Spain it still has a physical slot. But currently this remains a rarity in Europe. The eSIM in Spain It already has the support of almost all operators. Besides, There is research that points Because in 2024, 70% of new mobile phones had support for this technology, and 10 to 15% did not have a physical SIM slot, numbers that will gradually grow. What are the benefits of the eSIM The main benefit of the eSIM is that you no longer have to request cards when contracting a service. And if you port, you won’t have to wait for a card to be sent to you either, although this will always depend on the method the operator uses to synchronize the eSIM, since sometimes you will need to receive documentation. Of course, you should know that activating an eSIM can take hours, or even a couple of days, until they send you the necessary keys. Furthermore, in all ports you will be asked for your identification by law, and depending on the operator you may even need to physically go to a store, something that is to avoid fraud. You won’t need to order duplicate SIMs either. if you want to use your data or phone number on multiple devices. In addition, there will be more facilities for using more than one data or calling rate on a single mobile phone, since there is support for storing the profiles of different operators and changing them as needed. There are also other advantages such as greater security. No one will be able to remove your SIM and steal it, because it is integrated and cannot be accessed. Besides, manufacturers save space physically inside their phones as they do not have this slot, something they can take advantage of, for example, to give their batteries more capacity. However, eSIMs also have some disadvantages. The main thing is to change your mobile phone can be somewhat more cumbersome, since it requires an extra process to migrate the data from the digital card. If you change to another mobile phone with the same operating system it is relatively easy, but changing from Android to iPhone or vice versa can be complicated. The eSIM will coexist quite a bit with the SIM No, the physical SIM is not going to disappear overnight. It’s going to be quite a long process. It will probably take more than a decade.although this is something that can always change depending on how manufacturers push in that direction. According to CCS Insight forecasts in 2025 collected by the BBCat the end of 2024 there were 1.3 billion smartphones with eSIM in use, and the figure is expected to reach 3.1 billion in 2030. Therefore, we are going to have sustained growth in mobile phones with eSIM. But this does not mean that traditional SIMs are going to stop being used at the same rate, but rather that most mobile phones will continue to use both technologies for … Read more

First the PS5 rises in price by 100 euros and now the lack of chips forces Sony to stop selling SD and CFexpress cards in Japan

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Buying a computer, a mobile phone or a console is much more expensive today than it was a couple of years ago and the voracious appetite of data centers is to blame for this component crisis: RAM has become more expensivemore of the same for NAND storage (and therefore, of SSDs) and already threatens even to the batteries. And consumer electronics manufacturers are making moves to avoid swallowing the price rise resulting from this imbalance between supply and demand. If we talk about gaming, a couple of days ago Sony threw a bucket of cold water on those who expected its latest console to drop in price over time because it has been the opposite: The PS5 will go up 100 euros in April. But it is not Sony’s only drastic measure: in Japan have announced that stop selling storage cards. When you see your neighbor’s beard cut… NAND memory chip shortage is wreaking havoc If you have tried to buy a memory card in recent months, you will have already realized that prices have gone up a lot for that common little device that we use for photography, gaming or the Raspberry Pi (which also its price has skyrocketed due to the component crisis). Well, Sony has gone one step further and has indefinitely suspended the acceptance of orders for almost all of its line of CFexpress Type A, Type B and SD cardswhether for authorized distributors or those who buy from the Sony Store. The brief Sony Japan statement is blunt: “Due to the global shortage of semiconductors (memory) and other factors, it is expected that supply will not be meet the demand for CFexpress and SD memory cards in the near future. Therefore, we have decided to temporarily suspend the receipt of orders from our authorized dealers and customers in the Sony store from March 27, 2026. As for the resumption of accepting orders, we will study it based on the supply situation and will announce it separately on the product information page.” It is no longer just the temporary suspension, it is that there is no return date and the reality is that the medium-term future looks bleak: it does not seem that this shortage of components will be resolved in the coming months. In fact, the conflict between the United States, Israel and Iran It is bringing other consequences beyond the rise in fuel prices: helium shortageessential in cooling operations in chip manufacturing It is true that this statement is restricted only to Japanbut the shortage is not exclusive to the Asian country: a quick search for SD in the Sony Store in Spain It returns just four models, one moderately affordable 64GB and then three others of 128GB, 256GB and 512GB that cost around 300 euros. One of the most affected models are the TOUGH cards used in professional photography and the entry-level SD cards. What you can buy today on the Sony website About a month ago the CEO of Phison, one of the major suppliers of controllers for SSDs and memory cards, he already warned: If the situation does not improve, this shortage may end the closure of consumer electronics companies completely in 2026. In Xataka | Not content with bursting demand and prices for RAM, AI is already targeting another victim: batteries In Xataka | The current generation of consoles was supposed to be “weak” and the games were expensive. Well: nothing has stopped the PS5 Cover | Xataka

Mistral is the AI ​​that is playing its cards best. Because it is taking advantage of the fever for European technological sovereignty

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To the cheetah being silent, Mistral grows like foam. The French artificial intelligence startup claims that its revenue has multiplied by 20 over the past year, and they have achieved it with a particularly striking and effective strategy: defending and promoting European technological sovereignty. what has happened. Arthur Mensch, co-founder and CEO of Mistral, explains in Financial Times that its latest annualized revenue rate — which estimates annual revenue based on last month’s revenue — was above $400 million. A year ago that rate was only 20 million a year. Or what is the same: he has multiplied it by 20. This works. The startup based in Paris hasn’t stopped to grow since its beginnings and last year already was valued at 12,000 million euros. That figure may soon become obsolete, because the company is on track to surpass $1 billion in annual recurring revenue by the end of the year if it continues this growth. Between their alliances more striking is the one who signed with ASML in September 2025: that was when the Dutch company invested 1.3 billion euros in it. It is not making too much noise, but it continues to grow with a key component. Companies in power. Mistral is rapidly expanding the number of large enterprise clients it works with. Right now it has more than 100, and although it is not especially popular among end users – who tend to choose models from Big Tech companies in the US – the option for these European companies is increasingly clear. If they want not to depend on infrastructure and control outside Europe, they now have Mistral as a great alternative. New data centers. The firm announced this Wednesday that it will invest 1.2 billion euros in a new data center in Sweden. It is the first center of its kind that the company will build outside of France, and Mensch explained that “We are diversifying and distributing our capacity throughout Europe.” That data center will be created in collaboration with EcoDataCenter, and is expected to be operational in 2027. The choice of Sweden was easy according to Mensch, who noted that it was very attractive because the energy there was “low in carbon emissions and relatively cheap.” Partners and clients deep inside but also outside the EU. Although Mistral is postulated as the great reference in terms of this “European AI”, it also has Microsoft and NVIDIA as investors. In fact its ambition is global, but the fact of being the only major European developer of foundational LLMs It has put it in the spotlight of all European companies that seek independence from partners from the US or China. ASML, Total Energies, HSBC and governments such as France, Germany and Greece already use Mistral’s services, and 60% of their revenue comes from Europe. A perfect speech for these times. The CEO of Mistral is clear about the strategy and has arrived at the right time to apply that strategy that defends European sovereignty: “Europe has realized that its dependence on American digital services was excessive and is now at a critical point. We give them (European companies) an advantage because we provide them with models, software and computing capacity completely independent of American players.” Data centers must be from European companies. Mensch also talked about all those data centers than Big Tech will create in Europe and, of course, in Spain: “It is important that we realize that it is not so useful (for States) to deploy computing resources if you only create data centers for US hyperscalers“. Or what is the same: having AI data centers from companies like Microsoft, Google or Amazon in Europe serves the interests of these companies much more than European interests. In Xataka | Europe has begun to become technologically and militarily independent from the United States. First stop: replace Starlink

Make the “most mysterious book in the world” with dice and cards. How we are understanding the Voynich manuscript without deciphering a single line

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Voynich is an old acquaintance of this house: for years, we have been tracking (and gutting) each of the attempts to decipher the “most mysterious manuscript in the world.” They have all been unsuccessful and that includes, of course, the attempts to some of the sharpest minds of history. Now, however, we have a new idea. And, despite not solving absolutely anything, it sounds very good. What is the Voynich manuscript? Let’s start at the beginning: Between 1404 and 1438someone somewhere started writing a book in a language or code that no one has been able to decipher. A book that, since its rediscovery in 1912, has baffled everyone and especially cryptographers. Overall, this is an extraordinarily strange piece (full of illustrations of rare or non-existent plants, astrological symbols, strange creatures and naked women) about which we know only a handful of things. We know, for example, that it is a natural language (or a code related to a natural language) because complies with Zipf’s Lawan empirical regularity that only occurs in natural languages ​​and that describes the frequency of appearance of words. Invented languages ​​(especially languages ​​invented in the 15th century) do not comply. We have known this since the 60s, but little else. And people are still trying to figure it out? Yes, absolutely yes. The Voynichians are a group of people who are extremely passionate (and ‘insistent’) about their manuscript and, in fact, have members in almost every social strata in the wide world. An example is today’s protagonist. A few weeks ago, the magazine Cryptology public a job of Michael A. Greshko in which a new and very interesting idea was proposed. Greshko is a renowned science journalist, he is an editor at Science and has worked for media such as the New York Times, the Washington Post, Nature, Scientific American and National Geographic. He is someone who is risking part of his prestige on this, come on. And what does he propose? Greshko has exposed something called “Naibbe cipher”. Basically, it is an encryption system that allows languages ​​such as Italian or Latin to be transformed into a pseudo-writing that preserves properties of ‘voynichés’ (the ‘language’ of the manuscript). Respect, for example, things like glyph frequencies or word lengths. All this, with plausible cryptographic tools for the 15th century. And that’s precisely what’s interesting: Greshko doesn’t try to “read” the book; It attempts to demonstrate that, at that time and starting from a common language, a text similar to that of the manuscript could be constructed. How to make your own Voynich at home. According to the work of Cryptologiathe Naibbe method does things like break words into blocks (splits ‘gatto’ into ‘g’, ‘at’ and ‘to’), uses random systems (like dice or card rolls), and generates a homophonic cipher (ciphers specially designed to “counter the main deciphering tool for monoalphabetic substitutions, frequency analysis”). So, have we solved the problem? Not even close. As I said, Greshko has not deciphered the manuscript. He has simply looked for ways in which that manuscript could have been produced. For years, artificial intelligence algorithms have failed in the translation of the Voynich and, as the author explains, this may be because they do not know very well what to look for. Systems like Naibbe draw constructive possibilities that expand the options among which we can search. And in that sense, yes: Voynich is still much smarter than us. Although we don’t know for how long. Image | Gunnar Klack In Xataka | No, no “artificial intelligence” has deciphered the Voynich manuscript

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