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In 1972 Italy wanted to put an entire city in a one kilometer building. Half a century later he is still paying the consequences

May 31, 2026 by usatoday24

The same year that construction of the Corviale complex began, US authorities began demolition by Pruitt–Igoea gigantic public housing complex that had been presented just two decades earlier as the future of the modern city. The coincidence was almost symbolic: while one country demolished one of its great urban utopias, another began to build a new one. A city within a building. During the 1970s, Italy believed it could solve several urban problems at once. Rome was growing rapidly, peripheral neighborhoods were multiplying and public housing was facing increasing demand. The answer It was the Corvialea gigantic residential structure almost a kilometer long designed to house around 8,500 people. Its architect, Mario Fiorentino, did not simply imagine a block of flats, but a authentic linear city where streets would be corridors, squares would emerge from common spaces and daily services would coexist with homes. That vision was intended to demonstrate that architecture could reorganize urban life from its foundations. A utopia that was never completed. The problem appeared before the project was even finished being built. The company in charge of the works went bankrupt in 1982 and many of the essential elements of the original design never came to fruition. The famous middle floor used for shops, offices, services and community spaces was left empty and ended up being occupied by families looking for a place to live. What was to become the social heart of the complex ended up becoming a housing labyrinth improvised. Many of the planned facilities were also never built, leaving the infrastructure that was to turn the building into a self-sufficient city incomplete. When architecture conditions everyday life. Over the years, Corviale began to demonstrate that buildings are not simple containers where people live. Its long corridors, its few entrances, the complex interior circulation and the enormous scale of the complex began to influence the way in which the residents they were related to each other. The elevators are They broke down constantlyforcing thousands of people to travel long distances to enter or leave their homes. The centralized heating system caused conflicts between residentsirregular occupants and administrations on who should bear the costs. Some researchers even described the building as a small town whose governance problems were directly linked to its physical characteristics. From the symbol of the future to the symbol of failure. As the deterioration progressed, Corviale began to accumulate a reputation increasingly negative. For many he became the perfect example of the excesses of urbanism postwar monumental. Its critics described it as a concrete monster, a residential prison or an example of how certain urban planning ideologies had ignored people’s real needs. Illegal occupations, maintenance problems, the presence of criminal activities and institutional abandonment reinforced this perception. for years proposals arose to tear it down completely and replace it with smaller-scale traditional neighborhoods, connected by streets, squares and buildings closer to human dimensions. Giuditto Miele at the groundbreaking ceremony for the Corviale complex The battle to decide your destiny. However, Corviale was never demolished. Unlike many other large post-war European housing estates, managed to survive to demolition attempts. Part of the explanation lies in its increasing symbolic value. What for some was an urban failure, for others represented an unrepeatable piece of Italian architectural history. The building ended up getting heritage protection and became part of the national debate about what to do with the great utopias of the 20th century. The discussion stopped focusing solely on whether the project had worked or not and became a more complex question: how to transform such a gigantic structure without destroying it. Half a century of reforms to correct an idea. The last decades have been marked by an almost constant succession of regeneration projects. International competitions, neighborhood associations, architects and public administrations have tried adapt the complex to current needs. Some interventions have regularized occupied spaces, others have rehabilitated common areas and several seek to recover the pedestrian scale through new public spaces and green areas. No other residential complex in Rome has received public investment so intense and prolonged. The paradox in this case is more than evident: the building that was born to simplify urban life has become one of the most complex regeneration operations in the city. Consequences of a big bet. The story del Corviale It continues to fascinate because it transcends architecture. It is the story of a time that believed that social problems could be solved through great physical solutions and a city that continues to deal with the consequences of that bet. The building, by the way, still standinginhabited by thousands of people and subjected to continuous transformations. For some it demonstrates the limits of grand urban visions, for others, the ability of a community to adapt to an unfinished project. The truth is that half a century later, Rome continues to dedicate resources, time and energy to managing a structure designed to function as a complete city. And perhaps that is the clearest proof that Corviale never stopped being exactly that: a city enclosed within a building. Image | Wikimedia, Umberto RotundoAlessandro Pace In Xataka | In 1970 Japan built homes of the future where each capsule would be replaceable. Half a century later he discovered that no one knew how to repair them In Xataka | The incredible story of the tallest building on the planet that ended up becoming the largest swimming pool in the Soviet Union

Microscopes had been dependent on human operators for almost a century. China wants to change that with AI

May 31, 2026 by usatoday24

A team of Chinese researchers has presented in Beijing which they claim is the first transmission electron microscopy system in the world capable of operating completely autonomously. Dubbed “Aeye-1”, the device has demonstrated in tests its ability to replace a human operator in all phases of the process thanks to AI. What exactly is it. A transmission electron microscope (TEM) is a tool that has been essential for decades to observe matter at the atomic scale. It is used to develop new materials, energy technologies, industrial chemistry, and has been a key instrument for evolution in science. For almost a century, these devices have always depended on manual handling by a technician, something that in the end ends up giving subjective results and entails certain difficulties in performing quantitative analyses. Why it is important. Aeye-1 makes the leap from “manual operation” to “AI-led autonomous operation”. According to they count its researchers, the system carries out the entire work chain by itself, from transferring the sample to capturing the images and analyzing the data without the intervention of any person. According to Deng Dehuiprofessor at the Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics (DICP) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and leader of the project, the system works “like an ‘intelligent eye’ that visualizes the atomic world.” In detail. The development was carried out by the team of Deng Dehui and Professor Liu Wei, in collaboration with researchers from the Shenyang Institute of Automation. Together they have designed the algorithms that allow the microscope to perceive, analyze and control the process independently. To achieve this, they had to overcome many technical challenges, including the intelligent transfer of samples in high vacuum, the autonomous optical adjustment of the image, the precise localization of objects at the nanometer scale, the capture and analysis of images in real time and the coordination of all subsystems at the same time. The figures. According to Deng, image analysis It is more than 300 times faster than manual. To understand the magnitude, two weeks of Aeye-1 operation are equivalent to one year of work of a conventional microscope. In tests with molecular sieve catalysts, the system analyzed an average of 168 samples per day, captured more than 4,000 images per day and automatically generated professional reports with detailed statistics on particle size, dispersion or crystal structure. Who supports it. The system surpassed last Sunday an evaluation of scientific and technological achievements held in Beijing and organized by the Chinese Petroleum and Chemical Industry Federation. The evaluation committee unanimously concluded that it is a “highly innovative technology, the first of its kind in the world and an international leader.” And now what. Those responsible for it expect that Aeye-1 will be able to continuously provide large volumes of high-quality structural data in fields such as energy, industrial chemistry, advanced materials and life sciences. The long-term goal is for this new team to drive a paradigm shift in AI-supported scientific research. It really is a process in which automation through AI can be highly beneficial. We will have to wait to find out if it ends up setting a trend in the scientific world. Cover image | China Daily and National Cancer Institute In Xataka | South Korea has just entered the most exclusive club on the planet. And China and North Korea are not exactly calm

In 1967 a war closed the Suez Canal for eight years. Half a century later, the Strait of Hormuz looks into the same abyss

May 28, 2026 by usatoday24

When war broke out between Egypt and Israel in 1967, fifteen commercial ships were trapped in the Suez Canal. The captains dropped anchor assuming they would only have to wait a few days for the fighting to end. They were right about the duration of hostilities: it was the Six Day War. However, It took eight years for the canal to reopen. When the ships were finally able to set sail in 1975, only two were still seaworthy. The rest had rusted so much under the desert sun that They went down in history as the “Yellow Fleet”. Almost sixty years later, history rhymes in the Persian Gulf. Ninety days after the war between the United States, Israel and Iran blocked the Strait of Hormuz at the end of February, the most important maritime passage in the world remains closed. Dozens of oil tankers wait at anchor, waiting for a diplomatic agreement that always seems imminent but never arrives. The optimism trap on Wall Street The analyst Javier Blas, in your column for Bloombergexposes the dangerous complacency with which the world is facing this closure. The financial industry operates under an adapted version of Stein’s Law: “The Strait cannot be closed forever because it would cause too much economic damage; therefore, it will reopen soon.” The problem with this logic is that the economy has not yet inflicted the pain necessary to force peace. As Blas points out: For Washington: The war is proving politically cheap. The US economy is riding with quarterly growth of more than 4% and the S&P 500 index is close to historical highs, having risen almost 10% since the start of the conflict. For Tehran: Even as the currency plummets and inflation chokes the population, the Iranian regime has demonstrated for decades an almost inexhaustible capacity to absorb economic punishment when it considers it faces an existential threat. While the mediators seek an agreement in Islamabadinertia maintains the illusion of normality. The market has absorbed the disappearance of about 20 million barrels per day thanks to accumulated inventories and massive releases of strategic reserves. Qero the global tank is emptying. June: The end of logistics inertia If we do not see shortages on the streets it is due to pure physics of transportation: a supertanker moves at the speed of a bicycle. The fuel that the West consumed in the spring left the Gulf before the first missile fell. However, the data They already show the cracks in the system. Global demand fell by 5 million barrels per day in April, the largest consumption destruction since the COVID-19 pandemic. And the blow is already felt at home: Funcas warns thatIf the conflict continues, Spanish inflation will exceed 4% and growth will fall to 1.8%. In addition, the multimillion-dollar extra cost of fuel for airlines such as Iberia or Vueling directly threatens the waterline of Spanish tourism. The real precipice has a date: June. With the arrival of summer, the peak driving season and the massive use of air conditioning will collide with inventories at multi-year lows. Furthermore, a diplomatic reopening it would not solve the physical problem: Clearing the mile-wide Hormuz safe lane would require months of complex naval operations. However, the impact of this crisis goes far beyond the gas pump. As the physical shortage of crude oil becomes undeniable, the most serious repercussions are brewing in the bowels of the global financial system: The fracture of the petrodollar: The unwritten agreement of 1974, which guaranteed security in the Gulf in exchange for crude oil being sold in dollars and reinvested in US debt, is breaking down. Countries like India They are selling their US Treasury bonds to obtain liquidity and pay for much more expensive oil. The bond market: The persistence of energy inflation has skyrocketed sovereign bond yields. 30-year Treasury bonds in the US exceeded 5.15%. The cost of real life: If government bonds yield above 5%, 30-year mortgages are inexorably approaching 7%. This translates into more expensive loans, lower business investment and a paralysis of the real estate market. As several analysts warn, undoing the economic damage from Hormuz could require an induced recession to curb borrowing costs. The bypass of the desert While the world waits, some actors have already given up on Hormuz. United Arab Emirates has accelerated urgently the construction of a gigantic pipeline that bypasses the strait, with the goal of exporting 3.5 million barrels a day directly to the Gulf of Oman by 2027. It is “prudent planning for the worst scenario,” and a clear sign that Abu Dhabi believes the waterway could remain threatened for years. Half a century ago, no one imagined that 15 ships would spend a decade rotting in the sun in Suez for a war that lasted less than a week. Today, the world assumes that the Hormuz crisis will be a temporary blip. But as the days go by, the shock absorbers wear out and the financial markets creak. The oil is simply still waiting in the sea. Image | Photo by Jens Rademacher on Unsplash Xataka | The war in the East has reached an unexpected agreement: one where the US does not discuss Iran’s missiles, bombs or uranium

A medieval poet and some buried trees have just revealed something very strange to us about the 13th century Sun

May 26, 2026 by usatoday24

At the beginning of the 13th century, the Sun was passing through a solar cycle much shorter than those that exist today, but extremely intense. Having such specific details is complicated for such a distant time, when scientists did not have instruments to measure this type of activity. However, there is something that today’s scientists do have and that has helped them detect this event: a book of poetry and many trees. Art and science. A team of scientists from Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology has described this event using two types of data. On the one hand, a poem written in 1204 by the Japanese writer Fujiwara no Teika. On the other hand, the observation of the rings of buried tree trunks in northern Japan. The conclusion is clear. While today solar cycles are usually around 11 years, back then there were some 6 or 7 years, but the activity was high enough to lead to the formation of auroras in Japan. A proton explosion. When solar activity is very intense, phenomena such as solar flares or the coronal mass ejections. The first is a sudden release of electromagnetic radiation from the solar surface, while the second consists of the expulsion of matter, normally charged plasma particles, from the Sun’s corona. Associated with these phenomena, proton explosions occur, in which these charged particles move at high speed. rare isotopes. Normally, a good part of these charged particles and cosmic rays fail to pass through the Earth’s magnetic field. However, when they are very intense they can reach our atmosphere in greater quantities and interact with the gases in it. In this reaction, isotopes such as beryllium-10 or carbon-14 can be formed. These are beryllium or carbon atoms with a different number of neutrons in their nuclei than the beryllium and carbon that are most abundant on Earth. Knowing this process is useful, because it can give us clues on two levels. On the one hand, beryllium-10 is deposited in ice sheets, while carbon-14 It oxidizes, transforming into carbon dioxide and becoming part of the carbon cycle. In this cycle, living beings incorporate it into their cells in different ways. For example, plants do this through photosynthesis. And this is where what has been so useful to these scientists begins. Solar dating and meteorology. Carbon-14 is often used to date fossils, since they come from living beings that once incorporated that isotope into their tissues. The moment a living being dies it stops incorporating carbon-14. From that moment on, it begins to disintegrate at a known rate, so it can be estimated approximately when it died. The point is that, beyond that, if carbon-14 levels are unusually high, it can also be determined if there was an extreme solar event. The poem describes a dawn The poem. in his diary Meigetsukithe poet Fujiwara no Teika described the observation of “red lights in the sky over northern Kyoto.” This city is at a latitude too far south for auroras to form, but that is clearly what it describes. The auroras They are the result of a type of interaction between the gases in the atmosphere and the charged particles of the Sun that causes the emission of visible light. They are normally formed at the poles, as they are the points on the Earth where the magnetic field is most vertical, so that it acts as a funnel, so that these particles can pass through it. When they occur far from the poles it is because solar activity has been very intense and the resistance normally opposed by the magnetic field has been exceeded. What the trees tell. The rings of tree trunks are a kind of natural calendar. They are formed from the inside out, so we can count them and calculate how the years have passed. For this reason, the authors of the study that has just been published They wanted to analyze the equivalent buried tree rings at the beginning of the 13th century. In the rings from the period from winter 1200 to spring 1201 they found an increase in carbon-14 levels. This also agrees with the levels of beryllium-10 found in ice deposits from that same period. Everything agrees. Also in China. There are historical records from the time when Chinese astronomers also described red lights in the sky. Therefore, it seems clear that there were auroras at unusual latitudes. A very rare case. The most curious thing about all this is that this phenomenon did not occur at the peak of the solar cycle. It possibly took place around its periodic minimum. If there was less activity, why so much aurora and carbon-14? This is something that, at the moment, scientists have not been able to explain. Perhaps there were also many auroras at the peak, but no poet stopped to write about them. Tree rings would have to be analyzed to see what carbon-14 tells us. What is clear is that the Sun was burning in those medieval times. Image | Masaaki Komori (Unsplash)/Wikimedia Commons | Kush Dwivedi (Unsplash) In Xataka | A sunspot 17 times larger than Earth caused red auroras across half the world. It is a very rare event

In the 16th century, Spain wanted to control the Strait of Magellan by founding a city. It became a cursed settlement

May 24, 2026 by usatoday24

A coin is a coin. And a compass, a compass. What seems so obvious changes when we talk about the old (and ephemeral) city of King Don Felipea Spanish settlement founded more than four centuries ago by Pedro Sarmiento de Gamboa on the northern shore of the Strait of Magellan. Its objective was to become a fortress that would reinforce the control of the Spanish Crown in a strategic maritime passage, but the mission became so complicated that the town ended up becoming a death trap for its settlers. Things went so badly that with the passage of time the citadel ended up being renamed ‘Port of Hunger’a name much more in line with what happened there in the 17th century, and its memory it faded in the mists of history. We had to wait until well into the 20th century so that the secrets of King Don Felipe would emerge from oblivion… and the earth. Now the archaeologists have found among its ruins a small piece of silver that in March 1584 Pedro Sarmiento de Gamboa himself deposited there during the founding ceremony of the town. In its day it was a simple currency (a real of eight) that was used for ritual purposes. In 2026 it has become something more: a compassa guide that will help researchers better understand the structure and location of the city of Rey Don Felipe, the cursed citadel in the Strait of Magellan that should never have existed. At the ends of the world Today the world lives pending what happens in the Strait of Hormuz. Almost five centuries ago the eyes of the Spanish Crown were directed towards another maritime strait with important strategic value: that of Magellana navigable strip located south of what is now Chile and that stands out as the natural connection between the Pacific and the Atlantic. Since Ferdinand Magellan crossed it for the first time, in the autumn 1520the pass became an object of desire for the Spanish Empire, especially after other expeditions managed to cross it successfully and the English entered the race for its control through late 1570s from the hand of the corsair Francis Drake. To guarantee Spain’s geopolitical plans and its exclusive control of the transoceanic passage, the authorities had an idea: found permanent settlements in the area. The mission fell to Pedro Sarmiento de Gamboaa hardworking sailor who, among other missions, had participated in a (frustrated) mission of the Viceroyalty of Peru to hunt down Drake. Sarmiento first undertook an expedition with two ships in the autumn of 1579 to reconnoiter the coastline of the strait and explore its coasts and, once back in Spain, in 1580 he played a decisive role in getting the Council of the Indies to decide to build citadels and fortifications in the transoceanic passage to America. The expedition left Sanlúcar at the end of September 1581 with a fleet of 23 boats and around 3,000 men, including sailors and future settlers. Despite his enormous ambition, the adventure started badly. And not only because of the differences between Sarmiento and Diego Flores de Valdeswho had been appointed captain general of the Strait Navy. Before even leaving Cádiz, a storm sank half a dozen ships and killed 800 men. What followed next was a journey marked by disagreements between Sarmiento and Valdés, illnesses, the inclemency of the ocean and storms that caused the expedition to lose ships, crew and supplies. After various incidents and vicissitudes, Sarmiento and his men arrived at the strait at the beginning of 1584 and founded a city that they named ‘Purification of Our Lady’. It didn’t work. The location and climate did not help, so Sarmiento looked for a new enclave, near Cape Vírgenes, and founded a settlement which he called ‘Name of Jesus’. Determined to continue with the mission, the sailor chose part of the 340 people he kept and looked for a third location to create another citadel. On this occasion he baptized it with a nod to the Habsburg court (King Don Felipe) and celebrated the founding ceremony in March 1584. We know that Sarmiento himself participated in the ritual. On March 25, he laid the first stone of the citadel church and, with it, in the foundations, buried a real of eight silver. As they explain from the Bernardo O’Higgins University of Santiago, it was “a symbolic gesture that marked the birth of the city.” If the ritual was intended to promote the settlement’s fortunes, it only half worked. It has served archaeologists of the 21st century, who have just found the coin “in place and position” described by Sarmiento in his writings and now, thanks to that clue, they will have an easier time interpreting a map of the 16th century in which the buildings of the town are represented. The one who certainly had no use for the currency was the colonists who settled in Rey Don Felipe city. Theirs was a tragic story from the beginning. a cursed city Ciudad Rey Don Felipe may have enjoyed a privileged location from a geopolitical and strategic point of view, but the truth is that it soon became hell for its settlers. And not only because the crew of the ill-fated (and diminished) Armada del Estrecho arrived in Magallanes at the limit of their strength. In ‘Port of Hunger. Beyond the legend’a work signed by the historian Soledad González and the archaeologist Simón Urbina, a key piece of information is provided: “On board the ships or on land they saw people die or desert. nine out of ten colleaguesfriends or family. As if that were not enough, after founding the Nombre de Jesús settlement, the crew divided into groups to expand towards the Santa Ana peninsula, precisely to establish Rey Don Felipe. Once there, and despite the fact that Sarmiento de Gamboa was quick to lay the foundations of the new citadel (both in a metaphorical and literal sense), things did not improve. The scene looked so bad … Read more

In 1967, Canada built futuristic homes like Lego pieces. Half a century later they still don’t know how to repair them

May 24, 2026 by usatoday24

When Moshe Safdie designed Habitat 67 As an architecture student, he had a revolutionary idea: he used thousands of Lego pieces to test how housing modules could fit together in three dimensions. Decades later, the architect himself I kept remembering who even emptied entire Lego stores in Montreal to build the models. And maybe that was the problem. Reinvent the home like Lego. In the early 1960s, Western cities were trapped between two models that seemed inevitable: huge blocks of impersonal apartments or endless car-dependent suburbs. A young architecture student named Moshe Safdie He believed that there was a third way. His idea was apparently simple and radical at the same time: build prefabricated homes by stacking concrete modules as if they were giant lego piecesso that each family could have light, a terrace, vegetation and the feeling of an individual house within a large urban structure. The project ended up becoming Habitat 67, the great futuristic icon of the Montreal Expo. What Canada presented to the world as the definitive future of cities ended up being one of the most fascinating and problematic works of architecture of the 20th century. Habitat 67 was a utopia. The image of the building continues to look futuristic even today: 354 huge concrete modules prefabricated, each weighing about 90 tons, stacked in irregular shapes on an artificial peninsula facing the St. Lawrence River. Safdie was obsessed with solving a problem he considered central to the urban future: how to maintain density from the city without sacrificing privacy, nature and the feeling of home. His motto was “For everyone a garden”. Each apartment had to have its own garden, cross ventilation, open views and elevated pedestrian streets instead of closed corridors. Inspiration came from both the Pueblo homes of the American Southwest and the japanese metabolism that we talked about a few days ago, an architectural movement that imagined buildings made up of modular cells capable of growing and reorganizing like living organisms. The big problem: making it cheap. The paradox of Habitat 67 is that it was born precisely to make urban housing cheaper… and ended costing a lot more than expected. Safdie imagined that industrial prefabrication would allow apartments to be manufactured in a chain quickly and efficiently, but the reality It was very different. The complex required an extremely sophisticated assembly system, a factory installed within the work itself, gigantic cranes and very complex technical connections between modules. Each box had to leave the factory practically finished, with windows, wiring, bathrooms and kitchens incorporated before being lifted into its final position. The reduction of the original project (from 1,200 planned homes to just 158) shot even more the costs. The experiment designed to democratize the city ended up becoming a too expensive complex even for the middle class it sought to attract. Leaks and mold appear. As time went by, the other great enemy of Habitat 67 appeared: the water. The stepped structure full of terraces, gardens and joints between modules generated a waterproofing nightmare. The concrete began to leak constantly in Montreal’s extreme climate and water ended up penetrating walls and ventilation systems. Some residents reported serious problems moisture and mold for years. The repairs they were never simple because the building does not function like a conventional block: each module is a structural part of an extremely complex three-dimensional framework. Half a century later, restorations are still almost surgical. In the major rehabilitation carried out for the 50th anniversary, it was necessary to remove outer layersre-insulate huge surfaces and redesign entire systems to protect the structure from Canadian winters. From social dream to elite symbol. Another of the most striking ironies of Habitat 67 It is its social evolution. What was born as a manifesto for accessible urban housing ended up becoming one of the directions Montreal’s most exclusive. The original rents were already prohibitive in the 60s and subsequent privatization converted the apartments in luxury properties. Today some units reach millionaire prices and the monthly maintenance costs are very high. The “city for all” ended up being an enclave for cultural elites, businessmen and architecture lovers. Yet even its critics admit that the building accomplished something extraordinary: demonstrating that dense housing could be emotionally distinct from the repetitive blocks that dominated modern urbanism. He never completely died. The most fascinating thing is that, despite all its problems, Habitat 67 continues to exert a gigantic influence on architects and urban planners. decades later keep inspiring modular projects, terraced complexes and new ideas on how to combine urban density and quality of life. Even today’s digital tools have resurrected the original never-built project. In recent years, Safdie Architects and Epic Games they virtually recreated the gigantic “Project Hillside” which the Canadian government cut due to lack of money in the 60s. Thanks to Unreal Engine, drones and hyper-realistic models, the architect was able to tour for the first time the complete version of the modular city that he had imagined as a young man. There is something deeply symbolic in that image: Habitat 67 was so ambitious that not even the technology of its time could do it. fully viable. Maybe that’s why it continues to fascinate today. Because it seems like a relic of the past… but also a vision of an urban future that we still don’t know how to build without collapsing due to leaks, crazy costs and eternal repairs. Image | Parcours riverain – Ville de Montréal, Thomas Ledl, Vassgergely In Xataka | In 1970 Japan built homes of the future where each capsule would be replaceable. Half a century later he discovered that no one knew how to repair them In Xataka | The incredible story of the tallest building on the planet that ended up becoming the largest swimming pool in the Soviet Union

In 1970 Japan built homes of the future where each capsule would be replaceable. Half a century later he discovered that no one knew how to repair them

May 16, 2026 by usatoday24

In 1970, during the Osaka World Expomillions of people lined up to enter pavilions where Japan showed how it imagined the 21st century: domestic video calls, automated cities, assistant robots and modular homes capable of changing over time. That event was so impressive that many visitors came away convinced that the future was going to arrive much sooner than expected. The spaceship that Japan wanted. In 1972, in the heart of Tokyo, a building appears that seemed to have landed from the future. The Nakagin Capsule Tower It was unlike anything of its time: two concrete towers covered by 140 metal capsules with circular windows, like a stack of futuristic washing machines or a block of space modules suspended over Ginza. The architect Kisho Kurokawa He imagined those capsules as replaceable homes that could be removed and replaced every 25 years, just as an organism renews its cells. The idea perfectly summed up the Japanese postwar optimism: mutable cities, living architecture and a future where houses would function more as interchangeable pieces than as permanent buildings. Half a century later, Japan discovered something much more uncomfortable: no one really knew how to repair that vision of the future. Nakagin Capsule Tower The metabolic dream. The Nakagin was born within the Metabolist movementa Japanese architectural movement obsessed with constant change. After the destruction of World War II, architects like Kurokawa wanted break with the western idea of eternal buildings of stone and brick. Japan lived with earthquakes, fires and permanent reconstructions. For them, the city had to behave like a living being capable of growing, adapting and transforming. The capsules were the perfect symbol of that philosophy. Each module It measured just ten square meters and included a bed, folding desk, compact bathroom, Sony television and even a tape player. They were aimed at typical Tokyo office workers who wanted a small urban retreat during the week, avoiding hours of travel to the suburbs. Kurokawa saw those capsules as the beginning of a new way of ultramobile life where people would change their homes just as they change their technology. Interior of one of the capsules The problem: the future cannot be dismantled. The great irony of the Nakagin is that the central element of its design it never worked. The capsules had to be periodically undocked and replaced with more modern versions, allowing the building to survive for centuries. On paper it seemed brilliant, but in practice It was almost impossible. Individual capsules could not be removed without disassembling all those that were on top, the costs were gigantic and the system hid structural problems that worsened over time. The joints began to rust, constant leaks appeared, and asbestos complicated any serious attempt at renovation. As Tokyo continued to move towards the 21st century, that supposed architecture of tomorrow began to look an aged relic from an old science fiction. The capsules that were supposed to be renovated like Lego pieces ended up converted into small corroded boxes where there were hardly any permanent residents left. Entrance to the Tower From futuristic utopia to cult ruin. As the decades passed, Nakagin stopped functioning as a residential experiment and began to transform into something else: a work of worship. Architects, photographers, designers and tourists arrived fascinated by that impossible building that continued to resist in the middle of Ginza like a time capsule from the 70s. Many apartments were used as creative studioswarehouses or simple occasional shelters. The community that formed around the building ended up being almost more important than its original use. Some residents organized guided tours, parties and campaigns to save the tower as the deterioration continued. In fact, Francis Ford Coppola, Keanu Reeves and numerous international artists They visited the complex attracted by that strange mix of decadence and futurism. What had failed as a practical solution survived as a cultural icon. Demolishing a utopian future. In 2022 it finally started the disassembly of the Nakagin Capsule Tower. The images were almost poetic: cranes tearing off the capsules one by one, as if they were dismantling an abandoned space station. Most were destroyed, but a small group of owners and preservationists managed to save 23 modules. Some have been completely restored with their original televisions, telephones and furniture, others have ended up in museums, galleries, hotels or exhibitions spread across Japan, Europe and the United States. Paradoxically, Kurokawa’s idea ended up being fulfilled otherwise: The capsules did end up separating and traveling around the world, although not as part of a living city, but as fossils from a future that never came to exist. The failure that changed architecture. The Nakagin It failed as a building, but triumphed as an idea. It inspired capsule hotels, modular architecture, and much of the contemporary obsession with micro-apartments and flexible spaces. Furthermore, its influence can be traced in high-tech projects later and even in current debates on sustainability and compact housing. What is fascinating is that the building simultaneously demonstrated two opposite things: that futuristic architecture can be decades ahead of its time… and that a vision that is too advanced can also become impossible to maintain in the real world. Japan dreamed of housing where each apartment would be replaceable and adaptable forever, and in the end he discovered that he had built something much stranger: a masterpiece of the future condemned to age before the future itself. Image | David Meenagh, Jordy Meow, Kestrel, Dick Thomas Johnson In Xataka | The incredible story of the tallest building on the planet that ended up becoming the largest swimming pool in the Soviet Union In Xataka | After the Guggenheim fever in Bilbao, Alcorcón wanted to replicate its success with a megaproject in 2004. It ended very badly.

The mouse cursor has hardly changed for half a century. Google just tried to make that no longer the case

May 13, 2026 by usatoday24

Google DeepMind has published the principles and demos of Magic Pointera mouse pointer powered by Gemini who understands what you are pointing out and why. Without writing anything. Just pointing. Why is it important. The chatbot as the main interface has been the dominant model in AI for two years: you open a window, write and you get a response. Magic Pointer proposes the opposite: the AI moves with you around the screen, reads what is in front of you and acts without you explaining the context. If it works as promised, the text box is no longer the gateway to AI. The logic behind the project is that the problem with current AI is not its capacity, but the friction to use it. Every time you want to ask a model for something, you have to drag your world into it: open a window, paste text, explain the context from scratch, etc. Magic Pointer reverses that flow: the AI goes where the cursor is. In detail. The system captures visual and semantic context around the pointer. You indicate a date in an email and Gemini suggests creating an event. You select two images, a sofa and your living room, and the model composes them. You hover over a table and you can request a graph without opening any more apps. The objective is to replace the prompts long by what DeepMind calls “natural shorthand”: point out something, say what you want, and have the system fill in the gaps. There are live demos at Google AI Studio and the system now reaches Chrome. In autumn it will land in Googlebookthe new Google laptop with Acer, Asus, Dell, HP and Lenovo as manufacturers. Between the lines. We are looking at three ways to put AI in a computer: Apple integrates it within each application. Microsoft puts Copilot on a side panel. Google puts Gemini inside the pointing device itself: it is not in the background, it is the cursor, it is the widgetis the interface between the user and the machine. That last one is a philosophical bet. And it has implications for the chatbot model: if the cursor acts as a contextual agent, the chat window loses its monopoly as an entry point. Yes, but. Googlebook arrives in autumn as a premium product, with no announced price yet. The Android ecosystem on the desktop remains the weak flank: if developers do not build native apps for the big screen, the Magic Pointer points to a world that does not yet exist. And in any market where Gemini is restricted by regulations, the entire proposition becomes empty. In Xataka | The AI industry already knows how to make more money. Just use the fear strategy Featured image | Google

China is successfully replacing a 19th century industry with drones: skyscraper window cleaners

May 10, 2026 by usatoday24

When we think of skyscrapers, the Western culture in which we have grown up makes us inevitably associate them with the United States and iconic skylines in cinema such as New York or Chicago, but the current reality is very different: China is the country that breaks the cord, according to the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitatthe world’s leading authority on the classification of tall buildings: it is home to more than half of the world’s tallest skyscrapers. This architectural explosion has created an unprecedented maintenance challenge: having to clean millions of square meters of glass and metal facades. What started as a need for manpower has become a testing ground for advanced robotics and unmanned aviation thanks to a state plan called “Robot+” that automates tasks to compensate labor shortage. One of the most striking recent examples: automated cleaning from Nanchang Railway Station. Goodbye to human window cleaners. The traditional Spider-Man of buildings is disappearing and it makes perfect sense: the risk of accidents and the climatic conditions of cities like Shanghai or Guangzhou have made this profession increasingly less attractive for new generations, so cleaning companies it is difficult for them to find relief: the perfect scenario for automation. Furthermore, the data from cleaning drones is compelling: going from being able to clean 200 square meters a day to 10,000 with a cost between 10 and 20% less, according to the Wuhan startup Aero Technology collected by China Daily. Drones are best suited to difficult outdoors such as corners and nooks and work even on rainy or windy days without risk. And when finished, the drone uses its camera to capture images of the clean surface, which it transmits to ground personnel for review. If it doesn’t comply, give it a review. Why is it important. We have already glimpsed some of the advantages of automating cleaning at height, but one is truly essential: safety. According to the WHOfalls are the second global cause of death due to unintentional injuries, only behind traffic accidents, with about 684,000 deaths annually. In the specific workplace, they constitute one of the main risks in sectors such as construction or industry. especially dangerous are the falls in height. In the United States, OSHA data They return that falls represent between 35 and 39% of construction-related deaths. In Spain, falls from height represented in 2024 12.2% of all work-related deaths during work hours in all sectors and this year alone they cost the lives of 79 people in the Spanish state alone. The other big advantage is price: less labor, less operating time because they clean faster, lower equipment costs, and lower insurance premiums. Aero Technology quantifies savings between 10 and 20% compared to traditional methods, although the drone company Apex is more optimistic for your business, raising the range of savings up to 30 or 50% (although the reason is probably that you consider assemblies like scaffolding). Regarding water consumption, a study by Shanghai University of Engineering has shown which spends 21.8% less. Context. China faces the worst possible scenario in this framework: it is the country with the most skyscrapers in the world, it has a lot of air pollution that quickly dirtys its facades and it also suffers labor shortage for manual jobs. Although if we are looking for pioneers in the drone cleaning segment we have to go to the North American one. Surname born 2014, the Elevation from the Swiss Aerotain AG back in 2015 or the Norwegian KTV Working Dronethe owner and mistress of drone window cleaning is China. China had been preparing the ground for years, as demonstrated by different academic research papers on glass and facade cleaning robotsas this of cable-driven parallel robots from Tsinghua University or this other of fan-powered cleaning robots from the Harbin Institute of Technology. The Asian giant has the academic ecosystem, state financial support and an obvious need. Said and done: China was the one who democratized technology, moving from prototypes and more or less “artisanal” devices to large-scale production with scalable industrial systems and companies like DJI, UAEAV and Foxtech. Today they already produce between 80-90% of the world’s commercial drones and lead an industry that in 2024 was valued at 248 million dollars and has a projection of 1,257 million by 2033. according to Growth Market Reports. The substitutes. China has developed a complete industrial ecosystem that is essentially divided into two major technological aspects. On the one hand, high-pressure cleaning drones that are connected to water pumps that are on the ground, such as the DJI M400 or the solutions of Foxtech Robotics. On the other hand, autonomous climbing robots with sensors and AI navigation (such as robot vacuum cleaners) such as those from OneMovecapable of detecting and adapting to variations in façade surfaces. In between, variants in the form of projects with hybrid platforms such as that of Skybotics Technology Limited or wired parallel systems that offer high precision, such as this from the Faculty of Engineering of Shanghai University with three degrees of freedom. Some of the technologies that can be found in this type of robots are adaptive joints to reduce wind discomfort or “zero distance” spraying to increase pressure, both present in the DJI M400one of the most popular in the sector. Yes, but. Although facade cleaning robots are a revolution for the sector, they are not a panacea: they work best on flat surfaces, they have height restrictions (typically between 60 and 120 meters for wired systems) and although they have more margin than human labor to operate in worse weather conditions, they are not infallible. Finally, the initial cost is significant, which constitutes a barrier to entry for smaller companies because it is not only the drone, it is also extra auxiliary elements such as pumping stations, batteries, software or safety certifications. For example, only the complete Lucid Bots Sherpa kit It costs $75,000.which leads to opting for solutions such as renting or leasing. In any case, and … Read more

Nolan has portrayed Antiquity without colors in ‘The Odyssey’. It is a major error that has been around since the 18th century.

May 7, 2026 by usatoday24

The new trailer of ‘The Odyssey’ by Christopher Nolan It has everything that is expected from the director: enormous ambition, armies of extras, a Trojan horse, a cyclops, and its share of controversy. Beyond the anachronistic armor, both this and the previous trailer have highlighted how the film is bathed in a color filter (or non-color, rather) that turns Ancient Greece into a twilight, joyless place. What is significant is that this is not an innocent choice. Color missing. The new trailer, which makes the visual muscle of the film very clear (four months of filming at sea, 250 million dollars budget) has unleashed opinions that speak of “lack of color“, or of a proposal “dark, dirty and full of black armor.” Nolan affirms which has sought a realistic approach to the Greek epic, with locations in Greece, Morocco, Sicily and Iceland, practical effects and without the artificial shine of the classic Hollywood peplum. However, its approach is also a visual convention. Dirty past. The phenomenon is more than studied among experts in historical representation. The blog ‘Tragedy and Farce’ analyzed it in depth in 2021documenting how historical cinema has come to systematically associate the past with dirty browns, metallic grays, and unpolished armor. The trend became so dominant that it ended up filtering into epic fantasy: the Gondor of ‘The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King’ works with a completely desaturated palette that contrasts with the vivid colors of the rest of the saga. The story. What is significant, as said the historian Patricia Gonzálezis that this is how a story is constructed: we are sent the message that the past was dark, brutal and primitive, and modernity consists of color and light. Going from black and white to technicolor, a bit in one inverted and less innocent version of ‘The Wizard of Oz’. The past is different from the present, it is described to us as distant and pre-rational, and at the same time it is romanticized in the military: man against the world, his own against what is foreign, the epic of noble violence. A message ideologically loaded to the brim, although there are authors like Nolan who, when adopting it, have no intention of launching an explicit political message. What archeology knows. Since 1981, the Liebieghaus Polychromy Research Projectin Frankfurt, analyzes traces of color preserved in classical sculptures and architectural fragments thanks to a combination of techniques including ultraviolet photography, X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy, and chemical analysis of pigments. Their conclusions are that the marble and bronze sculptures were painted with bright reds, deep blues, greens and gold. His physical reconstructions were shown to the public for the first time between 2003 and 2004 in Munich, the Vatican and Copenhagen, under the title ‘Gods in Color’. Polychromy was not limited to sculptures. Clothes were dyed, walls were painted, weapons of the elite were decorated, tapestries told stories with intensely colored illustrations captured with complex and intricate techniques. It must be taken into account that the very term “polychromy” It was coined by the theorist Antoine-Chrysostome Quatremère de Quincy in 1814. from the excavations of Pompeii and Herculaneum. The origin of the problem. In the Renaissance, restorers convinced that the paint covering the sculptures was accumulated dirt removed it, and by the 18th century there were hardly any visible traces left. It was then, in 1764, that the German historian Johann Joachim Winckelmann published his ‘History of the Art of Antiquity’, which for generations established the canon of classical beauty. in itWinckelmann maintained that color contributed to beauty but was not beauty, and that the whiter the body, the more beautiful it was. Liebieghaus Polychromy Research Project Winckelmann and the neoclassicists who followed him built on that historical accident an entire aesthetic ideal, that of white marble as the pinnacle of civilization and art. Museums displayed the sculptures in their deteriorated state as if that were their original appearance. Today’s public, upon seeing the polychrome reconstructions of the Liebieghaus, reacts with discomfort, but in reality this rejection is the result of two centuries of conditioning. White history. The most important Nazi propaganda forum on the internet, Stormfront, uses images of the Parthenon as iconography, invoking a “white history”. Identity Evropa, an American far-right organization, uses classical white marble sculptures in its propaganda. “Molon labe”, the legendary roar of Leonidas at Thermopylae, is today the slogan of armed Nazi militias. Before all that, Hitler banned any representation of classical art other than white marble in Nazi Germany. Sparta and Rome serve to sustain racialized narrativesxenophobic and Islamophobic, with the whiteness of marble as a central element of the imagination. A gray, violent and militarized past fits perfectly into that story: epic, where the hard man prevails (hence the famous “Roman Empire” in which men, apparently, they can’t stop thinking), separated from the “soft” present… Nolan is not propagating Nazi ideas, of course, but his imaginary, absolutely contrary to historical reality (is there anything more luminous and colorful than the Mediterranean?) is born from these trends that date back to the 18th century. Therefore, the decision of filming in Western Sahara It is not only economic: it is necessary to erase the light of classical history. In Xataka | This song is so important in Nolan’s ‘Inception’ that Hans Zimmer’s soundtrack revolves around it

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